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More "Snappish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people prostrate themselves before the beast. His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set out. Here they beg pardon of the beast and worship him. Then his flesh ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... unwitting breach of the rules, wondering what there was in the air of Ascalon that made people combative. Even this fresh-faced girl, not twenty, he was sure, was resentful, snappish without cause, inclined to quarrel if a word got crosswise in a man's mouth. As he turned these things in mind, casting about for some place to stow his bag, the girl smiled across at him, the mockery going out of her bright ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... pointed muzzles, tails curling upward, and long shaggy hair. They are half-wild, snappish, and surly, as it is possible for dogs to be. They attack strangers with fury, and it is as much as their masters can do to rescue even a friend from their attack. Even when wounded, and unable any longer to keep their feet, they will crawl along ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... prudence and timidity reigned supreme. Though the Czar uttered some snappish words at the threatening increase to the Duchy of Warsaw, he still posed as Napoleon's ally. The Swedes, weary of their hopeless strifes with France, Russia, and Denmark, deposed the still bellicose Gustavus IV.; and his successor, Charles XIII., made ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Hawkes whether he should take out a Free Status registration, the gambler replied with a quick, snappish, "Not yet." ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... and snappish enough, was not worded as an invitation for me to sit down, I accepted it as such, and took the chair which a lean boy of some nine or ten years old had hurriedly vacated. In such cases, I had learned by experience, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... with his mistress, although I confess my feelings towards him were rather those of fear than any other, for to touch him was quite sufficient to evoke a growl, or perchance a snap, from this pet of a dozen years or more. A cross, snappish fellow he was at best, and well he knew the length of Trusty the house-dog's chain, which less favoured quadruped was never let loose by day, from a well-grounded fear that he might, if allowed, resent, by summary punishment, the constant insults he was doomed ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... by a kind correspondent—a learned Professor in India—as a sample of squabbling between Scottish servants. A mistress observing something peculiar in her maid's manner, addressed her, "Dear me, Tibbie, what are you so snappish about, that you go knocking the things as you dust them?" "Ou, mem, it's Jock." "Well, what has Jock been doing?" "Ou (with an indescribable, but easily imaginable toss of the head), he was angry at ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... "She grows more snappish each day," whispered Miss Slowcum to Mrs. Dredge; but just then the attention of all the good ladies was diverted by a ringing peal at the hall door-bell, followed by eager voices in the hall, and then by the entrance of Poppy, alias Sarah, who broke in upon the quiet of high ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... threepennorths.' This imperfect sentence not being at all intelligible as a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram, brought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce at him in a more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... habit, the doctor had taken counsel of his fears until he was completely unnerved, and he went home more than usually surly and snappish. As he entered his office, Russell advanced to meet him from the window whence, for nearly an hour, he had been ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment. The wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter will and testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned, to his own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be so snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true religion? Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite out of his chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest need of the aid, suffrage, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in presently, but Carol did not give her the invitation. Instead, she was almost snappish to her idol, and the Princess soon went out again in something of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sailed, Dr. Wade appeared with a letter he had received from the Major, asking him to take charge of Isobel on the voyage, Mrs. Hannay conceived a violent objection to him. He had, in fact, been by no means pleased with the commission, and had arrived in an unusually aggressive and snappish humor. He cut short Mrs. Hannay's well turned sentences ruthlessly, and aggrieved her by remarking on Helena's want of color, and recommending plenty of walking exercise taken at a brisk pace, and more ease and comfort in the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... death; and that will come soon.' Now what could I say? I felt such a lump in my throat, that if Solomon had whispered to me some kind speech, I could not have uttered it, so I got out of the room just as fast as possible, to dry the tears that somehow would blur my eyes. When they are surly, or snappish, or violent, or insolent, I know exactly what to do, and have no trouble; but hang me, if I can cope with this lady—there it is out! She is a lady every inch, and as much out of place here as I should be in Queen Victoria's drawing-room. Men are clumsy brutes, even ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... creatures in which the thread of the most equable female existence is necessarily worsted. Miss POTTS, then, although looking up from her trying worsted occupation at the servant who entered with a rather snappish expression of countenance, was guilty of no particularly hypocritical assumption in at once suffering her features to relax into a sweetly pensive smile upon learning that there was a gentleman to see ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... she is at once a virgin and an experienced woman! How can a man remain cold, like St. Anthony, before such powerful sorcery, and have the courage to remain faithful to the good principles represented by a scornful wife, whose face is always stern, whose manners are always snappish, and who frequently refuses to be caressed? What husband is stoical enough to resist such fires, such frosts? There, where you see a new harvest of pleasure, the young innocent sees an income, and your wife her liberty. It is a little ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... I am right!" replied the snappish professor. Soon, however, recovering his equanimity, he continued: "It is fortunate that the earth was only touched obliquely; if the comet had impinged perpendicularly, it must have plowed its way deep below the surface, and the disasters it might have caused are beyond ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... in his vest-pocket;" though I had spoken to him thus, from a sense of duty, tryin' to keep him straight and upright in his demeaner,—still, I was a thinkin' how pleasant it wuz to work for them you loved, and that loved you: for though he had snapped me up considerable snappish, and said "he should carry round in his pockets as much as he was a minter; and if I didn't want to mend it, I could let it alone," and had throwed it down in the corner, and slammed the door considerable ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... to tire of Castlewood and the inhabitants of that mansion, and the neighbours who came to visit them. This clever woman tired of most things and people sooner or later. So she took to nodding and sleeping over the chaplain's stories, and to doze at her whist and over her dinner, and to be very snappish and sarcastic in her conversation with her Esmond nephews and nieces, hitting out blows at my lord and his brother the jockey, and my ladies, widowed and unmarried, who winced under her scornful remarks, and bore them ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... war he was in command of the "Hornet," a snappish vessel with more stings than one, and while cruising in South American waters he met the British man-of-war "Peacock." Now, when a hornet and a peacock quarrel, lively times are likely to ensue, and so ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... 22nd current, Ascension-day at night, [Footnote: In 1664 Ascension-day fell on the NINETEENTH of May] after a play in the palace, upon a slight occasion of snappish words, unless there were something of old grudge or rivalship in the case, the Marquis of Albersan, challenging Don Domingo Guzman, and he fought under the palace, near the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo's house in the Florida, where Don Domingo gave the Marquis that whereof he died. The next morning ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... return from the Clancys' in the morning. She had been too long under fire, and was wearied. Even the cheery visits of the garrison gallants had proved of little avail, for Mrs. Rayner was in very ill temper, and made snappish remarks to them which two of them resented and speedily took themselves off. Later Miss Travers went to her room and wrote a letter, and then the sunset gun shook the window, and twilight settled down upon the still frozen earth. She bathed her heated forehead and flushed cheeks, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... stare. "I don't feel kind just now. James has given me a horror of things of the sort. I don't believe he meant it. I think he felt snappish and thought he would relieve his feelings that way. But there it is. He has made it all rather disgusting. It's become like a kind of intrigue of vulgar ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... should I see at twenty paces distance but the remains of my servant. I recognized his powder-horn and the sheath of his knife. That was all that remained of him, I tell you this to prove to you that my dogs are very snappish and well-trained; for they will not injure a hair on ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... collar the money, and the woman's in your hands. And then should she ever turn snappish you'd be able ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... not, however, so rare an occurrence for the Squire to be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the one was too discreet and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be; and shortly after breakfast the Squire retired into his study, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... is a little more snappish than usual. I have a hard time, I assure you, with her. My great friend, Maurice Trevor, returns, I think, in a day or two. Ah, Florence, you little know what a great, ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... in each other's arms, but sitting side by side in the same cosy nuptial nest, to be startled out of their love-dreams by the great lamp-eyed, beaked face of a horrible monster with horns, picked out of feathered bed, and wafted off in one bunch, within talons, to pacify a set of hissing, and snappish, and shapeless powder-puffs, in the loophole of a barn? In a house where a cat is kept, mice are much to be pitied. They are so infatuated with the smell of a respectable larder, that to leave the premises, they confess, is impossible. Yet every hour—nay, every minute of their lives—must ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... pretty much in the natyve character of the religious truth. Hurry has not been able, and that is the long and short of it. I've seen many squalls, old fellow, both on land and on the water, but never did I feel one as lively and as snappish as that which come down upon us, night afore last, in the shape of an Indian hurrah-boys! Why, Hetty, you're no great matter at a reason, or an idee that lies a little deeper than common, but you're human and have ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a melancholy cottage by the road side, and the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows. It was a kind of afternoon on which nice people for the most part like to be snug at home, and Theobald was a little snappish at reflecting how many miles he had to post before he could be at his own fireside again. However there was nothing for it, so the pair sat quietly and watched the roadside objects flit by them, and get greyer and grimmer as the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... favors nor money. But this they cannot understand, for so conceited is a Frenchman that many of them think that I came to Paris to be paid. Now I never got the difference in the boiling of the pot between New York and Paris in my life. The "Journal des Debats" was snappish with "Water Witch," merve [?] I believe with "Bravo," and let it bark at "Heidenmauer" and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... sister. She is of a snappish temper, but dresses in the most juvenile style, and is persuaded that anything can be accomplished if persons will only "make an effort."—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... another; still he did not return. Lottie's head bent lower and lower over her work. Mr. Dimmerly never played a more wretched game of whist. At last he quite startled them all by throwing down the cards and saying, in the most snappish of tones, "I wish ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... common Indian dog; generally undersized, uncared for, half starved most of the time, and snappish because not handled save with roughness. In general appearance he resembles somewhat a small malamute, though, indeed, nowadays so mixed have breeds become that he may be any cur or mongrel. He is a wonderful little ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... she? That's my gift. I play the violin beautifully," cried Norah modestly, and when Rex laughed aloud she grew angry, and protested in snappish manner, "Well, you said yourself that we could not help knowing our own talents. It's quite true, I do play well. Everyone says so. If you don't believe it, I'll get my violin and let ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... now the toilet's care Claims from her couch the restless fair; The toilet's care!—the glass has won Just half a glance, and all is done! A snappish—pettish word or so Warns the poor maid 'tis time to go:— Not at her toilet wait the Graces Uncombed Erynnys takes their places; So great a mind expands its scope Far from the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Wharton's enthusiasm and loftiness of aim, but with a greater realization of people's capacities. He too had made a study of elderly ladies, who are always such an important branch of congregations. He could see that what Miss Symons was in his drawing-room, touchy, incompetent, and snappish she would be in any work she did in the parish. But he was also made to see her extreme generosity, of which she herself was entirely unconscious. He liked and was touched by her humility. "Oh no, don't trouble about ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... or rather snapped—he had never been snappish before—'since you took the confounded thing off last evening I haven't seen it and I haven't touched it, and I don't know ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... whilst we were at dinner, and paid a visit to a rose-headed parraquet (Palaeornis rosa), mounting up on Polly's perch, and sitting down to supper in the tin receptacles for food at each end. She generally treated them with silent contempt, or gave a snappish little peck if they were too familiar; sometimes, when they were too sky-larky, she retreated to her ring above, where she swung and looked down at them from a coign of vantage. Their agility in running up and down the wires of a cage is marvellous. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... progress was then new to me, and I had made but imperfect preparations, so that when we rounded the pier to the west, and met the short, snappish sea in the bay, every wave clashed over me, and in ten minutes I was wet to the skin, while a great deal of water entered the fore-compartment of the yawl through the hole for the chain-cable at that time left open. {85} The surprising suddenness ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... keep earlier hours. He turned out at nine o'clock instead of eleven and twelve, hours which had formerly matched his languid fancy. These energetic doings bred alarm in both Matzai and Mr. Pickwick, evoking snappish protests from the latter, who, being of a nocturnal turn, held that the day was meant for sleep. On the morning after he had been honored with the privilege of the veranda door, Richard was borne upon by something akin to gloom. This feeling went with him from bed to bath, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in a garb like this? Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng To thaw him into feeling, or the smart And snappish dialogue that flippant wits Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile? The self-complacent actor, when he views (Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) The slope of faces from the floor to the roof, As if one master-spring controlled ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... took his glass and drank 'prosperity to the bride and bridegroom.' The sarcastic rival barmaid said little snappish things to him, offered him a bit of green ribbon, and told him that if he 'minded hisself,' somebody might, perhaps, take him yet. But Charley ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... thin-skinned &c. (sensitive) 822; fretful, fidgety; on the fret. hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy[obs3], tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy,; pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish, " sudden and quick in quarrel " [As You Like It]. querulous, captious, moodish[obs3]; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c. (bellicose) 720; cantankerous, exceptious[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... least every one supposes I am civilised, and my whole being has changed. I cannot so much as look upon a great many books in a library or any other heaped-up place, without feeling bleak and heartless. I never read if I can help it. My whole attitude toward current literature is grouty and snappish, a kind of perpetual interrupted "What are you ringing my door-bell now for?" attitude. I am a disagreeable character. I spend at least one half my time, I should judge, keeping things off, in defending my character. Then I spend the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... came and went; there were two that seldom were away—the tall and supple one of the dark face and the easy tread, and his yellow shadow—the ever unpopular, snappish, prick-eared cur, that held by force of arms all territories at floor level contiguous to, under, comprised, and bounded by, the four square legs and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... persist in loving some men whom I also know, is more than I know. I will not call their love an exhibition of perverseness, though it looks like it; but that these men with these rich, sweet hearts in their hands, grow sour and snappish, and surly and tyrannical and exacting, is the most unaccountable thing in the world. If a pig will not allow himself to be driven, he will follow a man who offers him corn, and he will eat the corn, even though he puts his feet in ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... have such a snappish thread in you!" said Mr. Motley yawning—"only it sits better on George than it does on you. But I like it—it rather excites me to be snubbed. However, here comes Linden—so I hope they'll not follow him ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... paper published there, by an ambitious youth, called the "Clarion," which contained snappish editorials about its neighbors, aspiring criticisms upon the publications of different authors, always ending in an unmistakable "puff," if they were at all popular, or a feeble attempt at discriminating censure, if the unlucky scribe was unknown to fame, and had (poor wretch,) ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... took its place; there was no quarrelling; only an uncomfortable feeling in the air, and looks that were no longer pleased and pleasant. Mrs. Bartholomew wore a discontented face, and behaved so. Judy was snappish; not a new thing exactly, but it was invariable now. David was very quiet and very sober; however in his case the quiet was quiet, and the soberness was very serene; all the old gloom seemed to be gone. Norton, Matilda thought, was cross; and she failed to see the occasion. Even Mrs. Laval ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... us as soon as he could and went and joined them. Very young she looked, but I suppose married, from her pearls and clothes—American probably, as she was perhaps too well dressed for one of us; but quite a lady and awfully pretty. Hector was so snappish about it, and would not tell her name, that it makes me sure he is very much in love with her, and Jack thinks so too. So, dear Aunt Milly, you need have no more anxieties about him, as she can't have been married long, she looks so young, and so must be quite safe. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... these muffins different from what you get at home," said Mrs. Jenkins, in her curt, snappish, but really not inhospitable way, as she handed the muffins to Roland. "I know what it is when things are left to servants, as they are at your place; they turn out uneatable—soddened things, with rancid butter, nine times out of ten, instead of good, wholesome ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... animal, with his double row of formidable pointed fangs, which he seemed to take delight in displaying as he opened his large jaws, Mrs. Grivois could not help giving utterance to a cry of terror. The snappish pug had at first trembled in all his limbs at the Siberian's approach; but, finding himself in safety on the lap of his mistress, he began to growl insolently, and to throw the most provoking glances at Spoil-sport. These the worthy companion of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... a little snappish, for praisin' one gall to another ain't the shortest way to win their regard, "go on with ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... so snappish about her," insisted Maria. "If you are in that temper often, I don't wonder the young woman wanted to ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... There is the tone didactic, the tone enthusiastic, the tone natural—all common—place enough. But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come much into use. It consists in short sentences. Somehow thus: Can't be too brief. Can't be too snappish. Always a full ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he went on in his snappish way. "You are the only man to take my place. They would come to you; but not to a new man. All I can hope is that they won't bore you with their domestic troubles—as they have done me," and ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Mirrable, who had been into Calne, was hurrying back in the twilight. As she passed Jabez Gum's gate, the clerk's wife was standing at it, talking to Mrs. Jones. The two were laughing: Mrs. Gum seemed in a less depressed state than usual, and the other less snappish. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... life his wife must ha' led, Vor so snappish he's leaetely a-come, That there's nothen but anger or dread Where he is, abroad or at hwome; He do wreak all his spite on the bwones O' whatever do vlee, or do crawl; He do quarrel wi' stocks, an' wi' stwones, An' the rain, if do hold up or vall; There is nothen vrom mornen till night Do come ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... pieces and make up again his watch, thereby being taught what I never knew before; and it is a thing very well worth my having seen, and am mightily pleased and satisfied with it. So I sat talking with him till late at night, somewhat vexed at a snappish answer Madam Williams did give me to herself, upon my speaking a free word to her in mirthe, calling her a mad jade. She answered, we were not so well acquainted yet. But I was more at a letter from my Lord Duke of Albemarle to-day, pressing ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... higher; but I cannot find out that they are any more satisfactory. There are also some distant relations, named Chestnut and Pine, who can be employed in the same way, at a much lower rate; but they are all snappish and uncertain ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... instructions to Major-Gen. Anderson in Florida, who has but 8000 men, opposed by 15,000, were referred by the Secretary of War to Gen. Bragg, who returned them with the following snappish indorsement: "The enemy's strength seems greatly exaggerated, and the instructions ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... jolly little breakfasts together in the salon. They consist of coffee and rolls, and are served by a droll, snappish little garcon with no teeth, and an Italian-French patois which is very hard to understand when he sputters. He told me the other day that he had been a garcon for forty-six years, which seemed rather ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... repeated the gentle lady, in a tone half snappish, half harsh, "do you think I am made of iron, to tell you my story and be calm? I hate him! I hate him! I would kill him if I could: and if you, Sir Norman, are half the man I take you to be, you will rid the world of the ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... torchlight, and anarchy hatefuller than death. How insubordinate Troopers, with drink in their heads, meet Captain Dampmartin and another on the ramparts, where there is no escape or side-path; and make military salute punctually, for we look calm on them; yet make it in a snappish, almost insulting manner: how one morning they 'leave all their chamois shirts' and superfluous buffs, which they are tired of, laid in piles at the Captain's doors; whereat 'we laugh,' as the ass does, eating thistles: nay ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Nat," grandpa shook his head. "He was as high-spirited a young chap as ever lived, but uncontrolled and always fighting against the pricks. It must be pretty hard for him, pretty hard. He has grown so morose and snappish that no one takes the trouble to do more than nod to him nowadays. He wasn't a bad sort, too free and open-handed, too ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... black dress, and something seemed to rebel in her throat against her bonnet-strings. What did she think in those sacred moments? Let us not profane her worship with too minute inquiry. Whatever she thought, those emotions were perfectly valid. She might be snappish, limited, and say ugly things during half the week, but there was something underneath all that which was in communication with the skies. The church was the only mental or spiritual education which Miss Tippit received. Books she never read—she ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... on the first day of his visit, that it would be well-nigh as safe to play with a handful of dynamite as with Lad's gold-and-white mate, Lady. Lady did not care for liberties from anyone. And she took no pains to mask her snappish first-sight aversion to the lanky Cyril. Her fiery little son, Wolf, was scarce less formidable than she, when it came to being teased by an outsider. But gallant old Lad was ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression, irritable—almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had brought ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... flesh upon Fridays? Well! Well! See the event, and then remember that Dame Jacintha warned you of it!" These were my very words, but Alas! I might as well have held my tongue! Nobody minded me; and Flora, who is somewhat pert and snappish, (More is the pity, say I) told me that there was no more harm in eating a Chicken than the egg from which it came. Nay, She even declared that if her Lady added a slice of bacon, She would not be an inch nearer Damnation, God protect us! A poor ignorant sinful ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... snappish to Enrica. She had twitted her with wanting to go to the Orsetti ball, although Enrica had never been to any ball or any assembly whatever in her life, and no word had been spoken about it. Enrica never did speak; she had ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... how snappish you are. Here, put this nice sweetmeat in your mouth," said Romola, smiling through her tears, and taking something very crisp and sweet ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and if, in the exuberance of child-nature, she transgressed this rule, especially at meal-times, Aunt Jemima's mouth would open like a pair of nut-crackers, and she would give utterance to a succession of such snappish chidings, that Marian would almost be afraid she was going to be swallowed up. A hundred times a day the child incurred the righteous ire of this cast-iron aunt. From morning to night the little thing was worried almost out of her life by ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... raising his expressionless face to hers, asked in almost a snappish tone, "Well, and who has heard them ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... vain! through wrath or pride, The Council all espouse his side And will our missives con no more; And who that knows what savants are, Each snappish as a Leyden jar, Will hope to soothe the wordy war ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... him. His complexion was of the muddy and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best description of him may be given in two familiar expressions—he was sharp and snappish. His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre look, and magpie eyes of no particular color. A magpie eye, according to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty. "Look at So-and-so," he said to Las Cases at Saint Helena, alluding to a confidential servant whom he had been obliged to dismiss for ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... getting some clue to the missing data, I ventured to make a second call upon Mr. Grewter, whom I found rather inclined to be snappish, as considering the Meynell business unlikely to result in any profit to himself, and objecting on principle to take any trouble not likely to result in profit. I believe this is the mercantile manner of looking at things in ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the drink had kindled some hankering for eternal splendours, was well content with the singing of "The Farmer's Boy," and joined in the chorus with the remnants of a once mighty voice. After that he became restless and increasingly snappish; his face darkened at "Fallen Leaves," and he began to look positively dangerous when a young man who was a railway porter in town, now home for a holiday, made a ghastly attempt at merriment by singing a low-class music-hall catch. What he ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... leisure; after which she instructed him what he should do what while her sovranty lasted. Then, turning to the company, she said, "Dioneo willed yesterday that we should discourse to-day of the tricks that women play their husbands and but that I am loath to show myself of the tribe of snappish curs, which are fain incontinent to avenge themselves of any affront done them, I would say that to-morrow's discourse should be of the tricks that men play their wives. But, letting that be, I ordain ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... had all agreed splendidly, but now John's irritability seemed to increase hourly; and as regards myself, I often found it necessary to exercise very great self-control to avoid giving very sharp and snappish answers to John's peevish and ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... peevishness of our times are chiefly attributable to tea and coffee. The digestive organs of confirmed coffee drinkers are in a state of chronic derangement which reacts on the brain, producing fretful and lachrymose moods. The snappish, petulant humor of the Chinese can certainly be ascribed to their immoderate ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... to have exercised little pains and less discretion in appointing his subordinates. Good fortune sent him a gentle, wise, and noble woman as superintendent; but the other teachers were less capable, some snappish, some without authority. The housekeeper, who should have been chosen with the greatest care, since in her hands lay the whole management and preparation of the food of these growing children, was a slovenly, wasteful woman, taken from Mr. Wilson's kitchen, and much ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... more good than a long sermon, I know," said Susan; "except on a Sunday, of course," she added apologetically. This was an ill-tempered attack both on Hetta and Hetta's admirer. But then why had Hetta been so snappish? ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... Campbell opportunity to express herself characteristically in behalf of down-trodden "labor." The whole story is simple, natural, sweet, and tender; and the figures of Connie, poor little cripple, and Miss Medora Flint, angular and snappish domestic, lend picturesqueness to ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... I think he must have been. How else could he have written "The Critique of Pure Reason"? Tobacco is the handmaid of science, philosophy, and literature. Carlyle eased his indigestion and snappish temper by perpetual pipes. The generous use of the weed makes the enforced retirement of Sing Sing less irksome to forgers, second-story men, and fire bugs. Samuel Butler, who had little enough truck with churchmen, was once invited to stay a week-end by ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... I think she does—her corresponding with her sister can do no harm. She wrote at great length the same day; cried profusely over her own epistolary composition; and was remarkably ill-tempered and snappish toward me, when we met in the evening. She wants experience, poor girl—she sadly wants experience of the world. How consoling to know that I am just the man to give ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... on the mother, "you want to relieve Uncle James's disagreeable feelings all you can, and don't you see that you increase them when you do things to annoy him? His snappish feelings are just like a sore that is smarting and aching all the time, and when you get in their way it hurts as if you rubbed the sore. Keep out of his way when you can, and when you can't and he snaps at you, say: 'I beg your pardon, sir,' like gentlemen, and stop doing what annoys ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... from her snappish disposition. She was the nurse of Florence Dombey, to whom she was much attached. Susan Nipper married Mr. Toots (after he had got over his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... that he is looking well. They salute each other with, "I hope you are good this morning;" or "I hope you have recovered from the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;" and if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he says so at once and is condoled with accordingly. Indeed, the straighteners have gone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught at the Colleges of Unreason), to all known forms of mental indisposition, ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... her speak so abruptly before. Her manner, in a girl less noticeably pretty, might almost have been called snappish. George, however, did not appear to have noticed anything amiss. He filled his pipe and ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... last to the blackest desperation. But youth asserted itself: one fine morning he woke up with such a furious hatred for 'his sister and best of friends' that he almost killed his valet in his passion, and was snappish for a long while after at the slightest allusion to elevated and disinterested passion. But from that time forth Tatyana Borissovna began to avoid all intimacy with ladies of the neighbourhood more ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... will have to get up very early in the morning to outwit us in this matter.'' There was a general outburst of laughter as the two leaders eyed each other. It reminded one of nothing so much as a sturdy mastiff contemplating a snappish terrier. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... abundance of ridiculous pride, though having nothing to be proud of; and one of the daughters, Miss Belinda, was remarkable for holding up her head as if she had been the finest lady in the land, besides having a curt, snappish way of speaking, that made me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... so soft, the peer replied— "A famous king of Egypt, sir, of old." "Oh, poh!" th' instructed monarch snappish cried, "I need not that—I need not ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... "Ah, indeed—snappish, are you?" said the young man, attempting to turn himself a little, the better to see his companion. "Confound that leg!" he continued, as a fierce twinge gave him warning not to try many experiments. "I know her name is Maggie Miller, and I supposed ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... and another; still he did not return. Lottie's head bent lower and lower over her work. Mr. Dimmerly never played a more wretched game of whist. At last he quite startled them all by throwing down the cards and saying, in the most snappish of tones, "I wish ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... "No," was the snappish reply. "I don't want to fish. I have other things on my mind. I have been thinking about this a good deal, young man, and I am not going to put up with any of your insolence. I am an officer in Her Majesty's service, and when one is placed in a position like ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... had come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression, irritable—almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had brought such great relief of mind to herself which was almost certainly responsible for her ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is, Mr. Kipling has put the worst of his genius into his poetry. His verses have brazen "go" and lively colour and something of the music of travel; but they are too illiberal, too snappish, too knowing, to afford deep or permanent ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... replied Mrs. D, scarcely able to restrain her snappish humour, but, fearful of losing the jaunt, politically added, "Suppose, love, we go to-day—no ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... recollections, deprived also of the domestic society to which he had been habituated, began to suffer in body as well as in mind. He had formed the determination of setting out in person for Dumfriesshire, when, after having been dogged, peevish, and snappish to his clerks and domestics, to an unusual and almost intolerable degree, the acrimonious humours settled in a hissing-hot fit of the gout, which is a well-known tamer of the most froward spirits, and under whose discipline we shall, for the present, leave him, as the continuation of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... passes into reflection, not with curt apothegm and snappish reproof, but with that melodious flow of utterance which belongs to thought when it is carried along in a ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, but ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... say in each other's arms, but sitting side by side in the same cosy nuptial nest, to be startled out of their love-dreams by the great lamp-eyed, beaked face of a horrible monster with horns, picked out of feathered bed, and wafted off in one bunch, within talons, to pacify a set of hissing, and snappish, and shapeless powder-puffs, in the loophole of a barn? In a house where a cat is kept, mice are much to be pitied. They are so infatuated with the smell of a respectable larder, that to leave the premises, they ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... be brought home to him presently, for old Jacob had had duly recounted to him over again all his cock-and-bull stories, and was in high dudgeon. When he came again the old man was very snappish to him, and he found it so unpleasant in the house that he made all the haste he could to get his business done. While he was thus occupied, the little girl told him all about the Naiad, and the part her grandfather had taken in ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... at night, [Footnote: In 1664 Ascension-day fell on the NINETEENTH of May] after a play in the palace, upon a slight occasion of snappish words, unless there were something of old grudge or rivalship in the case, the Marquis of Albersan, challenging Don Domingo Guzman, and he fought under the palace, near the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo's house in the Florida, where ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... cause these, I fear my character for good-nature would be gone with you forever. "This genial writer," as the newspapers call me, would show but little geniality: I am aware, indeed, that I have already been writing in a style which, to say the least, is snappish. So I shall say nothing of the first death that comes in the family in our childish days,—its hurry, its confusion, its awe-struck mystery, its wonderfully vivid recalling of the words and looks of the dead; nor of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... mansion, and the neighbours who came to visit them. This clever woman tired of most things and people sooner or later. So she took to nodding and sleeping over the chaplain's stories, and to doze at her whist and over her dinner, and to be very snappish and sarcastic in her conversation with her Esmond nephews and nieces, hitting out blows at my lord and his brother the jockey, and my ladies, widowed and unmarried, who winced under her scornful remarks, and bore them as they best might. The cook, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't remember nuthin', nor don't want to. I want to go to sleep!" sez he, snappish as anything, so I went out and let him think if he wanted to, that I made the Springs, and the Minerals, and the Gysers, and the Spoutin' Rock, and everything. Good land! I knew I didn't; but I had to rest under the unkind insinnuation. ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... toilet's care Claims from her couch the restless fair; The toilet's care!—the glass has won Just half a glance, and all is done! A snappish—pettish word or so Warns the poor maid 'tis time to go:— Not at her toilet wait the Graces Uncombed Erynnys takes their places; So great a mind expands its scope Far from the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... contempt on the girl's face as she took in her surroundings rather nettled the old man, and he gave her a snappish answer, then picked himself up, and went off ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... in whom the drink had kindled some hankering for eternal splendours, was well content with the singing of "The Farmer's Boy," and joined in the chorus with the remnants of a once mighty voice. After that he became restless and increasingly snappish; his face darkened at "Fallen Leaves," and he began to look positively dangerous when a young man who was a railway porter in town, now home for a holiday, made a ghastly attempt at merriment by singing a low-class music-hall catch. What he would have ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Slop, Trim is certainly in the right; for the writer (who I perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he takes up the apostle, is certainly going to abuse him;—if this treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. Slop, that the writer ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Hetty," returned the individual in question, "you've put it pretty much in the natyve character of the religious truth. Hurry has not been able, and that is the long and short of it. I've seen many squalls, old fellow, both on land and on the water, but never did I feel one as lively and as snappish as that which come down upon us, night afore last, in the shape of an Indian hurrah-boys! Why, Hetty, you're no great matter at a reason, or an idee that lies a little deeper than common, but you're human and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... star; pretty, no doubt, but not in our way. Every morning a railroad train starts out, and approaching within a mile, disappears among the hills with a slight buzzing and squibbing, like the fly on the window; and then after it has gone, as we suppose, there is another squib, very smart and snappish, and we hear nothing more of it till the train comes down, frets a little again as it passes by, and goes on to discharge its contents in the great city. To all these things we say, 'Pass on!' the world is various, and must be amused; but for us, we respectfully ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... notice. Sweet, beautiful Dorine! how amiably affectionate and attached to thy mistress wert thou! The poor animal still exists; for I would have you know that I am speaking of a most faithful little dog; now indeed grown old, asthmatic and snappish; but fifteen years since, distinguished for her lightness, swiftness, and grace, for her pretty little countenance, white teeth, large sparkling eyes, long tufted tail, and above all, for her snow-white coat, spotted here and there with the most ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... they'd do me more good than a long sermon, I know," said Susan; "except on a Sunday, of course," she added apologetically. This was an ill-tempered attack both on Hetta and Hetta's admirer. But then why had Hetta been so snappish? ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... powerful animal, with his double row of formidable pointed fangs, which he seemed to take delight in displaying as he opened his large jaws, Mrs. Grivois could not help giving utterance to a cry of terror. The snappish pug had at first trembled in all his limbs at the Siberian's approach; but, finding himself in safety on the lap of his mistress, he began to growl insolently, and to throw the most provoking glances at Spoil-sport. These the worthy companion of the deceased Jovial answered disdainfully ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... pairing off—visits the classic grounds of Ascot, Epsom, Newmarket, or Goodwood, or traverses the moors of Scotland and Ireland in pursuit of grouse. But once a year they indulge their filial virtues in a visit to the old squire. The old squire, we are sorry to say, has grown of late years queer and snappish, and does not look on this visit quite as gratefully as he should. "If they would but come," he says, "in a quiet way, as I used to ride over and see my father in his time, why I should be right glad to see ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... of the discussion was which company of the regiment would be called upon to start upon the raid, the members of each hoping to be selected; and Captain Roby maintaining loudly, in a sharp, snappish way, that without doubt his company would be chosen, and turning fiercely upon any of his brother ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... things in his vest-pocket;" though I had spoken to him thus, from a sense of duty, tryin' to keep him straight and upright in his demeaner,—still, I was a thinkin' how pleasant it wuz to work for them you loved, and that loved you: for though he had snapped me up considerable snappish, and said "he should carry round in his pockets as much as he was a minter; and if I didn't want to mend it, I could let it alone," and had throwed it down in the corner, and slammed the door considerable hard ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... for she is at once a virgin and an experienced woman! How can a man remain cold, like St. Anthony, before such powerful sorcery, and have the courage to remain faithful to the good principles represented by a scornful wife, whose face is always stern, whose manners are always snappish, and who frequently refuses to be caressed? What husband is stoical enough to resist such fires, such frosts? There, where you see a new harvest of pleasure, the young innocent sees an income, and your wife her liberty. It is a little family compact, which is signed ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... to know the fact, we may as well state at once that this adaptation of new names to old beliefs is not peculiar to the Norsemen, but is found in all the popular tales of Europe. Germany was full of them, and there St Peter often appears in a snappish ludicrous guise, which reminds the reader versed in Norse mythology of the tricks and pranks of the shifty Loki. In the Norse tales he thoroughly preserves ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... Bladen. Then, turnin' on Uncle Jeff, "Only I think you are a mean, hard-hearted old man, even if you are my uncle! Oh, you don't know how often I've wanted to tell you so too,—always prying into this, asking questions about that, finding fault, forever cross and snappish and suspicious. A waspish, crabbed old wretch, that's what you are! I just ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the interrupter and dragged him with extreme violence to the level of the bench, where he muttered like a dying volcano. Angry growls shot up here and there, snappish, menacing, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... little head was that she must never speak unless she was first spoken to; and if, in the exuberance of child-nature, she transgressed this rule, especially at meal-times, Aunt Jemima's mouth would open like a pair of nut-crackers, and she would give utterance to a succession of such snappish chidings, that Marian would almost be afraid she was going to be swallowed up. A hundred times a day the child incurred the righteous ire of this cast-iron aunt. From morning to night the little thing was worried almost out of her life by ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... bad-tempered, ill-tempered; irritable, susceptible; excitable &c. 825; thin-skinned &c. (sensitive) 822; fretful, fidgety; on the fret. hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy[obs3], tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy,; pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish, " sudden and quick in quarrel " [As You Like It]. querulous, captious, moodish[obs3]; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c. (bellicose) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... nervousness and peevishness of our times are chiefly attributable to tea and coffee. The digestive organs of confirmed coffee drinkers are in a state of chronic derangement which reacts on the brain, producing fretful and lachrymose moods. The snappish, petulant humor of the Chinese can certainly be ascribed to their immoderate ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... with the utmost facility. The viper was at one time supposed to have an envenomed tongue, and although this error has been exploded, it is as well to avoid his jaw if possible, as, when irritated, he is very snappish. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... didactic, the tone enthusiastic, the tone natural—all common—place enough. But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come much into use. It consists in short sentences. Somehow thus: Can't be too brief. Can't be too snappish. Always a full stop. And never ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... George Alcott have such a snappish thread in you!" said Mr. Motley yawning—"only it sits better on George than it does on you. But I like it—it rather excites me to be snubbed. However, here comes Linden—so I hope they'll ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... woman, she proposes to him that they travel together through the world: she, the pest, will make people ill; he, as physician, will cure them. So done. As a result the man becomes rich. But at last he grows weary of his excessive work: so he procures a snappish dog, and puts it in a sack. The next time he is called to the side of a person made sick by the pest, he says to her, "Enter human beings no more: if you do, I will liberate from this sack the woman that tormented you in the abyss," at the same time irritating the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... affected his master's spirits; though he did not betray any ill-bred sympathy with Harry's agitation of mind. When Harry began to dress himself in his out-of-door morning costume, he was very hard indeed to please, and particularly severe and snappish about his toilet: he tried, and cursed, pantaloons of many different stripes, checks, and colours: all the boots were villainously varnished; the shirts too "loud" in pattern. He scented his linen and person with peculiar ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... opportunity to express herself characteristically in behalf of down-trodden "labor." The whole story is simple, natural, sweet, and tender; and the figures of Connie, poor little cripple, and Miss Medora Flint, angular and snappish domestic, lend picturesqueness to its ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... to catch the spirit and temper of their masters. A surly man will be very likely to have a cross dog and a biting horse. A passionate man will keep all his animals in moral fear of him, making them, snappish, and liable to hurt those of whom ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... aim, but with a greater realization of people's capacities. He too had made a study of elderly ladies, who are always such an important branch of congregations. He could see that what Miss Symons was in his drawing-room, touchy, incompetent, and snappish she would be in any work she did in the parish. But he was also made to see her extreme generosity, of which she herself was entirely unconscious. He liked and was touched by her humility. "Oh no, don't trouble about asking me, Mr. Vaughan, nobody will want to talk to a ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... were soaked and saturated in their fascinations, and not at liberty to squeeze their hands or ask them for one little lock of hair all through shop-time. Sally did not realise the force of sameness, nor the amount of contempt familiarity will breed. Perhaps the houris got tired and snappish, poor things! and used up their artificial smiles on the customers. Perhaps it had leaked out that the trying-on hands contributed only length, personally, to the loveliness of the trying-on figures. All sorts of things might have happened to influence ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... just collar the money, and the woman's in your hands. And then should she ever turn snappish you'd be ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... down and took his glass and drank 'prosperity to the bride and bridegroom.' The sarcastic rival barmaid said little snappish things to him, offered him a bit of green ribbon, and told him that if he 'minded hisself,' somebody might, perhaps, take him yet. But Charley was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... gentle lady, in a tone half snappish, half harsh, "do you think I am made of iron, to tell you my story and be calm? I hate him! I hate him! I would kill him if I could: and if you, Sir Norman, are half the man I take you to be, you will rid the world of the horrible monster before ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... resuscitation, but the embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence for the Squire to be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the one was too discreet and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be; and shortly after breakfast the Squire retired into his study, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... without imitating several different accents. His familiar tone, his declamatory tone, and his pathetic tone are quite different things. Sometimes Scotch predominates in his pronunciation; sometimes it is imperceptible. Sometimes his utterance is snappish and quick to the last degree; sometimes it is remarkable for rotundity and mellowness. I can easily conceive that two people who had seen him on different days might dispute about him as the travellers in the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... with a cross wife, mother or sister, as its presiding genius. And it is a rule, with exceptions, that good appetite and sound sleep induce amiability. If, with these advantages, a girl or woman, boy or man, is still snappish or surly, why it must be due to her ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... presently, but Carol did not give her the invitation. Instead, she was almost snappish to her idol, and the Princess soon went out again in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... heard her speak so abruptly before. Her manner, in a girl less noticeably pretty, might almost have been called snappish. George, however, did not appear to have noticed anything amiss. He filled his pipe and ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... and when he persuaded you," inquired Belle. Selene grew snappish. "Oh, you read the papers. We were married last month with Val as witness; then some fool got hold of the story; it was printed. Sig came home after the opera and told me that he was ruined because he had expected a fortune ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... said Mr. Reffold, "isn't it nice to have Winifred here? And I have been so disagreeable and snappish." ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... again his watch, thereby being taught what I never knew before; and it is a thing very well worth my having seen, and am mightily pleased and satisfied with it. So I sat talking with him till late at night, somewhat vexed at a snappish answer Madam Williams did give me to herself, upon my speaking a free word to her in mirthe, calling her a mad jade. She answered, we were not so well acquainted yet. But I was more at a letter from my Lord Duke of Albemarle ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... tried a second cigar, and made the tour of the apartment, examining a family mourning-piece worked in satin, a genealogical tree done in worsted, and a portrait of the mutton-headed landlord and his snappish wife. I counted the ticks of the clock for half an hour, and was finally reduced to the forlorn expedient of seeing likenesses in the burning embers. When the clock struck nine, I rang for slippers and a guide to my bed room, and the landlord appeared, candle in hand, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Roscher combines the richest positive learning with rare clearness and plastic beauty in the presentation of his thought. These are conceded to him on every hand; and it does not detract from him, or alter the fact that he possesses them, that, here and there, an ill-humored or maliciously snappish critic calls them in question." It should be borne in mind here that Wolowski wrote in 1857; Contzen, like Wolowski, a politico-economical writer ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Pop's pretty snappish anyway. He's working late nearly every night, getting stuff cleared up before vacation. He doesn't want any extra problems, especially not Cat problems. Mom's been having asthma a good deal lately, and we're all pretty jumpy. It's ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... well take this opportunity of mentioning that Ellis, though in the main one of the best-tempered fellows in the world, whenever he was particularly interested or excited, became extremely cross and snappish, and was certain at such times to scold every one who fell in his way, without the slightest regard to age, sex, or station. However, it was always over in two or three minutes, and I have seen him laugh till the tears ran down his face, when the rude things he had said ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... schoolfellows had looked down upon him. His complexion was of the muddy and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best description of him may be given in two familiar expressions—he was sharp and snappish. His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre look, and magpie eyes of no particular color. A magpie eye, according to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty. "Look at So-and-so," he said to Las Cases ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of substance, at the same time free of clumsiness, as speed and endurance, as well as power, are very essential. They must be neither cloddy or cobby, but should be framed on the lines of speed, showing a graceful racing outline. TEMPERAMENT—Dogs that are very game are usually surly or snappish. The Irish Terrier as a breed is an exception, being remarkably good-tempered, notably so with mankind, it being admitted, however, that he is perhaps a little too ready to resent interference on the part of other dogs. There is a heedless, reckless pluck ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... usual place behind the desk, and looked, I thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door. Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... his phlegmatic habit, the doctor had taken counsel of his fears until he was completely unnerved, and he went home more than usually surly and snappish. As he entered his office, Russell advanced to meet him from the window whence, for nearly an hour, he had been watching ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... teach them," saith Mother Ada—in a tone which I am sure people would call cross and snappish if she were an extern—"for her fancy all runs to playing with them, rather than teaching them any ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... by an uncommon combination of circumstances, Churchill had established his privilege of caprice; he was allowed to have his bad and his good days, and the highest people and the finest smiled, and submitted to his "cachet de faveur et de disgrace;" and when he was sulky, rude, or snappish, called it only Horace Churchill's way. They even prided themselves on his preferences and his aversions. "Horace is always charming when he is with us."—"With me you have no idea how delightful he is."—"Indeed I must do him the justice to say, that I never ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... gift. I play the violin beautifully," cried Norah modestly, and when Rex laughed aloud she grew angry, and protested in snappish manner, "Well, you said yourself that we could not help knowing our own talents. It's quite true, I do play well. Everyone says so. If you don't believe it, I'll get my violin ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... has plenty of admirers," said Irma, in her bitter-toned, snappish way, "and has no reason to wait for one who only may ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and bud by my plate, were silent but eloquent appeals to my interest on behalf of my would-be page; and when Joe himself appeared, fresh from an hour's self-imposed work in my garden, I saw he had become quite one of the family; for Bogie, my little terrier, usually very snappish to strangers, and who considered all boys as his natural enemies, was leaping about his feet, evidently asking for more games, and our old magpie was perched familiarly on ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... our luncheon, found fault with everything in his own laconic dialect, ate a good deal notwithstanding, and was sulky, and with Milly snappish. To me, on the contrary, when Milly went into the hall, he was mild and whimpering, and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... want, my good woman?' says he, snappish like. 'Very sorry,' says he, when I'd told him that I'd eleven children and that Tom had worked for him for four years and worked well, too. 'Very sorry,' says he, my good woman, 'but your husband should have thought of that before. It's against my principles,' says he, 'to have any unionists ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... been into Calne, was hurrying back in the twilight. As she passed Jabez Gum's gate, the clerk's wife was standing at it, talking to Mrs. Jones. The two were laughing: Mrs. Gum seemed in a less depressed state than usual, and the other less snappish. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... with Mrs. Burr, who took jobs out in the dressmaking, and very moderate charges. When Mrs. Burr worked at home, Mrs. Prichard enjoyed her society and knitted, while Mrs. Burr cut out and basted. Very few remarks were passed; for though Mrs. Burr was snappish now and again, company was company, and Mrs. Prichard she put up with a little temper at times, because we all had our trials; and Mrs. Burr was considered good at heart, though short with you now and again. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... muffins different from what you get at home," said Mrs. Jenkins, in her curt, snappish, but really not inhospitable way, as she handed the muffins to Roland. "I know what it is when things are left to servants, as they are at your place; they turn out uneatable—soddened things, with rancid butter, nine times ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... forty-two (she owned to thirty-three), and had been a garrison-belle for eleven weary years before she married prim John Vickers. The marriage was not a happy one. Vickers found his wife extravagant, vain, and snappish, and she found him harsh, disenchanted, and commonplace. A daughter, born two years after their marriage, was the only link that bound the ill-assorted pair. Vickers idolized little Sylvia, and when the recommendation of a long ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... who pronounced that the expedition to Lima would be mere madness for Mr. Dynevor, since application to business would assuredly cause another attack, and even the calculations of the previous day had made him very unwell, and so petulant and snappish, that he could be pleased with nothing, and treated as mere insult the proposal that he should entrust his affairs to ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conviction that a corporal's stripe, given as a reward and an incentive, would be to me a talisman. I decided that I'd keep it in a place where I could rush to look at it whenever I needed encouragement to go on being a soldier. If I wanted to sneak myself out of trouble with a fib, or be snappish to Father or cattish to Di, or say "damn," or bang a door in a rage, it seemed to me that I should only have to think of that little triangle of black cloth and gilt braid to be suddenly as good as gold, all the way through ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the first day of his visit, that it would be well-nigh as safe to play with a handful of dynamite as with Lad's gold-and-white mate, Lady. Lady did not care for liberties from anyone. And she took no pains to mask her snappish first-sight aversion to the lanky Cyril. Her fiery little son, Wolf, was scarce less formidable than she, when it came to being teased by an outsider. But gallant old Lad was ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... water ready for shaving, and, without fail, to have their boots polished in time and left at their room doors;—to all which injunctions he severally received the answer of—"Certainly, sir;" and as the bed-room doors were slapped-to, one by one, the last sound of the retiring party was the snappish voice of the indefatigable little man, shouting, ere he shut his ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... So, this snappish habit grew With a power for him to rue; Just as all bad habits do Grow, as age increases. When, one day, with noise and smoke, Over-charged, the barrel broke, Harry's hand the mischief spoke— It was blown ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... Dorothea's light, so to speak, was only a tallow-candle, yet to put it out was to leave the poor woman very desolate in the dark. So Mr. Bargrave ventured one morning to ask if she felt quite well; but the snappish manner in which his inquiries were met, as though they masked a load of hidden sarcasm and insult, caused the old gentleman to scuffle into his office with unusual activity, much disturbed and humiliated, while resolved never so to ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... 'twas," said Alan candidly. "Molly is an awful tease; she gets after me once in a while, so I know. You're snappish, Poll; but you don't keep fussing at a fellow and hitting him ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... Some of them came out every night whilst we were at dinner, and paid a visit to a rose-headed parraquet (Palaeornis rosa), mounting up on Polly's perch, and sitting down to supper in the tin receptacles for food at each end. She generally treated them with silent contempt, or gave a snappish little peck if they were too familiar; sometimes, when they were too sky-larky, she retreated to her ring above, where she swung and looked down at them from a coign of vantage. Their agility in running up and down the wires of a cage is marvellous. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... a snappish little demon, and you spoil him so," said the other voice. This was attended by the sound of movement as if the party were getting ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... to George, all his attempted bribery, his broken-hearted sorrow when he failed, he seemed to be now content. Indeed, he had made no opposition to the match. When Caroline had freely spoken to him about it, he made some little snappish remark as to the fickleness of women; but he at the same time signified that he would ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... you," he went on in his snappish way. "You are the only man to take my place. They would come to you; but not to a new man. All I can hope is that they won't bore you with their domestic troubles—as they have ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... fall in love with you. But at present we are talking about marriage. Never marry a man with the artistic temperament. By the artistic temperament one means morbid tastes, uncertain temper and excessive vanity. It may be witty at dinner; it must be snappish at breakfast. It never has any money. In its dress it is dirty and picturesque, unless under the pressure of an occasion. It flirts well, but marries badly. I have described, of course, rather a pronounced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... shook his head. "He was as high-spirited a young chap as ever lived, but uncontrolled and always fighting against the pricks. It must be pretty hard for him, pretty hard. He has grown so morose and snappish that no one takes the trouble to do more than nod to him nowadays. He wasn't a bad sort, too free and open-handed, ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... he was in command of the "Hornet," a snappish vessel with more stings than one, and while cruising in South American waters he met the British man-of-war "Peacock." Now, when a hornet and a peacock quarrel, lively times are likely to ensue, and so it happened in ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... complimentary remark as telling a man that he was looking well. They salute each other with, "I hope you are good this morning;" or "I hope you have recovered from the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;" and if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he says so, and is condoled with accordingly. Nay, the straighteners have gone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught at the Colleges of Unreason) to all known forms of mental indisposition, and have classified them according to a system of their own, which, though ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Capuchin, Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment. The wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter will and testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned, to his own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be so snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true religion? Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite out of his chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... mothers of the grace or beauty or behavior of other children than their own, so it is simply idiotic to talk of Mrs. So-and-so's sweet manners or sweeter face to Mrs. Vinaigre, who is said, at times, to be snappish. It may be far from your intention to institute comparisons or to refer, by inference, to graces which are lacking in the lady to whom you speak, but there is nothing surer in life than that you get the credit of it in the fullest sense, and that, most unwittingly, you ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Sibilet, in a snappish tone, "I have told Monsieur le comte that I would rather lose twelve hundred francs a year than my life. Think of it seriously; I have warned you ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... right!" replied the snappish professor. Soon, however, recovering his equanimity, he continued: "It is fortunate that the earth was only touched obliquely; if the comet had impinged perpendicularly, it must have plowed its way deep below the surface, and the disasters it might have caused are ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... the same manner that the censorious treat deserving men. They first immolate them in the most savage mode of sacrifice, and then declare the relics of their victims to be sacred. Crabbed members of churches and other societies will quarrel a pastor or leading member away, and with snappish tone will complain of his absence, invidiously comparing him with his successor, and making the change they have caused the occasion of a still keener fight, simply to indulge the unslumbering malice of their unfeeling heart. The rancour with which they would silence one, the envy with which ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... prostrate themselves before the beast. His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set out. Here they beg pardon of the beast and worship him. Then his flesh is roasted and eaten in special ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... insubordinate Troopers, with drink in their heads, meet Captain Dampmartin and another on the ramparts, where there is no escape or side-path; and make military salute punctually, for we look calm on them; yet make it in a snappish, almost insulting manner: how one morning they 'leave all their chamois shirts' and superfluous buffs, which they are tired of, laid in piles at the Captain's doors; whereat 'we laugh,' as the ass does, eating thistles: nay how they 'knot two forage-cords together,' with universal noisy cursing, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... was by no means so companionable just now as in happier times, and was sometimes confoundedly morose and snappish—for, as you perceive, things had not gone well with him latterly. Still he was now and then ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a currish one, will hold good in its application to the human race. While the ladies in the tea-room of the Fox Hotel were engaged in the light snappish velitation, or skirmish, which we have described, the gentlemen who remained in the parlour were more than once like to have ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... quarrelling took its place; there was no quarrelling; only an uncomfortable feeling in the air, and looks that were no longer pleased and pleasant. Mrs. Bartholomew wore a discontented face, and behaved so. Judy was snappish; not a new thing exactly, but it was invariable now. David was very quiet and very sober; however in his case the quiet was quiet, and the soberness was very serene; all the old gloom seemed to be gone. Norton, Matilda thought, was cross; and she failed to see the occasion. Even ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
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