"Churl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reign over any of the kingdoms of the earth, to be flouted by you, a mere churl? Out of my chamber this instant, and betake yourself to working in the fields, for they are fitter setting for one of your birth ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... should sure choose to be as I am, tortured still with cares and fears; but out of peevishness, and not out of truth." That which St. Austin said of himself here in this place, I may truly say to thee, thou discontented wretch, thou covetous niggard, thou churl, thou ambitious and swelling toad, 'tis not want but peevishness which is the cause of thy woes; settle ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... another thing! But this headstrong girl seemed to think she had as good a right to be happy in her own way as a peasant! True, the man of her choice was not a reprobate: he was not even a low-born, unmannerly churl: Don Fernando de Velasquez stood foremost among the young cavaliers of Spain, in gallantry and in that nobility of mind which, should ever accompany gentle birth. But yet it was in that very gentle birth that all the offence lay, for Fernando's ancestors had long ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... told her then with the truest words I could tell her, it was not right for her to be joined with a common clumsy churl; and the man that was three times fairer than the whole race of the Scots, waiting till she would come to him to be his ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... the son of Sualtam and Dectera of Dun Dalgan! and comest hither without chariots and horsemen and a prince's retinue and guard. Nay, thou art a churl and a liar to boot, and hie thee hence now with wings at thy heels or verily with sore blows I shall beat thee ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... their strength and speed? A proper man I dash away, As their two dozen legs were mine indeed. Up then, from idle pondering free, And forth into the world with me! I tell you what;—your speculative churl Is like a beast which some ill spirit leads, On barren wilderness, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... because I prefer your drawings to every thing in the world, that I am such a churl as to refuse Mrs. Bentley's partridges: I shall thank her very much for them. You must excuse me If I am vain enough to be so convinced of my own taste, that all the neglect that has been thrown upon your designs cannot make me ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... in sweetheart or friend, he must have led a solitary intellectual life, alone with his great ambition, and probably pitied by his acquaintance. "The world," says Emerson to the Poet, "is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this is thine; thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long season. This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower." The special nature of Milton's studies cannot now be exactly ascertained. Of his manner of studying he informs Diodati, "No delay, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... my well-contented day When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripped by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... were eager for their reward. Norman, Breton, Angevin, clamored for possession: families of peasants crossed the sea, expecting, in right of their French tongue, to be gentry at once, and lords of the churl Saxons; while the Saxons, fully conscious of their own nobility, and possessors of the soil for five hundred years, derided them ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... several of my fair Reasoners urge, in defence of this Practice, that it is but a necessary Provision they make for themselves, in case their Husband proves a Churl or a Miser; so that they consider this Allowance as a kind of Alimony, which they may lay their Claim to, without actually separating from their Husbands. But with Submission, I think a Woman who will give up her self to a Man in Marriage, where there is the least Room for such an Apprehension, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... heaven, Jack Ireton, 'tis you who are the true lover and the gentleman; and I am naught but a selfish churl with my face in my own trencher!" he burst out, wringing my hand yet again. "'Tis as you say; yet I will not be driven from this; for aught you have told me to prove it otherwise, Madge has yet to choose between us, and she shall have that choice, fairly and squarely, and knowing that ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... could earn a day. As Mr. Brisk looks at Mercy's lap so full of hats and hosen and says it, I can see his natty cane beginning to lengthen itself out in his soft-skinned hand and to send out teeth like a muck-rake. Give Mr. Brisk another thirty years or so and he will be an ancient churl, raking to himself the sticks and the straws and the dust of the earth, neither looking up to nor regarding the celestial crown that is still offered to him in exchange ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... his name some Ron...Ronte... Or...Oronte... No. Ge...Geronte. Yes, Geronte, that's my miser's name. I have it now; it is the old churl I mean. Well, to come back to our story. Our people wished to leave this town to-day, and my lover would have lost me through his lack of money if, in order to wrench some out of his father, he had not made use of a clever servant he has. As for that servant's name, I remember it very well. His name ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... a hurry," said his uncle, coolly. "Let me think this over again. After all, we are of the same stock, although your father always flouted me for a mean-spirited churl. Poor Gavan, we ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... conquered, that in the children of our Prince of Wales, after 800 years, the blood of William of Normandy is mingled with the blood of the very Harold who fell at Hastings. And so, by the bitter woes which followed the Norman conquest was the whole population, Dane, Angle, and Saxon, earl and churl, freeman and slave, crushed and welded together into one homogeneous mass, made just and merciful towards each other by the most wholesome of all teachings, a community of suffering; and if they had been, as I fear they were, a lazy and a sensual ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... for it was enough for the divine Julius to pension with a township the writer and glorifier of those conquests which he had achieved over the whole world. But now the spendthrift kindness of the populace squandered a kingdom on a churl. Nay, not even Africanus, when he rewarded the records of his deed, rose to the munificence of the Danes. For there the wage of that laborious volume was in mere gold, while here a few callow verses won a sceptre ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... something jar the nicer feminine sense With usage, being all too fine and large, Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick Of blunting 'Mariana's' keener edge To 'Mary Ann'—the same but not the same: Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair, Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever calling 'Churl!' Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol, To forge a thousand theories of the rocks, Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool, Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle And there found love, a ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... am much obliged to you. You would only think me a churl if you had, for I should decline it, I believe, in spite of all the temptations of such agreeable company,' said Mr. Bell, bowing all round, and secretly congratulating himself on the neat turn he had given to his sentence, which, if put into plain language, would have been ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... rouse the exhausted nags with a switch, he showed him that they did not move. The castellan, after he had watched him for a while with an expression of defiance, broke out, "Look at the ruffian! Ought not the churl to thank God that the jades are still alive?" He asked who would have been expected to take care of them when the groom had run away, and whether it were not just that the horses should have worked in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... sore, Had gained the home of the Interpreter, He saw a sorry fellow with great stir Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor; And the more mire the churl raked, the more He smiled, although a winged messenger Floating aloft was eager to confer On him the crown that in her hands she bore. So is it with those fools that waste their days In raking stores of dross and minted gear, Oblivious ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... known colloquially as a "crank." The person who does not thank, by word or look, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire or water, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than that of a churl. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and beat in his helmet, though without doing much injury. He was very near falling, however; but, bearing on his stirrups, he recovered himself immediately; and when he thought to have revenged himself upon the churl by killing him, he had escaped, dreading the Duke's blow. He ran back in among the English, but he was not safe even there; for the Normans, seeing him, pursued and caught him, and having pierced him through and through with their lances, left him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... have said farewell, and now, madam, to you. Yet do not think that I am a man without eyes for your beauty, or a heart to know your worth. I seemed to you a fool and a churl. I grieved most bitterly, and I wronged you bitterly; my excuse for all is now known. For though you are more beautiful than she, yet true love is no wanderer; it gives a beauty that it does not find, and weaves a chain no other ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... thy breeding, churl, to use such thewis [manners] with a lady?" demanded little Roger in a ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... ungracious driver; he only swung his two canes a little more briskly, and kept breast of the horses all the way, entering the town side by side with the inhospitable vehicles—a running reproach to the churl on the box. ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... was as severe as the compulsion of butties. Every approach to recreation, every act of mutual providence against accident or disease, began and ended in beer. The day a man entered the pit's company, he paid 1s. for footing-ale, and the doggy saw that no churl escaped. When a lad was old enough to have a sweetheart he was toasted with the 'nasty' shilling. The sins of the married men were washed away in half-a-crown's worth of ale. The beer-shop was the head-quarters of the Burial ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... law, but the finite can never overbalance the infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,—but with God there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... garment; if a man of gentle birth put it on, it suited him well; but if a churl, it would not ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... am Covetousness, begotten of an old churl, in a leather bag: and, might I now obtain my wish, this house, you, and all, should turn to gold, that I might lock you safe into my chest: O my ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... No churl's our oldworld name is, The lands we leave are fair: But fairer far than these are, But wide as all the seas are, But high as heaven the fame is That if we die ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... stately. But when they spake, Menelaus' words were fluent, clear but few; Odysseus when he spoke, fixed his eyes on the ground, turning his sceptre neither backwards nor forward, standing still like a man devoid of wit; one would have deemed him a churl and a very fool; yet when he sent forth his mighty voice from his breast in words as many as the snowflakes, no other man ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... miser, though he pays every body their own, cannot be an honest man, when he does not discharge the good offices that are incumbent on a friendly, kind, and generous person: for, faith the prophet Isaiah, chap. XXXII. ver. 7, 8. The instruments of a churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal soul deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand. It is certainly honest to do every thing the law requires; but should we throw every ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... I fell thee," The noisy Atle cries: "No one comes here, I tell thee, But either fights or flies. If peace thou ask'st, believe me,— I fight, but am no churl,— In friendship I'll receive thee, And ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... sternly, turning to one who rode behind him, "you have failed in your trust. I told you to watch the boy, and from time to time you brought me news that he was growing up but a village churl. He is no churl, and unless I mistake me, he will some day be dangerous. Let me know when he next returns to the village; we must then take speedy steps for preventing ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... heart of the churl, which can never be made bountiful," said the indignant young priest. It was not a fit sentiment, perhaps, for a preacher who had just written that text about the wicked man turning from the evil of his ways. Mr Wentworth went away in a glow of indignation and excitement, and left his guest ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... given me back the sword of my ancestors, I, thinking to requite his kindness at his death, rendered important services to Matagoro. It would be easy to finish the matter by sending a present of money; but I had rather take the sword and return it than be under an obligation to this mean churl, who knows not the laws which regulate the intercourse and dealings of men of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... my lord! I am shamed to think my sovereign's son should wait, Through a churl's ignorance, without ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... having seduced the affections of a young woman named Una O'Brien, daughter of a man called Michael O'Brien, otherwise Bodagh Buie, or the Yellow Churl, demanded her in marriage from her father and family, who unanimously rejected his pretensions. Upon which, instigated by the example and practice of the dark combination of which he was so distinguished a leader, he persuaded memorialist, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... good sir; I'll trouble you. [Exit GRIPE.] Now 'twere a good jest, if I could cosen the old churl of his daughter, and get the wench for myself. Zounds, I am as proper a man as Peter Plod-all: and though his father be as good a man as mine, yet far-fetched and dear-bought is good for ladies; and, I am sure, I have been as far as Cales[141] to fetch that I have. I have been at ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... what envy told; * No envious churl shall smile on love ensoul'd. Merciful Allah made no fairer sight * Than coupled lovers single couch doth hold; Breast pressing breast and robed in joys their own, * With pillowed forearms cast in finest mould: And when heart speaks ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... cursing myself for a churl, I wrote and wished her good luck. The next morning I received a letter from Uncle Bob asking me to go to Wimberley; and early in the following week I travelled up to Cumberland. I received a warm welcome from the old General. As a boy I used ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... nor the other, you crooked churl," replied one of the crippled beggars. "The Sheriff is returned from London with his daughter, and the folk are giving him a welcome, such as you will never have from the city! Stand back, for there is no room for you there. Four of us as it is are too many, and we have come here ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... the King's Son, "thou art jesting with me; thou and thy might and thy wisdom, and all that thy wisdom may command, to be over- mastered by a gangrel churl!" ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... vile person would be no more called bountiful, or the churl called liberal: flattery and cringing to the evil great would be at an end. The people would have sense to see the truth about right and wrong, and courage to speak it. Men would then be held for what ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... artisan. Oh, how much better it would be that those folk of whom I speak were neighbors, and to have your confine at Galluzzo and at Trespiano,[3] than to have them within, and to endure the stench of the churl of Aguglione,[4] and of him of Signa, who already has his eye ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... Thrills with fire from heaven the wheels of hours that whirl, Rose and passed her radiance in serene transition From his eyes who sought a grain and found a pearl. But the food by cunning hope for vain fruition Lightly stolen away from keeping of a churl Left the bitterness of death and hope's perdition On the lip that scorn was ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... this a great while, he said to the knight: "Hast thou heard it of yonder churl how he prayeth that his wife may be delivered of her child, and another while prayeth that she may not be delivered? Certes, he is worser than a thief. For every man ought to have pity of women, more especially of them that be sick of childing. ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... course, a more extended "radius;" But, Cabby, it is clear, Thinks quite otherwise. I fear The controversy's growing rather "taydious." Whether by night or day, A fair fare the fare should pay, And Cabby should not overcharge unduly; But this is what riles me, When churl Cabby will not see A would-be fare, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... unto the Sumner; "see, I told thee how 'twould fall. Thou seest, dear brother, The churl spoke one thing, but he thought another. Let us prick on, for we take ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... cheeks faded On shores invaded, When shorewards waded The lords of fight; When churl and craven Saw hard on haven The wide-winged raven At mainmast height; When monks affrighted To windward sighted The birds full-flighted Of swift sea-kings; So earth turns paler When Storm the sailor Steers in with a roar in the race of ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... promised likeness, and shake the pillared rottenness of the world! Leave not thy sounding words in air, write them in marble, and teach the coming age heroic truths! Up, and wake the echoes of Time! Rich in deepest lore, die not the bed-rid churl of knowledge, leaving the survivors unblest! Set, set as thou didst rise in pomp and gladness! Dart like the sunflower one broad, golden flash of light; and ere thou ascendest thy native sky, show us the steps by which thou didst ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... watch was relieved at midnight, Huish and the captain appeared upon the quarter-deck with flushed faces and uneven steps, the former laden with bottles, the latter with two tin mugs. Herrick silently passed them by. They hailed him in thick voices, he made no answer; they cursed him for a churl, he paid no heed although his belly quivered with disgust and rage. He closed-to the door of the house behind him, and cast himself on a locker in the cabin—not to sleep, he thought—rather to think and to despair. Yet he had scarce turned twice on his uneasy bed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... let me rather thus console it; let me snatch from those lips one breath of that fragrance which never should be wasted on the low churl thy husband. ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... understood their happiness well. Mrs. Edson was not quite so buoyant with spirits as usual; but she conversed with Rufus in her charming style. I was quite indignant to hear so much eloquence and refinement wasted on a churl like him, and just malicious enough to think the fair speaker would have preferred to say her pretty things in the ear of one who could have better appreciated their worth and beauty, namely, Col. Malcome. He is really a splendid man, though I hardly relish the power he seems to exercise ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... attachment of a strong-minded and noble-hearted woman: and when, in addition to this, her society affords the delight of mental accomplishment and personal beauty, such as Hester's, he must be a churl indeed if he does not greatly enjoy the present, and indulge in sweet anticipations for the future. Hope also brought the whole power of his will to bear upon his circumstances. He dwelt upon all the happiest features of his lot; and, in his admiration ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... cheerfulness, to please him with certain charming tricks of attire; and sometimes, with only a white rose-bud gleaming through the braided shadows of her hair, lighted herself up as with a star; then, not a carping churl, not an envious coquette in Hendrik, but confessed to the prettiness of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... brain before she had landed. She had heard the grand ring of passionate love this once at least—and how? In the voice of a common sailor—out of the heart of an ignorant fellow who could neither read nor write, nor speak his own language, a churl, a peasant's son, a labourer—but a man, at least. That was it—a strong, honest, fearless man. That was why it all moved her so—that was why it was not an insult that this low-born fellow should ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... towers of beryl, Tourmaline, hyacinth, topaz and pearl, Free to the King if he have but the pass-word, Free to the veriest low-born churl. ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... feet, without tongues, lived as an example of the danger which attended the commission of petty crimes, and as a warning to all men who had the misfortune of holding no higher position than that of a churl.[29] Wealthy people might do wrong with impunity. It has been clearly shown that there was one law for the rich, and another for the poor, in England during the four centuries which preceded ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... work together, and I bade Hugh tell his folk that so would I deal with any man, knight or churl, Norman or Saxon, who stole as much as one egg from our valley. Said he to me, riding home: "Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening." I answered: "England must be thine and mine, then. Help me, Hugh, ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... suffocate, and scoff, Declare they are "smoked off," Is there no room inside? If smoke means Hades, We, "to oblige the ladies," Have taken outside seats this many a year, Cold, but with weeds to cheer Our macintosh-enswathed umbrella'd bodies; Now we are called churl-noddies Because we puff the humble briar-root. Is man indeed a "brute" Because he may upon the knife-board's rack owe Some solace to Tobacco? If so it be, then man's last, only chance, Is in the full ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... span, Is it not mine, their every power? I fly along as an undoubted man, On four and twenty legs the road I scour. Cheer up, then! let all thinking be, And out into the world with me! I tell thee, friend, a speculating churl Is like a beast, some evil spirit chases Along a barren heath in one perpetual whirl, While round about lie fair, ...
— Faust • Goethe
... if thrown together for a sufficient period of time, and utterly dependent on one another for daily intercourse, fall into the places allotted to each by temperament and heredity. Each little community would own a wit and a butt; the sentimentalist and the cynic. The churl by nature would appear through some veneer of manner, if only to bring into relief the finer qualities of his fellows; lastly, and most surely, one other would jingle a merciful cap and bells, and mingle motley with ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... whistle of the youth who scour'd His master's armor; and of such a one He ask'd, "What means the tumult in the town?" Who told him, scouring still, "The sparrow-hawk!" Then riding close behind an ancient churl, Who, smitten by the dusty sloping beam, Went sweating underneath a sack of corn, Ask'd yet once more what meant the hubbub here? Who answer'd gruffly, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... we ought to be thankful—that the servants were killed, or the gentlefolks were saved? Nor could young Esmond agree in the Doctor's vehement protestations to my lady, when he visited her during her convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms, and had not been churl enough to injure the fair features of the Viscountess of Castlewood; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the small-pox. When the marks of the disease cleared away, they did not, it is true, leave furrows or ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to look along the high road to see if wayfarers were there to share the meal with him and his family. "There he goes," was the saying about any one who passed the door at any time without coming in to take a spoon—"there he goes; I'll warrant he's a miser at home to be so much of a churl abroad" The very gipsy claimed the cleanest bed in a Glenman's house whenever he came that way, and his gossip paid handsomely for ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... its consequences, it had a very material influence upon the general constitution of the realm. * *The main-spring of the machinery of remedial justice existed in the franchise of the lower and lowest orders of the political hierarchy. Without the suffrage of the yeoman, the burgess, and the churl, the sovereign could not exercise the most important and most essential function of royalty; from them he received the power of life and death; he could not wield the sword of justice until the humblest of his subjects placed the weapon in his hand." 1 Palgrave's ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... Messire Gawain, and Messire Gawain saith that he holdeth himself a churl in that he hath not asked him of his name. But the knight said, "Fair Sir, I pray you of love that you ask not my name until such time as I shall ask you ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... Anything, and another with Lord Willbewill, and another with that notorious villain Clip-promise, by whose doings so much of the king's coin had been abused, and another with that so angry and so ill-conditioned churl old Mr. Prejudice, with his sixty deaf men under him. Dear Mr. Wet-eyes, with his rope upon his head, will have a fit congregation one winter night, and Captain Self-denial another. We shall have another painful but profitable evening before ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... "Churl!" said an officer of dragoons, "how know you that our payments are light? The emperor takes nothing without payment; surely not from such as you. But a propos of ransoms, what now might be Holkerstein's ransom for a farmer's barns stuffed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... money and without price. Faithfully and merrily then shall all men keep the holidays of the Church in peace of body and joy of heart. And man shall help man, and the saints in heaven shall be glad, because men no more fear each other; and the churl shall be ashamed, and shall hide his churlishness till it be gone, and he be no more a churl; and fellowship shall be established in heaven and ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... knows the lofty spirit fills thy soul, And therefore feels indignantly the wrong A bold-faced villain dares to offer thee. Learn, then, in Poland, an audacious churl, A renegade, who broke his monkish vows, Laid down his habit, and renounced his God, Doth use the name and title of thy son, Whom death snatched from thee in his infancy. The shameless varlet boasts him of thy blood, And doth affect to be Czar Ivan's son; A Waywode breaks the peace; from ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller
... misshapen, hairy, Scandinavian Troll again who lifts the cart out of the mire, or threshes the corn which ten day-labourers could not end: but it is done in the dark, and with muttered maledictions. He is a churl with a soft place in his heart, whose speech is a brash of bitter waters, but who loves to help you at a pinch. He says, No; and serves you, and his thanks disgust you." Such, was Tardrew,—a true British bulldog, who lived pretty faithfully up to his Old ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... his theorem to its conclusion,—"unless you particularly aspire to seem—and to be—an absolute barbarian, a bear, a boor, a churl, and a curmudgeon,"—each epithet received an augmented stress,—"you must call at Craford New Manor with the least possible delay. As I find myself in rather good form just now, and feel that I should shine to perhaps exceptional advantage, I suggest that ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... new type, which we know to our disgust, and unhappily it multiplies like vermin,—the peasant who has lent his ear to the social democrat, and, his heart envenomed by class hatred, meets your civility with black glances and the behaviour of a churl in the sulks. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... things, does thoroughly provoke me. It must be a lady—a man could not be so unpolite towards this angelic being. But—or—now she takes the cup; and now, oh, woe! a great man's hand grasps into the rusk-basket—the savage! and how he helps himself—the churl! I should like to know whether it is her brother,—he was perhaps hungry, poor fellow! Now come in, one after the other, two lovely children, who are like the sister. I wonder now, whether the good man with one ear has left anything remaining. That most charming of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... dinner, dressed by our most polite and obsequious prisoner, Lieutenant Preville. "If we could but fall in with two or three more fat prizes we should be able to set up as independent gentlemen when we get back home again, and I should be able to regain the lands of the McAllisters from the southern churl who has dared to ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... icebergs resounded as the churl approached; the thicket on his cheeks was frozen. In shivers flew the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... grasses before them, yet— Like bold Antaeus—would each time bring New life from the earth, barely touched by his wing; And the swallow and martlet that always knew The straightest way home. Here a Saxon churl drew His breath—tapped his ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the old wild road whereon we stray, Meseems, might bring us face to face with one Whom seeing we could not but give thanks, and pray For England's love our father and her son To speak with us as once in days long done With all men, sage and churl and monk and mime, Who knew not as we know the soul sublime That sang for song's love more than lust of fame. Yet, though this be not, yet, in happy time, Our father Chaucer, here ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... seriously damaged the windows," added Eugene. "For all this destruction we have to thank yonder churl," continued he, pointing to a man of almost gigantic stature, who was struggling to free himself from the hands of Latour and Darmont. "Not content with the laurels he has won as the ringleader of a mob, he has aspired to achieve renown by defaming women. He has incited the populace to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... this birth, You can but damn for one poor spot of earth; And when your children find your judgment such, They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch; Each haughty poet will infer with ease, How much his wit must under-write to please. As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance The monumental sword that conquered France; So you, by judging this, your judgment teach, Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach. Since then the vote of full two thousand years Has ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Lajeunesse, the singer of all the world—ah, why did she not say so then!" said the churl. "What would I not do for her! Money—no, it is nothing, but the Lajeunesse, I myself would give my horse to hear ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and Madame Mohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and Lola Montez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education will convert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable member of society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligence and a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfection by such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life. And so it came about that ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... turning from his daughter to her lover,—"you sir, have well repaid the liberal confidence which I placed in you with so little reserve. You I have to thank also for some lessons, which may teach me to rest satisfied with the churl's blood which nature has poured into my veins, and with the rude nurture which my father ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... from a yawn-mouthed cave, Like a red-hot eye from a grave. 170 No man stood there of whom to crave Rest for wayfarer plodding by: Though the tenant were churl or knave ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... in a russet gown, and brought wild geese in his hand, and it was on the morn after Candlemas day; but King Arthur knew him not. Sir, said Merlin unto the king, will ye give me a gift? Wherefore, said King Arthur, should I give thee a gift, churl? Sir, said Merlin, ye were better to give me a gift that is not in your hand than to lose great riches, for here in the same place where the great battle was, is great treasure hid in the earth. Who told thee so, churl? said Arthur. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Governor of Cadiz, who has been contracted to Julia, now married to a rich old churl, Francisco, in order to gain her, mans a galley, which has been captured from the Turks, with some forty or fifty attendants disguised as ferocious Ottomans; and whilst she, her husband and a party of friends are taking a pleasure trip in a yacht, they are suddenly boarded and all made prisoners ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Finis.—Inquire of that arch-churl Diabelli when the French copy of the Sonata in C minor [Op. 111] is to be published. I stipulated to have five copies for myself, one of which is to be on fine paper, for the Cardinal [the Archduke Rudolph]. If he attempts any of his usual impertinence ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... defence. But it also frequently happens that the Snail occupies a raised position, clinging to the tip of a grass-stalk or perhaps to the smooth surface of a stone. This support serves him as a temporary lid; it wards off the aggression of any churl who might try to molest the inhabitant of the cabin, always on the express condition that no slit show itself anywhere on the protecting circumference. If, on the other hand, in the frequent case when the shell ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... craved the boon so sweetly That I had been a churl Had I repulsed the homage Of this gentle, timid girl; With bright illuminations I decked the manuscript, And in my choicest paints and inks My brush ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... soon, shook her dry, withered fist at the porter, and cried, "Ha! thou insolent churl, I will pray thee ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Harold dared his daughter's hand to seek! No word the fierce knight spake But ope'd the door, And, scowling, said—"No Saxon churl shall make Rowena wife; and dare he woo her more, Upon him, would Sir Guy a ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... religion, to all that know him; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. [Rom. 2:24,25] Thus say the common people that know him, A saint abroad, and a devil at home. His poor family finds it so; he is such a churl, such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have any dealings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him; for fairer dealing they shall have at their hands. This Talkative (if it be possible) will go ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... threshold of a modest 'career,' of a sort, after all," he thought, "and she will never give it up for me. Would she be willing to combine me with the career, and how would it work? I shouldn't be churl enough to mind her singing now and then, but it seems to me I couldn't stand 'tours.' Besides, hers is such a childlike, winsome, fragrant little gift it ought not to be exploited like a ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Italian, "and this is an evil house; it is a harbouring place for thieves, and murders have been committed here, if all tales be true." I looked at these two people attentively; they were both young, the man apparently about twenty-five years of age. He was a short thick- made churl, evidently of prodigious strength; his features were rather handsome, but with a gloomy expression, and his eyes were full of sullen fire. His wife somewhat resembled him, but had a countenance more open and better tempered; but what struck me as most singular in connexion with ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... once. The trusted soldier has left selfishness and cowardice on the first tenting-ground, and works hard, though he stands statue-like. It is his business to be of use, and he is never useless. So with a great artist. He is brother to gentleman or churl. Hawthorne had not an atom of the poison of contempt. As I have said before, if he did not love stupidity, he ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... and did not rank as gentlemen. All thanes disposed of the lands which they held (and which were called Blockland) to their heirs, but with the obligations due to those of whom they were held. Ceorle (whence our word churl) was a countryman or artisan who was a freeman. Those ceorles who held lands in leases were called sockmen, and their land sockland, of which they could not dispose, being barely tenants. Those ceorles who acquired possession of five hides of land with a large house, court, and bell to ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... farmer-maiden. She was all this, it is true, but she was, besides, grace and color and charm itself. And if she chose to bake in such attire—or, even, if she chose to pretend to do so, where was the churl to say her nay, even though the flour was part of a deliberate "make up"? Certainly he was not at the store ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... no," exclaimed Sybil, generously. "You shall deny yourself no pleasure, for my sake, dear, dear Lyon! I am not such a churl as to require such a sacrifice. Only let me feel sure of your love, and then you may read with her all the morning, and play and sing with her all the evening, and I shall not care. I shall even be pleased, ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Robin Gray reversed. Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him so fondly—whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only because Madelon was not the most attractive or the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... point on which I am not informed. Wherever the churl took this fair one, she always saw me like a shadow behind her; my looks daily tried to explain to her the violence of my love. My eyes have spoken much; but who can tell whether, after all, their ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... fell it that his doom, For all his bright life's kindling bloom And light that took no thought for gloom, Fell as a breath from the opening tomb Full on him ere he wist or thought. For once a churl of royal seed, King Arthur's kinsman, faint in deed And loud in word that knew not heed, Spake ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and said he'd go look for service. He stayed away a whole year, and then came back one day, dragging one foot after the other, and a poor, wizened face on him, and he was as cross as two sticks. When he was rested and had got something to eat, he told them how he had taken service with the Gray Churl of the Townland of Mischance, and that the agreement was whoever would first say he was sorry for his bargain should get an inch wide of the skin of his back, from shoulder to hips, taken off. If it ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... honorary title, to which he was qualified that had five hides of land held immediately of the King by service of personal attendance; insomuch that if a churl or countryman had thriven to this proportion, having a church, a kitchen, a bell-house (that is, a hall with a bell in it to call his family to dinner), a borough-gate with a seat (that is, a porch) ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... left the world, That to this young man proved a churl. Now he who followed drunkenness, Lives sober, and doth ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... subjects, which he had thrown aside and forgotten. Is this an idle boast? Or had he made other discoveries of equal importance, which he did not think it worth his while to communicate to the world, but chose to die the churl of knowledge? The whole of his reasoning turns upon shewing that the Conjunction That is the pronoun That, which is itself the participle of a verb, and in like manner that all the other mystical ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart. It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of "the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and brutal husband, who besides was an excellent man and warm-hearted. The modesty of his wife, after a while, made her attractive in his eyes. He loved her, so to speak, on the strength of his respect and admiration for her. He would indeed have been a churl to find fault with a wife who interfered with him so little and who was a perfect housekeeper, as we shall see later on when we come to her life at Cassicium. In one point, where even she did not intend it, she forwarded the interests of her husband by gaining him the good-will ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... know, a knightly custom. They consider the one who has no lady, a churl. He also made a vow to capture some peacocks' tufts, and those be must get because he swore by his knightly honor; he must also challenge Lichtenstein; but from the other vows, the abbot ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... communicating,) and carrieth in it two evils, First, It spoileth the work done. And, secondly, It, if entertained, spoileth the heart for doing any more so. 'The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful,' for 'the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand' (Isa 32:5, 8). Now then, to dissuade all from this poisonous sin, observe, that above all sins in the New Testament, this is called idolatry (Eph 5:5; Col ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his love. She liked him, but at the same time her attitude was so frank and straightforward that his intended words of endearment and confessions of love always froze upon his lips before he had half uttered them. He felt that she belonged to a higher breed of women, inaccessible to such a "churl" as he often frankly called himself; but precisely because of his lowly origin he loved her ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... viands a flavour that rendered the entertainment almost sumptuous—in my imagination. A cup of water cheerfully given to the weary and thirsty traveller, by him who has no more to part with, is worth a cask of wine grudgingly bestowed by the stingy or the ostentatious churl. Notwithstanding we preferred sleeping on our own blankets, these poor people would not suffer us to do it, but spread their own pallets on the earth floor of their miserable hut, and insisted so strongly upon our occupying them, that ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... his lords, till night fall, when he returned to the palace, preceded by all the folk. He rode forth thus every day to the tilting ground, returning to sit and judge the people and do justice between earl and churl; and thus he continued doing a whole year, at the end of which he began to ride out a-hunting and a-chasing and to go round about in the cities and countries under his rule, proclaiming security and satisfaction and doing after the fashion of Kings; and he was unique among the people of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... invitation. The expression mai, or komo mai, this way, or come in, was the most common of salutations. The Hawaiian sat down to meat before an open door; he ate his food in the sight of all men, and it was only one who dared being denounced as a churl who would fail to invite with word and gesture the passer-by to come in and share with him. This gesture might be a sweeping, downward, or sidewise motion of the hand in which the palm faced and drew toward the speaker. This seems to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... to the left of the good host, he has yet something in common with that third person discernible on the right—that speck yonder, which I believe to be Lucullus. Nothing that we know of Lucullus suggests that he was less inhuman than the churl of Arden. It does not appear that he had a single friend, nor that he wished for one. His lavishness was indiscriminate except in that he entertained only the rich. One would have liked to dine with him, but not even in the act of digestion could one have felt that he had a heart. One would ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... sense of humour and proportion. It would be ignoble to dignify that ugly enterprise of to-day, the cracking of suburban cribs, with the same punishment which was meted out to Claude Duval and the immortal Switcher. Better for the churl the disgrace of Portland than the chance of heroism and respect ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... churl, "for we will go to thee to the place wherein thou wilt be tonight, O fair ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... by her to go to concerts and theatres to pay for these pleasures. Many a poor fellow who has become a defaulter has to thank for it the lady who first asked him to take her to Delmonico's to supper. He was ashamed to tell her that he was poor, and he stole that he might not seem a churl. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... thing that may better his fortunes is an art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith he baits now and then some rich widow that is hungry after his blood. He is commonly discontented and desperate, and the form of his exclamation is, that churl my brother. He loves not his country for this unnatural custom, and would have long since revolted to the Spaniard, but for Kent[19] only, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... woman's wish to be desired, (By praise increased), till both shall soar, With blissful emulations fired. And, as geranium, pink, or rose Is thrice itself through power of art, So may my happy skill disclose New fairness even in her fair heart; Until that churl shall nowhere be Who bends not, awed, before the throne Of her affecting majesty, So meek, so far unlike our own; Until (for who may hope too much From her who wields the powers of love?) Our lifted lives at last shall touch That happy goal to which ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... a picture for the soldier who so loved his queen! Him the kiss maddened! Measuring Pascal with his een, He thundered, "Peasant, you have filled my place most sly; Not so fast, churl!"—and brutally let fly With aim unerring one fierce blow, Straight in the other's ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... a knave, With his sins in the sod! And death for the brave, With his glory up to God! And joy for the girl, And ease for the churl! But the great game of war ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... Burglary in the king's house was punished by a fine of one hundred and twenty shillings; in an archbishop's, at ninety; in a bishop's or ealdorman's, at sixty; in the house of a man of twelve hydes, at thirty shillings; in a six-hyde man's, at fifteen; in a churl's, at five shillings,—the fine being graded according to the rank of him whose house had been entered. There was a rigorous punishment for working on Sunday: if a theow, by order of his lord, the lord had to pay a penalty of thirty shillings; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... is not to be said that the prince was wrecked like a fisher churl. There has been no wreck—if there has been, there was no treasure. Mind ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... upon a stall, And read, as he'd devour it all; Which when the stall-man did espy, Soon to the boy I heard him call, "You, Sir, you never buy a book, Therefore in one you shall not look." The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh He wish'd he never had been taught to read, Then of the old churl's books he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... of the great multitude of geese came a churl, tall and young, and comely enough for all his embrowning in the sun and wind, and his unkempt hair and rude dress. It was he who made the music, playing on pan's-pipes to lighten the way, and quickening with his staff the loiterers of ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... rising from his evening fall To her, for her, he mourns, he calls, he cries; The nightingale so when her children small Some churl takes before their parents' eyes, Alone, dismayed, quite bare of comforts all, Tires with complaints the seas, the shores, the skies, Till in sweet sleep against the morning bright She fall at last; so mourned, so ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... churl And the Rommany girl, To-morrow shall hie To poison the sty, And bewitch on the mead The ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the compass which will enable the observer to determine the rest. If he is only familiar with the aspect of those seven bright stars of the Great Bear which have been called the Dipper, Charles' Wain, (really "The Churl's Wain,") the Butcher's Cleaver, and by other names, he can always determine the north point by means of the two stars called the Pointers, since these seven stars never set. In the explanation of each ...
— Half-Hours with the Stars - A Plain and Easy Guide to the Knowledge of the Constellations • Richard A. Proctor
... the drunken churl, Jeered at him the serving-girl, Prompt to please her master; And the begging carlin, late Fed and clothed at Ury's gate, Cursed ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Then when these two traitors understood that they had driven all the lords of his blood from him, they were not pleased with that rule, but then they thought to have more, as ever it is an old saw: Give a churl rule and thereby he will not be sufficed; for whatsomever he be that is ruled by a villain born, and the lord of the soil to be a gentleman born, the same villain shall destroy all the gentlemen about him: therefore all estates and lords, beware whom ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... slowly, bit by bit, he set forth the story that he had never expected to unfold to Northern ears. "The Danes set fire to my father's castle, and he was burned with many of my kinsmen. The robbers came in the night, and a Danish churl opened the gates to them,—though he had been my father's man for four seasons. It was from him that I learned to speak the Northern tongue. They took me while I slept, bound me, and carried me out to their boats. They ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz |
