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More "Ill-natured" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl he had knocked down was more frightened than hurt; but Charlie was very sorry, for he was not at all an ill-natured boy; and when he was at home by himself, while Ethel went for her donkey-rides, he had plenty of time to think things over, and made a good use of it. At first he found it very hard to be patient, but after a little while he found it becoming much easier ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... charge was accepted by 119 to 79. The next day Hastings attended the court on the presentation of a magnificent diamond sent by the nizam to the king, whose acceptance of the present gave rise to much ill-natured comment. Various motives have been suggested for Pitt's decision. None appear adequate save the most obvious and honourable one, that he acted in accordance with his conscience. Though his decision took the house by surprise, he clearly defined his attitude four months before: "he was neither ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... and brought him into the great oak parlour; and there sat the laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape that was a special pet of his. A cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played; ill to please it was, and easily angered—ran about the haill castle, chattering and rowling, and pinching and biting folk, specially before ill weather, or disturbance in the state. Sir ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... the county flocked thither to leave cards, and express their sympathy for the unfortunate mischance that had overtaken the bright creature who had been the cynosure of all eyes for her beauty and grace on the morning of the first fox-hunt of the year. All the ill-natured gossip, all the slanderous tittle-tattle which had been started by Lord Roxmouth and fostered by Miss Tabitha Pippitt, ebbed and died away in the great wave of honest regret and kindly pity that pervaded ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... did; but I was so vexed to see our pleasant party to Havana was broken up. Frank was very ill-natured to fall sick just at that time—I'll flog him for ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... want to make silly excuses for Geoff, but it is true that he has never been quite so ill-natured ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... author of 'Annals of Scottish Episcopacy,' was his grandson. He was first appointed to a charge in Montrose, from whence he was removed to Banff, and ultimately to Forfar. After he had left Montrose, it reached his ears that an ill-natured insinuation was circulating there that he had been induced to leave this town by the temptation of a better income and of fat pork, which, it would appear, was plentiful in the locality of his new incumbency. Indignant at such an aspersion, he wrote a letter, directed to ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... and good-natured, and so were we. That shows you the power of example. If the captain had fumed and fretted, and wondered why we could not have a wind, very likely we should have felt ill-natured and looked cross too, and have had a very unpleasant time. As it was, we made the best of our calms, and hoped for a breeze, and rejoiced even if we ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... Tom," was the rejoinder. "It takes my breath away to argue with you up this hill. I am not too ill-natured to give up my own bed to Miss Sefton. Let us hurry on, there's a good boy, or they ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... gentlemen to a speedy personal experience of the conditions of prison life in The Leads, and to a realization of the difficulties of escape. He was far, however, from betraying the slightest trace that he harbored so ill-natured an idea. On the contrary, he was able to play the innocent and to adopt an amiable role. After his usual fashion, he entertained the company by recounting all sorts of lively adventures, describing them as experiences he had had during his last journey from Rome to Venice. In substance ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... a special set of police in the city, whose whole duty was to keep a sharp lookout for ill-natured fretting children, who complained of their parents' treatment, and thought other boys and girls were much better off than they, and to march them away to the school. These police all wore white top ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... ill-natured, blind man. He has a cruel stepmother and a selfish, petulant younger brother. This boy, the pet of his parents, treated Shun with insolence; and the father and mother joined in persecuting the elder son. Shun, without showing resentment, cried aloud to Heaven and ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... Wood and Aubrey the debt I owe to them, especially to Wood, and ask his pardon for occasional ill-natured remarks about him, as ill-natured nearly as his own about most of ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... passion that preyed on him, which made the prospect of a total separation from Miss Churton seem intolerable, kept him from severing his connection with Eyethorne. But after that warning he was more circumspect, and gave the ladies, old and young, less reason for ill-natured remarks. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... our ill-natured hero's thoughts, as he sat upon an elevated branch, and gently rubbed his wounded snout? Why, unfortunately for his own happiness, he laid the blame of his mishap on any one or any thing, rather than the right being or circumstance. It was the otter's fault, ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... got intil! He was that kankered that he took twa or three ill-natured rives o' a shreed o' breed, an' a gullar o' tea, an' fair stankit himsel'. It gaed doon the wrang road, ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... job—"it is much spoken against, not for the matter (for no man objects to that), but for the manner, which is full of knavery, and a wicked precedent. For by this assignment he is protected from all his creditors, which (I dare say) was neither his Majesty's nor your Lordship's meaning." It was an ill-natured and cowardly piece of official pedantry to plunge deeper a drowning man; but in the end the pardon was passed. It does not appear whether Buckingham interfered to overrule the Lord Keeper's scruples. Buckingham was certainly about this time very much out of humour with Bacon, for a reason which, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... earlier claimed to be. His pose is that of a schoolgirl in a cutting mood. At the same time his judgment of Johnson has an element of truth in it. "Though he was good-natured at bottom," he said of him, "he was very ill-natured at top." It has often been said of Walpole that, in his attitude to contemporary men of genius, he was influenced mainly by their position in Society—that he regarded an author who was not a gentleman as being necessarily ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... himself, who alone could have told us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and nowhere drops the least hint. So that the small fact has come down to us involved in a great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill-natured character, set a-going by Voltaire, Valori, and others."—Carlyle's Frederick the Great, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... news, indeed! Sara had never felt more relieved. But at that very moment she drew back; for she had seen several disheveled, cross, black-browed children peering at her out of a sort of cave in the rock. Behind them was a very ill-natured-looking old man. ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... afforded no little amusement to the party generally, tho' all agreed that it was too bad of Lady Ashton, and very ill-natured. ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... like to go out and see it all," said Miss Hall, looking into Miss Lawrie's face. This also appeared to Mary to be ill-natured. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... with a great equipage and a fine coach to the Society, and desired to be heard. He told them a long story of his wife; how ill-natured, how sullen, how unkind she was, and that in short she made his life very uncomfortable. The Society asked him several questions about ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hem 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
... fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen tomorrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as ill-natured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... THE MISTRESS. That's ill-natured. Thackeray did, however, make ladies. If he had depicted, with his searching pen, any of us just as we are, I doubt if we ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... manner, and was apparently making one thing after another without any trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable to have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking out of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot against the washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,— "a quarrel or something"; and Tom thought he should rather like to show Philip that he had better not ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact, he is a bear of sentiment. But, O, those unsentimental monkeys the ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little brutes. Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her mind unquiet, because it bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the conductor passed. He followed him with an ill-natured look, and did not begin until he had gone again. Then during all the rest of the story he did not stop once. Even the new travellers as they entered did ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... 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 of her as she said it would have made any man keen ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Jonas, though ill-natured and captious, was fond of his wife, in his low, animal fashion, and had a coarse appreciation of her beauty. He was so far recovered from his accident that he could sleep and eat heartily, and his blood coursed as ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... changed her mind and remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly cross, and not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the least; she is growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured, so we'll let Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's we went to Blanchard's, and had a nice lunch. Grace was in town; she chaperoned us, and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then we went to the theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about much. ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... go out again. I'll get some common person to come with me, and we will talk of common things. I'll take out the woman of the house, and her children. We will go and see something. There is a show of some kind in the town—I'll treat them to it. I'm not such an ill-natured woman when I try; and the landlady has really been kind to me. Surely I might occupy my mind a little in seeing her and her ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... "It is an ill-natured report, Marguerite. I do regret, and shall always regret, my husband; but it is now two years since he died. I am only twenty-eight years old, and my grief at his loss ought not always to control every ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Paris, snares await you everywhere, and the end is sorrow. Wherever I set my foot, the ground round about me seemed to burn. My readiness to acquiesce was considered weakness though if I unsheathed my talons, like a man conscious that he may some day wield the thunderbolts of power, I was thought ill-natured; to others, the delightful laughter that ceases with youth, and in which in later years we are almost ashamed to indulge, seemed absurd, and they amused themselves at my expense. People may be bored nowadays, but none the less they expect you to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... commanding this one to stand back, and that one to come forward, ordering one boy to put down his book, and scolding at a second for having lost his place, and knocking the knees of another with his ruler because he was out of the line. The boys scowl at their teacher, and, with ill-natured reluctance, they obey just enough ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... Gore, who was not wont to hide his light under any kind of extinguisher, made no attempt to claim the floor, and applauded with enthusiasm the conversation of his opposite neighbour. Ill-natured people might say that Mr. Gore saw in Senator Ratcliffe a possible Secretary of State; be this as it may, he certainly said to Mrs. Clinton, in an aside that was perfectly audible to every one at the table: "How brilliant! what an original mind! what a sensation he would ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... 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 sometimes ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Government carcass, some other gentleman, some gentleman from the Treasury bench, had been able to give a very satisfactory reply. For why, indeed, should any gentleman sit on the Treasury bench if he be not able, when so questioned, to give very satisfactory replies? Giving satisfactory replies to ill-natured questions is, one may say, the constitutional work of such gentlemen, who have generally well learned how to do so, and earned their present places by asking the selfsame questions themselves, when seated as younger men in other parts ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... same race of birds as the grouse, but feeds high up towards the summits of the Scotch mountains. Then some cheese, and a bottle of Chambertin. It was a very pleasant dinner, and my companions were both very agreeable men; both taking a shrewd, satirical, yet not ill-natured, view of life and people, and as for Mr. Douglas Jerrold, he often reminded me of E—— C———, in the richer veins of the latter, both by his face and expression, and by a tincture of something at once wise ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that the Duke of York shall return to the command of the army; it would have taken place ere now, but for some ill-natured remarks inserted in some of the newspapers, produced by an over zeal on the part of his friends. Sir David (Dundas) will not be much regretted, and it surely is time that at his advanced period of life he should be relieved from the cares ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... confess I have given [yielded] too much to the people in it, and am ashamed for them as well as for myself, that I have pleased them at so cheap a rate," he takes care to add, "not that there is anything here that I would not defend to an ill-natured judge." The plot was from Calderon, and the author, rebutting the charge of plagiarism, tells us that the king ("without whose command they should no longer be troubled with anything of mine") had already ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... The ill-natured unctuous voice of the fashionable scandalmonger went on with the story as he finished buckling his garters, accompanied by the sound of a douche two boxes off, and the Prince's voice saying, 'Harder, Joseph, harder, don't be afraid.' ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... she wheeled quickly and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I remember thinking them excessively unfeminine, the eyes rather of an ill-natured, pugnacious boy; and now, because of the hard coldness of her look, the unmaidenly, calculating intensity of her regard, I grew very conscious of my disfiguring garments and felt ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... disasters increased the discontent in the army, and, by making the men impatient and ill-natured, increased the bitterness of their quarrels. The army finally advanced, however, as far as Bethany, with a forlorn hope of being strong enough, when they should arrive there, to attack Jerusalem; but this hope, when the time came, Richard was obliged to ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his bidding, not I!" So he clapped his wings and crowed in the wood, just to show that he set light by his advice. "And never to give me anything for poor Hen-alie, that lies sick at home with a bean in her throat! The ill-natured churl!" cried Cock-alu to himself, and then he stood and crowed again with ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... first heard all the facts of the case which was exciting the interest of all Petersburg. The story was this: Some officers were eating oysters and, as usual, drinking very much, when one of them said something ill-natured about the regiment to which Kaminski belonged, and Kaminski called him a liar. The other hit Kaminski. The next day they fought. Kaminski was wounded in the stomach and died two hours later. The murderer and the seconds were arrested, but it was said that though ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. "And, as you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year. Don't say a word to any one—I sha'n't give out that he is dead, poor fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is quite empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for now, you see, I must marry!" And ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... conscience secretly reproved him for what he was doing, pulled the beetle round from behind him, and threw it down upon the floor, where Rollo had been sitting. This was wrong. It was a very ill-natured way of giving it up. If he was satisfied that he was wrong, he ought to have handed it to Rollo pleasantly. Instead of that, he threw it down, with a ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... fevers and sickness repeatedly brought on by exposure to winter rains and summer heat, should perhaps be counted among the least of them, for they had their compensations. Not so the ignorant and ill-natured opposition, open or covert, of the Turkish authorities. That was an evil to which no amount of philosophy could ever fully reconcile him. His experiences in that line form an amusing collection. Luckily, the first was also the worst. The pasha whom he found installed at ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... mainly what procured 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 had long ceased to be observed by eyes turned ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... free from the traces of acute anxiety that was eating at his heart. His body was emaciated, and, at times, his hand shook like a drunkard's. It was even worse with the spiritual man. He had become irritable, peevish, and ill-natured; he had lost, by degrees, every generous sentiment. As a young man he had been remarkable for his liberality in pecuniary matters. He had been wont to part freely with his money. Inconsistent as it may seem, notwithstanding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Languedoc, which appears to abound in final consonants and leads the Toulousians to say bien-g and maison-g like Englishmen learning French. It is as if they talked with their teeth rather than with their tongue. I find in my note-book a phrase in regard to Toulouse which is perhaps a little ill-natured, but which I will transcribe as it stands: "The oddity is that the place should be both animated and dull. A big, brown-skinned population, clattering about in a flat, tortuous town, which produces nothing whatever that ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... The wine was powerful, and had taken effect upon most of us. Singing was introduced, and the night passed merrily away, more visitors occasionally dropping in. My cousin was much elated with wine, and made several ill-natured remarks, which were meant for me. I took no notice for some time, but, as he continued, I answered with such spirit, as to arouse his indignation. My own blood boiled; but the interference of mutual friends pacified us for the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... its bran," which corresponds with our saying, "Every bean hath its black," The meaning being that nothing is without certain imperfections. A person in extreme poverty is often described as being "as bare as the birch at Yule Even," and an ill-natured or evil-disposed person who tries to do harm, but cannot, is commonly ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... and so have lost a generous race of young succeeding heroes that may be born of you! Yet had Philander loved but half so well as I, he would have kept your glorious fame entire; but since alone for Sylvia I love Sylvia, let her be false to honour, false to love, wanton and proud, ill-natured, vain, fantastic, or what is worse—let her pursue her love, be constant, and still dote upon Philander—yet still she will be the Sylvia I adore, that Sylvia born ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the same evening an attentive observer might have noticed Miss Rose emerging from her door very quietly, and making the best of her way to the green fields that bordered the sea-coast close by. An ill-natured person would have said that Miss Rose had taken especial pains with her toilet, and that she carried her parasol with a lack-a-daisical air; but Rose herself, at her last peep in the glass, had thought that she looked very nicely indeed; and so it ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... to my favour. Your absence has been commented upon, and made known at high quarters, and suspicion has arisen in consequence. Your return as one of the Parliamentary forces will now put an end to all ill-natured remarks. My dear Edward, you have done me a service. As my secretary, and having been known to have been a follower of the Beverleys, your absence was considered strange, and it was intimated at high quarters that you had gone to join the king's forces, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... 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, on its ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... settled down in my corner. I used to live in this corner before, but now I have settled down in it. My room is a wretched, horrid one in the outskirts of the town. My servant is an old country-woman, ill-natured from stupidity, and, moreover, there is always a nasty smell about her. I am told that the Petersburg climate is bad for me, and that with my small means it is very expensive to live in Petersburg. I know all that better than all these sage and experienced counsellors and monitors.... But I am ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... wasn't far wrong, as you will see. But I didn't finish my sentence, for Peterkin, who was sitting next me, gave me a sort of little kick, not to hurt, of course, and whispered, 'I'll tell you afterwards.' So I felt it would be ill-natured to tease him, and I didn't say any more, and luckily the others hadn't noticed what I had begun. Blanchie was on her knees in front of the fire toasting for us, and Elf was putting lumps of sugar into the cups, ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting, looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are proposing ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... sight of a tall young man who was cooking a fish over the fire, Aunt Agatha gurgled fearfully and backed precipitately into the nearest tree, whence the ill-natured hand bag forcibly opened a grinning mouth, leaped into space and disgorged a flying shower of nickels and dimes, smelling salts and hairpins and a variety of fussy contrivances ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... two 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
... to the White House. Thought I'd wait and have a private talk with the President, but Sergeant Porter said I'd have to go along with the rest. What an ill-natured set they were. Elbowed me right along just because they saw the President wanted to talk with me. Will have to go ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... coloured by their likes and dislikes. But it is well to learn from an enemy, and caricatures may often be useful in calling attention to features which would escape notice but for exaggeration. So we may profit by even the ill-natured and distorted likenesses of ourselves as contrasted with the adherents of other religions which so many 'liberal-minded' writers of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... had a great deal of trouble from the factious disputes and violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here in regard to that silly fee of a pistole. Surely every thinking man will make a distinction between a fee and a tax. Poor people! I pity their ignorance and narrow, ill-natured spirits. But, my friend, consider that I could by no means give up this fee without affronting the Board of Trade and the Council here who established it." His thoughts were not all of this harassing nature, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... surprise no one, it did not appear to surprise Sir Rupert, if such an education made Helena Langley what ill-natured people called a somewhat eccentric young woman. Brought up on a manly system of education, having a man for her closest companion, learning much of the world at an early age, naturally tended to develop and sustain the strongly marked individuality of her character. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... reason, one can't be angry. Were I to be harsh with him, it would be of no use. I prefer to agree with him and get him to bed; then, at least, it's over at once and I'm quiet. Besides, he isn't ill-natured, he loves me very much. You could see that just a moment ago when he was desperate to give me a kiss. That's quite nice of him. There are plenty of men, you know, who after drinking a bit don't come straight home but stay out chasing women. Oh, he may ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... word, Phyl, you are very kind!' said Maurice, angrily. 'If I had known you were such an ill-natured crab—' ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr. William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... know how easily the ill-natured gossip of a small town can rouse the angry contempt of the masses for everything which is beyond or above them. In a wider sphere Urbain would have shone by his many gifts, but, cooped up as he was within the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Dexter in a voice pitched to a lower tone, and with a softer modulation. "I did not expect to find a visitor here at so early an hour; and I fear that I have permitted myself to experience just a shade of annoyance. If I have seemed ill-natured, pardon me. It is not my nature to find fault, or to criticise. I rather prefer looking upon the bright side. Like Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'I am a wide liker.' There are times, you know, in which we are all tempted to act in a way that gives to others a ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... several very sensitive places by the married woman's imperious denial of her part in him, by her attitude of indestructible and unique possession. If she didn't know him she would like to know who did. But up till now she had meant to spare Mrs. Majendie her knowledge of him, for she was not ill-natured. She was sorry for the poor, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... a secret, says a beau, And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; But faith, if we should tell but half we know, There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, Wou'd never presume to show his face; Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, T'enjoy ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... irritation entirely gone. "I had no right to lose my temper, and I'm sorry I spoke so unkindly. The truth is, Miss Cullen, the girl I care for is in love with another man, and so I'm bitter and ill-natured in these days." ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... rest! Alas, all those who do not understand me, or who choose to misunderstand me, those are the worst!—especially the ill-natured people, the classical people who bray about music, stride straight to the notes, and have no patience till they come to Beethoven; who foolishly prate and fume about my unclassical management, but at bottom only wish to conceal their own unskilfulness, their want of culture and of disinterestedness, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... know, Mr Sneer well, may be omitted, if it should meet with any ill-natured opposition; for which reason, I shall not print off my dedication till after ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... of old Chippendale and French furniture in them, as well as fine specimens of old French and Spanish silver. I entirely discredit the malicious rumours I have heard about the origin of these treasures. All male Bermudians were seafaring folk in the eighteenth century, and ill-natured people hint that these intrepid mariners, not content with their legitimate trading profits, were occasionally not averse to—a little maritime enterprise. These scandalmongers insinuate that in addition to ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... stayed there until each one of his friends had looked at and handled the monkey as much as he wanted to, he and Abner would have remained until morning, and Mr. Stubbs's brother would have been made very ill-natured. ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... for as it is all one whether an error occurs in the large type or in the small, so it is all one, as regards the essence of the matter, whether an evil disposition is mirrored as a conqueror of the world or a common swindler or ill-natured egoist. In one case he is seen of all men; in the other, perhaps only of himself; but that he should see himself ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford; she had been paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fulness of her interest in other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane; the doors of the houses ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... go to you," said Stanton, without the signs of anger Max expected. Then still greater was the younger man's surprise when the elder laughed. It was a slightly embarrassed laugh, but not ill-natured. "What else did she tell you?" Stanton wanted ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... This, 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
... struck down by an assassin, and sympathy for that people in the trouble which at a crisis of their destinies such a catastrophe must bring. Abraham Lincoln was as little of a tyrant as any man who ever lived. He could have been a tyrant had he pleased, but he never uttered so much as an ill-natured speech.... In all America there was, perhaps, not one man who less deserved to be the victim of this revolution than he who ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... refine: It does, like grace, the fallen-tree restore To its blest state of Paradise before: Who would not joy to see his conquering hand O'er all the vegetable world command, And the wild giants of the wood receive What laws he's pleased to give? He bids the ill-natured crab produce The gentler apple's winy juice, The golden fruit that worthy is, Of Galatea's purple kiss; He does the savage hawthorn teach To bear the medlar and the pear; He bids the rustic plum ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him to ridicule. Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote, tells us that Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though 'it often exposed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his sense. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone for not visiting me so often as usual, he said, "he was ashamed to face ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... next to Miss Paulding, an elderly young lady, of some notoriety at Paris, very clever, very talkative, and very conceited. A young, pale, ill-natured looking man, sat on her left hand; this was Mr. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... princess, had no sooner risen from table than she went and concealed herself behind the tapestry-hangings, in order that she might speak the last, and be able to neutralize, if possible, any mischief the ill-natured hag might intend doing. ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... before they rated the stepson. I am ashamed—my heart is sore to think how I fell into the fashion of the family, and slighted my poor orphan step- brother. I don't think I ever scouted him, or was wilfully ill-natured to him; but the habit of being considered in all things, and being treated as something uncommon and superior, made me insolent in my prosperity, and I exacted more than Gregory was always willing to grant, and then, irritated, I sometimes repeated the disparaging words I had ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... lived very happy in this good family if it had not been for the ill-natured cook, who was finding fault and scolding him from morning to night, and besides, she was so fond of basting, that when she had no meat to baste, she would baste poor Dick's head and shoulders with a broom, or anything else that happened to fall in her way. At last her ill-usage ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... face 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
... doing that. Of her own country, speaking of England as such, she, in truth, knew but little—and perhaps cared less. She had gone to India almost as a child, and England had not been specially kind to her on her return. She had found it dull and cold, stiff, and almost ill-natured. People there had not smiled on her and been civil as M. Lacordaire had done. As far as England and Englishmen were considered she saw no reason why she should not marry ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... the new law the judge he jostles, And makes them all give up their powers To speeches of at least three hours— But we have left our little man, And wandered from our purpos'd plan: 'Tis said (without ill-natured leaven) "If ever lawyers get to heaven, It surely is by slow degrees" (Perhaps 'tis slow they take their fees). The case, then, now I fairly state: Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate; Quite short he rapped, none did it neater; The gate was opened by St. Peter, Who looked astonished when ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it 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 ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... sentiments favorable to the allies of his Majesty. It is in conformity with these views, and for the good of the common cause, and only for this transient object, that the commission, for the origin of which you imagine a thousand ill-natured motives, and which, finally, you refuse to accept, has been ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... under his arm a smaller child of one, the latter squealing terribly. They both landed safely at the door. Then there appeared one of the picturesque carts drawn by twelve oxen, anxiously awaited by the family. Twenty snarling, snorting, ill-natured pigs provided enough noise seriously to impair the drums of one's ears; and when you added to this the monotonous bellowing of cows and oxen, the frantic neighing of horses and mules waiting to be fed, the crowing of cocks and the cackling ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... detestable, and generally denounced and disowned by the more respectable of the Covenanters; but he also manages to find as many excuses for it as he conveniently can in the provocation given by the victim. Peirson, he says, was "a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe." He was of great service to Lagg in ferreting out rebels, used to sit in court with him to advise him of the prisoners' characters, and generally make himself obnoxious to the Covenanters. He was also accused of leaning to popery, and is said on one occasion to have ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... 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
... 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 914.1. Adj. malevolent, unbenevolent; unbenign; ill-disposed, ill-intentioned, ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived; evil-minded, evil- disposed; black-browed^. malicious; malign, malignant; rancorous; despiteful, spiteful; mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent; unamiable, uncharitable; maleficent, venomous, grinding, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... They reached Hyde Park, and joined the crowds of people going in all directions about the walks. Harriet had always a number of ill-natured comments to make on the dress and general appearance of people they passed. Julian smiled, but with no genuine pleasure. As always, he did his best to lead the girl's thoughts away from their incessant ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... recording the landlord's ill-natured answer. He was angry and humiliated, and, when he got home, snapped up Mrs. Jones when she began to make inquiries about the new property. He felt the worse because he had been defeated ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... the metal plate was sounding as a signal for the termination of the school, and on looking towards the portico with an ill-natured curiosity, he saw a young acquaintance of his, a youth of about twenty, coming out of it, leading a boy of about half that age, with his satchel thrown over ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... not doubt that my charmer had told the whole story to her three friends as they were returning from Einsiedel to Zurich, and this made the part they had played all the more ill-natured; but I felt that it was to my interest to let ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs without to resolve him. It ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... to time I am caught in a squall, or am the butt of some malicious tongue. Thus, yesterday, at the opera, I heard one of our most ill-natured wits, Leon de Lora, say to one of our most famous critics, 'It takes Chodoreille to discover the Caroline poplar on the banks of the Rhone!' They had heard my husband call me by my Christian name. At Viviers I was considered handsome. I am ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... mood of Montaigne into one of far sterner and more stringent pessimism, an absence or infrequency of suggestions of Montaigne in the plays between 1605 and 1610 would be a very natural result of Jonson's gibe in VOLPONE. That gibe, indeed, is not really so ill-natured as the term "steal" is apt to make it sound for our ears, especially if we are prepossessed—as even Mr. Fleay still seems to be—by the old commentators' notion of a deep ill-will on Jonson's part towards Shakspere. There was probably no such ill-will in ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... once released. Ramda was truly grateful to Harish Pal for having so cleverly saved him from ruin, and the whole story soon became common property. Nagendra overheard his neighbours whispering and pointing to him significantly, and village boys called him ill-natured nicknames in the street. His irritation was increased by recourse to the brandy bottle, and he vented it on his luckless wife. She suffered so terribly that, one morning, Nagendra found her hanging from a rafter in his cowshed. This suicide was the last straw. Nagendra saved himself from prosecution ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... a very ill-natured song was circulated; the stamp of the party to which it was attributable might easily be seen upon it. I remember only the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... that he was not a fool, but, then, he was not ill-natured, either; but, of course, he was unhappy. An unhappy man thinks only of his wretchedness, and people take his night cap for a fool's cap, while, on the other hand, goodness is only esteemed when it is cheerful. Consequently, Antinous Lebeau passed for a fool, and an ill-tempered ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... for her letters to her mother, one of which shows that she had already formed that opinion of French fickleness which she had afterward too abundant cause to maintain. "I do hope," she says, "that the good intelligence between our two nations will last. One good thing in this country is, that if ill-natured feelings are quick to arise, they disappear with equal rapidity. The King of Prussia is innately a bad neighbor, but the English will also always be bad neighbors to France, and the sea has never prevented them from doing her ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Kate more as an equal than a daughter. There are children who are spoiled if allowed to have their own way, and others who can be trusted to take their own way without the least danger of injury, and whom it is but an ill-natured exercise of authority to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit, and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of it, as all men are greater than their dependents; so pleasant it is to see men lessen one another and strive who shall show himself the most ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest leather on his visage comes off with victory though he has ever ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... November day, (with my Catawbas blighted,) a rather ill-natured pleasure in reading how the Duke of Rutland, in the beginning of the last century, was compelled to "keep up fires from Lady-day to Michaelmas behind his sloped walls," in order to insure the ripening of his grapes; yet winter grapes he had, and it was a great boast in that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... we want self-knowledge and composure in our riper years, as much as in our younger we had been destitute of exertion, serve only to make our inferiority more manifest, and to bring our discontent into the fuller notice of an ill-natured world, which however not unjustly condemns ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... from this terrible declension of the drama, we went, in a mood intensely ill-natured, to witness how the "Horse of the Pyrenees" would behave himself at Sadler's Wells. From the piece so called we anticipated no amusement; we thought the regular company would make but sorry equestrians, and, like the King of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... be revenged on both: Nor sooth yourself; you have no power to affront him; The emperor's love protects him from insults; And he, who spoke that proud, ill-natured word, Following the bent of his impetuous temper, May force your reconcilement to Sebastian; Nay, bid you kneel, and kiss the offending foot, That kicked you from his presence.— But think not to divide their punishment; You cannot touch a hair of ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... that particular agent, but also with all the others, among whom the news of his contumacy would soon spread; and as there are more men than there are berths, he will probably never get any employment again.' I look upon that as an ill-natured, unfounded remark. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... than any of the others I have seen, for, like the gift of pleasing, it cannot really give satisfaction. By degrees I wearied of what had so delighted me at first, especially as I perceived more and more plainly that it is impossible to be constantly smart and amusing without being frequently ill-natured, and too apt to turn all things, even the most serious, into mere ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... man flinches at sudden bodily pain; but he otherwise maintained his self-command. "And mankind is envious and ill-natured, more particularly in and about the garrisons. I sometimes wish, Jasper, that Mabel could have taken a fancy to you,—I do; and that you had taken a fancy to her; for it often seems to me that one like you, after all, might make her happier than I ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... was a peaceable, friendly, and 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 day it would be possible to dispense ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... with a smile that was almost ill-natured, and quoted cynically: "'Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... you belong to?" I said I was a native of Keighley. "Who is your police superintendent?" he queried. "Mr Cheeseborough," I replied. "That's true," he said. "Know you any in the force there?" "Yes," I said, "I know Sergeant Kershaw, and another little ill-natured dog, Jack o' Marks. Jack goes about in plainclothes, and is about as fly as a box of monkeys." "All right," returned Mr Policeman. "Now that you have told me the truth, were any of you smoking in the barn?" "No, we were all asleep," said I. Then he said that would ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... that in music the beau ideal changes every thirty years, but that is an ill-natured criticism. Certain forms of accompaniment may grow out of fashion like the cut of a coat. But a fine melody remains eternally beautiful and always agreeable to listen to. The 100th Psalm of the middle ages is as magnificent to-day as it was when nearly four centuries ago it ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... relations, considering, I 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 are in ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the conversation all to herself, stopped to take breath. She was not an ill-natured woman, or one who often talked of her neighbors, and after a moment, as if ashamed of her tirade, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... thoughtless or cruel urchin, directly she caught sight of my brother, she ran to him for protection, while her tormentor scuttled away equally fast in an opposite direction, his ears tingling in anticipation of the coming correction. Was a larger and older girl threatened by some ill-natured brother, or brother's chum, she felt herself safe if our Ned made his appearance. In short, he was always ready, at whatever odds, to do battle for the 'weaker sex,' as he jestingly called them. This trait in his character procured ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... different classes of people who are to be met in the hunting-field. There was also a set of clerical sketches, which was considered to be of sufficient importance to bring down upon my head the critical wrath of a great dean of that period. The most ill-natured review that was ever written upon any work of mine appeared in the Contemporary Review with reference to these Clerical Sketches. The critic told me that I did not understand Greek. That charge has been made not unfrequently by those who have felt ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... had in his hands, he burst into tears. "Here, Beauty, (said he,) take these roses; but little do you think how dear they are like to cost your unhappy father; and then related his fatal adventure: immediately the two eldest set up lamentable outcries, and said all manner of ill-natured things to Beauty, who did not cry at all. "Do but see the pride of that little wretch, (said they); she would not ask for fine clothes, as we did; but no, truly, Miss wanted to distinguish herself; so now she will be the death of our poor father, and yet she does not so much as shed a tear." ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
... the others watching and listening. First he'd play the part of book agent with his pupil as a reluctant customer. Then he'd reverse, and the pupil as agent would try to sell him the book, he pretending to be an ignorant, obstinate, ill-natured, close-fisted farmer or farmer's wife. It was a liberal education in the art of persuasion. If his pupils had his brains and his personality, Peaks of Progress would be on the center-table in half the farm parlors of Wisconsin and ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the old order, and that it was felt is shown by the bitterness of ridicule and taunt and insult with which, both publicly and privately, this most amiable youth was attacked, who, at that time, had never said an ill-natured word of anybody, and who was always most generous in his treatment of his ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... all the world knows, was born at Norwich. In her somewhat ill-natured autobiography she writes: 'Norwich, which has now no social claims to superiority at all, was in my childhood a rival of Lichfield itself, in the time of the Sewards, for literary pretensions and the vulgarity of pedantry. William ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... in music the beau ideal changes every thirty years, but that is an ill-natured criticism. Certain forms of accompaniment may grow out of fashion like the cut of a coat. But a fine melody remains eternally beautiful and always agreeable to listen to. The 100th Psalm of the middle ages is as magnificent to-day as ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... Mr Sneer well, may be omitted, if it should meet with any ill-natured opposition; for which reason, I shall not print off my dedication till after the play ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... so much better, to acknowledge a fault and feel and express sorrow for wrong-doing. Your own conscience and consciousness tell you how much happier you feel when you have done the latter. Yet you need, over and over again, to fortify yourself against temptation to hasty or ill-natured or improper speech by determining beforehand that you will not give way to the temptation; that you will control yourself. And whenever you have allowed yourself to be overcome by such temptation you should make it the occasion of serious reflection and earnest resolve to be more guarded in future. ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... adhered to her first statement, but boldly accused Oscar of sundry other misdeeds that had come up in recollection since the first outbreak; while Oscar, on the other hand, stoutly denied most of her charges, and insisted that she was ill-natured, and irritated him in every possible way. The contest finally waxed so warm between them that Mrs. Preston was obliged to interpose, and ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... with a not ill-natured grin. "This comes of stopping and talking to young scarecrows. Come along, youngster; think yourself lucky you've been handed over to me. I wear patent leather boots, and they don't need as much blacking ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... said she, "I am the friend of the distressed, and love to prevent the severe and ill-natured authority of parents: give me your hand, and I will deliver you from that monster, the Prince ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... expected we heard old Rough-and-Ready's voice summoning us down. He was not an ill-natured man. He knew well that my fault had been unintentional, and that Tom had certainly not deserved any punishment at all, for grinning at a brother midshipman in his presence could scarcely ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... or female figure respectively comes out from the little rustic cottage whenever it is going to be wet or fine; for, as surely as the Burgher ever entered the sitting-room, the old nurse withdrew, never returning until he had left. "The ill-natured little manoeuvrer!" exclaimed Madame Dort, not thinking she was overheard. "I believe he would be glad to keep poor Fritz ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... it will come to that. It always does if the man is in earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and valuable, the result, it may be, of years of toil and thought, requires to be read with care in a quiet corner of our own study, before the expression of our assent or dissent can be of any weight or value. There is too much hollow praise, and occasionally too much wrangling and ill-natured abuse at our scientific tournaments, and the world at large, which is never without a tinge of malice and a vein of quiet humor, has frequently expressed its concern at the waste of "oil and vinegar" which is occasioned by the frequent meetings ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Lind, as he rose, and stood before the chimney-piece mirror, and 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
... Quoin was full of unaccountable whimsies; he was, withal, a very cross, bitter, ill-natured, inflammable old man. So, too, were all the members of the gunner's gang; including the two gunner's mates, and all the quarter-gunners. Every one of them had the same dark brown complexion; all their faces looked like smoked hams. They were continually grumbling and growling about ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... of women who say they are afraid of her, and that she makes them nervous! You see she looks right into their shallow shuffling little souls, full of conceited thoughts about themselves, and nasty ill-natured thoughts about her; and no wonder they grow panic-stricken, and flee; and talk of her as 'that formidable Miss Champion.' I never found her formidable; but, when I had the chance of a real talk with her, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Annals of the said University (1691-92). For an alleged libel on the Earl of Clarendon in that work the author was expelled in 1694. He also wrote The Ancient and Present State of the City of Oxford, and Modius Salium, a Collection of Pieces of Humour, generally of an ill-natured cast. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... almanack, the new moon is on the 1st, yet as the people have not seen it, there is no Ramadan, (properly Ramtham.) The Rais says, after the first ten days' keeping the fast it is not difficult, but, during this period, the adult Mussulmans suffer exceedingly. Afraid I shall find them all ill-natured during the fast. Besides, they can't stomach seeing Infidels eat, whilst they ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... get from the people about the farm, who hardly waited till my father's back was turned before they rated the stepson. I am ashamed—my heart is sore to think how I fell into the fashion of the family, and slighted my poor orphan step- brother. I don't think I ever scouted him, or was wilfully ill-natured to him; but the habit of being considered in all things, and being treated as something uncommon and superior, made me insolent in my prosperity, and I exacted more than Gregory was always willing to grant, and then, irritated, I sometimes repeated the disparaging ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... while with the incomes of the ringing. Therefore 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
... soul of hospitality, and particularly proud of her dairy. When kept clear of theology and politics she was not an ill-natured woman. But to be a Puritan in the year of the Five Mile Act was not to think kindly of the Government under which she lived; while her sense of her own wrongs was intensified by rumours of over-indulgence shown to Papists, and the broad assertion that King and Duke were ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... will see that he was not a fool, but, then, he was not ill-natured, either; but, of course, he was unhappy. An unhappy man thinks only of his wretchedness, and people take his night cap for a fool's cap, while, on the other hand, goodness is only esteemed when it is cheerful. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of those Thoughts which are in their own Nature good, may be so order'd as to bear a part in Pastoral. For as We may make a Shepherd false to his Mistress, if he be offended with the Levity of his Nature; so We may make a Lass Ill-natured and Satyrical, for Instance, if 'tis not in her Temper, but assumed only ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... residence at Jena, which may be called the political portion of Schlegel's literary career, belongs the Gate of Honour for the Stage-President Von-Kotzebue, (Ehrenpforte fur den Theater Prsidenten von Kotzebue, 1800,) an ill-natured and much- censured satire in reply to Kotzebue's attack, entitled the Hyperborean Ass (Hyperboreischen Esee). At this time he also collected several of his own and brother Frederick's earlier and occasional contributions to various periodicals, and these, together with the hitherto ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... him, side by side, And by a thousand teasing questions drew The important secret from him as they flew. 20 The daw gave honest counsel, though despised, And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised: 'Stay, silly bird, the ill-natured task refuse, Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news. Be warned by my example: you discern What now I am, and what I was shall learn. My foolish honesty was all my crime; Then hear my story. Once upon a time, The two-shaped Ericthonius had his birth (Without a mother) from ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... certain old men, pariahs, animated lumps of dirt and rags. They are so uncouth and unclean, so utterly non-human, that one wonders whether they are really of the sons of Adam, and not rather goblins, or possibly some freak, some ill-natured jest on the part of the vegetable or mineral kingdoms. Day after day they come and burrow for orts among the dust-heaps, or brood motionless in the sunshine, or trace cabalistic signs with their fingers in the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... 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 ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... basely ungrateful and ill-natured," said the Vicomtesse at last. "No sooner does a trouble befall you than a friend is ready to bring the tidings and to probe your heart with the point of a dagger while calling on you to admire the handle. Epigrams and sarcasms already! Ah! I ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the sergeant was not ill-natured—until you happened to cross him, when his temper became damnable—but merely a big, vain, boisterous lout. John, having taken his measure, found it easy to study him philosophically and even to be passably amused by him. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... up as boys of that kind often grow up, a rambling, heedless varlet, tossed about in all quarters of the world, meeting with more perils and wonders than did Sinbad the Sailor, without growing a whit more wise, prudent, or ill-natured. Under every misfortune he comforted himself with a quid of tobacco, and the truly philosophic maxim that "it will be all the same thing a hundred years hence." He was skilled in the art of carving anchors and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... "Ill-natured cur!" muttered Loris. "They are all alike—hypocritical fools! With all their pretended virtue, I would not like to expose the best of them ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... poor paltry English hedge-parsons; sing, when I bid you!" As the Earl did 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 ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... always an ill-natured man, was in a particularly bad humor to-day. While listening to the case during the session he formed his opinion, and sat, absorbed in his thoughts, without listening to Wolf. These thoughts consisted ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the kind. I say that you are both very ill-natured, and that you say what is not true. As for you, Lolotte, I don't believe you ever had the chance of seeing a young man's eyes turned upon you, or you would not be so pleased with the attentions of ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... need to ask my pardon,' replied her friend, 'but I see no one here that at all resembles that child, except his mother, and when you hear ill-natured reports, Miss Eliza, I will thank you, that is, I think you will do well, to refrain from repeating them. I presume the person you allude to is Mr. Lawrence; but I think I can assure you that your suspicions, in that respect, are utterly misplaced; and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... temple, the metal plate was sounding as a signal for the termination of the school, and on looking towards the portico with an ill-natured curiosity, he saw a young acquaintance of his, a youth of about twenty, coming out of it, leading a boy of about half that age, with his satchel thrown ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... none of their good thoughts should be lost, have published their censures of my Essay, with this honour done to it, that they will not suffer it to be an essay, I leave it to the public to value the obligation they have to their critical pens, and shall not waste my reader's time in so idle or ill-natured an employment of mine, as to lessen the satisfaction any one has in himself, or gives to others, in so hasty a confutation ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... imagine," I replied, and then Jack smiled. If it had been anybody but our jolly old Jack, I'd have said his smile was sarcastic; but no one ever accused that boy of anything so ill-natured. Then he said in a quiet, even voice: "It doesn't take a Solon to see through that. She wants to make sure that Mrs. Hunt doesn't see the contrast between her room and the one across the hall. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... simply say I don't like any one. If you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by saying—'Of course, he means awfully well,' and after that you may imply that he is the greatest scoundrel unhung. Sir Edmund is not at all ill-natured, and he can discuss people quite simply—not as if he wished to defend his own reputation for charity all the time. He won't allow that Adela Delaport Green is a humbug: he says she is simply a happy combination of extraordinary cleverness and stupidity, of simplicity ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... ideas because you don't take the trouble to return evil for evil. But then you never take the trouble to return good for good. In fact, you have no idea of duty, only you don't like to burden your conscience with doing what seems to be ill-natured. Now, if a man does me good, I return it,—which I deem to be a great duty, and if he does me evil, I generally return that sooner or later. There is some idea of justice in my conduct, but there ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... wish you were going to nest, too," she said. "I wonder—do you think I have been ill-natured and unkind to your Sylvia, and that makes her not come to see me now? I do remember being vexed at her for not wanting to marry you, and perhaps I talked unkindly about her. I am sorry, for my being cross to her will do no good; it will only make her more unwilling than ever to marry ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... appearing the most efficacious, compendious, and easy way of satisfying such appetites, of promoting such designs, of discharging such passions. Slander thence hath always been a principal engine whereby covetous, ambitious, envious, ill-natured, and vain persons have striven to supplant their competitors and advance themselves; meaning thereby to procure, what they chiefly prize and like, wealth, or dignity, or reputation, favor and power in the court, respect and interest ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... the meanin' o' the haill ballant is no that ill to win at, seein' the poet himsel' tells us that. It's jist no to be proud or ill-natured to oor neebours, the beasts and birds, for God made ane an' a' o's. But there's harder things in't nor that, and yon's the hardest. But ye see it was jist an unlucky thochtless deed o' the puir auld sailor's, an' I'm thinkin' he was sair reprocht in's hert the minit he did it. His mates was fell ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... all of us, a great deal to make us happy? What pleasure is it to you to go about with a cross or melancholy face? Try to think of something pleasant, and call up a smile. Put the ill-natured feelings out of your heart, and then the brightness will come to your face without further trouble. If you have a hard task to do, being cross won't help you along one bit. Go to work at it with a will, and you will be surprised to find how soon it will be done. Then, with a clear ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... the bell-rope, but his mischievous cousin snatched it quicker, and tied it up out of his reach. Willy called all the servants as loud as he could, but no one was within hearing; and he threw himself back on his sofa, in despair, exclaiming, 'How can you be so ill-natured, when Margaret is always ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... were not so quick-tempered I might have told him that,' answered the Princess, 'but he is so ill-natured that he will tear you to pieces, I fear, as soon as he comes in. But I will try to find some way of doing it. Can you hide yourself here in the cupboard? and then we will ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... that paper, every rood of ground might well maintain its man, and every shilling be, like Hobson's money-bag, "the fruitful parent of a hundred more." For three days, at the newspaper room of the Union Club, men talked of this journal: some pished, some sneered, some wondered; till an ill-natured mathematician, who had just taken his degree, and had spare time on his hands, sent a long letter to the "Morning Chronicle," showing up more blunders, in some article to which the editor of "The Capitalist" had specially invited attention, than would have paved ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Children, servants, her husband's sermons, district visiting, her Tuesday "at homes," the butcher, the dean's wife, the wives of the canons, the Polchester climate, bills, clothes, other women's clothes—over all these rocks of peril in the sea of daily life her barque happily floated. Some ill-natured people thought her stupid, but in her younger days she had liked Trollope's novels in the Cornhill, disapproved placidly of "Jane Eyre," and admired Tennyson, so that she could not ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... convinced,' said 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 ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... Bargeton and Lucien. Young Rastignac evidently was entertaining the party; he had raised the laughter that needs fresh fuel every day in Paris, the laughter that seizes upon a topic and exhausts it, and leaves it stale and threadbare in a moment. Mme. d'Espard grew uneasy. She knew that an ill-natured speech is not long in coming to the ears of those whom it will wound, and waited till the end of ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... style, by the hand of some artist whose name unhappily has not been preserved for the benefit of posterity. There you might see the sheep-like lion, and the pig-like bear; leopards like short-legged zebras, and monkeys most unpleasantly like human beings. Indeed, ill-natured persons had been heard to declare one picture of a very lean ancient ourang-outang bore a strong resemblance to Mr Blewcome. But, then, some ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... there was an underground stream that ran straight through the country from south to north and was meant as a sign of truce between land and sea. It happened that a cross-eyed, ill-natured shark was trying to tempt a young whale to swim that stream from end to end. The whale's name was Spray-tail. He was the handsomest of all the young whales and could shoot three jets of water at once. The shark boasted that he had swum through the stream himself, but of ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... flocked thither to leave cards, and express their sympathy for the unfortunate mischance that had overtaken the bright creature who had been the cynosure of all eyes for her beauty and grace on the morning of the first fox-hunt of the year. All the ill-natured gossip, all the slanderous tittle-tattle which had been started by Lord Roxmouth and fostered by Miss Tabitha Pippitt, ebbed and died away in the great wave of honest regret and kindly pity that pervaded the whole neighbourhood. Even Sir Morton Pippitt, smitten by compunction ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... is a wearisome and even an ugly thing, because it does not mean that people are honestly amused, but have some basely exciting thing in their minds. Laughter must be light-hearted, not light-minded. Still less was it the dismal tittering of ill-natured people over mean gossip, which is another of the ugly sounds of life. No, I think it was rather the laughter of cheerful people, glad to be amused, who hardly knew that they were laughing; that is a wholesome exercise enough. It was the ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... any terms but the most peaceful and happy. She can stain the character of the clergymen with corruption, against which no one could ever utter the faintest moral delinquency. She can beggar the wealthy, and degrade the noble. In short, she can whisper men base or foolish, jealous or ill-natured; or, if occasion requires, can tell you the failings of their great-grandmothers, and traduce the memory of virtuous citizens who have been in their ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... 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
... feelings, and in the most public manner to give a welcome to those successful explorers. (Applause.) He thought then, as he thought now, that in making that remark he not only expressed his own feelings but the feelings of the community in general. A very ill-natured notice of his opinion and conduct in the matter appeared in The Argus of that morning, but for what purpose it had been written he was unable to say. He rejoiced in the present meeting, however, as the best of all possible answers to such a piece of invidiousness. (Hear.) One of the ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... of the evening the conversation became more general; and Edouard took a dislike to Colonel Dujardin. A young man of twenty-eight nearly always looks on a boy of twenty-one with the air of a superior, and this assumption, not being an ill-natured one, is apt to be so easy and so undefined that the younger hardly knows how to resent or to resist it. But Edouard was a little vain as we know; and the Colonel jarred him terribly. His quick ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... 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, would not ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... was terrified, but the incident was so brief that it was over before she fairly understood its full meaning and the ill-natured ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... her eyes. 'Why, what did you come here for?' (when she screwed up her eyes, their expression became very kindly and a little bantering, when she opened them wide, into their clear, almost cold brilliancy, there came something-ill-natured ... something menacing. Her eyes gained a peculiar beauty from her eyebrows, which were thick, and met in the centre, and had the smoothness of sable fur). 'Don't you want me to buy your estate? You want money for your ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding horses alone. And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one, if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... some occasion for praising mine." How quickly his thoughts expressed the ill-natured sentiment. But his eyes were on the page before ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... settle everything satisfactorily with Mr. Lawrence,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Mr. Lawrence is proverbially ill-natured in his own kind way, and it would not have been unlike him to omit the fact that I was staying with you during the ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... his opinion that Frank was ill-natured, though he thought so, in spite of the hearty laugh with which his story was greeted. When he turned again to his lesson, he found ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... 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 military reputation they could be purged of by taking homopathic pills dissolved ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... have always been in the habit of going to church... It would do me good, I know. But, Mrs Hope, how is this? I thought you had been a dissenter. I always said so. I have been very wrong—very ill-natured." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... a most ill-natured game,' said the aunt, who had seen an old and unrecognised portrait of herself and the likenesses of several of her husband's family (a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... evening which was witnessed, and after that the old fellow was very benevolent, and the punt was free to one or two who knew all about it. There is an old story about the stick that would not beat the dog, and the dog would not bite the pig, and so on; and so I am quite sure that ill-natured cur could never have lived with that 'yang-yang' shrew, nor could any one else but he have turned the gear of the hatch, nor have endured the dog and the woman, and the constant miasma from the stagnant waters. No one else could have shot anything with that ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... before the small looking-glass, and imitated the fashionable English lady with a piquant cleverness that provoked low peals of laughter, and a retrospective discussion of the evening, which was merry enough, without being in the least ill-natured. ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... made his appearance, conducted by Siliavka and three soldiers. The poor Jew was in a state of stupefaction, and could hardly move his legs. Siliavka went by me to the camp, and soon returned with a rope in his hands. His coarse but not ill-natured face wore a look of strange, exasperated commiseration. At the sight of the rope the Jew flung up his arms, sat down, and burst into sobs. The soldiers stood silently about him, and stared grimly at the earth. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... occasion of intruding on her most private concerns, and exposing them to the world. Compassion is expressed, and yet in a tone that betrays a secret exultation. Faults are descried and magnified; no sympathy is felt for the sufferer, but a vulgar curiosity bruits the ill-natured rumor, and many hearts must hence ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... utter misery to her. If she sat indoors there was the persecution of Mrs. Daintree's ill-natured remarks, and Marion's depression of spirits and half-uttered regrets; and there was also the scaffolding rising round the chancel walls to be seen from the windows, and the sound of the sawing of the masonry in the churchyard, as a perpetual, reproachful reminder of the friend whose kindness ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... whatever his dislike of physical force may have been in after-life, that he unquestionably knew how to use the argumentum baculinum in his early days; and that more than one student was made to feel the effects thereof, when attempting ill-natured jokes on the herculean Celt. During his residence abroad he had some opportunities of witnessing the fearful effects of the French Revolution; and it is probable that a remembrance of these scenes, added to his ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... 'For since I desired to marry for the reasons of which I told you, you persuaded me to choose Apuleius in preference to all others, since you had a great admiration for him and were eager through me to become yet more intimate with him. But now that certain ill-natured persons have brought accusations against us and attempt to dissuade you, Apuleius has suddenly become a magician and has bewitched me to love him. Come to me, then, while I ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... points in which the author was almost always right and the reviewer was wrong. "An eagle hawketh not at flies;" the object of ill-natured ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had the full run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toymaking, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... surmiser, yet by the young women themselves! Why are such relentless towards every slightest relaxation of self restraint, who would themselves dare not a little upon occasion? Here was Agnes, not otherwise an ill-natured girl, positively exultant over Elsie's discomfiture and disappearance! The girl had done her no wrong, and she had had her desire upon her: she had defeated her, and was triumphant; yet this was how she talked of her to her own inner ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... mystery and stop those sounds so dismally appropriate to such a marriage. A brief space elapsed, during which the silence was broken only by whispers and a few suppressed titterings among the wedding-party and the spectators, who after the first shock were disposed to draw an ill-natured merriment from the affair. The young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth. The widow's glance was observed to wander for an instant toward a window of the church, as if searching for the time-worn marble that she had dedicated to her first husband; then ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on the Cockney School of Prose. Lockhart invented the expression "pimpled Hazlitt." It so happened that Hazlitt's complexion was unusually clear, but the epithet clung to him with a cruel tenacity. When an ill-natured reviewer could find nothing else to say, he had recourse to "pimpled essays" or "pimpled criticism."[27] The climax of abuse was reached in an article entitled "Hazlitt Cross-Questioned," which a sense of decency makes it impossible to reproduce, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Like many another boy of decided individuality, I came up anyhow. Nobody managed me. At an early age my profession made it my duty to manage everybody else. I had a nervous temperament to start on; neither my training nor my occupation had poised it. I do not think I was malicious nor even ill-natured. As men go, I was perhaps a kind man. The thing which I am trying to say is, that I ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... give up the Chinese, which, he observed, was not to be acquired in the course of a man's whole life. I could not forbear remarking, how very much these young princes enjoyed a jest levelled against the Chinese. An ill-natured remark, for instance, on the cramped feet and the hobbling gait of a Chinese woman met with their hearty approbation; but they were equally displeased on hearing the clumsy shoes worn by the Tartar ladies compared to the broad ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... alone. If not, they will lose their lives before being taken prisoners again. They begged the favour of me to write to Major Fonda and the gentlemen of the committee to this purpose. They blame neither the one nor the other of you gentlemen, but those ill-natured fellows amongst them that get up an excitement about nothing, in order to ingratiate themselves in your favour. They were of very great hurt to your cause since May last, through violence and ignorance. I do ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Many of the government party voted against him, but about fifty followed his lead and the charge was accepted by 119 to 79. The next day Hastings attended the court on the presentation of a magnificent diamond sent by the nizam to the king, whose acceptance of the present gave rise to much ill-natured comment. Various motives have been suggested for Pitt's decision. None appear adequate save the most obvious and honourable one, that he acted in accordance with his conscience. Though his decision took the house by surprise, he clearly defined his attitude ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... ever open to a friend, however little he might deserve it. Yet they sneered at his want of reckless extravagance, and called him a miser. The greatest offender in this respect was Samuel Foote, a man of great accomplishments, witty, but always ill-natured. It is difficult to speak of Foote's conduct to Garrick in any moderate language. Mr. Forster may assert that behind Foote's brutal jests there always lurked a kindly feeling; but what can we think of the man who, constantly receiving favors from Garrick's hand, could never speak of ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... wealthy man who arrived at Athens in all the vulgar pomp of retinue and gold and gorgeous raiment, expecting that every eye would be turned upon him in envy of his lot; instead of which, they heartily pitied the poor worm, and proceeded to take his education in hand. Not an ill-natured word, not an attempt at direct interference: it was a free city; he was at liberty to live in it as he thought fit. But when he made a public nuisance of himself in the baths or gymnasiums, crowding ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... these disasters increased the discontent in the army, and, by making the men impatient and ill-natured, increased the bitterness of their quarrels. The army finally advanced, however, as far as Bethany, with a forlorn hope of being strong enough, when they should arrive there, to attack Jerusalem; but this hope, when the time came, Richard ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... had apparently disappeared. Bonaparte however, was still harassed by secret suspicion, and the painful impressions produced by Junot were either not entirely effaced or were revived after our arrival in Paris. We reached the capital before Josephine returned. The recollection of the past; the ill-natured ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... humbug," he said, with half a laugh—for he is not an ill-natured fellow when you come to know him—"you managed it very cleverly, and I'm not one to bear malice; but, I say, your ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... supposed by those who were not intimately acquainted with the mysteries of her toilet, to sleep in it; often, indeed, she did sleep in it, and gave unmusical evidence of her doing so. She was not ill-natured; but so strongly prejudiced on many points as to be equally disagreeable as though she were so. With her, as with the world in general, religion was the point on which those prejudices were the strongest; and the peculiar bent they took was horror and hatred of popery. As she lived ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... while they chatted, laughed, and loitered on foot, for it was becoming bitterly cold to sit down any longer, up came the enemy, from the sea it may be, behind their backs; at any rate, it was there with them—ere they realised it the mist was come. Surely the old Tor wasn't going to turn nasty and ill-natured to-day, of all days! they said, in startled dismay; and Oscar affirmed he had seen the fog settle and rise, settle and rise, as fickle as any girl's temper. "'Twas nothing," ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... 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 ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... some more ill-natured things, until the clock struck nine, and he was obliged to get up. I should be sorry to say to anybody but you, dearest, that I was rather glad of it; for I could then fall asleep at my ease; and these little ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... sharp wit have to guard against is the thoughtless tendency toward writing ill-natured things. Ridicule is a much more amusing medium for the display of a subject than praise, which is always rather bromidic. The amusing person catches foibles and exploits them, and it is easy to forget that wit flashes all too irresistibly at the expense of other ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... his commands and wishes (p. 304) brought out all the worst features of his character.[849] His anger was not the worst the Queen and her daughter had to fear; he still preserved a feeling of respect for Catherine and of affection for Mary. "The King himself," writes Chapuys, "is not ill-natured; it is this Anne who has put him in this perverse and wicked temper, and alienates him from his former humanity."[850] The new Queen's jealous malignity passed all bounds. She caused her aunt to be made governess to Mary, and urged her to box her ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Wickham Place, his first care was to prove that he was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in his pride, he tried to wound them in return. They were probably not ladies. Would real ladies have asked him to tea? They were certainly ill-natured and cold. At each step his feeling of superiority increased. Would a real lady have talked about stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves after all, and if he had gone into the house they could have clapped a chloroformed handkerchief over his face. He walked ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... not be easy to find another tree that would make such good snow-shoes,' answered the fox, cocking his head on one side, and gazing at the tree thoughtfully; 'but I do not like to be ill-natured, so if you will give me one of your young ones I will seek ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... Science Association Paper of May in the same year, which dealt with the employment, inter alia, of Europeans of mixed parentage in India; a question which still engages the anxious consideration of many Indian statesmen. Ali Baba's "Study" is not an ill-natured summary of the widespread discussions of 1879, but indeed as far back as 1843, the late John Mawson in his paper, "The Eurasian Belle," which first appeared in the Calcutta newspaper, The Bengal Hurkaru, had approached the social and domestic side of the question, ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... the difficulty! If only the people whose envious tongues were now wagging could see Kitty as she was, could understand what a gulf lay between her and the ordinary "fast" woman, there would be an end of this silly, ill-natured talk. Other women might be of the earth earthy. Kitty was a sprite, with all the irresponsibility of such incalculable creatures. The men and women—women especially—who gossiped and lied about her, who sent abominable ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... especially have shrunk very much of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is notoriously ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... large; 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 marry ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... his reason, one can't be angry. Were I to be harsh with him, it would be of no use. I prefer to agree with him and get him to bed; then, at least, it's over at once and I'm quiet. Besides, he isn't ill-natured, he loves me very much. You could see that just a moment ago when he was desperate to give me a kiss. That's quite nice of him. There are plenty of men, you know, who after drinking a bit don't come straight home but stay out chasing women. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... you take a seat 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 you, tell me; and, unknown to her, I will make it up. This is my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... allows remarks to be made upon a caller, who has just left the room, commits not only a breach of etiquette, but a positive rudeness and ill-natured act. It is quite easy to check any such disposition by a grave reserve, and to ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... and perhaps he did not even know it, being no better a child than many other children, but there was something about him which made bad people sorry, and grumbling people ashamed of themselves, and ill-natured ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... done so: I thought what you would get by your nice fun as you called it. I never knew any good come of mischief; it generally brings those who do it into disgrace; or if they should happen to escape unpunished, still it is always attended with some inconvenience: it is an ill-natured disposition which can take pleasure in giving trouble to any one.' 'Do hold your tongue, James,' replied Will; 'I declare I have not patience to hear you preach, you are so prodigiously wise, and prudent, and sober; you had better go indoors and sew with your mamma, for you talk just as if you ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... "Where do you belong to?" I said I was a native of Keighley. "Who is your police superintendent?" he queried. "Mr Cheeseborough," I replied. "That's true," he said. "Know you any in the force there?" "Yes," I said, "I know Sergeant Kershaw, and another little ill-natured dog, Jack o' Marks. Jack goes about in plainclothes, and is about as fly as a box of monkeys." "All right," returned Mr Policeman. "Now that you have told me the truth, were any of you smoking in the barn?" "No, we were all asleep," said I. Then he said that would ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... and dropped his under lip. Mrs. Cobbett's eyes flashed the fire of indignation, and she was never civil to one afterwards. Nothing could be farther from my intention than to hurt the feelings of my friend; it was an ill-natured and thoughtless, although a just retaliation. At all events I was very sorry for it, and it called to my recollection an old saying, which was very commonly used by my father, "a fool's bolt ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... fortune if she married a man with three or four hundred a year; but Thomas Bird had no more than his twelve pounds a month, and did not venture to call himself a gentleman. In Alma he found the essentials of true ladyhood—perhaps with reason; he had never heard her say an ill-natured thing, nor seen upon her face a look which pained his acute sensibilities; she was unpretentious, of equal temper, nothing of a gossip, kindly disposed. Never for a moment had he flattered himself that Alma perceived his devotion or cared for him otherwise ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... common person to come with me, and we will talk of common things. I'll take out the woman of the house, and her children. We will go and see something. There is a show of some kind in the town—I'll treat them to it. I'm not such an ill-natured woman when I try; and the landlady has really been kind to me. Surely I might occupy my mind a little in seeing her and her ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the Savoy, and retired to the country. He received a lease of Crown lands, but his life in the country did not yield him the happiness he expected. He is said by Pope to have d. of a fever brought on by lying in the fields after a drinking-bout. The drinking-bout, however, is perhaps an ill-natured addition. C.'s fame among his contemporaries was much greater than that which posterity has accorded to him. His poems are marred by conceits and a forced and artificial brilliancy. In some of them, however, he sings pleasantly of gardens and country scenes. They comprise ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... seen Aphanassi this morning at my father's; don't you think he is very rough, and has an ugly, ill-natured countenance?" ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... an unheard-of outburst in mild Old Man Shaw to say a word of defence or attack. When she had gone Old Man Shaw, the fire all faded from his eyes, sank back on his bench. His delight was dead; his heart was full of pain and bitterness. Martha Blewett was a warped and ill-natured woman, but he feared there was altogether too much truth in what she said. Why had he never thought of it before? Of course White Sands would seem dull and lonely to Blossom; of course the little gray house where she was born would seem ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... no one had entered the room but her brother and I, and was certain of her accuracy in counting the money, was convinced that I was a thief. She had believed some ill-natured things the other servant, who disliked me, had said against me, and had become ready to think ill of me. When, long after, this lady found out her injustice, she took pains to declare my innocence and to ask my forgiveness. But ladies should be careful ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... to the credit of this much-abused man. He wrote two masterpieces of fiction (one of them a work of considerable length), and in neither will you find an ill-natured character or an ill-natured word. On the admission of all critics My Father, My Mother, My Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, and Mrs. Wadman are immortal creations. To the making of them there has gone no single sour or uncharitable ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... good-nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown, had offered one of his playes to the Players, in order to have it acted; but the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him, with an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to encourage him to read through and afterwards to recommend Ben Jonson and his writings to the publick. After this ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the position she now occupies. How often shall I be obliged to impress upon you that it is the spirit, not the letter, that is of importance? As secretary of the Society for the Practice of Moderation, Mrs. Marsh can afford to disregard the ill-natured sneers of those who may have enjoyed greater advantages in early life than she. It is not by wholesale abuse of others, Virginia, that you will persuade me of your innocence. On your own showing, you have written to Mr. Spence, and misconstrued Mr. Barr's poetic impetuosity as an attempt to flirt ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... in a boldly challenging tone. Criticism, says the author, has been badly abused: it has been regarded as an excuse for the ill-natured to find fault or for the better-natured to eulogize. But true criticism has for its end "to set in the best light all Beauties, and to touch upon Defects no more than is necessary." Beyond this it seeks to set up a right taste for the age. His own purpose is to examine ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... overcame these boyish weaknesses, but he never got over his feeling for the stage. There were certain ill-natured gossips who claimed to have recognized the fine, upright figure and the mobile face with hair greying at the temples as having occupied a seat in the third row of the balcony in the old Grand Opera House during the run of Erminie. The elders ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... 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 ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... one word of retraction, sir," resumed the young officer. "Say that General Bonaparte's reputation for honor and delicacy is such that a miserable Italian proverb, inspired by ill-natured losers, cannot reflect discredit on him. Say that, and I throw this weapon away to grasp your hand; for I recognize in you, sir, a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Seidlitz rendered me the highest services; in a place where the Cavalry could not act [border of the Spittelwald, and its impassable entanglements and obstinacies], he put himself at the head of the Infantry, and did signal services [his Battle mainly, scheming and all, say some ill-natured private accounts]; Generals Belling and Kleist [renowned Colonels known to us, now become Major-Generals] did their very best. All the Infantry was admirable; not one battalion yielded ground. My Aide-de-Camp [Kalkreuth, a famous man in the Napoleon times long ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... said, been lately brought home to her by certain of her friends who had been urging her to give a ball—a suggestion which, for the following reasons, she found herself unwilling to entertain. "It is impossible," she said, "to give a successful ball in London without being very ill-natured to a large number of people. Many of those who would think they had a right to be asked would—though on other occasions no doubt welcome enough—be as much out of place in a ballroom as a man would ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Aunt Emma, "you're always telling tales. Jane's my cook, Milly, and Polly doesn't like cats, so you see he tries to make Jane believe that our old cat steals the meat out of the larder. Good-bye, Polly, good-bye. You're an ill-natured old bird, but I'm very fond of you all ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Unluckily, those nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours; and, one fine morning, Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured endorsement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... occasions; but her cousin was a "stunner," and, secure in Fanny's exuberant favor, he made himself quite at home. Placed on Diana's left at table, he gave her much voluble information about her neighbors, mostly ill-natured; he spoke familiarly of "that clever chap Marsham," as of a politician who owed his election for the division entirely to the good offices of Mr. Fred Birch's firm, and described Lady Lucy as "an old dear," though very "frowsty" in her ideas. He was strongly of opinion ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... twelve. I can't cook. I am trying to learn, but I don't make much progress. Aunt Olivia says I haven't enough natural gumption ever to be a cook; but I'd love to be able to make as good cakes and pies as Felicity can make. But then, Felicity is stupid. It's not ill-natured of me to say that. It's just the truth, and you'd soon find it out for yourselves. I like Felicity very well, but she IS stupid. Cecily is ever so much cleverer. Cecily's a dear. So is Uncle Alec; and Aunt Janet ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... niece, but Betty was already hurrying out of the door. She did not mind Aunt Barbara, but Aunt Mary in the distressing silk wrapper that belonged to cross days was too much for one to bear. They had no business to be looking over her bureau drawer; then Betty was sorry for having been so ill-natured about it. Letty had told her, earlier, that some of her clothes could not be worn again until they were mended, and Aunt Barbara had, no doubt, been consulted also, and was wondering what was best to be done. Betty's ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... who could never forget that he was a Tory and a gentleman, who had no grit before lords and ladies, whose Abolitionism was not sufficiently blunt and downright in the good company of cabinet ministers, whose sensitive nature flinched at the thought of being conscientiously impolite and heroically ill-natured, and whose manners were thus frequently in the way of the full efficiency of his morals. In many respects a hero, in all respects benevolent, he still was not like Romilly, a man of grit. Politeness has been defined as benevolence in small things. To be benevolent in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... wine circulated, the party grew gay and sociable. Levy was really an entertaining fellow; had all the gossip of the town at his fingers' ends; and possessed, moreover, that pleasant art of saying ill-natured things of the absent, which those present always enjoy. By degrees, too, Mr. Richard Avenel came out; and as the whisper had circulated round the table that he was X. Y., he was listened to with a profound respect, which greatly elevated ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... revolutionary army. But I demand that you look about you and understand the significance of the industrial disturbances and religious unrest of the time. Never till then will you understand anything—certainly not that Shaw is something more than an enfant terrible; Ibsen something more than an ill-natured old man with dyspepsia and a silly lack of interest in skating. Then you will realize that in the most extravagant utterances of a red-shirted strike-leader there may be more fervent faith and honor, oftentimes, than in the virgin prayers of a girl who devoutly attends Christian Endeavor, but presumes ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Jane to undress, with sundry snubbings from Millicent, and some not ill-natured laughter from her young mistress at Jenny's blunders, she was at last free to lie down to rest herself, she was conscious of a little doubt, whether the appellation of "Mrs Jenny," the higher place at the table, and the distinction of being nobody in the drawing-room, were quite as agreeable ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... was big, fat, red-faced, and slow; Paul was slender, awkward, and ill-natured; Jack was quick, and bright, and so little that he might have hidden himself in ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... ill-conditioned man is a man of an in-bred, cherished, and confirmed ill- nature. His heart, which was a sufficiently bad heart to begin with, is now so exercised in evil and so accustomed to evil, that,—how can he be born again when he is so old and so ill-natured? All the qualities, all the passions, all the emotions of his heart are out of joint; their bent is bad; they run out naturally to mischief. Now, what could possibly be more ill-conditioned than to judge ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... in the country to the south. It feeds almost entirely on grasses, and is of a timid, unsuspecting disposition: this renders it an easy prey, and they are slaughtered without mercy on the introduction of fire-arms. The black possesses a more savage nature, and, like the ill-natured in general, is never found with an ounce of fat in its body. From its greater fierceness and wariness, it holds its place in a district much longer than its more timid and better-conditioned neighbor. Mr. Oswell was once stalking two of these beasts, and, as they ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the curtain went up, he called together the members of his troupe, and encouraged them to do their best. La Roulante went up to him, and to his great amazement said a few conciliatory words. As Gudel was by no means ill-natured, he shook hands with her. The giantess turned her face toward Robeccal and ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... make me neither worse nor better," he reflected. "The time will come, I hope, when I shall have risen high enough to be wholly indifferent to such ill-natured sneers." ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... conquering William brought the Normans o'er. All these their barbarous offspring left behind, The dregs of armies, they of all mankind; Blended with Britons, who before, were here. Of whom the Welsh ha' blessed the character. From this amphibious ill-born mob began That vain, ill-natured thing, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... all the facts of the case which was exciting the interest of all Petersburg. The story was this: Some officers were eating oysters and, as usual, drinking very much, when one of them said something ill-natured about the regiment to which Kaminski belonged, and Kaminski called him a liar. The other hit Kaminski. The next day they fought. Kaminski was wounded in the stomach and died two hours later. The murderer and the seconds were ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... I should settle all my Amelia's fortune on her, except a certain sum, which was to be 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
... can. I know he misled you on purpose. He likes to punish those who don't respect his will; and there is a reason in it, often quite clear—not ill-natured. Now you see he compels you to seek him out, and when you do, I think he'll help you through your trouble. He said ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... her neighbor, playing ball down the street, she forgot every thing but 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 'She is an ill-natured little cat, and the man that marries her will find that it is she who will hold the reins and drive ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... adopted the title, and it had remained her poetical alias. The exclamation was, therefore, if not very brilliant, at least very plain and quite just. It soon went around the room as rapidly as every ill-natured phrase will go; for everybody is glad to borrow such remarks from his neighbor without paying the price of them himself. I soon saw one of Madame Emile de Girardin's intimate friends whisper something ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... undertone, of course. He was an intelligent fellow, with wit as keen as his razor; urbane, and having the best of tempers. It has been truthfully said of this old-time tradesman that one might travel from pole to pole and never encounter an ill-natured or ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... a thing it is to have the pleasure of your novel destroyed by the ill-considered triumph of a previous reader. 'Oh, you needn't be alarmed, for Augusta, of course, she accepts Gustavus in the end.' 'How very ill-natured you are, Susan,' says Kitty, with tears in her eyes; 'I don't care a bit about it now.' Dear Kitty, if you will read my book, you may defy the ill-nature of your sister. There shall be no secret that she can tell you. Nay, take the last chapter, if you please—learn from its pages ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... them to explain their conduct; therefore he was often mistaken in his judgment of them. He thought that it showed SPIRIT, to remember and to resent an injury; and, therefore, though he was not an ill-natured man, he was sometimes led, by this mistaken idea of SPIRIT, to do ill-natured things: "A warm friend and a bitter enemy," was one of his maxims, and he had many more enemies than friends. He was not very rich, but he was proud; and ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... strange and novel seemed the idea that the company stood with faces expressive of nothing but a dumb, dull wonder. Only some of the ladies (as Chichikov did not fail to remark) exchanged meaning, ill-natured winks and a series of sarcastic smiles: which circumstance still further increased his confusion. That Nozdrev was a notorious liar every one, of course, knew, and that he should have given vent to an idiotic outburst of this sort had surprised no one; but a dead soul—well, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... her head. "Oh, I never was allowed a peep at him; none of her old friends met him, except by accident. Ill-natured people say that was the reason she kept him so long. If one happened in while he was there, he was hustled into Anerton's study, and the husband mounted guard till the inopportune visitor had departed. Anerton, you know, was really much more ridiculous about it than ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here in regard to that silly fee of a pistole. Surely every thinking man will make a distinction between a fee and a tax. Poor people! I pity their ignorance and narrow, ill-natured spirits. But, my friend, consider that I could by no means give up this fee without affronting the Board of Trade and the Council here who established it." His thoughts were not all of this harassing nature, and he ends his letter with the following ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... I won't; I will play in here. Don't be so ill-natured.' And with a very bad grace the cat untied the string and threw the golden ball into the lion's lap, and ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... of the three young Branghtons and myself. The son is twenty; the daughters upon hearing that I was seventeen, said that was just the age of Miss Polly; but their brother, after a long dispute, proved that she was two years older, to the great anger of both sisters, who agreed that he was very ill-natured and spiteful. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... Cadet's ill-natured remark was either unheard or unheeded; besides, he was privileged to say anything. Des Meloises bowed with an air of perfect complaisance to the Intendant as he answered,—"I guarantee the perfect satisfaction of Angelique with this marked compliment of the Grand ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... very good reasons," interrupted Hilda. "Don't talk that way about her, dear Hilda. You are too ill-natured, and I can't bear to have ill-natured things said about the dear old thing. You don't know her as I do, or you would never ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
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