"Ill-natured" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, 'she hasn't taken much to any companions here; she hasn't taken kindly to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. In consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em'ly wanted to be a lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady she would like to do so-and-so for her uncle—don't you see?—and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... intellectuality about it too, for did it not foster a spirit of meditation, contemplation, and even of philosophical speculation—when he chanced to be awake? Moreover, it saved him from harder labour, and shut the mouths of those ill-natured people who objected to drones, and had a tendency to reproach them, for was he not assiduously procuring for men and women a portion of that nourishment without which labour would ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... consider that all wise, all honest, all ingenuous persons have an aversion from ill-speaking, and cannot entertain it with any acceptance or complacence; that only ill-natured, unworthy, and naughty people are its willing auditors, or do abet it with applause. The good man, in Psalm xv., non accipit opprobrium, doth not take up, or accept, a reproach against his neighbour: "but a wicked doer," ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... Burns dined at Gordon Castle, the seat of the lively Duchess of Gordon, whom he had met in Edinburgh. Here again he was received with marked respect, and treated with the same Highland hospitality that had so charmed him at Blair; and here also the pleasure of the whole party was spoilt by the ill-natured jealousy of Nicol. That fiery dominie, imagining that he was slighted by Burns, who seemed to prefer the fine society of the Duchess and her friends to his amiable companionship, ordered the horses to be put to the carriage, and determined to set off alone. As the spiteful fellow ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... though it had a large sale, its reception in England was not quite what he had hoped for; and in America it was received by the press with something like hostility. Unfortunately some busybody in America made it his concern to forward to Irving all the ill-natured flings which could be gleaned from American notices of the new book. The incident—with all its unpleasantness—was trifling enough, but to Irving's raw sensitiveness it was torture. He was overwhelmed ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... girl he had knocked down was more frightened than hurt; but Charlie was very sorry, for he was not at all an ill-natured boy; and when he was at home by himself, while Ethel went for her donkey-rides, he had plenty of time to think things over, and made a good use of it. At first he found it very hard to be patient, but after a little while he found it becoming much easier ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... charge was accepted by 119 to 79. The next day Hastings attended the court on the presentation of a magnificent diamond sent by the nizam to the king, whose acceptance of the present gave rise to much ill-natured comment. Various motives have been suggested for Pitt's decision. None appear adequate save the most obvious and honourable one, that he acted in accordance with his conscience. Though his decision took the house by surprise, he clearly defined his attitude four months before: "he was neither ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... and brought him into the great oak parlour; and there sat the laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape that was a special pet of his. A cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played; ill to please it was, and easily angered—ran about the haill castle, chattering and rowling, and pinching and biting folk, specially before ill weather, or disturbance in the state. Sir ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... the county flocked thither to leave cards, and express their sympathy for the unfortunate mischance that had overtaken the bright creature who had been the cynosure of all eyes for her beauty and grace on the morning of the first fox-hunt of the year. All the ill-natured gossip, all the slanderous tittle-tattle which had been started by Lord Roxmouth and fostered by Miss Tabitha Pippitt, ebbed and died away in the great wave of honest regret and kindly pity that pervaded ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... did; but I was so vexed to see our pleasant party to Havana was broken up. Frank was very ill-natured to fall sick just at that time—I'll flog him for ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... want to make silly excuses for Geoff, but it is true that he has never been quite so ill-natured ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... Society I do not know. Perhaps 'he of the countenance of a lion,' of whom we read in the forty-fifth chapter of Lavengro, scarcely knew what to say about it; but the precise-looking man with the ill-natured countenance, no doubt, forbade his family to read The Bible ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... paragraphs. Who was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less inaccuracy, humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers tried to tell that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments good-natured or ill-natured according to circumstances over which somebody ought to have some control. What was Harrington trying to do to Plank—if he was trying to do anything? They told that pretty clearly. What was Quarrier going to do to Plank? That, also, they explained ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... author of 'Annals of Scottish Episcopacy,' was his grandson. He was first appointed to a charge in Montrose, from whence he was removed to Banff, and ultimately to Forfar. After he had left Montrose, it reached his ears that an ill-natured insinuation was circulating there that he had been induced to leave this town by the temptation of a better income and of fat pork, which, it would appear, was plentiful in the locality of his new incumbency. Indignant at such an aspersion, he wrote a letter, directed to ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... and good-natured, and so were we. That shows you the power of example. If the captain had fumed and fretted, and wondered why we could not have a wind, very likely we should have felt ill-natured and looked cross too, and have had a very unpleasant time. As it was, we made the best of our calms, and hoped for a breeze, and rejoiced even if we ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... Tom," was the rejoinder. "It takes my breath away to argue with you up this hill. I am not too ill-natured to give up my own bed to Miss Sefton. Let us hurry on, there's a good boy, or they ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... gentlemen to a speedy personal experience of the conditions of prison life in The Leads, and to a realization of the difficulties of escape. He was far, however, from betraying the slightest trace that he harbored so ill-natured an idea. On the contrary, he was able to play the innocent and to adopt an amiable role. After his usual fashion, he entertained the company by recounting all sorts of lively adventures, describing them as experiences he had had during his last journey from Rome to Venice. In substance ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... a special set of police in the city, whose whole duty was to keep a sharp lookout for ill-natured fretting children, who complained of their parents' treatment, and thought other boys and girls were much better off than they, and to march them away to the school. These police all wore white top ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... ill-natured, blind man. He has a cruel stepmother and a selfish, petulant younger brother. This boy, the pet of his parents, treated Shun with insolence; and the father and mother joined in persecuting the elder son. Shun, without showing resentment, cried aloud to Heaven and ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... Wood and Aubrey the debt I owe to them, especially to Wood, and ask his pardon for occasional ill-natured remarks about him, as ill-natured nearly as his own about most of ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... passion that preyed on him, which made the prospect of a total separation from Miss Churton seem intolerable, kept him from severing his connection with Eyethorne. But after that warning he was more circumspect, and gave the ladies, old and young, less reason for ill-natured remarks. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... our ill-natured hero's thoughts, as he sat upon an elevated branch, and gently rubbed his wounded snout? Why, unfortunately for his own happiness, he laid the blame of his mishap on any one or any thing, rather than the right being or circumstance. It was the otter's fault, ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... got intil! He was that kankered that he took twa or three ill-natured rives o' a shreed o' breed, an' a gullar o' tea, an' fair stankit himsel'. It gaed doon the wrang road, ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... job—"it is much spoken against, not for the matter (for no man objects to that), but for the manner, which is full of knavery, and a wicked precedent. For by this assignment he is protected from all his creditors, which (I dare say) was neither his Majesty's nor your Lordship's meaning." It was an ill-natured and cowardly piece of official pedantry to plunge deeper a drowning man; but in the end the pardon was passed. It does not appear whether Buckingham interfered to overrule the Lord Keeper's scruples. Buckingham was certainly about this time very much out of humour with Bacon, for a reason which, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... earlier claimed to be. His pose is that of a schoolgirl in a cutting mood. At the same time his judgment of Johnson has an element of truth in it. "Though he was good-natured at bottom," he said of him, "he was very ill-natured at top." It has often been said of Walpole that, in his attitude to contemporary men of genius, he was influenced mainly by their position in Society—that he regarded an author who was not a gentleman as being necessarily ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... himself, who alone could have told us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and nowhere drops the least hint. So that the small fact has come down to us involved in a great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill-natured character, set a-going by Voltaire, Valori, and others."—Carlyle's Frederick the Great, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... news, indeed! Sara had never felt more relieved. But at that very moment she drew back; for she had seen several disheveled, cross, black-browed children peering at her out of a sort of cave in the rock. Behind them was a very ill-natured-looking old man. ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... afforded no little amusement to the party generally, tho' all agreed that it was too bad of Lady Ashton, and very ill-natured. ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... like to go out and see it all," said Miss Hall, looking into Miss Lawrie's face. This also appeared to Mary to be ill-natured. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... with a great equipage and a fine coach to the Society, and desired to be heard. He told them a long story of his wife; how ill-natured, how sullen, how unkind she was, and that in short she made his life very uncomfortable. The Society asked him several questions about ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hem of the muslin dress on which Carrie's eye had all the while been resting, disappeared, and as there was no longer an incentive for ill-natured remarks, the amiable young lady adroitly ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen tomorrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as ill-natured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... THE MISTRESS. That's ill-natured. Thackeray did, however, make ladies. If he had depicted, with his searching pen, any of us just as we are, I doubt if we ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... manner, and was apparently making one thing after another without any trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable to have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking out of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot against the washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,— "a quarrel or something"; and Tom thought he should rather like to show Philip that he had better not ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact, he is a bear of sentiment. But, O, those unsentimental monkeys the ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little brutes. Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her mind unquiet, because it bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the conductor passed. He followed him with an ill-natured look, and did not begin until he had gone again. Then during all the rest of the story he did not stop once. Even the new travellers as they entered did ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... these ill-natured gentlemen laughed at you as they did was because of the lax way they have brought me up," Nancy explained. "They've let me 'gang my ain gate' since I was five. I've had no right raising," she said, and the very sweetness of her as she said it would have made any man keen ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Jonas, though ill-natured and captious, was fond of his wife, in his low, animal fashion, and had a coarse appreciation of her beauty. He was so far recovered from his accident that he could sleep and eat heartily, and his blood coursed as ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... changed her mind and remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly cross, and not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the least; she is growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured, so we'll let Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's we went to Blanchard's, and had a nice lunch. Grace was in town; she chaperoned us, and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then we went to the theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about much. ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... go out again. I'll get some common person to come with me, and we will talk of common things. I'll take out the woman of the house, and her children. We will go and see something. There is a show of some kind in the town—I'll treat them to it. I'm not such an ill-natured woman when I try; and the landlady has really been kind to me. Surely I might occupy my mind a little in seeing her and her ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... an ill-natured little cat, and the man that marries her will find that it is she who will hold the reins and ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... "It is an ill-natured report, Marguerite. I do regret, and shall always regret, my husband; but it is now two years since he died. I am only twenty-eight years old, and my grief at his loss ought not always to control every ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Paris, snares await you everywhere, and the end is sorrow. Wherever I set my foot, the ground round about me seemed to burn. My readiness to acquiesce was considered weakness though if I unsheathed my talons, like a man conscious that he may some day wield the thunderbolts of power, I was thought ill-natured; to others, the delightful laughter that ceases with youth, and in which in later years we are almost ashamed to indulge, seemed absurd, and they amused themselves at my expense. People may be bored nowadays, but none the less they expect you to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... commanding this one to stand back, and that one to come forward, ordering one boy to put down his book, and scolding at a second for having lost his place, and knocking the knees of another with his ruler because he was out of the line. The boys scowl at their teacher, and, with ill-natured reluctance, they obey just enough ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... Gore, who was not wont to hide his light under any kind of extinguisher, made no attempt to claim the floor, and applauded with enthusiasm the conversation of his opposite neighbour. Ill-natured people might say that Mr. Gore saw in Senator Ratcliffe a possible Secretary of State; be this as it may, he certainly said to Mrs. Clinton, in an aside that was perfectly audible to every one at the table: "How brilliant! what an original mind! what a sensation he would ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... with us, and amused us with lively descriptions and stories of most of the great people whom we saw upon the terrace. I liked her more and more every minute. Her gossip without being ill-natured, was extremely diverting to me, who had been so long out of the great world. I thought what life she would give to our sometimes ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Government carcass, some other gentleman, some gentleman from the Treasury bench, had been able to give a very satisfactory reply. For why, indeed, should any gentleman sit on the Treasury bench if he be not able, when so questioned, to give very satisfactory replies? Giving satisfactory replies to ill-natured questions is, one may say, the constitutional work of such gentlemen, who have generally well learned how to do so, and earned their present places by asking the selfsame questions themselves, when seated as younger men in other parts ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... same race of birds as the grouse, but feeds high up towards the summits of the Scotch mountains. Then some cheese, and a bottle of Chambertin. It was a very pleasant dinner, and my companions were both very agreeable men; both taking a shrewd, satirical, yet not ill-natured, view of life and people, and as for Mr. Douglas Jerrold, he often reminded me of E—— C———, in the richer veins of the latter, both by his face and expression, and by a tincture of something at once wise ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that the Duke of York shall return to the command of the army; it would have taken place ere now, but for some ill-natured remarks inserted in some of the newspapers, produced by an over zeal on the part of his friends. Sir David (Dundas) will not be much regretted, and it surely is time that at his advanced period of life he should be relieved from the cares ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... confess I have given [yielded] too much to the people in it, and am ashamed for them as well as for myself, that I have pleased them at so cheap a rate," he takes care to add, "not that there is anything here that I would not defend to an ill-natured judge." The plot was from Calderon, and the author, rebutting the charge of plagiarism, tells us that the king ("without whose command they should no longer be troubled with anything of mine") had already ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... The ill-natured unctuous voice of the fashionable scandalmonger went on with the story as he finished buckling his garters, accompanied by the sound of a douche two boxes off, and the Prince's voice saying, 'Harder, Joseph, harder, don't be afraid.' ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... she wheeled quickly and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I remember thinking them excessively unfeminine, the eyes rather of an ill-natured, pugnacious boy; and now, because of the hard coldness of her look, the unmaidenly, calculating intensity of her regard, I grew very conscious of my disfiguring garments and felt ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... disasters increased the discontent in the army, and, by making the men impatient and ill-natured, increased the bitterness of their quarrels. The army finally advanced, however, as far as Bethany, with a forlorn hope of being strong enough, when they should arrive there, to attack Jerusalem; but this hope, when the time came, Richard was obliged to ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his bidding, not I!" So he clapped his wings and crowed in the wood, just to show that he set light by his advice. "And never to give me anything for poor Hen-alie, that lies sick at home with a bean in her throat! The ill-natured churl!" cried Cock-alu to himself, and then he stood and crowed again with ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... first heard all the facts of the case which was exciting the interest of all Petersburg. The story was this: Some officers were eating oysters and, as usual, drinking very much, when one of them said something ill-natured about the regiment to which Kaminski belonged, and Kaminski called him a liar. The other hit Kaminski. The next day they fought. Kaminski was wounded in the stomach and died two hours later. The murderer and the seconds were arrested, but it was said that though ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. "And, as you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year. Don't say a word to any one—I sha'n't give out that he is dead, poor fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is quite empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for now, you see, I must marry!" And ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... conscience secretly reproved him for what he was doing, pulled the beetle round from behind him, and threw it down upon the floor, where Rollo had been sitting. This was wrong. It was a very ill-natured way of giving it up. If he was satisfied that he was wrong, he ought to have handed it to Rollo pleasantly. Instead of that, he threw it down, with a ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... fevers and sickness repeatedly brought on by exposure to winter rains and summer heat, should perhaps be counted among the least of them, for they had their compensations. Not so the ignorant and ill-natured opposition, open or covert, of the Turkish authorities. That was an evil to which no amount of philosophy could ever fully reconcile him. His experiences in that line form an amusing collection. Luckily, the first was also the worst. The pasha whom he found installed at ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... mainly what procured for such as were known to be employed upon it the entree of houses where, if they had had a private existence only, their faces would never have been seen. But, to do Tom justice, he wrote nothing of this sort: he was neither ill-natured nor experienced enough for that department; what he did write was clever, shallow sketches of that same society into whose charmed precincts he was but so lately a comer that much was to him interesting which had long ceased to be observed by eyes turned ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... free from the traces of acute anxiety that was eating at his heart. His body was emaciated, and, at times, his hand shook like a drunkard's. It was even worse with the spiritual man. He had become irritable, peevish, and ill-natured; he had lost, by degrees, every generous sentiment. As a young man he had been remarkable for his liberality in pecuniary matters. He had been wont to part freely with his money. Inconsistent as it may seem, notwithstanding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Languedoc, which appears to abound in final consonants and leads the Toulousians to say bien-g and maison-g like Englishmen learning French. It is as if they talked with their teeth rather than with their tongue. I find in my note-book a phrase in regard to Toulouse which is perhaps a little ill-natured, but which I will transcribe as it stands: "The oddity is that the place should be both animated and dull. A big, brown-skinned population, clattering about in a flat, tortuous town, which produces nothing whatever that ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... The wine was powerful, and had taken effect upon most of us. Singing was introduced, and the night passed merrily away, more visitors occasionally dropping in. My cousin was much elated with wine, and made several ill-natured remarks, which were meant for me. I took no notice for some time, but, as he continued, I answered with such spirit, as to arouse his indignation. My own blood boiled; but the interference of mutual friends pacified us for the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... its bran," which corresponds with our saying, "Every bean hath its black," The meaning being that nothing is without certain imperfections. A person in extreme poverty is often described as being "as bare as the birch at Yule Even," and an ill-natured or evil-disposed person who tries to do harm, but cannot, is commonly ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... and so have lost a generous race of young succeeding heroes that may be born of you! Yet had Philander loved but half so well as I, he would have kept your glorious fame entire; but since alone for Sylvia I love Sylvia, let her be false to honour, false to love, wanton and proud, ill-natured, vain, fantastic, or what is worse—let her pursue her love, be constant, and still dote upon Philander—yet still she will be the Sylvia I adore, that Sylvia born ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the same evening an attentive observer might have noticed Miss Rose emerging from her door very quietly, and making the best of her way to the green fields that bordered the sea-coast close by. An ill-natured person would have said that Miss Rose had taken especial pains with her toilet, and that she carried her parasol with a lack-a-daisical air; but Rose herself, at her last peep in the glass, had thought that she looked very nicely indeed; and so it ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... to my favour. Your absence has been commented upon, and made known at high quarters, and suspicion has arisen in consequence. Your return as one of the Parliamentary forces will now put an end to all ill-natured remarks. My dear Edward, you have done me a service. As my secretary, and having been known to have been a follower of the Beverleys, your absence was considered strange, and it was intimated at high quarters that you had gone to join the king's forces, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... fiery eyes, and fangs that had a very poisonous aspect. And while the three-headed Cerberus was fawning so lovingly on King Pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its will, and looking as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, on its ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... settled down in my corner. I used to live in this corner before, but now I have settled down in it. My room is a wretched, horrid one in the outskirts of the town. My servant is an old country-woman, ill-natured from stupidity, and, moreover, there is always a nasty smell about her. I am told that the Petersburg climate is bad for me, and that with my small means it is very expensive to live in Petersburg. I know all that better than all these sage and experienced counsellors and monitors.... But I am ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... wasn't far wrong, as you will see. But I didn't finish my sentence, for Peterkin, who was sitting next me, gave me a sort of little kick, not to hurt, of course, and whispered, 'I'll tell you afterwards.' So I felt it would be ill-natured to tease him, and I didn't say any more, and luckily the others hadn't noticed what I had begun. Blanchie was on her knees in front of the fire toasting for us, and Elf was putting lumps of sugar into the cups, ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting, looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are proposing ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... sight of a tall young man who was cooking a fish over the fire, Aunt Agatha gurgled fearfully and backed precipitately into the nearest tree, whence the ill-natured hand bag forcibly opened a grinning mouth, leaped into space and disgorged a flying shower of nickels and dimes, smelling salts and hairpins and a variety of fussy contrivances ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... two distinct kinds—our native brownish-black bees, and the Italians imported by Mr. S. B. Parsons and others about fifteen years ago. There is a cross or hybrid between these two kinds that are said to be so ill-natured that it is unsafe to go anywhere near ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... to the White House. Thought I'd wait and have a private talk with the President, but Sergeant Porter said I'd have to go along with the rest. What an ill-natured set they were. Elbowed me right along just because they saw the President wanted to talk with me. Will have to go ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... coloured by their likes and dislikes. But it is well to learn from an enemy, and caricatures may often be useful in calling attention to features which would escape notice but for exaggeration. So we may profit by even the ill-natured and distorted likenesses of ourselves as contrasted with the adherents of other religions which so many 'liberal-minded' writers of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... had a great deal of trouble from the factious disputes and violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here in regard to that silly fee of a pistole. Surely every thinking man will make a distinction between a fee and a tax. Poor people! I pity their ignorance and narrow, ill-natured spirits. But, my friend, consider that I could by no means give up this fee without affronting the Board of Trade and the Council here who established it." His thoughts were not all of this harassing nature, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... surprise no one, it did not appear to surprise Sir Rupert, if such an education made Helena Langley what ill-natured people called a somewhat eccentric young woman. Brought up on a manly system of education, having a man for her closest companion, learning much of the world at an early age, naturally tended to develop and sustain the strongly marked individuality of her character. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... reason, one can't be angry. Were I to be harsh with him, it would be of no use. I prefer to agree with him and get him to bed; then, at least, it's over at once and I'm quiet. Besides, he isn't ill-natured, he loves me very much. You could see that just a moment ago when he was desperate to give me a kiss. That's quite nice of him. There are plenty of men, you know, who after drinking a bit don't come straight home but stay out chasing women. Oh, he may ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... ill-natured rumour has just reached me, and I write, dear Fanny, to warn you against giving the least credit to it, should it spread into the country. Depend upon it, there is some mistake, and that a day or two will clear it up; at any rate, that Henry is blameless, and in spite of a moment's ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... word, Phyl, you are very kind!' said Maurice, angrily. 'If I had known you were such an ill-natured crab—' ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr. William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... know how easily the ill-natured gossip of a small town can rouse the angry contempt of the masses for everything which is beyond or above them. In a wider sphere Urbain would have shone by his many gifts, but, cooped up as he was within the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Dexter in a voice pitched to a lower tone, and with a softer modulation. "I did not expect to find a visitor here at so early an hour; and I fear that I have permitted myself to experience just a shade of annoyance. If I have seemed ill-natured, pardon me. It is not my nature to find fault, or to criticise. I rather prefer looking upon the bright side. Like Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'I am a wide liker.' There are times, you know, in which we are all tempted to act in a way that gives to others a ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... several very sensitive places by the married woman's imperious denial of her part in him, by her attitude of indestructible and unique possession. If she didn't know him she would like to know who did. But up till now she had meant to spare Mrs. Majendie her knowledge of him, for she was not ill-natured. She was sorry for the poor, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... a secret, says a beau, And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; But faith, if we should tell but half we know, There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, Wou'd never presume to show his face; Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, T'enjoy ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... irritation entirely gone. "I had no right to lose my temper, and I'm sorry I spoke so unkindly. The truth is, Miss Cullen, the girl I care for is in love with another man, and so I'm bitter and ill-natured in these days." ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... rest! Alas, all those who do not understand me, or who choose to misunderstand me, those are the worst!—especially the ill-natured people, the classical people who bray about music, stride straight to the notes, and have no patience till they come to Beethoven; who foolishly prate and fume about my unclassical management, but at bottom only wish to conceal their own unskilfulness, their want of culture and of disinterestedness, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... know, Mr Sneer well, may be omitted, if it should meet with any ill-natured opposition; for which reason, I shall not print off my dedication till after ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... of old Chippendale and French furniture in them, as well as fine specimens of old French and Spanish silver. I entirely discredit the malicious rumours I have heard about the origin of these treasures. All male Bermudians were seafaring folk in the eighteenth century, and ill-natured people hint that these intrepid mariners, not content with their legitimate trading profits, were occasionally not averse to—a little maritime enterprise. These scandalmongers insinuate that in addition to ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... stayed there until each one of his friends had looked at and handled the monkey as much as he wanted to, he and Abner would have remained until morning, and Mr. Stubbs's brother would have been made very ill-natured. ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... for as it is all one whether an error occurs in the large type or in the small, so it is all one, as regards the essence of the matter, whether an evil disposition is mirrored as a conqueror of the world or a common swindler or ill-natured egoist. In one case he is seen of all men; in the other, perhaps only of himself; but that he should see himself ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford; she had been paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fulness of her interest in other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane; the doors of the houses ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... go to you," said Stanton, without the signs of anger Max expected. Then still greater was the younger man's surprise when the elder laughed. It was a slightly embarrassed laugh, but not ill-natured. "What else did she tell you?" Stanton wanted ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... This, I know, some derive from their being of a more bloody inclination than the males. On which account they apply to the nose, as to the part whence blood may most easily be drawn; but this seems a far-fetched as well as ill-natured supposition. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... struck down by an assassin, and sympathy for that people in the trouble which at a crisis of their destinies such a catastrophe must bring. Abraham Lincoln was as little of a tyrant as any man who ever lived. He could have been a tyrant had he pleased, but he never uttered so much as an ill-natured speech.... In all America there was, perhaps, not one man who less deserved to be the victim of this revolution than he who ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and finally went to New York, and died after a career of dissipation. But everybody liked him. Drunk or sober, he was the best company in the world, full of anecdote flavored with a shrewd and not ill-natured wit. There was a manufacturer in a village near Worcester who had failed in business owing large debts all about. He was a man of enormous bulk, the fattest man in the whole region round-about, weighing ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... refine: It does, like grace, the fallen-tree restore To its blest state of Paradise before: Who would not joy to see his conquering hand O'er all the vegetable world command, And the wild giants of the wood receive What laws he's pleased to give? He bids the ill-natured crab produce The gentler apple's winy juice, The golden fruit that worthy is, Of Galatea's purple kiss; He does the savage hawthorn teach To bear the medlar and the pear; He bids the rustic plum ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him to ridicule. Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote, tells us that Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though 'it often exposed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his sense. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone for not visiting me so often as usual, he said, "he was ashamed to face ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... next to Miss Paulding, an elderly young lady, of some notoriety at Paris, very clever, very talkative, and very conceited. A young, pale, ill-natured looking man, sat on her left hand; this was Mr. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Ports. Miss. Valley') has also received several generous and laudatory notices; one from the U.S. Literary Gazette, printed at Boston. I saw Gov. Clinton, also, who spoke very highly both of the book and the author. He thought that Mr. W.'s ill-natured critique would not do any injury ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... princess, had no sooner risen from table than she went and concealed herself behind the tapestry-hangings, in order that she might speak the last, and be able to neutralize, if possible, any mischief the ill-natured hag might intend doing. ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... before they rated the stepson. I am ashamed—my heart is sore to think how I fell into the fashion of the family, and slighted my poor orphan step- brother. I don't think I ever scouted him, or was wilfully ill-natured to him; but the habit of being considered in all things, and being treated as something uncommon and superior, made me insolent in my prosperity, and I exacted more than Gregory was always willing to grant, and then, irritated, I sometimes repeated the disparaging words I had ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... lived very happy in this good family if it had not been for the ill-natured cook, who was finding fault and scolding him from morning to night, and besides, she was so fond of basting, that when she had no meat to baste, she would baste poor Dick's head and shoulders with a broom, or anything else that happened to fall in her way. At last her ill-usage ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... face again became purple, and she protested vehemently: 'I shall leave the room, May. I will not suffer it one moment longer. I can't think how it is you dare speak to me in that way; and, what is worse, attribute to me such ill-natured remarks.' ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... doing that. Of her own country, speaking of England as such, she, in truth, knew but little—and perhaps cared less. She had gone to India almost as a child, and England had not been specially kind to her on her return. She had found it dull and cold, stiff, and almost ill-natured. People there had not smiled on her and been civil as M. Lacordaire had done. As far as England and Englishmen were considered she saw no reason why she should not marry ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... the new law the judge he jostles, And makes them all give up their powers To speeches of at least three hours— But we have left our little man, And wandered from our purpos'd plan: 'Tis said (without ill-natured leaven) "If ever lawyers get to heaven, It surely is by slow degrees" (Perhaps 'tis slow they take their fees). The case, then, now I fairly state: Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate; Quite short he rapped, none did it neater; The gate was opened by St. Peter, Who looked astonished when ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it happened that Mary, when she left the synagogue and proceeded homewards, was scoffed at by her ill-natured neighbours, who gave her to understand that she might take herself off, and the sooner the better. She said nothing, but bade ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... sentiments favorable to the allies of his Majesty. It is in conformity with these views, and for the good of the common cause, and only for this transient object, that the commission, for the origin of which you imagine a thousand ill-natured motives, and which, finally, you refuse to accept, has been ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... under his arm a smaller child of one, the latter squealing terribly. They both landed safely at the door. Then there appeared one of the picturesque carts drawn by twelve oxen, anxiously awaited by the family. Twenty snarling, snorting, ill-natured pigs provided enough noise seriously to impair the drums of one's ears; and when you added to this the monotonous bellowing of cows and oxen, the frantic neighing of horses and mules waiting to be fed, the crowing of cocks and the cackling ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... detestable, and generally denounced and disowned by the more respectable of the Covenanters; but he also manages to find as many excuses for it as he conveniently can in the provocation given by the victim. Peirson, he says, was "a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe." He was of great service to Lagg in ferreting out rebels, used to sit in court with him to advise him of the prisoners' characters, and generally make himself obnoxious to the Covenanters. He was also accused of leaning to popery, and is said on one occasion to have ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... ill-tempered, surly, churlish, disagreeable, ill-conditioned, morose, unamiable, crabbed, dogged, ill-humored, sour, unlovely, cruel, gruff, ill-natured, sullen, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... ill-use. wreak one's malice on, do one's worst, break a butterfly on the wheel; dip one's hands in blood, imbrue one's hands in blood; have no mercy &c 914.1. Adj. malevolent, unbenevolent; unbenign; ill-disposed, ill-intentioned, ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived; evil-minded, evil- disposed; black-browed^. malicious; malign, malignant; rancorous; despiteful, spiteful; mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent; unamiable, uncharitable; maleficent, venomous, grinding, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... They reached Hyde Park, and joined the crowds of people going in all directions about the walks. Harriet had always a number of ill-natured comments to make on the dress and general appearance of people they passed. Julian smiled, but with no genuine pleasure. As always, he did his best to lead the girl's thoughts away from their incessant ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... recording the landlord's ill-natured answer. He was angry and humiliated, and, when he got home, snapped up Mrs. Jones when she began to make inquiries about the new property. He felt the worse because he had been defeated ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... ill-natured as to put Men out of countenance. In the case of a King especially, it is more allowable to speak sharply ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... the metal plate was sounding as a signal for the termination of the school, and on looking towards the portico with an ill-natured curiosity, he saw a young acquaintance of his, a youth of about twenty, coming out of it, leading a boy of about half that age, with his satchel thrown over ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... not doubt that my charmer had told the whole story to her three friends as they were returning from Einsiedel to Zurich, and this made the part they had played all the more ill-natured; but I felt that it was to my interest to let ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs without to resolve him. It ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... caught hold of her gown; "O dear, what a tear! My gown's spoiled, I declare! That troublesome Brier!—it has no business there; Here, John, grub it up; throw it into the fire." And that was the end of the ill-natured Brier. ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... his master and owner, Ben-Ahmed, was a stern and exacting, but by no means an ill-natured or cruel, man. He appeared to be considerably over sixty years of age, but showed no signs of abated vigour. In character he was amiable and just, according to his ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... to time I am caught in a squall, or am the butt of some malicious tongue. Thus, yesterday, at the opera, I heard one of our most ill-natured wits, Leon de Lora, say to one of our most famous critics, 'It takes Chodoreille to discover the Caroline poplar on the banks of the Rhone!' They had heard my husband call me by my Christian name. At Viviers I was considered handsome. I am ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... mood of Montaigne into one of far sterner and more stringent pessimism, an absence or infrequency of suggestions of Montaigne in the plays between 1605 and 1610 would be a very natural result of Jonson's gibe in VOLPONE. That gibe, indeed, is not really so ill-natured as the term "steal" is apt to make it sound for our ears, especially if we are prepossessed—as even Mr. Fleay still seems to be—by the old commentators' notion of a deep ill-will on Jonson's part towards Shakspere. There was probably no such ill-will in ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... once released. Ramda was truly grateful to Harish Pal for having so cleverly saved him from ruin, and the whole story soon became common property. Nagendra overheard his neighbours whispering and pointing to him significantly, and village boys called him ill-natured nicknames in the street. His irritation was increased by recourse to the brandy bottle, and he vented it on his luckless wife. She suffered so terribly that, one morning, Nagendra found her hanging from a rafter in his cowshed. This suicide was the last straw. Nagendra saved himself from prosecution ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... a very ill-natured song was circulated; the stamp of the party to which it was attributable might easily be seen upon it. I remember only the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... that he was not a fool, but, then, he was not ill-natured, either; but, of course, he was unhappy. An unhappy man thinks only of his wretchedness, and people take his night cap for a fool's cap, while, on the other hand, goodness is only esteemed when it is cheerful. Consequently, Antinous Lebeau passed for a fool, and an ill-tempered ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... for her letters to her mother, one of which shows that she had already formed that opinion of French fickleness which she had afterward too abundant cause to maintain. "I do hope," she says, "that the good intelligence between our two nations will last. One good thing in this country is, that if ill-natured feelings are quick to arise, they disappear with equal rapidity. The King of Prussia is innately a bad neighbor, but the English will also always be bad neighbors to France, and the sea has never prevented them from doing her ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Kate more as an equal than a daughter. There are children who are spoiled if allowed to have their own way, and others who can be trusted to take their own way without the least danger of injury, and whom it is but an ill-natured exercise of authority to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit, and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of it, as all men are greater than their dependents; so pleasant it is to see men lessen one another and strive who shall show himself the most ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest leather on his visage comes off with victory though he has ever ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... November day, (with my Catawbas blighted,) a rather ill-natured pleasure in reading how the Duke of Rutland, in the beginning of the last century, was compelled to "keep up fires from Lady-day to Michaelmas behind his sloped walls," in order to insure the ripening of his grapes; yet winter grapes he had, and it was a great boast in that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... we want self-knowledge and composure in our riper years, as much as in our younger we had been destitute of exertion, serve only to make our inferiority more manifest, and to bring our discontent into the fuller notice of an ill-natured world, which however not unjustly condemns ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... from this terrible declension of the drama, we went, in a mood intensely ill-natured, to witness how the "Horse of the Pyrenees" would behave himself at Sadler's Wells. From the piece so called we anticipated no amusement; we thought the regular company would make but sorry equestrians, and, like the King of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... be revenged on both: Nor sooth yourself; you have no power to affront him; The emperor's love protects him from insults; And he, who spoke that proud, ill-natured word, Following the bent of his impetuous temper, May force your reconcilement to Sebastian; Nay, bid you kneel, and kiss the offending foot, That kicked you from his presence.— But think not to divide their punishment; You cannot touch a hair of ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... that particular agent, but also with all the others, among whom the news of his contumacy would soon spread; and as there are more men than there are berths, he will probably never get any employment again.' I look upon that as an ill-natured, unfounded remark. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... than any of the others I have seen, for, like the gift of pleasing, it cannot really give satisfaction. By degrees I wearied of what had so delighted me at first, especially as I perceived more and more plainly that it is impossible to be constantly smart and amusing without being frequently ill-natured, and too apt to turn all things, even the most serious, into mere ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... man flinches at sudden bodily pain; but he otherwise maintained his self-command. "And mankind is envious and ill-natured, more particularly in and about the garrisons. I sometimes wish, Jasper, that Mabel could have taken a fancy to you,—I do; and that you had taken a fancy to her; for it often seems to me that one like you, after all, might make her happier than I ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... was a peaceable, friendly, and even intelligent human being; that as soon as one talked of anything not eatable, for instance, of politics or science, he would be completely at a loss, or would expound a philosophy so stupid and ill-natured that there was nothing else to do but wave one's hand in despair and go away. Even when Startsev tried to talk to liberal citizens, saying, for instance, that humanity, thank God, was progressing, and that one day it would be possible to dispense ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... with a smile that was almost ill-natured, and quoted cynically: "'Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... you belong to?" I said I was a native of Keighley. "Who is your police superintendent?" he queried. "Mr Cheeseborough," I replied. "That's true," he said. "Know you any in the force there?" "Yes," I said, "I know Sergeant Kershaw, and another little ill-natured dog, Jack o' Marks. Jack goes about in plainclothes, and is about as fly as a box of monkeys." "All right," returned Mr Policeman. "Now that you have told me the truth, were any of you smoking in the barn?" "No, we were all asleep," said I. Then he said that would ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... that in music the beau ideal changes every thirty years, but that is an ill-natured criticism. Certain forms of accompaniment may grow out of fashion like the cut of a coat. But a fine melody remains eternally beautiful and always agreeable to listen to. The 100th Psalm of the middle ages is as magnificent to-day as it was when nearly four centuries ago it ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... relations, considering, I suppose, what human nature really is, that no one is a firm friend, neither among our intimates, nor of our kindred; nor do they preserve that kind disposition when God advances men to great prosperity, but they are still ill-natured and envious at those that are in ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the conversation all to herself, stopped to take breath. She was not an ill-natured woman, or one who often talked of her neighbors, and after a moment, as if ashamed of her tirade, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... thoughtless or cruel urchin, directly she caught sight of my brother, she ran to him for protection, while her tormentor scuttled away equally fast in an opposite direction, his ears tingling in anticipation of the coming correction. Was a larger and older girl threatened by some ill-natured brother, or brother's chum, she felt herself safe if our Ned made his appearance. In short, he was always ready, at whatever odds, to do battle for the 'weaker sex,' as he jestingly called them. This trait in his character procured ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... different classes of people who are to be met in the hunting-field. There was also a set of clerical sketches, which was considered to be of sufficient importance to bring down upon my head the critical wrath of a great dean of that period. The most ill-natured review that was ever written upon any work of mine appeared in the Contemporary Review with reference to these Clerical Sketches. The critic told me that I did not understand Greek. That charge has been made not unfrequently by those who have felt ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... had in his hands, he burst into tears. "Here, Beauty, (said he,) take these roses; but little do you think how dear they are like to cost your unhappy father; and then related his fatal adventure: immediately the two eldest set up lamentable outcries, and said all manner of ill-natured things to Beauty, who did not cry at all. "Do but see the pride of that little wretch, (said they); she would not ask for fine clothes, as we did; but no, truly, Miss wanted to distinguish herself; so now she will be the death of our poor father, and yet she does not so much as shed a tear." ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
... the others watching and listening. First he'd play the part of book agent with his pupil as a reluctant customer. Then he'd reverse, and the pupil as agent would try to sell him the book, he pretending to be an ignorant, obstinate, ill-natured, close-fisted farmer or farmer's wife. It was a liberal education in the art of persuasion. If his pupils had his brains and his personality, Peaks of Progress would be on the center-table in half the farm parlors of Wisconsin and ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the old order, and that it was felt is shown by the bitterness of ridicule and taunt and insult with which, both publicly and privately, this most amiable youth was attacked, who, at that time, had never said an ill-natured word of anybody, and who was always most generous in his treatment of his ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis |
