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More "Surly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was glad to see Mr. Turtle. He was a snappish, surly old chap. And he was forever finding fault with everybody and everything. It seemed as if you couldn't please him, no matter how much you tried. He had spent less than a week in Cedar Swamp before every one voted him a nuisance. And he ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and Conde, being united by interest, made a jest of that surly look from which Beaufort's cabal were termed "The Importants," and at the same time artfully made use of the grand appearance which Beaufort (like those who carry more sail than ballast) never failed to assume upon the most trifling occasions. His counsels ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... solemn, and yellow at the best of times—and by the scowl and twitching of his black eyebrows, that the heart within his large white waistcoat was disturbed and uneasy. When Amelia stepped forward to salute him, which she always did with great trembling and timidity, he gave a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand out of his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold it there. He looked round gloomily at his eldest daughter; who, comprehending the meaning of his look, which asked ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or fang'-o, when hunted with dogs is a surly fighter and prefers to take its chances at bay; consequently it is more often killed then by the spearman than in the runway. The wild hog is also often caught in pitfalls dug in the runways or in its feeding grounds. The pitfall, fi'-to, is from 3 to 4 feet ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... his uncanny sense of prophecy, foretold the economic consequences of the peace. Looking ahead he visualized a surly and unrepentant Germany, unwilling to pay the price of folly; a bitter and disappointed Austria gasping for economic breath; an aroused and indignant Italy raging with revolt—all the chaos that spells "peace" today. He saw the Treaty as a new ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... friendliness he laughed occasionally and allowed himself to swell with pride, though still denying. Next he feigned a lack of consistent will-power and seemed to be wavering under Fletcher's persuasion and grew silent, then surly. Fletcher, evidently sure of ultimate victory, desisted for the time being; however, in his solicitous regard and close companionship for the rest of that day he betrayed the bent ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the cash, and none o' yer jaw," said the man, who was a surly fellow, and did not seem ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... to have said As you were fore-advised, had touched his spirit, And tried his inclination; from him plucked, Either his gracious promise, which you might, As cause had called you up, have HELD HIM TO; Or else it would have galled his surly nature, Which easily endures, not article Tying him to aught;—so putting him to rage, You should have ta'en advantage of his choler, And so left ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... fine day it is, and how they missed you yesterday, and they hope nothing was the matter at home. Among them are brazen jades who chatter saucily with the guards, and these are the best treated of all. They are asked no gruff, surly questions, but with a wink and a jest ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... there the king had bidden, Bearing their gifts of good— But right in the midst a strange old woman Surly ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... broad, sandy river which came from the wilder spaces of the West. The prairie was gone. The tiger lily, the sweet Williams, the pinks, together with the luxuriant meadows and the bobolinks, were left behind. In their stead, a limitless, upward shelving plain outspread, covered with a short, surly, hairlike grass and certain sturdy, resinous plants supporting flowers of an unpleasant odor, sticky and weedy. Bristling cacti bulged from the sod; small Quaker-gray sparrows and larks were the only birds. In the swales blue joint grew rank. The only trees were cottonwoods and cutleaf willow, ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... celebrated as "the wise, the just, the best of kings, Francis Augustus", who, if one were to believe Monti, "in war was a whirlwind and in peace a zephyr." But the heavy Austrian, who knew he was nothing of the kind, thrust out his surly under lip at these blandishments, said that this muse's favors were mercenary, and cut off Monti's pension. Stung by such ingratitude, the victim of his own honesty retired forever from courts, and thenceforward sang ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Even Epernon tried to say a gracious word to the retiring envoy, assuring him that he would do as much for the cause as a good Frenchman and lover of his fatherland could do. He added, in rather a surly way, that he knew very well how foully he had been described to the States, but that the devil was not as black as he was painted. It was necessary, he said, to take care of one's own house first of all, and he knew very well that the States and all prudent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is only the affectionate that desire affection; sulky and ill-conditioned souls often have a passionate longing for the very feelings that they repel. Lieders was a womanish, sensitive creature under the surly mask, and he was cut to the quick by his comrades' apathy. "There ain't no place for old men in this world," he thought, "there's them boys I done my best to make do a good job, and some of 'em I've worked overtime to help; and not one of 'em has ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... the main line, prospected a bit about the place and then on hands and knees wormed himself through the thick growth of the mountain till he came out to the huckleberry clump, and recovering his bicycle walked innocently up to the station as if it were the first time that day and enquired of the surly freight man whether a box had come ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... thinks; his poor little heart warms at the thought that maybe they will. He opens it up anew every day—opens it for a new wound. And now that he's found somebody to say the kind word he's still expecting the surly one. His life's shut him out from life—even though he wants it. It seems to ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... that hoarse companion, it was but to make him roar his cheerful song the louder, and by consequence to make the fire burn the brighter, and the sparks to dance more gayly yet; at length, they whizzed so madly round and round, that it was too much for such a surly wind to bear; so off it flew with a howl giving the old sign before the ale-house door such a cuff as it went, that the Blue Dragon was more rampant than usual ever afterwards, and indeed, before Christmas, reared clean ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there—dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... Mistress Kill-joy?" he muttered, in a surly tone. "May I ask what business brought you? For I'll swear ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... not of wealth, at least of a competence sufficient to redeem his character as a suitor from the suspicion attached to a fortune-hunter and adventurer. Despite the new prospects opened to him by the death of his uncle, and despite the surly caprice which had mingled with and alloyed the old admiral's kindness, Legard was greatly shocked by his death; and his grateful and gentle nature was at first only sensible to grief for the loss he had sustained. But when, at last, recovering from ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... talkative, and though I hated them for the indignity they had thus put upon me in chaining me as a criminal, yet I knew it would be unavailing to indulge a surly and vindictive disposition, and therefore talked as fast and as lively ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... activity suffers premature derangements, such as have been fully mentioned in the description of the precursory symptoms. The most striking is the confused, staring look, the peevish and surly behavior, and again in other cases the extreme indifference toward otherwise well-liked persons and things. Later on actual delirium sets in, but generally of a ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... it—'He put His hands upon him, and asked him if he saw aught.' One might have expected an answer with a little more gratitude in it, with a little more wonder in it, with a little more emotion in it. Instead of these it is almost surly, or at any rate strangely reticent-a matter-of-fact answer to the question, and there an end. As our Revised Version reads it better: 'I see men, for I behold them as trees walking.' Curiously accurate! A dim glimmer had come into the eye, but there ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... however, that the owner of the Ebba converses more readily than with anybody else, and the latter appears to be very intimate with him. The engineer is a good deal more free, more loquacious and less surly than his companions, and I wonder what position he occupies on the schooner. Is he a personal friend of the Count d'Artigas? Does he scour the seas with him, sharing the enviable life enjoyed by the rich yachtsman? He is the only man of the lot ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... you remember, in a fit Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly, I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly, Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit, They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early: I 'scotch'd not kill'd' the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land of 'mountain and ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... her. She was a fair type of a class not uncommon on the Southwestern frontier; women who were ruder helpmeets of their rude husbands and brothers, who had shared their privations and sufferings with surly, masculine endurance, rather than feminine patience; women who had sent their loved ones to hopeless adventure or terrible vendetta as a matter of course, or with partisan fury; who had devotedly nursed the wounded to keep alive ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... you come a plainsman?" scoffed the malcontent, for once forgetting his policy of favor-currying with Wingate in his own surly discontent. He had not been able to speak to Molly ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... accounts, has not been unaptly named the Bastile, the sensations I felt may be more easily felt than described. Besides that this was the first prison I had ever entered, every thing around me had an air of unspeakable horror. After being viewed and reviewed by the surly Cerberuses of this earthly Hell, I was conducted up some stairs to a long gallery, or passage, six feet wide, having on either side a number of dismal cells, each about six feet by nine, formed entirely ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... fool's luck led him to a hamlet whose mean auberge served him bread and cheese with a wine singularly thin and acid. Here he enquired for a guide, but the one able-bodied man in evidence, a hulking, surly animal, on learning that Duchemin wished to visit Montpellier-le-Vieux, refused with a growl to have anything to do with him. Several times during the course of luncheon he caught the fellow eyeing him strangely, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... his mouth, and his attire consisted of a shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers upheld by no visible support, and a pair of old slippers. Apparently satisfied from his prolonged inspection of the two visitors that they were not in search of lodgings, he replied in a surly tone: ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Miss Edith's shoulder. "I don't understand music," he said, in his most surly voice. These were the distinct utterances which enchanted Bice amid the murmurs of more ordinary applause. She was delighted with them. She clapped her hands once more with a delight which was contagious. "Ah, I know now, this is what it is ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... gray car did not come again. Supplies appeared in another gray car, driven by a surly Fleming. The waking hours were full, as usual. Sara Lee grew a little thin, and seemed to be always listening. But there was no Henri, and something that was vivid and joyous seemed to have gone out ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Grant watched his progress—she smiling, he surly and sneering. "Yet you like him," ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... so much trouble. As he came toward them, frowning, they observed that he had buckled a pistol round him as if to resist any intrusion in case it should be attempted without instructions. Dick handed him Presby's order, and the man read it through in surly silence; then his entire attitude underwent a swift change. He ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner where Father Ferapont's cell stood. "Maybe he will speak as you are a stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him," the beekeeper had warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in the utmost apprehension. It was rather late in the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... see the light in which I was placed! Even my own friends went over to the duke's side, and I was forced to shake his damned hand and join him at the Red Cock for breakfast or show a surly front by my refusal. I was made a laughing stock for the whole party. Put in the wrong in every way; and even Billy Deuceace, a man of penetration, was so deceived by this, that afterward he bade me, with a laugh, 'fight about ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... to me. He used to be very civil to Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as surly ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... sweat and his flanks were palpitating with fatigue when Lone rode up to the corral and dismounted. Pop Bridgers saw him and came bow-legging eagerly forward with gossip titillating on his meddlesome tongue, but Lone stalked by him with only a surly nod. Bob Warfield he saw at a distance and gave no sign of recognition. He met Hawkins coming down from his house and stopped ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... however, this difference may arise more from the want of Liberty than the power of climate. Oh Liberty! sweet Liberty! without thee life cannot be enjoyed! Thou parent of comfort, whose children bless thee, though they dwell among the barren rocks, or the most surly regions of the earth! Thou blessest, in spite of nature; and in spite of nature, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... Knight," replied Sir Galahad. "I shall have need to make assurance that my horse is secured so that he may not be stolen." And laughing and full at ease he left the beaten knight to his surly thoughts. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... few pretty hot moments on the platform when Bucks, among a group of five camp malefactors on their way to Medicine Bend, confronted the two men who had tried to kill him, and unhesitatingly pointed them out. Seagrue, tall and surly, denied vehemently ever having been at Point of Rocks and ever having seen Bucks. He declared the whole affair was "framed up" to send him to the penitentiary. He threatened if he were "sent up" to come back and kill Bucks if it was twenty ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... "A surly silence ensued, during which Pa worked slowly, with anything but a good grace. Leroy was right. The tundra was a hard and peculiar proposition. Nothing like it had we ever seen before. For miles on three sides of us it spread itself like a carpet of green, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... not on a stern and rock-bound coast. Such scoffers evidently never sailed in by White Horse beach and "Hither Manomet" when a winter northeaster was shouldering the deep sea tides up against the cliff and a surly gale snatched the foam from high-crested waves and sent it singing and stinging inland. Could they have done this it would have been easy to understand that the coast here is stern and rock-bound in very truth. The rocks are ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... think him susceptible of any tender or generous feeling. He is a visionary; surly, jealous, and envious in his disposition. When he heard me expressing myself about you in the manner you deserve, he had the impudence to say to my mother before my face that she ought not to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... as the surly creature came within hearing distance,—"if you please, sir, were the two ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... stern, carried with it the two disputants—the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, and buttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant, following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as he shifted his cap from the one ear to ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... them all aft," replied one of the men, in a surly tone; "the lady must sit where she can. She's no better ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... a transport, and I know of no place where a white volunteer appears to so much disadvantage. His mind craves occupation, his body is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, and impatient even of sanitary rules. The Southern black soldier, on the other hand, is seldom sea-sick (at least, such is my experience), and, if properly managed, is equally contented, whether idle or busy; he is, moreover, so docile that ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... opportunity to spy and gossip, considering it a part of her duties to learn everything possible of the private affairs of the lodgers. Quite unlike the traditional, smiling, good-natured "mammy" of the South, she was one of those cunning, crafty, heartless, surly Northern negresses, who, to the number of thousands, seek employment as maids with women of easy morals, and, infesting a certain district of New York where white and black people of the lower classes mingle indiscriminately, make it one of the most criminal and dangerous sections of the city. Innately ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... I jumped upon a 'bus. I mentioned to the conductor in mounting that it was a fine day. He replied that he had noticed it himself. The retort struck me as a brilliant repartee. Our coachman, all but run into by a hansom cab driven by a surly old fellow of patriarchal appearance, remarked upon the danger of allowing horses out in charge of bits of boys. How full the world of wit ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... mayhap,' said Anne demurely, as she saw her surly guide start. But he was equal to the occasion, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day following, the Indians having had some private conferences with their queen, began to be very surly, and to run in a mad and tumultuous manner up and down the streets, seemingly bent on some mischief. All the men being obliged to mount guard, the women were terrified to remain by themselves in their houses, expecting every moment to be murdered or scalped. During this confusion, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... speaking in a tone of encouragement, "we are wrong in so soon yielding to despair. Let us not give up, till we are beaten at all points. I have told you what my object was, when I first mounted upon that ledge, and discovered the cave and its surly occupant, the bear. I thought then, that, if we could find a series of ledges one above another, and sufficiently near each other, we might plant ladders upon them, and so reach the top. You see that there is such a succession of ledges—just before your faces there. Unfortunately there is one of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the important person in the family. Mrs. Shimerda and Antonia always deferred to him, though he was often surly with them and contemptuous toward his father. Ambrosch and his mother had everything their own way. Though Antonia loved her father more than she did anyone else, she stood in awe ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... genial earth, thence to suck up nutriment and bloom strong and healthy,—not to droop and fade amid sunshine and zephyrs on a soilless rock! Her marriage was no meagre prose comment on the glowing and gorgeous poetry of her wooing;—nor did the surly over-browing rock of reality ever cast the dusky shadow of this earth on the soft moonlight of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... rushing torrents and driving wind and rain; besides which, as the poor fellow repeated more than once during his story, "I was fair done up when I set out, for I'd been travelling all day." Mr. A—— told us what the man had been saying, before we all went to bed, adding, "He seems an odd, surly kind of creature, for although he declares he is going away the first thing to-morrow, if the rain be over, I noticed he never said a ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the family, and appeared very much engaged with Prescott's Conquest of Peru. But at the breakfast-table on the third day she received a start. Gertrude and Tom had been at a party the evening before. (They averaged some four parties a week.) Tom looked surly and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... ask thee the way to the fountain,' he replied. 'Tell me, and I will not trouble thee further, thou surly troll.' ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... are immediately imitated, while acts representing stages of development from which I have escaped are less likely to be imitated. We imitate the acts of hearty, jovial individuals more than the acts of others. This point cannot be pressed too far since a surly and selfish individual often seems to corrupt a whole group. Also it is not always the acts which I admire that are imitated. If I am frequently with a lame person, I am in danger of acquiring a limp; one who stutters is clearly injurious to my freedom of speech; round-shouldered ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... quite apt to get ahead or behind the season with their flowers and birds. It is not often that we catch such a poet as Emerson napping. He knows nature, and he knows the New England fields and woods, as few poets do. One may study our flora and fauna in his pages. He puts in the moose and the "surly bear," and makes the latter ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... us, allowing us to take our food in the cockpit, and to sleep in a couple of hammocks which were slung there, which had belonged to two of the men who had been killed. We had to do everything for ourselves, the seamen being either surly to us or rude. Harry and I separately, on two different occasions, endeavoured to speak to Tubbs, but a man immediately stepped up and asked us what we wanted, he having, I suppose, been directed by ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Abas in a surly tone, and at the word a tremor of excitement ran through Penghulu Mat ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... seemed half disposed, instead of replying, to pick a quarrel with his interrogator; but a glance at the athletic figure and resolute countenance of the latter, dissipated the inclination, and he answered by a surly affirmative. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Burghley's favour he seems to have been pushed on at his Inn, where, in 1586, he was a Bencher; and in 1584 he came into Parliament for Melcombe Regis. He took some small part in Parliament; but the only record of his speeches is contained in a surly note of Recorder Fleetwood, who writes as an old member might do of a young one talking nonsense. He sat again for Liverpool in the year of the Armada (1588), and his name begins to appear in the proceedings. These early years, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... all the young, beautiful, and virtuous for ever be your portion, and may your eyes never behold anything but age and deformity! May you meet with applause only from envious old maids, surly bachelors, and tyrannical parents; may you be doomed to the company of such! and after death may their ugly souls ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... lighthouse on the Irish coast. Thereupon John Potter made application for the post. He was successful over many competitors, and at last obtained the darling wish of his heart: he became principal keeper; his surly comrade, Isaac Dorkin, strange to say, obtaining the post of second keeper. Mrs Potter didn't like the change at first, as a ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... that they would deny themselves that pleasure, Patches said, "I don't blame you; he's a surly, ill-tempered beast, anyway. Which reminds me that I must be about my official business, and land him in Prescott to-night. I am going to stop at the ranch and ask the Dean for the team and buckboard, though," he added, as he climbed painfully into the saddle. "Adios! ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly. Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit; They cannot quench young feelings, fresh and early. I scotch'd, not kill'd, the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... but you are sensible, modest, and sweet-tempered, and we should get on well together. If you were happy with me I should regard you as my adopted daughter, and provide accordingly for you. Think of it for a few minutes while I look over these letters. Perhaps I seem a grim and surly old man to you; but I am not naturally so. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... surly yell from her husband, stood in the door-way, thin-lipped and austere, and announced briefly that Sir Beverley had gone down towards the Vicarage; she didn't know no ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... grew more lonesome and dreary every mile, and the snow more fine and moist. Would it turn to rain? There were no bells on the horses, and the driver, a surly, silent fellow, had not even an encouraging 'chirrup' for them, while the muffled crunching of the soft snow by the runners seemed to have a somnolent influence upon them, judging from our progress. Occasionally the gentlemen would get out and run up the hills, and once the Englishman fell full ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... time there had been no reconciliation between the miller and his younger daughter. Carry would ask her father whether she should do this or that, and the miller would answer her as a surly master will answer a servant whom he does not like; but the father, as a father, had never spoken to the child; nor, up to this moment, had he said a word even to his wife of his intended journey to Salisbury. But now he was driven to speak. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... a loud laugh of derision, in which all joined except surly Markbrunnen, whose lips protruded an extra inch beyond their usual length when he found that all were laughing at his friend. The Grand Duke at ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... "They are a surly set of beggars," Fairclough said, as they rowed off. "I don't think there is much chance of cooperation in that quarter. Indeed, I am by no means sure that, at heart, they do not approve of these Malay attacks. ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... took him some time to find out. There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them. Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and surly. It drives the French peasant absolutely mad. That village street seemed to have less sense, less fortitude, less coolness than a duck-run invaded by a terrier. The Subaltern caught a man by the arm and pushed him ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... is arrived. I have not spirits to give an account of his introduction, for he has really shocked me. I do not like him. He seems to be surly, vulgar, and disagreeable. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... sweat in many a trill, Adown Earl Walter's temples fall, And louder, louder, louder still, The surly watch for vengeance call. ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... while to illustrate our meaning by an instance or two, to show that, far from being hypercritical, our canon of criticism is extremely indulgent, and that we never take the bluff and surly objection—it cannot be!—until the improbability has reached the core of the matter. In the first story, "The Birth Mark," we raise no objection to the author, because he invents a chemistry of his own, and supposes his hero in possession of marvellous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... at the door of his cabin, and called for Master Taunton, who went in and remained, for some time, in converse with the two captains. Then he came out, looking surly and black, and Captain Francis soon after issued out with his brother, walked round the ship, said a few cheery words to all the crew; and, with a parting laugh and word of advice to the boys, to be more careful where they slept in ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... night the yellow glow from the upper windows, and the red and green of the switch lamps, close to the ground, had a festive appearance. The child's sobs drifted away. His father swung him in his arms, entered the tower, and climbed the stairs. Above, feet stirred restlessly. A surly voice came down. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... old sport named Ryder pervades Wolfville for a while. He's surly an' gnurlly an' omeny, Ryder is; an' has one of them awful lookin' faces where the feachers is all c'llected in the middle of his visage, an' bunched up like they's afraid of Injuns or somethin' else that threatenin' an' hostile—them sort of ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in the country of the sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a forty or fifty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Varney, "what has the surly groom to do with your ladyship's concerns?—no more, surely, than the ban-dog which watches his courtyard. If he is in aught distasteful to your ladyship, I have interest enough to have him exchanged for a seneschal that shall be more agreeable ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... it was a dark, misty night, and cars waiting for club members stand in a narrow side turning. Mareno is a surly brute, and he might have waited an hour without speaking to a soul. Unless another chauffeur happened to notice and recognize the car nobody would ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... this poor "body politic" of ours till, like the raving demoniacs of old, it is now foaming and wandering crazily around its own preconstructed tomb! while at the head of the Government we have only a surly, self-conceited despot in embryo! "The nation needs (as you say) at this hour the highest thought and inspiration of a true womanhood infused into every vein and artery of its life." There is no gainsaying your ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... company, which also included Russell and wife, Sol. Smith and brother, with their wives, Mrs. Rose Crampton, and, as a star, Junius Brutus Booth. How wild was the scene around us! The river was low and sluggish; the boat small and dirty; the captain ignorant and surly; the company full of life, wit, and humor. Slowly we labored on. The dense forest came frowning to the river's brink, with only here and there, at long intervals, an opening, where some adventurous pioneer had cut and burned the cane, and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the hill beat surly storms, And winter nights were dark and rainy, I'd seek some dell, and in my arms ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Garo[29] is hardy, stout, and surly-looking, with a flattened nose, blue or brown eyes, large mouth, thick lips, round face, and brown complexion. Their buniahs (booneeahs) or chiefs, are distinguished by a silken turban. They have a prejudice ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... by their clubs and their sport, prostituted by the Americans and the Jews, and, by way of showing how up to date they are, they play the degraded parts allotted to them in fashionable plays, and support those who have degraded them. They're an apathetic and surly middle-class: they read nothing, understand nothing, don't want to understand anything; they only know how to vilify, vilify, vaguely, bitterly, futilely—and they have only one passion: sleep, to lie ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... in a surly tone. "It's a harder thing for her to marry a pauper, I should think, and to bring a regiment of children into the world, always wanting shoes and stockings. But you're a bachelor, you see, Mr. Fenton, and can't be expected to know what shoes and stockings are. Now there happens ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the following morning the carriage which had brought Bertram to Hazlewood House was, with his two silent and surly attendants, appointed to convey him to his place of confinement at Portanferry. This building adjoined to the custom-house established at that little seaport, and both were situated so close to the sea-beach that it was necessary ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... an impressive individual, bulky and stern. His face was thinner than the rest of his body, and Kid Wolf was rather puzzled to read the surly eyes that gleamed at him from under the bushy black brows. He was more startled still, however, when Modoc whispered in a voice just loud ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... found lying. In confirmation of this, it was said a great black man, with an axe on his shoulder, was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... now than ever before, as there were fewer mouths to feed. He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good morning—he had grown tall in his illness, and was but very little marked; and with this, and a surly bow, he went in from the smithy to the house, leaving my lady, somewhat silenced and shamefaced, at the door. He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day; and before a year ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... has the name of being a surly man," one said, "but I should not have thought that he would have turned a shipwrecked man from his door on such a day as this. They say he is a Papist, though whether he be or not I cannot say; but he has strange ways, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... to make the boy understand how grateful he was to him for his kindness, there was a rap at the door, and Bob thrust his head into the room to announce in a surly tone that breakfast ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... perhaps more dreary than of old, in many a college, for lack of the presence of men now translated to another place. As to the "society" of Oxford, that is, no doubt, very much more charming and vivacious than it used to be in the days when Tony Wood was the surly champion of celibacy. ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... who had followed us from the station sat in the dark at a table in the far corner of the room and watched every move we made. When the coffee was brought I sat smoking and surly over it, as if my head ached from the day's drink; Grim and Jeremy, aching for sleep but refusing like good artists to neglect a detail of their part, went to another table and played backgammon, betting quarrelsomely; ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... qualities do we plume ourselves? Well, I think, on steadiness, independence, loyalty, truthfulness, firmness, honesty, and love of fair play. How far we are justified in doing so, perhaps other nations are the better judges. They, I believe, generally regard us as a proud and surly race—qualities on which there is ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... is threaded with paths which invite the walker, and which are scarcely less important than the highways. I heard of a surly nobleman near London who took it into his head to close a footpath that passed through his estate near his house, and open another a little farther off. The pedestrians objected; the matter got ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... recommend a squeeze of this orange;—or the lemon, perhaps, may have more zest.'—'Sir, Sir, I am obliged to you, Sir,' cried Johnson, bowing, and turning—his head to him with a look for some time of 'surly virtue,'[198] but, in a short ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... wires, which belongs to them. Then the officers billeted their men on the inhabitants, and I had seventeen of them. My neighbor, the crazy woman, had a dozen, one of whom was the Commandant, a regular violent, surly swashbuckler. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the novelty of the enterprise began to develop into a stern reality, and there was manual labor to be performed, and hardships to be endured, and some personal sacrifices to be made, they began to lose heart, get homesick and weary, and to shirk their part; also to be surly and disagreeable. "We won't quarrel," said Ben West, "but when we get to Antelope Springs we will divide our stores and then each one will 'shift for himself,' as ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... the Carnival that one sees most conspicuously displayed that habit of social equality which is one of the special features of Italian life. Nothing is more unlike the social jealousy of the Frenchman, or the surly incivility with which a Lancashire operative thinks proper to show the world that he is as good a man as his master. In either case one feels the taint of a mere spirit of envious levelling, and a latent confession that the levelling process has still in reality to be accomplished. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... realized that a father in those circumstances would weep, but he did not feel like shedding tears, and he was ashamed of himself for what seemed lack of something within himself. What he felt then, what he had felt ever since that young doctor had passed sentence of death was surly, bitter rancor—the anger of ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... when his cousin was making her petition on his behalf to the surly Englishman on deck, he was seated in the saloon with three or four men older than himself, playing and losing, playing and losing, with almost unvarying monotony, yet with a feverish relish that ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... precarious resources of the government be dissipated in useless expenditures was dubbed avarice, and the prudence which had impelled him to restrain the rash policy of expansion and aggression which Germanicus had tried to initiate beyond the Rhine was construed as envy and surly malignity. Against all considerations of justice, logic, or good sense, this accusation was repeated, and now that destiny had cut down Germanicus, he was accused sotto voce of being responsible for his death ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... looked up to with reverence as a great intellectual giant; but that love for him which had been felt by those who were aroused to honest thinking by his earlier writings had passed away. A new generation looked upon him as an embittered and surly old man. His services were not forgotten, but he was no longer a favorite,—no longer an inspiring guide. His writings continued to stimulate thought, but were no longer regarded as sound. Commonplace people never did like him, probably ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... a surly-looking man in front. "Why didn't they have a speaker ready to address this throng, instead of keeping us waiting here ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... been born on the Mayflower, raised on Plymouth Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut, she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child. Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and suspicious when she first came here, and who really has as little cordiality or enthusiasm in her nature as a gridiron or a rolling-pin, seems now to be completely devoted to her; as nearly infatuated as one of her flinty temperament can ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... fondness towards those who inspire. them. But the boyish frolics, the exulting high spirits, the unreflecting mirth of a sailor, when enjoying himself on shore, temper the more formidable points of his character. There was nothing like these in this man's face; on the contrary, a surly and even savage scowl appeared to darken features which would have been harsh and unpleasant under any expression or modification. "Where are you, Mother Deyvilson?" he said, with somewhat of a foreign accent, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... stranger shall be like him; no longer denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly, stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of relatives, who ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... events obeys his owner, who held him with a rope fifty feet long. At present he is only half tame, and would go back to the jungle if he were liberated. He was sent up a cocoa-nut tree which was heavily loaded with nuts in various stages of ripeness and unripeness, going up in surly fashion, looking round at intervals and shaking his chain angrily. When he got to the top he shook the fronds and stalks, but no nuts fell, and he chose a ripe one, and twisted it round and round till its tenacious ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... written in a biblical style, rugged and obscure, he sought to appear like a vengeful apostle, prideful and tormented with spleen, but showed himself a deacon touched with a mystic epilepsy, or like a talented Maistre, a surly and bitter sectarian. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... yon flaming herald treads The ridged and rolling waves, As, crashing o'er their crested heads, She bows her surly slaves! With foam before and fire behind, She rends the clinging sea, That flies before the roaring ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the political news of the previous night, or rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, more excited discussion, in which one of the contestants—a red-bearded miner—had subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... then with a look of muddled curiosity, fairly broke down with, "I know your face, me dear dear friend, but, bedad, I've forgot your name." Five years of constant punch had passed since Pen and Costigan met. Arthur was a good deal changed, and the Captain may surly be excused for forgetting him; when a man at the actual moment sees things double, we may expect that his view of the past will be ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the suffering in Belgium at the beginning of the great War and finds she must do something about it. She can cook, so she will go and make soup for KING ALBERT's men. She takes her young man's photograph and his surly disapproval; also a few dollars hastily collected from her obscure township in Pa.; and becomes the good angel of a shattered sector of the Belgian line. And she finds in The Amazing Interlude (MURRAY) her prince—a real prince—in the Secret Service, and, after ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... not a drunkard, Will Sears, more's the pity. When it comes to choosing between a man who gets openly drunk and staggers down Main Street in drunken penitence to his wife and children and the man who drinks just enough to be a surly, selfish brute and yet look half-way respectable on the outside, why, give me the ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below me. From a wooded slope, on the opposite side of the valley, the crack of a gun came, waking the echoes for a minute; and then all seemed to sink into a deeper ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... about wi' surly look, And said, "What's that to thee? I'm ga'en to see a lovely maid, Mair fairer ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... Paul was surly and had evidently been drinking, for he shoved the servant roughly out of the way as he ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... withdraw. After half an hour Langdon and Herron joined them. Dumont and Fanshaw did not come until eleven o'clock. Then Dumont was so abrupt and surly that every one was grateful to Mrs. Fanshaw for taking him away to the west veranda. At midnight all went to their rooms, Pauline going with Olivia, "to make ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... 'Oh, that Captain Charteris were available! No one else ever had any real power with Lucy! It was an unlucky day when he saw that colonial young lady, and settled down in Vancouver's Island! And yet how I used to wish him away, with the surly independence he was always infusing into Owen. Wanting to take him out there, indeed! And yet, and yet—I sometimes doubt whether I did right to set my personal influence over my dear affectionate boy so much in opposition to his uncle—Mr. Charteris was on my side, though! And ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sauce.' Various fish took part in his title of nobility. The wag Mackrell continuing to be discreetly silent, and Kit Ines acting as a pacific rearguard, the crowd fell in love with their display of English humour, disposed to the surly satisfaction of a big street dog that has been appeased by a smaller ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ignorant, vulgar, and malicious. In the Mississippi book the author gives his first interview with Brown, also his last one. For good reasons these occasions were burned into his memory, and they may be accepted as substantially correct. Brown had an offensive manner. His first greeting was a surly question. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... walls of the room were so high that at first the visitors thought that the Nursery was deserted. They distinguished, however, at the farther end, a bleating, whining, restless group. Two countrywomen, with surly, brutish, dirty faces, two "dry-nurses," who well deserved their name, were sitting on mats with their nurslings in their arms, each having a large goat before her, with legs apart and distended udders. The manager seemed to ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... conversation, however, in the most dogged manner, barely returning surly monosyllables to my anxious ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... brute of a fellow that bit your corporal, sir," said the steward. "I was in there just now, and he's as surly as ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... revealed a surly personality, which now expanded and mellowed into conversation as Haymond asked questions about the setting of eel traps and lobster pots and the management of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... penurious man to the performance of generous deeds is not by remonstrating with him, however kindly, on his penuriousness, but by watching his conduct till we find some act that bears some semblance of liberality, and commending him for that. If you have a neighbor who is surly and troublesome—tell him that he is so, and you make him worse than ever. But watch for some occasion in which he shows you some little kindness, and thank him cordially for such a good neighborly act, and he will ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... speculation. The Ruby soon ranged up on the weather and larboard side of the Frenchman, at whose peak flew the ensign of Republican France. It would have been throwing away words to have exchanged compliments or interrogations in this case. The Frenchmen, indeed, maintained a surly silence, till it was broken by the rapid interchange of broadsides between the two well-matched combatants. The chances of war seemed, however, in this instance to be going against the Ruby. At the second broadside, down came her fore-topsail-yard, ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... and surly? Or oppressively bland and fond? Was I partial to rising early? Or why did we twain abscond, When nobody knew, from the public view To prowl by ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... me. He was surly and suspicious. The sheriff had sent for him and questioned him about how you got his horse, and I gathered that he thought I was a detective. When I told him I was a friend of yours, he sent you a message. You may be able ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... have been a surly bunch," said Rob. "But Captain Lewis impressed them very much, and Captain Clark let down his long red hair and astonished them, and everybody fed them and gave them presents; and they appointed young Mr. Dorion ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... felt may be more easily felt than described. Besides that this was the first prison I had ever entered, every thing around me had an air of unspeakable horror. After being viewed and reviewed by the surly Cerberuses of this earthly Hell, I was conducted up some stairs to a long gallery, or passage, six feet wide, having on either side a number of dismal cells, each about six feet by nine, formed entirely of stone, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Some of the more rigid sects were busily discoursing in groups, respecting Walton's Polyglott Bible, and the fitness or unfitness of the committee that had been sitting at Whitelock's house at Chelsea, to consider properly the translations and impressions of the Holy Scriptures. Robin received but surly treatment at the palace-gates, for minstrelsy was not the fashion; and he almost began to think the disguise he had selected was an injudicious one. He hastened on to the city, along the line of street now called the Strand, but which was then only partially ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... persecutor, and with whom the Red Rapparee was now located, he would unquestionably have been hanged like a dog. The officer of the party, however—to wit, the worthy sergeant—was one of those men who love a drop of the native, and whose heart besides it expands into a sort of surly kindness that has something comical and not disagreeable in it. In addition to this, he never felt a confidence in his own authority with half the swagger which he did when three quarters gone. Steen and he were never friends, nor indeed was Steen ever a popular man among his acquaintances. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... threw another shovelful into the box already crowded, and backed against the tender bar with a surly, defiant face. ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... the little birds are Rama's; O birds, eat your fill; the little birds have eaten up the corn. The surly farmer has come to the field and scolds them; the little birds say, 'O farmer, why do you scold us? count your ears of maize, they are ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... it would be before "Julia" came face to face with Dick Carter somewhere or other, and trying to keep one eye on Thoburn while I kept Mr. Pierce straight with the other—that day, during luncheon, Mike the bath man came out to the spring-house and made a howl about his wages. He'd been looking surly for ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... while no one spoke, and no one seemed to watch, stood, when at last Rodriguez raised his head, with folded arms before the gate to nowhere, the King of Shadow Valley. His face was surly, as though the face of a ghost, called from important work among asteroids needing his care, by the trivial legerdemain of some foolish novice. Rodriguez, looking into those angry eyes, wholly forgot it was he that had a grievance. The silence continued. And ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... not then understand, nor can I now understand, why none of the numerous passengers out of the boat should have entered those cabins except myself, and why the inmates of the cabins should not have come out to speak to any one. Had they been surly, morose people, made silent by the specialties of their life, it would have been explicable; but they were delighted to talk and to listen. The fact, I take it, is that the people are all harsh to each other. They do not care to go out of ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... Through serene and surly weather we have walked the ways together, And this long night's dance this year's end eve now finishes the spell; Yet we dreamt us but beginning a sweet sempiternal spinning Of a cord we have spun to breaking—too intemperately, ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... instrument, which is more frequent in this nation than any other; I mean your Bass-Viol, which grumbles in the bottom of the consort, and with a surly masculine sound strengthens the harmony and tempers the sweetness of the several instruments that play along with it. The Bass-Viol is an instrument of a quite different nature to the Trumpet, and may signify men of rough sense and unpolished parts, who do not love to hear ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... was in a very surly mood, and not only refused to answer, but shook his whip in so threatening a manner that Fanferlot deemed it prudent ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... would dive into the courts where the police go in couples, clamber ricketty stairs, and "interview" the fighting pair. "His plan was to appeal to the manliness of the offender, and make him ashamed of himself; often such a visit ended in a loan, whereby the 'barrer' was replenished and the surly husband set to work; but if all efforts at peacemaking were useless, this new apostle had methods beyond the reach of the ordinary missionary—he would (the case deserving it) drop his mild, insinuating, persuasive tones, and not only threaten to pulp the incorrigible ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... and the factor was the devil of them. Those who had known him longest said he must be fey, that is doomed, so strangely altered was his behaviour. Others said he took more counsel with his bottle than had been his wont, and got no good from it. Almost all the fishers found him surly, and upon some he broke out in violent rage, while to certain whom he regarded as Malcolm's special friends, he carried himself with cruel oppression. The notice to leave at midsummer clouded the destiny of Joseph Mair ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... people describe only the weak, surly and frail as sinners? And every one when he advises others to describe only the strong, healthy, ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... your master is surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning Then if you refrain, he is at you again, For he likes to get value for money. He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare, If you ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... study fresh music. About the year 1795 it was deemed best to place the boy under the charge of an eminent professor, and Alessandro Rolla, of Parma, was pitched on. When the Paganinis arrived, they found the learned professor ill, and rather surly at the disturbance. Young Paganini, however, speedily silenced the complaints of the querulous invalid. The great player himself relates the anecdote: "His wife showed us into a room adjoining the bedroom, till she had spoken ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... tended to confirm, is that Boswell was a vain, conceited prig, a fool of a jackanape, an insupportable sycophant, a—whatever mean thing you please; there is no word small enough to suit him. As to Johnson, he is a surly old bear; in short, an old brute of a tyrant. All his knowledge and attainments could not have made me tolerate him, I am sure. I could have no respect for a man who was so coarse in speech and manners, and who eat like an animal. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... is the person of all others to give an adequate idea of the shepherd's dog, and I use very nearly his own words. "My dog Sirrah, was beyond all comparison the best dog I ever saw; he was of a surly, unsocial temper; disdaining all flattery, he refused to be caressed; but his attention to my commands and interests will never again, perhaps, be equalled by any of the canine race. I thought I discovered a sort of sullen intelligence in ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... literatures, and himself a literary artist of consummate elegance, he was the fine flower of the Puritan stock under its changed modern conditions. Out of strength had come forth sweetness. The grim iconoclast, "humming a surly hymn", had issued in the Christian gentleman. Captain Miles Standish had risen into Sir Philip Sidney. The austere morality that relentlessly ruled the elder New England reappeared in the genius of this singer in the most gracious and captivating form. The grave nature of Bryant in his early secluded ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... and his men in their whaleboats appeared before the little palisaded town of Detroit. They found the French commander, Beletre, in surly humor and seeking to stir up the neighboring Wyandots and Potawatomi against them. But the attempt failed, and there was nothing for Beletre to do but yield. The French soldiery marched out of the fort, laid down their arms, and were sent off as prisoners ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... lost chums and friends was Ned Johnson, of Company K. Ned was a young Englishman, with much of the suggestiveness of the bull-dog common to the lower class of that nation. His fist was readier than his tongue. His chum, Walter Savage was of the same surly type. The two had come from England twelve years before, and had been together ever since. Savage was killed in the struggle for the fence described in the preceding chapter. Ned could not realize for a while that his friend was dead. It was only when the body rapidly stiffened on ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... a plot against me; but for rather more than a week I was unable to detect anything to justify the least apprehension on my part. Of course it was impossible for me to observe the pair when they were alone together after the day's work was done, but although Svorenssen maintained his usual surly demeanour I attached little importance to that, for I believed it to be natural to him, while there was no doubt that both men ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... Instead of the surly and ferocious disposition of Smut, he was the most gentle and affectionate creature. It was a splendid sight to witness the bounding spring of Killbuck as he pinned an elk at bay that no other dog could touch. He had a peculiar ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... I had been a little troubled with the idea that, perhaps, I might not be able to manage the matter, after all; but, almost to my joy, I found old Barry complaining of his rheumatism, hobbling about, and looking wrathfully up the winding stairs, in surly deprecation of his approaching ascent. Upon which I seized the favorable opportunity, and, while relieving ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... a shout of: "They are just getting him aboard!" and the crowd, rushing away from the stern, carried with it the two disputants—the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, and buttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant, following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as he shifted his cap from the one ear to ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... men had killed their comrade and that they wanted him, Ali Gorah, the chief, was surly and insolent. He refused to give him up, said that he wished no war with them, but that if they wanted any of his people they must fight for them. Then guards were set about the camp and the little command lay down to sleep within ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... all Welsh here, and if a stranger should lose his way in this county of Carnarvon, it is ten to one if he meets with any one that has English enough to set him right. The people are also naturally very surly, and even if they understand English, if you ask them a question their answer is, "Dame Salsenach," or "I cannot speak Saxon or English." Their Bibles and prayer-books are all printed in Welsh in our character; so that an Englishman ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... cruel youth; he was aloof from her, and the distance between them could never be crossed. She knew at once that the mysterious bridges which link men with women broke down in this case, and she was strongly tempted to leave the cabin to the sole possession of her surly host. ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... others arrived; the music continued. Several times people passing caught Brandes' eye, and bowed and smiled. He either acknowledged such salutes with a slight and almost surly nod, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... peace, for Annear and his wife were both present. Once while Esther and I were missing a dance over some light refreshment, I had occasion to watch June as he and Annear danced in the same set. I thought the latter acted rather surly, though Deweese was the acme of geniality, and was apparently having the time of his life as he tripped through the mazes of the dance. Had I not known of the deadly enmity existing between them, I could never have suspected anything ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... meeting of Atotarho and Dekanawidah is a notable event in Iroquois history. At a later day, a native artist sought to represent it in an historical picture, which has been already referred to. Atotarho is seated in solitary and surly dignity, smoking a long pipe, his head and body encircled with contorted and angry serpents. Standing before him are two figures which cannot be mistaken. The foremost, a plumed and cinctured warrior, depicted as addressing the Onondaga chief, ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale
... their antagonists with insolence and scorn: the presbyterians were incensed to see their friends disgraced, and their enemies distinguished by the royal indulgence. They insisted upon the authority of the law, which happened to be upon their side: they became more than ever sour, surly, and implacable; they refused to concur with the prelatists or abate in the least circumstances of discipline; and the assembly was dissolved without any time or place assigned for the next meeting. The presbyterians pretended an independent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... so much of decay as of unthrift, and yet hardly of unthrift, seems to prevail in the neighborhood, which has none of the aggressive and impudent squalor of an Irish quarter, and none of the surly wickedness of a low American street. A gayety not born of the things that bring its serious joy to the true New England heart—a ragged gayety, which comes of summer in the blood, and not in the pocket or the conscience, and which ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... would have seen that sight; houses little better than those of the poorest mountain village in the Southern Italy of today, black with smoke, black with dirt, blacker with patches made by shadowy windows that had no glass. A silent town, too, surly and defensive; now and then the call of the water-carrier disturbs the stillness, more rarely, the cry of a wandering peddler; and sometimes a distant sound of hoofs, a far clash of iron and steel, and the echoing yell of furious fighting men—'Orsini!' 'Colonna!'—the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... miles lay before Curly, messenger to the queen, but the bigness of his errand lightened the way, and his own courage and hopefulness communicated themselves to his steed. The mad horse, Pinto, indomitable, unapproachable, loped along with head down and ears back, surly at touch of rein or spur, yet steady in his gait as an antelope. The two swept down the long canon from Heart's Desire, traversed for twenty-five miles the alkali plain below, and climbed then the Nogales and the Bonitos, over paths known only to cattle thieves and ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... jungle law is broken; From forest, field and plain, The beasts and birds have spoken, "The traitor must be slain," The surly bear comes growling, From out his lonesome den; He hears the were-wolf howling, ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... proceeded to the palace-gate, which is a great pillared archway, of wonderful loftiness and state, giving admittance into a spacious quadrangle. A stout, elderly, and rather surly footman in livery appeared at the entrance, and took possession of whatever canes, umbrellas, and parasols he could get hold of, in order to claim sixpence on our departure. This had a somewhat ludicrous effect. There is much public outcry ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "And, to say wot's the plain truth, d'ye see, I'm not sorry to ha' done with your schooner; for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could wish for to go to sea in, I can't say much for the crew,—saving your presence, Dick," he added, glancing over his shoulder at the surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar. "Of all the rascally set I ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst. If I didn't know you for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I'd take ye ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... had done, they obeyed. Six men of them there were: surly crippled Manning, with eyes ablaze and jaws set like a trap; lank Wagner with his hands still in his pockets; Rank Judge, stumping on his wooden leg; greasy adipose Buck Walker, who ran the meat ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... refreshed himself at the auberge where the barouche and guide had been hired to convey the party from Montalais on to Montpellier. The landlord remembered Duchemin and made believe he didn't, serving the wayfarer with a surly grace the only drink he would admit he had to sell, an atrociously acid cider fit to render the last stage of thirst ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... and Thomas Jefferson had arrived at the camp and in his most surly manner the guide turned to the two uninvited guests and said, "What are you two fellows ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... had bidden me reject with so much scorn, in my pocket. Thou, I am certain, wilt not ask what I did with it. I immediately tendered those same Christians I told thee of their money. The rascals were disappointed, and would have been surly; but a single look silenced their insolence. One of them was dispatched, according to form, to see that there were no detainers; and, being paid, they ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... and yellow, and many other colours, flaunt us and mock us with the protection assured by the Tsung-li Yamen. Still, those despatches continue to come in, but the first interpreter of the French Legation, who sees some of them in the original, says that their tone is becoming more surly ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... we observed baggage ponies approaching, and at the sight we felt aggrieved; for, in our colossal selfishness, we fancied that Tronkol was ours, and ours alone. A small tent was pitched, and presently to our surly eyes appeared a lonely lady, who proceeded solemnly to play Patience in front of it while her dinner ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of literature" has, as we say now, "stuck") both appear in it: and the matter is interesting. We have, so far as I remember, no record of any interview between Johnson and ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... her wt a great meikle stone greater than 2 milstones, which God knows whence he brought, but she miraculously supported it wt hir head, as the woman heir carries the courds and whey on their head. Surly she had a gay burden; and never rested till she came to that place wheir its standing even now. They talk also that she brought the 5 pillars on which its erected till above a mans hight in hir lap wt hir. I mocking at this fable, I fell in inquiry whence it might have come their, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot: There the river eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls, Pass onward ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... by being too tenacious about securing the remainder of the doubloons. Pronouncing in very energetic terms on Uncle Sam, and all his cruisers, an anathema that we do not care to repeat, he gave a surly order to Ben to "knock-off," and abandoned his late design. In a minute he was on deck ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... though this formality partook of their respective characters. Toole used to throw up his nose, and raise his eyebrows, and make his brother mediciner a particularly stiff, and withal scornful reverence when they met. Sturk, on the other hand, made a short, surly nod—'twas little more—and, without a word, turned on his heel, with a gruff pitch ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you (said he), His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lowered eve he came horribly ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... had heard little or nothing. She had found the farmhouse, had bought her supplies from a surly woman and had come away again. Asked by Mr. Muldoon if she had seen any men, she said she had seen a farmhand milking. That was all, except the outlaw on ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... meant to stand alone, to face a small hostile world, to have a surfeit of fighting. The station of Seven Islands was the hardest in all the district of the ancient POSTES DU ROI. The Indians were surly and crafty. They knew all the tricks of the fur-trade. They killed out of season, and understood how to make a rusty pelt look black. The former agent had accommodated himself to his customers. He had no objection ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... my wood," he repeated, surly-toned. However, he nodded his head when Jordan explained that it might be to his advantage to tarry ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... none of the satisfaction which the winning of the match should have afforded him, for he flung the box which he had been carrying aside as though it had offended him. He wanted to speak, he wanted to say something pleasant. He wanted to banish that surly look from Will's eyes; but somehow he could find nothing to say, nothing to do. He looked on while the other lifted his reins to ride off. Then, in desperation, he came up ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... blowing in. She could hear the flap, flap of the canvas of the tents off in the camp, a thin veil of mist was obscuring the stars, the pound of the surf was growing louder and the swish of the water on the beach more surly. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... Jim's daughter, Mrs. Blakeston had called her, and when the girl had come to her mother Liza saw that she spoke angrily, and they both looked across at her. When Liza caught Mrs. Blakeston's eye she saw in her face a surly scowl, which almost frightened her; she wanted to brave it out, and stepped forward a little to go and speak with the woman, but Mrs. Blakeston, standing still, looked so angrily at her that she was afraid to. When ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... not see the actual process. Leaving the sugar-house, we went in pursuit of the mayoral, or overseer, who seemed to inhabit comfortable quarters, in a long, low house, shielded from the sun by a thick screen of matting. We found him a powerful, thick-set man, of surly and uncivil manners, girded with a sword, and further armed with a pistol, a dagger, and a stout whip. He was much too important a person to waste his words upon us, but signified that the major-domo would wait on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... been, to some extent at least, a man of refinement and culture when he had passed through Bill's camp so long ago. He had been clean-shaven except for a small mustache; courteous, rather patronizing but still friendly. Now he was like a surly beast. His eyes were narrow and greedy,—weasel eyes that at once Bill mistrusted and disliked. A scowl was at his lips, no more were they in a firm, straight line. The light and glory of upright manhood, if indeed he had ever possessed it, had gone from him now. He was ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... must know the town of Bagdad is divided into quarters, in each of which there is a mosque with an imaum to perform service at certain hours, at the head of the quarter which assembles there. The imaum of the division I live in is a surly curmudgeon, of an austere countenance, and the greatest hypocrite in the world. Four old men of this neighbourhood, who are people of the same stamp, meet regularly every day at this imaum's house. There they vent their slander, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... cannot suffice. Superficial intimacy with features betrayable to the senses of any undiscriminating beholder is naught. Casual knowledge of its botany and birds counts for little. All—even the least significant, the least obvious of its charms are there to, give conservative delight, and surly the soul that would ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... angry. She had made up her mind that Jonas would continue a "hudger," and that his house and land would fall to her son, after his demise. This was perhaps an unreasonable expectation, especially as her own conduct had precipitated the engagement; but it was natural. She partook of the surly disposition of her brother. She could not exist without somebody or something to fall out with, to scold, to find fault with. Her incessant recrimination had at length aroused in Jonas the resolve to cast her wholly from his dwelling, to ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... he was four years old he already thought it, as he did ever afterwards, one of the greatest of treats to have a solitary talk with his father. He was, however, rather unsociable and earned the nickname of 'Gruffian' for his occasionally surly manner. This, with a stubborn disposition and occasional fits of the sulks, must have made it difficult to manage a child who persisted in justifying 'naughtiness' upon general principles. He was rather inclined to be indolent, and his mother regrets that he is not so persevering as ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... this not to say that they were so much coarse and crude as they were fierce, absorbed, self-centered. Each man depended upon himself and needed to do so. The crew on the decks were relics from keel-boat days, surly and ugly of temper. The captain was an ex-pilot of the lower river, taciturn and surly of disposition. Our pilot had been drunk for a week at the levee of St. Louis and I misdoubt that all snags and ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... my right name, but they call me Charley," was the lad's almost surly response. "I live at Pass Christian and work on a shrimping schooner. My boat is ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... dismissal from the mines, she saw but little of her father. Sometimes she saw nothing of him for weeks. The night after he lost his place, he came into the house, and making up a small bundle of his personal effects, took a surly leave of ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... red at the reproach implied in my observance, then very reluctantly lifted his own glass and said, "And yours," in a surly, grudging manner. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... splendour, but because it is so well known. We are familiar with the faces of its great men by portraits, and with the events of their lives by innumerable biographies. Every reader is acquainted with Pope's restless jealousy, Goldsmith's pitted countenance and plum-coloured coat, Johnson's surly manners and countless eccentricities, and with the tribe of poets who lived for months ignorant of clean linen, who were hunted by bailiffs, who smelt of stale punch, and who wrote descriptions of the feasts of the gods in twopenny cook-shops. Manners and modes of thought ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... Twenty-four Kinds of Villains," composed about the same period as the one above referred to, gives us a graphic description of the varieties of character among the feudal peasants. One example is given of a man who will not tell a traveller the way, but merely in a surly way answers, "You know it better than I" (Fig. 67). Another, sitting at his door on a Sunday, laughs at those passing by, and says to himself when he sees a gentleman going hawking with a bird on his wrist, "Ah! that bird will eat a hen to-day, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been reading his famous Journey, with its diverting remarks on second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... she was calmer than I, and bade me run down to the closet. I could hear her cheerful and chaffing voice greeting him. When I walked in back to my own room she called out: 'Here's T. home!' I learned afterward that he had been surly and suspicious, and had seen the moisture on the bed, and asked about it, whereupon she had turned the tables upon him completely; he ought to be ashamed of himself; she knew what he meant by his insinuations; if he must know how that moisture come on the bed, why she put the soap there in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and strong as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone could never bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration, he resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty man about the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell him until every thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... oncoming figure. Great men kept their word. Had not Mr. Jefferson said that he would overtake them?—and there he was! He was coming down to the camp-fire, he was going to stop and talk to the surly giant, like Giant Despair, who ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... him; no longer denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly, stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of relatives, who wish to tug at and tousel each other, not to murder ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... his shoes. Then it must come, forsooth, to more whistling; and the same Play being over, we had one more Lantern to our Band, and one more Scurvy Companion as Black as a Flag,[K] who in their kennel Tongue was Mungo. And by and by we were joined by Surly, and Black Tom, and Grumps; and so with these five Men, who were pleased to be called as the Beasts are, I stumbled along, tired, and drowsy, and famishing, and thinking my journey would never come to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... persuasive gayety that the number of dancers at once went up to ten and others wiggled to the rhythm. And for myself, although I am past my sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a fox-trot. Even a surly tune—if the handle be quickened—comes from the box with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it came out ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... speaks of you as a sad young dog, but for all that is secretly proud of your skill at the bow and of the way you are pestering the Sheriff, whom he likes not. 'Twas for my father's sake that I am now in the open, an outlaw like yourself. He has had a steward, a surly fellow enough, who, while I was away at school, boot-licked his way to favor until he lorded it over the whole house. Then he grew right saucy and impudent, but my father minded it not, deeming the fellow indispensable in managing ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... his misery and discomfort must be sought farther back in his life. His surly speech, his unsocial temper, spoke of a mind ill at ease,—the remembrance of the ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... land, for which he is paid ten sous the fathom. He is accustomed to working in a marshy soil, and so, as he says, he gets jobs which no one else cares to take. He can make about three francs a day by clearing out ponds, or draining meadows that lie under water. His deafness makes him seem surly, and he is not naturally inclined to say very much, but there is a good deal ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Bradhurst, a surly old half pirate of the saltiest pattern, answered: "Ill? Then he had better go ashore as soon as possible. I will refund his money. We cannot make a hospital out of the ship. If his lordship is too ill to stand inspection, see that he ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... to the man in our text. According to some commentators, he was imprisoned for something like ten years. We do not know how long his Egyptian bondage had lasted, nor how long before that his endurance of the active ill-will of his surly brothers had gone on. But at all events his chrysalis stage was very long, and one would not have wondered if he had said to himself, down in that desert pit or in that Egyptian dungeon, 'Ah, yes! they were dreams, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the somewhat surly driver of the cab exchanged a quick glance. Immediately afterwards the footman named eight shillings in a voice ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... also the feeling of the Duchess of Berry, who, during all the Restoration, fled from surly politics to live in the region, radiant and sacred, of art and charity. The taste of this Italian lady for painting and music was a veritable passion. She was forever to be found in the museums, the expositions, the theatres. She caught the melodies by heart and was always interested ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... be elated, and he confided to Carrie that he thought he had made an excellent arrangement. Time, however, introduced food for reflection. He found his partner to be very disagreeable. Frequently he was the worse for liquor, which made him surly. This was the last thing which Hurstwood was used to in business. Besides, the business varied. It was nothing like the class of patronage which he had enjoyed in Chicago. He found that it would take a long time to make friends. These people hurried in and out without seeking ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... the smoke of the tobacco had so pleased Nanahboozhoo that he asked the giant to give him some. The giant refused in a very surly fashion, saying that he only gave portions of it away to his friends the Munedoos, who came once a year ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... independence, loyalty, truthfulness, firmness, honesty, and love of fair play. How far we are justified in doing so, perhaps other nations are the better judges. They, I believe, generally regard us as a proud and surly race—qualities on which there is no occasion ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... who seemed to know what to do, set her mouth to the horn, and blew a blast; and in a little while the door was opened, and a big man clad in red scarlet stood therein: he had no weapons, but was somewhat surly of aspect: he spake not, but stood abiding the word: so the damsel took it up and said: "Art thou not the ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... quality in unlikely places, and his words gave a new meaning to paintings that Margaret had passed thoughtlessly by. There was the portrait of a statuary by Bronzino in the Long Gallery of the Louvre. The features were rather large, the face rather broad. The expression was sombre, almost surly in the repose of the painted canvas, and the eyes were brown, almond-shaped like those of an Oriental; the red lips were exquisitely modelled, and the sensuality was curiously disturbing; the dark, chestnut hair, cut short, curled over the head ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... silence, except that occasionally Nan urged hurry. She sat bolt upright, her hands clasped in her lap, her figure rigid, trying to keep hold of herself. At Jake's Place a surly hostler appeared and led away their horse. Jake's Place was in darkness save for one lighted room on the ground floor and a dimly illuminated bar ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... and then told him the joke, which he refused to credit, and also declined to take the money which Pentland offered to return, as it could not possibly be his since seven Indians had taken his money. We had a great deal of fun over Vivalla's courage, but the matter made him so cross and surly that we were finally obliged to drop it altogether. From that time forward, however, Vivalla never boasted ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... into its bosom, lessening the width to half the usual dimensions. One of these projections was but a short distance in the rear of the squadron of dragoons, and Dunwoodie directed Captain Lawton to withdraw, with two troops, behind its cover. The officer obeyed with a kind of surly reluctance, that was, however, somewhat lessened by the anticipations of the effect his sudden appearance would make on the enemy. Dunwoodie knew his man, and had selected the captain for this service, both because he feared his ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... people of Madrid had conceived against the French character, the vindictive feelings generated during centuries of national rivalry, gradually yielded to his arts; while the Austrian ambassador, a surly, pompous, niggardly German, made himself and his country more ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your fool head off the first time I meet you!" the man returned. He let himself back into the barber's waiting hands, a growl deep in him, surly as an old dog that has been roused out of his place in ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... you to help me,' was the gardener's surly answer, 'except by taking yourself off, Master Georgie. Children ought not to be about when there's serious work ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden; demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a surly and sullen speculator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason. But it must be at least confessed, that to embellish the form of nature is an innocent amusement; and some praise ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... in holes and corners and sheds, inside carriages and behind trucks, Jan at length came upon a short, surly-looking man, wearing the official uniform. It was the one of whom he was ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Perhaps, however, this difference may arise more from the want of Liberty than the power of climate. Oh Liberty! sweet Liberty! without thee life cannot be enjoyed! Thou parent of comfort, whose children bless thee, though they dwell among the barren rocks, or the most surly regions of the earth! Thou blessest, in spite of nature; and in spite ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... graceful on the bounding steed; So well in paint and stone they judged of merit: But kings in wit may want discerning spirit. The hero William, and the martyr Charles, One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles; Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear, 'No Lord's anointed, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... and was surly. He was in a much worse mood than before he had ridden to Heckleston. But after a week or so ruminating upon the occurrence, he wondered that Feltram spoke no more of it. It was undoubtedly wonderful. There had been no hint of repayment yet, and he had made some hundreds by the loan; ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... coming, though belated. The shock-headed man, clattering over the rounded stones in wooden shoes, made to fit by the insertion of straw around his naked feet, no sooner heard him name Herr Daniels as the one expecting him, than he bade him welcome in a cordial tone which his surly face had not presaged. ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... with slow and solemn air, Led by the nostril, walks the muzzled bear; Behind him moves, majestically dull, The pride of Hockley-hole, the surly bull; Learn hence the periods of the week to name: Mondays and Thursdays are ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... work; Polly's love of finery was intense. She began to sing in a surly tone, that straightened out as visions suggested by the song flitted before her. The circus ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... he took no further notice of us, allowing us to take our food in the cockpit, and to sleep in a couple of hammocks which were slung there, which had belonged to two of the men who had been killed. We had to do everything for ourselves, the seamen being either surly to us or rude. Harry and I separately, on two different occasions, endeavoured to speak to Tubbs, but a man immediately stepped up and asked us what we wanted, he having, I suppose, been directed by the Captain to watch us and Tubbs, to see that we ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... standing in the kitchen. Just then two mean-looking fellows, who had been drinking at one of the tables, and who appeared to be the only customers in the house, got up, brushed past the landlord, and saying in a surly tone "We shall pay you some time or other," took their departure. "That's the way they serve me now," said the landlord, with a sigh. "Do you know those fellows," I demanded, "since you let them go ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... then," replied her father, in a surly tone. "At one time he were desperate fond o' thee, or I'm much mistaken. Much fonder of thee ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... country, city seek, grand thrones to boot, With gentle courtesy humbly bow before. Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave Seek thy acquaintance, hail their first advance: From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save, May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. Some surly Cato, Senator austere, Haply may wish to peep into thy book: Seem very nothing—tremble and revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er look. They love not thee: of them then little seek, And wish for readers triflers like thyself. Of ludeful matron watchful catch the beck, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... signal was given that the ceremony was about to commence, and every one hurried along the corridor of the busts. I was holding my little sister's hand, and just in front of us was the very fat and very solemn Madame Nathalie. She was a Societaire of the Comedie, old, spiteful, and surly. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the surly groom to do with your ladyship's concerns?—no more, surely, than the ban-dog which watches his courtyard. If he is in aught distasteful to your ladyship, I have interest enough to have him exchanged for a seneschal that shall be ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... she once asked, and when he gave a surly answer she said, carelessly, "You better get something from the doctor," and began to sing immediately afterwards. But she knew how he looked even when her back was turned, and she often stared at Mary in a meditative way as ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order when this last appeared; and a brief conference in undertones ended when, having made careful reconnaissance, the publican nodded shortly to the patron, a jerk of his thumb ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... extraordinary opulence of thought; but it is the produce of an amassing power in the author, and not of a growth from within. Indeed a large proportion of Ben Jonson's thoughts may be traced to classic or obscure modern writers, by those who are learned and curious enough to follow the steps of this robust, surly, and observing dramatist. ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... of that surly speech, Neeven turned to fule-Tammy. "Tell this gentleman, Tammy, about the peat fires you ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... for nothing. She is needed for the service of Truth.' Master Robert Fowler grew lean and wan with inward struggle, but yield his will he could not, yet disobey the Voice he did not dare. When his wife and children asked what ailed him he answered not, or gave a surly reply. Truth to tell, he avoided their company all he could,—and yet a look was in his eyes when they did not notice as if he had never before felt them half so dear. At length the long-expected day arrived when the completed vessel sailed graciously out to sea. But there was no ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... harder, the animals less vigorous, and the strain of the journey beginning to tell. Tempers that had been easy in the long, bright days on the Platte now were showing sharp edges. Leff had become surly, Glen quarrelsome. One evening Susan saw him strike Bob a blow so savage that the child fell screaming in pain and terror. Bella rushed to her first born, gathered him in her arms and turned a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.—The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... shook hands, and Amos followed suit, but when they had reached Zachary, a tall young man of eighteen years or so, Zachary bent his handsome surly face and fumbled at his shoe. Chris stood there with his hand out, feeling the red blood surging angrily up his cheeks, and then he wondered who Zachary was looking at from ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... military service an object of horror to the better part of the middle and lower classes. The soldiers themselves, who could be flogged and drilled into high military perfection by a great general like Frederick, felt a surly indifference to their present taskmasters, and were ready to desert in masses to their homes as soon as a defeat broke up the regimental muster and roll-call. A proposal made in the previous year to introduce that system of general service which has since made Prussia so great a military ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... am held here and what is to become of me?" said Rosalie resignedly. She was standing across the table from where he sat smoking his great, black pipe. The other members of the gang were lounging about, surly and black-browed, chafing inwardly over the delay in getting ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... inspiration from goodness, in Cai's heart, too, a miracle happened, He forgot himself, forgot his loss which was 'Bias's gain: forgot that, keeping his surly attitude, 'Bias had uttered neither a "thank you" nor a word of pity. Old affection, old admiration, old faith, and regard came pouring back in a warm tide, thrilling, suffusing his consciousness, drowning all but one thought— one proud thought that stood like a sea-mark above the flood, ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... missed Tom from his place in the choir; In the evening his wife sat alone by the fire; When her husband came home he was never too early, And his manner was dull, and at times even surly. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... pattikalerest lady I ebber come acrost about de feel of water, an' I is done tired out, I is—" The rest was lost, as Dinah vanished from the apartment of the invalid. In the next moment, I heard the key turned, and the outlet bolt drawn, and the growl of the surly sable watch-dog without, who, in Mrs. Raymond's absence, officiated as ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... refuge from the horror and the insults of life. But there were always others to be considered. She could not strike them so terrible a blow. Retreat was ruthlessly cut off. Nothing remained but the endurance of a conscious slow decay; nothing but increasing loss and feebleness, as the surly years went by. They were going, going, these years of life, slipping away with their spoils. Youth was departing, everything was vanishing; her very self, bit by bit, slowly but surely, till the House ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
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