"Churlish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time he went on living his lonely sulky kind of life, drinking a great deal more than was good for him in his own churlish manner, and laughing to scorn any attempt at remonstrance from his wife or Mrs. Tadman. Some few times Ellen had endeavoured to awaken him to the evil consequences that must needs ensue from his intemperate ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... whisper if not audible to all the Pnyx. Quickly he warmed. His gestures became dramatic. His voice rose to a trumpet-call. He swept his hearers with him as dry leaves before the blast. "When he began to weave his words, one might have deemed him churlish, nay a fool, but when from his chest came his deep voice, and words like unto flakes of winter snow, then who could with him contend?" Thus Homer of Odysseus the Guileful, thus as truly ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... but rarely, it happens that a man attempts to prevent his wife's Piraungaru from having access to her, but this leads to a fight, and the husband is looked upon as churlish. When visiting distant groups where, in all likelihood, the husband has no Piraungaru, it is customary for other men of his own class to offer him the loan of one or more of their Nupa women, and a man, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... twenty years I have only seen thee in French, and in this English text thou comest to me like an old love, at once a surprise and a recollection. Dear little book, I would say nothing about thee if I could help it, but a publisher pleads, and "No" is a churlish word. So for him I will say that I like thy prattle; that while travelling in a railway carriage on my way to the country of "Esther Waters," I passed my station by, and had to hire a carriage and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... not convince himself that the offer was genuine. And yet if he actually saw, with his own eyes, the keg emptied of its contents, what trick could there be? It seemed churlish to refuse. Suppose the offer were made in good faith, by not refusing that which in the male code is the sign of brotherhood and equality, he might secure an influence for good with the elder Bylow. And Lowe seemed to sense the thought, for he said, "If you take ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... presence glimmers through the music of Max Reger. No sturdy bardic spirit vibrates in it. This Reger is a sarcastic, churlish fellow, bitter and pedantic and rude. He is a sort of musical Cyclops, a strong, ugly creature bulging with knotty and unshapely muscles, an ogre of composition. He has little delicacy, little finesse of spirit. In listening to these works ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... I learn how much longer I was to have of him. Strange that a little boy can give so much pain. I dropped his hand and walked on in silence, and presently I did my most churlish to hurt him by ending the story abruptly in a very cruel way. "Ten years have elapsed," said I, "since I last spoke, and our two heroes, now gay young men, are revisiting the wrecked island of their childhood. 'Did we wreck ourselves,' said one, 'or was there someone to help us?' And ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. No produce here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the soldier and his sword: No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May; No Zephyr fondly sues ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his neighbors, nor even churlish towards them, but on the other hand not cultivating any ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had welcomed his kin, each one to his house, he would say to such as thanked him, if it were a child, very soberly: "Be a good child." But for elder folks he had no more than "It is well," or an almost churlish: "That is enough." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ourselves in the large and hospitable cradle of the Free Press, where the peer and the commoner, the priest and the alderman, the friar and the swaddler,[2] can stretch themselves at full length, provided they be not too churlish, let us laugh at those who breed useless quarrels, and set to the world the bright example of toleration and benevolence. A peaceable life and happy death to all Adam's children! May the ministers of religion of every ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... our strength and passes show. Malise, what ho!"—his henchman came; "Give our safe-conduct to the Graeme." 810 Young Malcolm answered, calm and bold, "Fear nothing for thy favorite hold; The spot, an angel deigned to grace, Is blessed, though robbers haunt the place. Thy churlish courtesy for those 815 Reserve, who fear to be thy foes. As safe to me the mountain way At midnight as in blaze of day, Though with his boldest at his back Even Roderick Dhu beset the track.— 820 Brave Douglas—lovely Ellen—nay, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... urged, as strongly as possible, that the name be kept as Rio da Duvida. We felt that the "River of Doubt" was an unusually good name; and it is always well to keep a name of this character. But my kind friends insisted otherwise, and it would have been churlish of me to object longer. I was much touched by their action, and by the ceremony itself. At the conclusion of the reading Colonel Rondon led in cheers for the United States and then for me and for Kermit; and the camaradas cheered with a will. I proposed ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... Crag. The Master, however, had this advantage over the spendthrift in the legend, that, if he was in similar distress, he could not impute it to his own imprudence. His misery had been bequeathed to him by his father, and, joined to his high blood, and to a title which the courteous might give or the churlish withhold at their pleasure, it was the whole inheritance he had derived from his ancestry. Perhaps this melancholy yet consolatory reflection crossed the mind of the unfortunate young nobleman with a breathing of comfort. Favourable to ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... himself than whimsical eccentricity or churlish austerity. But there was occasionally an air of bravado in some of his followers as if they had taken out a patent for some knowing machine which was to give them a monopoly of its products. They claimed more for each ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... anything to show less fair: Patient were he of soul who could pass by A twenty minutes' wait amidst the cry Of churlish clowns who worn cord jackets wear, Without one single, solitary swear. The low, unmeaning grunt, the needless lie, The prompt "next platform" (which is all my eye), The choky waiting-room, the smoky air; Refreshment-bars ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... which contains within it, as in an embryo state, the rudiments of all true virtue; which, striking deep its roots, though feeble perhaps and lowly in its beginnings, silently progressive; and almost insensibly maturing, yet will shortly, even in the bleak and churlish temperature of this world, lift up its head and spread abroad its branches, bearing abundant fruits; precious fruits of refreshment and consolation, of which the boasted products of philosophy are but sickly imitations, void of fragrance and of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... you not to let the present straits you labour under to narrow your mind, or render you morose or churlish, but rather resign yourself and all your affairs to Him who best knows what is fittest for you, and will never fail to provide for whoever sincerely trusts in Him. I think I may say I have lived in a state of affliction ever since I was born, being the ridicule of mankind and reproach of my family; ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... course! Still, a phrase that would not be dismissed by a superior curl of the lips. Maggie was not Clara, and she did not invent allegations. His fault! Yes, his fault! Beyond doubt he was occasionally gruff, he was churlish, he was porcupinish. He did not mean to be so—indeed he most honestly meant not to be so—but he was. He must change. He must turn over a new leaf. He wished it had been his own birthday, or, better still, the New Year, instead of his auntie's birthday, so that he might have turned ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Major's feet grew sore, and he very weary, and the Indian steered too much north-eastwardly. The Major desired to encamp; upon which the Indian asked to carry his gun, but he refused; and then the Indian grew churlish, and pressed us to keep on, telling us there were Ottawa Indians in those woods, and they would scalp us if we lay out; but go to his cabin, and we ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... was James McMurrough, who had come from the house in search of the kinsman he dared not suffer out of his sight. He had approached unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that what he had overheard was not to his liking. But Asgill supposed that James's ill-humour was directed against his enemy, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... particularly unsocial, as there is no Ordinary, or united company, but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation to hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full-minded man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman got into a dispute concerning the cause of some part of mankind being black. 'Why, Sir, said (Johnson,) it has been accounted for in three ways: either by supposing that they are the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... strange that after this day, while she went about the house with even a sadder face than usual, her churlish husband grew worse; and what was more, to the surprise of all, though to the regret of few, he died a fortnight later. Sir William had not called upon him as he had promised, having received a private communication from ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... and yet he knew that every sentence he uttered contained a threat, a threat which at that time seemed to him to have no meaning. He felt ashamed of himself, too, and it seemed to him on reflection that he had been churlish even almost to childishness. And yet the words came to him in spite of himself, and he had flung them out eagerly, almost triumphantly. Even Mr. Bolitho felt a shiver pass through his body as Paul spoke. His speech seemed to contain a kind of prophecy. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... said the words before I regretted them. It was a foolish speech and a churlish one as well. She pretended not to notice it, however, but bade her maid go down to the concierge's office, and take the bag to the room that had been allotted to her. The girl disappeared, and when she had gone ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... you that if parents carry it lovingly towards their children, mixing their mercies with loving rebukes, and their loving rebukes with fatherly and motherly compassions, they are more likely to save their children than by being churlish and severe to them. Even if these things do not save them, if their mercy do them no good, yet it will greatly ease them at the day of death to consider, I have done by love as much as I could to save and deliver ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... would have perished from starvation and ill treatment. He was by no means a favorite guest at the governor's house; the ladies of the family detested him, not so much for his cruelty, for they heard but little of that, but for his morose and churlish disposition, and, perhaps more than either, on account of the general belief that his wife, a lovely woman, and much younger than himself, had fallen a victim to his ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... out of sorts last night, Trixy," she had said. "If I seemed churlish, I ask your pardon, dear, with all my heart I was surprised—I don't mind owning that—and perhaps a little, just a little, envious. But all that is over now, and I do wish you joy and happiness from the bottom of my heart. You're the best and dearest girl in the world, and ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... ever visited or been connected with. I revere the memory of Brooke Hamilton. It is unfortunate we know so little of him. His great-niece, Miss Susanna Hamilton, lives at Hamilton Arms. She is the last of the Hamilton family. Unfortunately for the college, she became incensed at the churlish behavior toward her of a member of the Board whose estate adjoined hers. This was many years ago. She had been on the verge of turning over to the college a great deal of interesting data regarding Brooke Hamilton which was private family history. Doctor Burns, then president of Hamilton, ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... woeful consequences; the consultation with the lawyer, and the immortal pair of letters to which this gives rise, complete the argument of the whole poem. But the story is as nothing; throughout we have little really kept before us but the sordid vices of the sectaries, their hypocrisy, their churlish ungraciousness, their greed of money and authority, their fast and loose morality, their inordinate pride. The extraordinary felicity of the means taken to place all these things in the most ridiculous light has never been questioned. The doggerel metre, never heavy or coarse, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Dulcie's marriage had ended in alienation. Dulcie thought that Sam Winnington would have bridged it over at one time, if Will would have made any sign of meeting his overtures, or acknowledged Sam's talents and fortune: nay, even if Will had refrained from betraying his churlish ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... to go forwards: but he was ashamed to seem churlish to so hospitable a man; and he was curious to see that wondrous bed; and beside, he was hungry and weary: yet he shrank from the man, he knew not why; for, though his voice was gentle and fawning, it was dry and husky like ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... for trout-fishing was long past and gone, and there were no more pleasant rambles for Dangerfield and Irons along the flowery banks of the devious Liffey. Their rods and nets hung up, awaiting the return of genial spring; and the churlish stream, abandoned to its wintry mood, darkled and roared savagely under the windows ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... take no notice of his presence, he was moved by her distress, and willing to offer his assistance. "Damsel," said he, "thou seemest in no ordinary distress; peradventure, like myself, thou hast been refused passage at the bridge by the churlish keeper, and thy crossing may concern thee either for performance of a vow, or ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... might be reckoned staunch, in the old fashion, 'to the name,' which Logan only bore by accident, his grandmother having wedded a kinless Logan who had no demonstrable connection with the house of Restalrig. Any mortal but the marquis would probably have brought Logan up as his heir, for the churlish peer had no nearer connection. But the marquis did more than sympathise with the Roman emperor who quoted 'after me the Last Day.' The emperor only meant that, after his time, he did not care how soon earth and fire were mingled. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... furious, and I don't know what foolish things he would not have done if Melinette had not been there to calm him down. She represented to him what a powerful enchanter Grumedan was, and how, if he were provoked, he might avenge himself upon the Princess, since he was the most unjust and churlish of all the enchanters, and had often before had to be punished by the Fairy Queen for some of his ill-deeds. Once he had been imprisoned in a tree, and was only released when it was blown down by a furious wind; another time ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked home. All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for she ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of me," he repeated absently. "But I have got into churlish, bachelor habits—that can hardly be helped, living alone, or on board ship, as I do—and I have pretty well forgotten how to provide adequately for the entertainment ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... character of a literature is noticed by Mr. Finlay. Temples open to the heavens, theatres for noonday light and large enough for receiving 30,000 citizens—these could no longer be transplanted from sunny regions of Hymettus to the churlish atmospheres which overcast with gloom so perpetual poor Ovid's sketches of his exile. Cherson, it is true, in the Tauric Chersonese, survived down to the middle of the tenth century; so much is certain from the evidence of a Byzantine emperor; and Mr. Finlay is disposed to think ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Byron wrote to Murray: "As for the 'orthodox,' let us hope they will buy on purpose to abuse—you will forgive the one if they will do the other." Yet he did alter Stanza VIII, and inserted what Moore calls a "magnificent stanza" in place of one that was churlish and sneering, and in all respects ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... of the King kept Sir Damas from deeds of violence; yet, to the end, he remained cowardly and churlish, unworthy of the golden spurs of knighthood. But Sir Ontzlake proved him a valiant knight, fearing God and ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... Truth is, but it is impossible to utter it. The face of your listener, his eyes mirthful or sorry, his eager expectance or his churlish disdain insensibly distort your message. You find yourself saying what you know he expects you to say, or (more often) what he expects you not to say. You may not be aware of this, but that is what happens. In ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... and writer. Many readers may recollect the anecdote of the New Hampshire farmer, who was once complimented on the extremely handsome appearance of a horse which he was somewhat sullenly urging on to perform its work. "Yaas," was the churlish reply, "the critter looks well enough, but then he is as slow as—as—as—well, as slow as cold molasses." This perfectly answers to Bacon's definition of imagination, as "thought immersed in matter." The comparison is exactly on a level with the experience of the person who used it. He ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... come to Banneker with any such project, it would have been curtly rejected. Ives kept in the background. The proposal came from Marrineal, and in such form that for the recipient of the honor to refuse it would have appeared impossibly churlish. Little though he desired or liked such a function, Banneker accepted with a good grace, and set himself to write an editorial, special to the event. Its title was, "What Does Your Newspaper Mean to You?" headed with the quotation from the Areopagitica: and he compressed into a single column all ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the three kindled answering emotions in David's breast. It would be a churlish soul that was not warmed into some faint replica of such self-sacrifice, and most of us would be ashamed of ourselves if we were unmoved by such love. But does the supreme example of it affect us as much as the lesser examples of it do? How many of us stand before it like the peaks of the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... he observed, 'are great worshippers of Nature, and write many guide-books about her, some on large paper at ten guineas the volume. I have sometimes fancied, indeed,' he added, doubtfully,' that it was their own capacity for admiring Nature that they admired, but that were a churlish thought. For, do they not run innumerable excursion trains for the purpose of bowing at her shrine? Epping Forest must be one of Nature's favourite haunts, from the numbers of people who come here to worship her, especially on Bank Holidays. Those are her high festivals, ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... but I reflected that I had not been two hundred years old to begin with, and consoled myself as I could in my consciousness that I was really not so young by twenty odd years as I once was. Yet I think it must be a dull and churlish nature which would wish to refuse the gentle contemporaneity offered by the unaging antiquity at Hampton Court. I should at this moment be glad to share the youthful spirit of the sunken garden which I passed on my way to the famous vine, and in which with certain shapes ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, amiable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous; and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... supposed, that they dined tete-a-tete; no, no—the corporal and his wife were not so churlish as that. The dinner party consisted of a chosen set, the most particular friends of the corporal. Mr Short, first officer and boatswain, Mr William Spurey, Mr and Mrs Salisbury; and last, although not the least important person in this history, Peter Smallbones, Esquire, who having obtained money ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... an active, intelligent people towards the increase of the common stock, instead of our being employed in watching and counteracting them, and their being employed in watching and counteracting us, with the peevish and churlish jealousy of rivals and enemies on ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... better, perhaps, for never having shared it. At first I was too young, and afterwards I found too much of moods and too little of matter to create any lasting attachment to his poetry. But the music of it rang in all ears, and the rush of its popularity could not be resisted by any but downright churlish persons. I remember how ladies, in morning calls, recited passages of Byron to each other,—and how gentlemen, in water-parties, whispered his short poems to their next neighbor. If a man was seen walking with his head down and his lips moving, he was revolving Byron's last ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... it, on equitable terms; and though that worthy gentleman, in the handsomest manner, for which Lord Nelson ever after highly respected him, paid all possible attention to the wish of his lordship; a churlish farmer, who was Mr. Axe's tenant, on lease, of the whole adjoining estate, where he had acquired a considerable fortune, opposed so many objections, and evinced so rude and unaccommodating a disposition, notwithstanding his lordship had condescendingly treated him with every ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov's absolute nonchalance. This surgeon's son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there was something churlish, almost insolent. ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... "how can you forgive me for this that I have done? And how can I now help you out of this miserable dog's work? Methinks that on the cold frosty nights when you are out there, minding this churlish farmer's sheep, it will not be easily that I shall lie in my warm bed. But how to help it, I do not know. Haply the law was made for vagabond thieves and cattle lifters, but it still is law, and in my place I could not well ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... made up. I have taken root here. Such work as I can do from my study is, as it always has been, at your service. But I myself have finished with actual political life. Don't press me too hard. I must seem churlish and ungrateful, but if I listened to you for hours the result would be the same. I have finished with actual ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in the mess who would have naught to do with our philosophy—a churlish, ill-tempered, unphilosophical, superstitious old bear of a quarter-gunner; a believer in Tophet, for which he was accordingly preparing himself. Priming was his name; but methinks I have spoken ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Churlish Autumn hath uncrowned me, Still I feel thy fond embrace; Winter sad throws gloom around me: Sweet! thou smil'st up in my face; Spring arrives with flowery treasures, Summer skips by, sun-caressed; Yet thou, envying not their pleasures, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... be sure so strange a sight, Put the old people in a fright: Philemon whisper'd to his wife, "These men are—Saints—I'll lay my life!" The strangers overheard, and said, "You're in the right—but be'nt afraid: No hurt shall come to you or yours: But for that pack of churlish boors, Not fit to live on Christian ground, They and their village shall be drown'd; Whilst you shall see your cottage rise, And grow a church before your eyes." Scarce had they spoke, when fair and soft, The roof began to mount aloft; Aloft ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... churlish enough to envy Sir Joshua and to quarrel with his good feeling for them, but both men had the grace to be sorry for behaviour that had no excuse, and both made friends with him before they ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... proposal was made with so frank and manly a mien, and the air of the free-trader, as he leaned beyond the gunwale of his boat, was so superior to his pursuit, that, unwilling to seem churlish, or to be outdone in courtesy, he reluctantly consented, and laid his palm within that the other offered. The smuggler profited by the junction to draw the boats nearer, and, to the amazement of all who witnessed the action, he stepped boldly into the yawl, and was seated, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... itself in memory as a dismal dream out of which there were awakenings only for train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, because he is ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... himself like to the horse that the fellow followed, and so stood before the fellow: presently the fellow took hold of him and got on his back, but long had he not rid, but with a stumble he hurled this churlish clown to the ground, that he almost broke his neck; yet took he not this for a sufficient revenge for the cross-answers he had received, but stood still and let the fellow mount him ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... he thought a good companion emphatically the greatest benefactor. I know there are people in the world who cannot feel grateful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of pain and difficulty. But this is a churlish disposition. A man may send you six sheets of letter-paper covered with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass half an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of his; do you think the service would be greater, if he had made the manuscript in his heart's blood, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... French and English courts that Mary no longer heard since her exile in Scotland; she let herself be deceived by these appearances, and did not see that under this brilliant exterior Darnley hid utter insignificance, dubious courage, and a fickle and churlish character. It is true that he came to her under the auspices of a man whose influence was as striking as the risen fortune which gave him the opportunity to exert it. We ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... too harsh and churlish grew, And Abel (the dam dead) would use this new For the field; being of two kinds thus made, He, as his dam, from sheep drove wolves away, And, as his sire, he made them his own prey. Five years he lived, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one of these red-topped mansions that Constans finally found his way, after experiencing several rebuffs from churlish citizens of whom he had ventured to inquire for the whereabouts of his uncle. Now, as he laid his hand upon the knocker, he was conscious that the feeling of despondency had again fallen upon him; he recalled the old story of Messer Hugolin's ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... in and asked Prime to loan him over night the sum he had just paid in, as a personal favor. Prime says he hesitated, not because he suspected anything, but on grounds of common prudence. It seemed to him, however, that it would be churlish and punctilious to refuse to accommodate the man to whom he owed his good fortune, and so he lent the money. Next day, Dale failed disgracefully. Of course Mr. Prime feels bound in honor to pay his customers their profits, which happen to exceed his capital. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... mason,' who must have a life for his wage, is another enemy within the house who finds his way through 'steekit yetts'; and he is assisted by the 'fause nourice.' In other ballads it is the 'kitchen-boy,' the 'little foot-page,' the 'churlish carle,' or the bower-woman who plays the spy and tale-bearer. In Glenkindie, 'Gib, his man,' is the vile betrayer of the noble harper and his lady. Sometimes, as in Gude Wallace, Earl Richard, and Sir James the Rose, it is the 'light leman' who plays traitor. But she quickly repents, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... his lack of balance, he is full of noble qualities. Apemantus has the very thing which he lacks, yet Apemantus is contemptible beside him. The churlish philosopher is like some dingy little scow, which rides out the tempest because the small cargo which it has is all in its hold; Timon is like some splendid, but top-heavy, battleship, which turns turtle in the storm through lack of ballast. There is something ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... to whose genial hearts all selfish unwillingness to communicate a knowledge of the art, or to supply me with plants, was a total stranger. There are thousands of pioneers such as I was. It is well for them that the light they need is not hidden under the bushel of any one churlish individual. But there were ample expedients remaining, and it required more than one discouragement to divert me from the object we were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... of this Society, and in the name of my fellow-countrymen generally, I here solemnly protest against the perpetration of any more acts of useless and churlish Vandalism, in the needless destruction and removal of our Scottish antiquarian remains. The hearts of all leal Scotsmen, overflowing as they do with a love of their native land, must ever deplore the unnecessary demolition of all such early relics and monuments as can in any degree contribute ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... we but the penalty of Adam, The season's difference, as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter wind, Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, This is no flattery: these are counsellors That feelingly ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... fried beef. There was something odd and depressing in this silent exclusion of my presence. Had Johnson's "old woman" from some dark post of observation taken a dislike to my appearance, or was this churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or was Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban of Johnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bedridden crone? From the extension at times came a murmur of voices, but never the accents of adult ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... dairy-produce, from his inner hoard, Of thrice ten summers dignify [130] the board. —Alas! in every clime a flying ray 500 Is all we have to cheer our wintry way; [131] And here the unwilling mind [132] may more than trace The general sorrows of the human race: The churlish gales of penury, that blow Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow, [133] 505 To them [134] the gentle groups of bliss deny That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie. Yet more;—compelled by Powers which only deign That solitary man disturb their ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... postillion, I did not allow him to leave his horses for a moment. Before long we saw Clairmont reappear with two servants, one of whom invited me, on behalf of his master, to await the arrival of the wheelwright at his house. It would have been churlish to refuse this invitation which was in the true spirit of French politeness, so leaving Clairmont in charge Marcoline and I began to wend our way ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you, since you ask me, sir, I should be merciful because of your misfortunes. And yet, Sir Crispin, your profligacy and the evil you have wrought in life must weigh heavily against you." Had this immaculate bigot, this churlish milksop been as candid with himself as he was with Crispin, he must have recognized that it was mainly Crispin's offences towards himself that his mind now dwelt on indeeper rancour than became one so well acquainted with ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... rest "under the cross of gold that shines over river and city," and the tolling bells and echoing cannon sound over hushed London, and the silent masses line the streets, and the learned and the noble stand uncovered around the open grave, it would be a diseased and churlish mind which did not feel ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... "A churlish host I ween am I To thee, who, day by day, Thus comest to cheer my solitude With converse frank and gay, Or tempt me with thy dogs to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... not answer him, or move, but stood looking down at him. After a moment of this, he grew restive, his temper being churlish and impatient at the best. Besides, I think he retained just so much of a gentleman's feelings as enabled him to understand my contempt and smart under it. He moved a step upward, his brow dark ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Eloisa! I have naught against her Majesty, who truly is most fair and gracious—quite other than Carlotta—whom I love not at all! And if I held some grudge against the King for seizing of my father's lands (which broke his heart before he died) one cannot long be churlish in presence of our Janus, who hath a matchless fashion of grace with him, so that all think to have won his favor. Verily, that is a King for Cyprus!—he mindeth one of Cinyras. I must tell thee the tale of our hero of Cyprus some ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... tell thee in fine that thou couldst not have discovered thy mind to any one in the world who can be more useful to thee than I, for that there is no man so high and mighty but I dare tell him what behoveth, nor any so dour or churlish but I know how to supple him aright and bring him to what I will. Wherefore do thou but show me who pleaseth thee and after leave me do; but one thing I commend to thee, daughter mine, and that is, that thou be mindful of me, for that I am a poor body and would ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... but, being a good-hearted old fellow, he does not keep his riches locked up all the time, but tries to do good and make others happy with them. He has two neighbours, who live still farther north; one is King Winter, a cross and churlish old monarch, who is hard and cruel, and delights in making the poor suffer and weep; but the other neighbour is Santa Claus, a fine, good-natured, jolly old soul, who loves to do good, and who brings presents to the poor, and to ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... no doubt that Philip Hexton did mean to win the fight, and there could also be no doubt that he was going the right way to work to win it. The greater part of the men met his efforts for their good in a surly, churlish way, as people will meet any one who tries to interfere with their cherished notions; but there were others, few though they were, who had the good sense and honesty to own that the young deputy was right, and to join with him in trying to reform ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... above the horizon, or were too soon involved in the obscurity of time. The three first of these are excluded from Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (Shakspeare indeed is so from the dramatic form of his compositions): and the fourth, Milton, is admitted with a reluctant and churlish welcome. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... out in that damned coat, which would have made you look just like the village bridegroom to whom we sold it? and yet how you stormed at London when you thought it lost; what fine stories you told the king about the quicksand; and how churlish you looked, when you first began to suppose that this country booby wore ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... churlish dog it is! Now had you, Master Dick, proposed to me that we should go down and pass a week at a certain small thatched cottage on the banks of the Ban, where a Presbyterian minister with eight olive branches ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth that is frothed up with a little fizzing water in a narrow tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not liable to produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to refuse the draught, especially as the delay allows us to take our farewell look at the Bay of Naples. For here we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle that divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now behold the wide crescent of the Bay of Salerno with its ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... must live," responded the churlish voice. "I have a wife and children to feed and clothe, and no man would employ me. If I have turned traitor, it is because I have been driven ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... public would just get exactly what was coming to it. If it worked for prosperity, it would get it. If it were not sufficiently alert to see opportunity, it certainly would not be sufficiently alert to grasp opportunity after you had pointed it out. Your opinion or mine does not count with the churlish questioner. You have to hurl facts back so hard they waken your questioner up. Here are ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... of man as well as by contributing to his wants. There, is so much individuality of character, too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional claim to be the objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifestations; another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One is churlish and illiberal, evidently grudging the few apples that it bears; another exhausts itself in free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, trees contort themselves has its effect ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... saying, to my amazement, in spite of my wife's precautions and mine, I find myself beset—and with what devilish insidiousness! When I refuse, simply to save myself from flagrant treachery to my obligations of duty, I find myself seeming, even to my wife and to myself, churlish and priggish; Pharisaical, in the loathsome attitude of a moral poseur. Common honesty, in presence of this social bribe, takes on the sneaking seeming of rottenest hypocrisy. It is indeed hard to get through and to get at the men I want and need, ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... churlish to refuse them, and Edmund had no thought of doing so, for he needed money, and these things in those ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... permitted him to be tranquil in adversity, and to profit by its salutary uses. He would then have acceded to power as the representative of a Creed, instead of being the leader of a Confederacy, and he would have been supported by earnest and enduring enthusiasm, instead of by that churlish sufferance which is the result of a supposed balance of advantages in his favour. This is the consequence of the tactics of those short-sighted intriguers, who persisted in looking upon a revolution as a mere party struggle, and would not permit the mind of the nation to work through the inevitable ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... thy lips, say they, burnt with another name! Bethink thee, faint heart, there is not a man in all this city but would count death a small price to pay for my favours; and I ask of thee one little service, and thou shalt name thine own reward. Surely 'tis churlish to gainsay!" ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... who owed them two victories. The result was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn, coupled with an invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, the plunder of whose villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was accepted. Ottigny and Vasseur set forth, but were grossly deceived, led against a different enemy, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves. The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind the tracery and tangles ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... resolve to reform, but he is now solicited again by the bottle. His moral triumph or failure literally consists in his finding the right name for the case. If he says that it is a case of not wasting good liquor already poured out, or a case of not being churlish and unsociable when in the midst of friends, or a case of learning something at last about a brand of whiskey which he never met before, or a case of celebrating a public holiday, or a case of stimulating himself to a more energetic resolve in favor of abstinence than any he has ever yet made, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... he counselled Ovando to delay for a few days the departure of the fleet, then riding in the harbor, which was destined to carry Bobadilla and the rebels with their ill-gotten treasures back to Spain. The churlish governor, however, not only refused Columbus admittance, but gave orders for the instant departure of the vessels. The apprehensions of the experienced mariner were fully justified by the event. Scarcely had the Spanish fleet quitted its moorings, before one of those tremendous hurricanes ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... thee, Allan, think not that I am churlish and yet must I withhold my name. For it is part of the vow I have made. Nor, forsooth, am I therefore the ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... St. Ambrose's, whether she won a scholarship or not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as well as the nicest fellow in the world, who was going to be not only May's coach, but her brother-in-law. In like manner it would be downright churlish and positively unkind to Dora if her parents refused to occupy the pleasant small house with the large garden belonging to Tom Robinson, and close to what would be their daughter's house. It was conveniently vacant, and looked as if it had been made for a couple ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... in which every tree bore golden fruit, he was fearful lest the slayer of the Medusa might destroy the dragon which guarded it, and then rob him of his treasures. He therefore refused to grant the hospitality which the hero demanded, whereupon Perseus, exasperated at the churlish repulse, produced from his wallet the head of the Medusa, and holding it towards the king, transformed him into a stony mountain. Beard and hair erected themselves into forests; shoulders, hands, and limbs became huge rocks, and ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold step, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of licensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuable aid. I was from the first a good deal attracted by ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... He! This village of Paranas [2] is on the coast, and contains a few Indian fishermen, but there are many Indians in the mountains, divided, scattered, and far away; some of these have established their abodes on the coast, but they frequent it but rarely, and are (or rather were) a very churlish and fugitive people. Yet Don Goncalo (that is the name of the fiscal) has taken hold of them in such a way that he does what he will with them, and that, too, by so quiet, gentle, and efficacious means as to cause one to wonder. Although it is exceedingly difficult to attract their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... he, "have much to say about themselves—'Deeds, not words,' is a good motto for all. But as I would not be churlish, and as I have agreed, as well as the rest of my companions, to tell my story, I will mention what few things worth relating I ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... road open to an argument. He was in ecstasy; a long argument—an argument full of churlish flings and boorish slurs, which he fondly believed passed for polished satire and keen irony. He did not know Rocjean; he never could know a man like him; he never could learn the truth that confidence will overpower strength; only at last, when through his hide and bristles entered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... before you;" whereunto I said, Amen, and asked him how his lordship could answer before God and man for what he had done to a wretched man like myself and to my child? But he answered, saying, Why had I come with her? And when I told him of the rude people here, item, of the churlish miller's man, he said that it was not his fault, and threatened the people all around with his fist, for they were making a great noise. Thereupon he commanded my child to get down and to follow him, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... no man was gratitude more persistently earned, than by Dickens, from all to whom nature or the world had been churlish or unfair. Not to those only made desolate by poverty or the temptations incident to it, but to those whom natural defects or infirmities had placed at a disadvantage with their kind, he gave his first consideration; helping ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... thou not to the wild-wood with horse and hawk and hound? Why biddest thou not to the heathland and the eagle-haunted ground To meet thy noble brethren as they ride from the mountain-road? Hast thou deemed the hall of the Niblungs a churlish poor abode? Wouldst thou wend away from thy kindred, and scorn thy fosterer's praise? —Or is this the beginning of love and the first ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... the spot, very neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these things. It was for the credit of Landrecies, said he; and although we knew very well how little credit we could do the place, we must have been churlish fellows to refuse an invitation so ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... meant the phrase no otherwise, thou churlish and suspicious disputant," answered Dalgarno, "than as I am now pleading the duke's cause with thee. Surely I only mean to claim a share in our royal master's favourite benediction, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Reverend John Hayley, the rector of a parish in Devonshire. She married, when only nineteen years of age, a Captain Gosford. Her husband was ten years older than herself, and, as she discovered after marriage, was cursed with a morose and churlish temper and disposition. Previous to her acquaintance with Gosford, she had been intimate with, almost betrothed to, Mr. Arthur Kingston, a young gentleman connected with the peerage, and at that time heir-apparent ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... lord. Fetch a pine torch, Bianca. The old staircase Is full of pitfalls, and the churlish moon Grows, like a miser, niggard of her beams, And hides her face behind a muslin mask As harlots do when they go forth to snare Some wretched soul in sin. Now, I will get Your cloak and sword. Nay, pardon, my good Lord, ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... it. I will receive no money that is lent in such a churlish and unchristian spirit. And I tell you now, moreover, that if I do accept it, it must be on the condition of your listening to what I feel it my duty to say to you. You, Anthony Corbet, have committed a black and deadly ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... my pipe I played A requiem sad and tender, Lo, thither came a shepherd-maid— Full comely she and slender! I were indeed a churlish blade With wailings to offend 'er— For, surely, wooing's sweeter than A mourning ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... make up their minds to, they must have that instant. They may pay for it hereafter. But that is no matter. They snatch a joy beyond the reach of fate, and consider the present time sacred, inviolable, unaccountable to that hard, churlish, niggard, inexorable taskmaster, the future. Now or never is their motto. They are madly devoted to the plaything, the ruling passion of the moment. What is to happen to them a week hence is as if it were to happen to them a thousand years hence. They put off the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... this churlish beast barked, the old gentleman, with terror and dismay in his countenance, and quaking limbs, ran to the only window he ever ventured to unbar, to see what danger threatened him; nor could the sight of a barefoot child, or a decrepit old woman, immediately dispel his fears. As timorous ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... No longer in the mighty kitchens are prepared the prodigious supply of meats destined for the support of the poor or the entertainment of the traveller. No kindly porter stands at the gate, to bid the stranger enter and partake of the munificent abbot's hospitality, but a churlish guard bids him hie away, and menaces him if he tarries with his halbert. Closed are the buttery-hatches and the pantries; and the daily dole of bread hath ceased. Closed, also, to the brethren is the refectory. The cellarer's office is ended. The strong ale ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... And from her faire and vnpolluted flesh, May Violets spring. I tell thee (churlish Priest) A Ministring Angell shall my Sister be, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... days, set a silver basin before us, wherein there was the leg of a beaver, and desired all the nations to come and eat of it,—to eat in peace and plenty, and not to be churlish to one another; and that if any such person should be found to be a disturber, I here lay down by the edge of the dish a rod, which you must scourge them with; and if your father should get foolish, in my old days, I desire you may use it upon ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... of the general wish, smilingly refused to take back the paper parchment, and Dante, ever too wise to be stubborn for stubbornness' sake, surrendered, where to persist in refusal would have seemed churlish to his host and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... my lords, will listen, as you have sometimes deigned to do, to my advice, I think I can direct you how to keep clear of any breach of your oath, and yet fully to relieve our distressed fellow-pilgrims.—I see some suspicious looks are cast towards me, which are caused perhaps by the churlish manner in which this violent, and, in this case, almost insane young warrior, has protested against receiving my assistance. My great offence is the having given him warning, by precept and example, of the treachery which was about to be practised against him, and instructed ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... moments' delay. So far as he was personally concerned he felt very unlike the frivolity of the typical musical comedy; but still, he had finished his dinner by this time and was not disposed to be churlish. Fenwick had completed his repast also, and was sipping his coffee in an amiable frame of mind, heedless apparently of business worries of ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... a dream of dalliance in sleep and told his mother, who rejoiced and told his father, saying, 'Fain would I find him a wife, for he is now apt for marriage.' Quoth Khalid, 'He is so foul of favour and withal so evil of odour, so sordid and churlish, that no woman would accept of him.' And she answered, 'We will buy him a slave- girl.' So it befell, for the accomplishment of that which God the Most High had decreed, that the Amir and his son went down, on the same ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... richer quicker than the friendly sort of man? Can the grumbler labor better than the cheerful fellow can? Is the mean and churlish neighbor any cleverer than the one Who shouts a glad "good morning," and then smiling ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... become of your churlish, morose temper, Geoffrey?" said he to me one day, at dinner; "why, boy, you are greatly changed of late. From a sulky, impertinent, vindictive lad, you have become an industrious, agreeable, ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... foreseen. For now was he compelled for the first time in his life, at any length, to live apart from his daughter, to refrain from embracing her when they met in the morning, to speak to her in a rough, churlish sort when his heart, maybe, was overflowing with love, and to reconcile himself to a cool, indifferent behaviour on her side, when his very soul was yearning for gentle, tender warmth. And these natural ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... to light till after his death. He kept an exact account of his salary, of his share of the profits accruing from the trade in salt, and of those presents which, according to the fashion of the East, it would be churlish to refuse. Out of the sum arising from these resources, he defrayed the expenses of his situation. The surplus he divided among a few attached friends who had accompanied him to India. He always boasted, and as far as we can judge, he boasted with truth, that this last administration ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... always mistrusted those laurestines! They sent me back my brother churlish and embittered, but oh! that in my steadfast Roger they should have worked such a sudden ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... them to his daughters, or at least—according to a view of inheritance which had just been strongly impressed on Deronda's imagination—to take makeshift feminine offspring as intermediate to a satisfactory heir in a grandson. We should be churlish creatures if we could have no joy in our fellow-mortals' joy, unless it were in agreement with our theory of righteous distribution and our highest ideal of human good: what sour corners our mouths would get—our eyes, what frozen glances! and all the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... of these only two appear to do so with enjoyment. They are some paces apart from the third, who is now left to herself: for it is a woman. Not that they are unacquainted with her, or in any way wishing to be churlish. But, simply, because neither can spare word or thought for any one, save their ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... idea from a paper which years ago I wrote for an eminent literary journal. As I have no copy of that paper before me, it is impossible that I should save myself any labor of writing. The words at any rate I must invent afresh: and, as to the idea, you never can be such a churlish man as, by insisting on a new one, in effect to insist upon my writing a false one. In the following paragraph, therefore, I give the substance of a thought suggested ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... he paid to the cottage of the once prejudiced and churlish Sullivan, now no longer so, for the practical lesson of kindness he had learned from the untutored Indian was not lost upon him. It was made the means of bringing him to a knowledge of his own sinfulness in the sight of God, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... elementary and violent, is combined with the fantastic story of Erisichthon, 'a churlish husband-man,' who in the nymphs' despite cuts down the sacred tree of Ceres, into which the chaste Fidelia had been transformed. For this offence the goddess dooms him to the plague of hunger. The ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... succeeded in bringing all the other birds within hearing distance to the spot to take part in the demonstration. It was unreasonable of the cuckoos, to say the least of it, for it was now long past their breeding season, so that parental solicitude could not be pleaded as an excuse for their churlish behaviour. The others—tanagers, finches, tyrant-birds; red, white, blue, grey, yellow, and mixed—were, I must own, less troublesome, for, after hopping about for a while, screaming, chirping, and twittering, they very sensibly flew away, no doubt thinking their ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... the earth And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be When thou ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... Still, the stubborn Scotchman persisted in denying the medicine, though I offered him payment in silver or gold. Thereupon, I commanded the mate to produce his log-book, and, under my dictation, to note the visit of the San Pablo, my request, and its churlish denial. This being done to my satisfaction, I ordered two of my hands to search for the medicine chest, which turned out to be a sorry receptacle of stale drugs, though fortunately containing an abundance of calomel. I did not parley about appropriating a third of the mineral, for which ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Dr. John Radcliffe (1650-1714) who refused the appointment of physician to King William III., and offended Anne by his churlish disregard of her requests to attend on her. He fell in love with a Miss Tempest, one of Queen Anne's maids of honour. In the 44th number of "The Tatler" Steele ridicules this attachment by making him address his mistress in the following ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... read at all. Parsons must practise what they teach, And bishops are compell'd to preach. She who on earth was nice and prim, Of delicacy full, and whim; 450 Whose tender nature could not bear The rudeness of the churlish air, Is doom'd, to mortify her pride, The change of weather to abide, And sells, whilst tears with liquor mix, Burnt brandy on the shore of Styx. Avaro[212], by long use grown bold In every ill which ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... setting it on edge. I, therefore, recollecting my own case, have allowed for no wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... what new marks of wonder soon took place, In every settling feature of his face, When from his vest the young companion bore That cup, the generous landlord own'd before, And paid profusely with the precious bowl The stinted kindness of this churlish soul! ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... showed him their fish-hooks made of barbed bone lashed to wood, but which has become better known as Plymouth Bay where the Pilgrims landed fifteen years later—there instead of Port Royal, where even Lescarbot's "Ordre de Bon- Temps" could not overcome the evil reports in France concerning a "churlish wilderness"! Or if Champlain, instead of seeking later the Rock of Quebec—whose rugged charms he could not forget even in the presence of the site of Boston or in the streets of Paris—had laid ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... closely at me, as if she would have sought the reason of my churlish tone, and I was strangely thankful that she could not see the motley worn by the muffled stranger who confronted her. No doubt she accounted me a clown, whose nature inclined to surliness, and so she turned away, telling Giacopo that as soon as the horses ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... so proud of being called a good fellow, should be civil. And it cannot be denied, but we are, in many cases, and particularly to strangers, the most churlish people alive. ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... of Fife, and that Bozzy went as a dumb conjurer; but from the expression of the Magazine, 'an entertainment little known in this part of the Kingdom,' coupled with the words employed by Johnson, there can be no doubt that Croker is wrong, and that the host on this occasion was the churlish chief, whose inhospitable ways they were to experience in Skye. He was now near the great honour of his life, admission to that Literary Club, of which, said Sir William Jones, 'I will only say that there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are not capable of ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... churlish soul may plead A favor to a dying foe, I'll ask thee, Stuyvesant, ere I bleed, Let me once more on my gray steed Thrice round the timbered enceinte go: Fire, when ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... I am a shipmaster, and every trader I carry across the sea, sometimes to South Wales, and sometimes to Bristol, and betimes so far as to Ireland, tells me all he has learned. It were churlish not to listen, and then we need warning against such attacks as that of Morgan. Moreover, one ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... invited to stay with a great man, and suppose that I have a talent for drawing; I may sketch his house and his rooms, himself and his family, if he does not object—and it seems to me that it would be churlish and affected of him to object—I may write descriptive letters from the place, giving an account of his domestic ways, his wife and family, his rooms, his books, his garden, his talk. I do not see that there is any reasonable objection to my showing those sketches to other people ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... public warfare, and on whom he had inflicted many calamities, while he had sustained at their hands not a few. His love and devotion to the King was like the vivid affection of the old English mastiff to his master, leaving him churlish and inaccessible to all others even towards those to whom he was indifferent—and rough and dangerous to any against whom he entertained a prejudice. De Vaux had never observed without jealousy and displeasure his King exhibit any mark of courtesy or favour to the wicked, deceitful, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... Constable hath sent us back his sword And doth renounce our service. Now, by heaven! He thus hath rid us of a churlish man, Who insolently sought to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, so much That, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none. I am the man. If it be so, as 't is, Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper-false In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... Auban," replied the dark-haired one—whom I guessed to be none other than Yvonne de Canaples herself—"but, since this gentleman so gallantly cedes his apartments to us, all our needs are satisfied. It would be churlish to refuse that ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... somewhere about, I suppose," was the answer, and it was given in such a surly tone with such a churlish manner that Viola flushed with anger and bit her lips to keep back ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... general longing of human nature, have given a reputation to the Spring, that it rarely merits. Though this imaginative class of writers have said so much of its balmy airs and odoriferous gales, we find it nearly everywhere the most reluctant, churlish, and fickle of the four seasons. It is the youth of the year, and, like that probationary period of life, most fitted to afford the promise of better things. There is a constant struggle between reality and hope throughout the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and I am almost disposed to join with Poor Robin in his malediction on every churlish ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Silanus were consuls, I came to know Mercablis and to consider him, I arrived at the conclusion that his inclination for solitude and his aloofness were not the result of any dread of strangers or of any need for seclusion, like mine, but the product of a disposition naturally churlish, crabbed, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... my not writing. I have a number of memorandums of business to make out for Johnstone. Thank them again for their letters, and beg them not to be so churlish. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... star is he, Thou fickle as an April sky, More churlish too than Adria's sea, With thee I'd live, with ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... shut myself up here. I dismissed all the servants save the two you have seen, and have for years refused to mix with my fellows. I grew churlish and bitter. I talked strangely, until stories were circulated about me, wild and foolish, of course, but still making me become more a misanthrope than ever. Why I gave you admittance yesterday I do not know, but acting on sudden impulse I did ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... delusion, I gave warning, and protested, and opposed the abandonment of Thermopylae and the Phocians—that I, being a water-drinker, [Footnote: It was Philocrates who said this. There were many jokes against Demosthenes as a water-drinker.] was naturally a churlish and morose fellow, that Philip, if he passed the straits, would do just as you desired, fortify Thespiae and Plataea, humble the Thebans, cut through the Chersonese [Footnote: This peninsula being exposed to incursions from Thrace, a plan was conceived of cutting through the isthmus from Pteleon ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes |
