"Surly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her spirit was low. The future was dismal. Toby must have thrown her over. It was in vain that her wits consoled her with the certainty that he must have missed her, that a boy who did not care about her would never have shown such surly pique as his. So great had her love become that she could not listen to such reassurance. Only the worst was convincing enough for her misery. He was gone. He was done with her. She had lost him. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot: There the river-eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls Pass ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... there, and from a gate at the top of the hill a glimpse could be caught of the river, where, too, a lovely pair of swans might be seen. Jim took a great interest in these swans, and longed to get down to the water so as to be close to them. But the gamekeeper was a surly fellow, and if he saw the children lingering near he would tell them that his master "couldn't abear boys nor girls either," and always was most severe if any people were caught trespassing on his land. Thus ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... that not to know jewels when they were seen was a doubtful proof of smartness; so he answered with a somewhat surly, "How, sir?" ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... June Deweese in the interests of peace, for Annear and his wife were both present. Once while Esther and I were missing a dance over some light refreshment, I had occasion to watch June as he and Annear danced in the same set. I thought the latter acted rather surly, though Deweese was the acme of geniality, and was apparently having the time of his life as he tripped through the mazes of the dance. Had I not known of the deadly enmity existing between them, I could never have suspected anything but friendship, he was acting the part so perfectly. But then I ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... was glad to see Mr. Turtle. He was a snappish, surly old chap. And he was forever finding fault with everybody and everything. It seemed as if you couldn't please him, no matter how much you tried. He had spent less than a week in Cedar Swamp before every one voted him a nuisance. And he ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and Conde, being united by interest, made a jest of that surly look from which Beaufort's cabal were termed "The Importants," and at the same time artfully made use of the grand appearance which Beaufort (like those who carry more sail than ballast) never failed to assume upon the most trifling occasions. His counsels ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... solemn, and yellow at the best of times—and by the scowl and twitching of his black eyebrows, that the heart within his large white waistcoat was disturbed and uneasy. When Amelia stepped forward to salute him, which she always did with great trembling and timidity, he gave a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand out of his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold it there. He looked round gloomily at his eldest daughter; who, comprehending the meaning of his look, which asked ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or fang'-o, when hunted with dogs is a surly fighter and prefers to take its chances at bay; consequently it is more often killed then by the spearman than in the runway. The wild hog is also often caught in pitfalls dug in the runways or in its feeding grounds. The pitfall, fi'-to, is from 3 to 4 feet ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... his uncanny sense of prophecy, foretold the economic consequences of the peace. Looking ahead he visualized a surly and unrepentant Germany, unwilling to pay the price of folly; a bitter and disappointed Austria gasping for economic breath; an aroused and indignant Italy raging with revolt—all the chaos that spells "peace" today. He saw the Treaty as a new ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... friendliness he laughed occasionally and allowed himself to swell with pride, though still denying. Next he feigned a lack of consistent will-power and seemed to be wavering under Fletcher's persuasion and grew silent, then surly. Fletcher, evidently sure of ultimate victory, desisted for the time being; however, in his solicitous regard and close companionship for the rest of that day he betrayed the bent ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the cash, and none o' yer jaw," said the man, who was a surly fellow, and did not seem ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... to have said As you were fore-advised, had touched his spirit, And tried his inclination; from him plucked, Either his gracious promise, which you might, As cause had called you up, have HELD HIM TO; Or else it would have galled his surly nature, Which easily endures, not article Tying him to aught;—so putting him to rage, You should have ta'en advantage of his choler, And so left ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... fine day it is, and how they missed you yesterday, and they hope nothing was the matter at home. Among them are brazen jades who chatter saucily with the guards, and these are the best treated of all. They are asked no gruff, surly questions, but with a wink and a jest ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... there the king had bidden, Bearing their gifts of good— But right in the midst a strange old woman Surly ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... broad, sandy river which came from the wilder spaces of the West. The prairie was gone. The tiger lily, the sweet Williams, the pinks, together with the luxuriant meadows and the bobolinks, were left behind. In their stead, a limitless, upward shelving plain outspread, covered with a short, surly, hairlike grass and certain sturdy, resinous plants supporting flowers of an unpleasant odor, sticky and weedy. Bristling cacti bulged from the sod; small Quaker-gray sparrows and larks were the only birds. In the swales blue joint grew rank. The only trees were cottonwoods and cutleaf willow, ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... celebrated as "the wise, the just, the best of kings, Francis Augustus", who, if one were to believe Monti, "in war was a whirlwind and in peace a zephyr." But the heavy Austrian, who knew he was nothing of the kind, thrust out his surly under lip at these blandishments, said that this muse's favors were mercenary, and cut off Monti's pension. Stung by such ingratitude, the victim of his own honesty retired forever from courts, and thenceforward sang ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Even Epernon tried to say a gracious word to the retiring envoy, assuring him that he would do as much for the cause as a good Frenchman and lover of his fatherland could do. He added, in rather a surly way, that he knew very well how foully he had been described to the States, but that the devil was not as black as he was painted. It was necessary, he said, to take care of one's own house first of all, and he knew very well that the States and all prudent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is only the affectionate that desire affection; sulky and ill-conditioned souls often have a passionate longing for the very feelings that they repel. Lieders was a womanish, sensitive creature under the surly mask, and he was cut to the quick by his comrades' apathy. "There ain't no place for old men in this world," he thought, "there's them boys I done my best to make do a good job, and some of 'em I've worked overtime to help; and not one of 'em has ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... the main line, prospected a bit about the place and then on hands and knees wormed himself through the thick growth of the mountain till he came out to the huckleberry clump, and recovering his bicycle walked innocently up to the station as if it were the first time that day and enquired of the surly freight man whether a box had come ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... thinks; his poor little heart warms at the thought that maybe they will. He opens it up anew every day—opens it for a new wound. And now that he's found somebody to say the kind word he's still expecting the surly one. His life's shut him out from life—even though he wants it. It seems to ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... that hoarse companion, it was but to make him roar his cheerful song the louder, and by consequence to make the fire burn the brighter, and the sparks to dance more gayly yet; at length, they whizzed so madly round and round, that it was too much for such a surly wind to bear; so off it flew with a howl giving the old sign before the ale-house door such a cuff as it went, that the Blue Dragon was more rampant than usual ever afterwards, and indeed, before Christmas, reared clean ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there—dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... Mistress Kill-joy?" he muttered, in a surly tone. "May I ask what business brought you? For I'll swear ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... not of wealth, at least of a competence sufficient to redeem his character as a suitor from the suspicion attached to a fortune-hunter and adventurer. Despite the new prospects opened to him by the death of his uncle, and despite the surly caprice which had mingled with and alloyed the old admiral's kindness, Legard was greatly shocked by his death; and his grateful and gentle nature was at first only sensible to grief for the loss he had sustained. But when, at last, recovering from ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... talkative, and though I hated them for the indignity they had thus put upon me in chaining me as a criminal, yet I knew it would be unavailing to indulge a surly and vindictive disposition, and therefore talked as fast and as lively ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... activity suffers premature derangements, such as have been fully mentioned in the description of the precursory symptoms. The most striking is the confused, staring look, the peevish and surly behavior, and again in other cases the extreme indifference toward otherwise well-liked persons and things. Later on actual delirium sets in, but generally of a ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... it—'He put His hands upon him, and asked him if he saw aught.' One might have expected an answer with a little more gratitude in it, with a little more wonder in it, with a little more emotion in it. Instead of these it is almost surly, or at any rate strangely reticent-a matter-of-fact answer to the question, and there an end. As our Revised Version reads it better: 'I see men, for I behold them as trees walking.' Curiously accurate! A dim glimmer had come into the eye, but there ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... however, that the owner of the Ebba converses more readily than with anybody else, and the latter appears to be very intimate with him. The engineer is a good deal more free, more loquacious and less surly than his companions, and I wonder what position he occupies on the schooner. Is he a personal friend of the Count d'Artigas? Does he scour the seas with him, sharing the enviable life enjoyed by the rich yachtsman? He is the only man of the lot ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... you remember, in a fit Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly, I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly, Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit, They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early: I 'scotch'd not kill'd' the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land of 'mountain and ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... her. She was a fair type of a class not uncommon on the Southwestern frontier; women who were ruder helpmeets of their rude husbands and brothers, who had shared their privations and sufferings with surly, masculine endurance, rather than feminine patience; women who had sent their loved ones to hopeless adventure or terrible vendetta as a matter of course, or with partisan fury; who had devotedly nursed the wounded to keep alive ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... you come a plainsman?" scoffed the malcontent, for once forgetting his policy of favor-currying with Wingate in his own surly discontent. He had not been able to speak to Molly ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... accounts, has not been unaptly named the Bastile, the sensations I felt may be more easily felt than described. Besides that this was the first prison I had ever entered, every thing around me had an air of unspeakable horror. After being viewed and reviewed by the surly Cerberuses of this earthly Hell, I was conducted up some stairs to a long gallery, or passage, six feet wide, having on either side a number of dismal cells, each about six feet by nine, formed entirely ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... fool's luck led him to a hamlet whose mean auberge served him bread and cheese with a wine singularly thin and acid. Here he enquired for a guide, but the one able-bodied man in evidence, a hulking, surly animal, on learning that Duchemin wished to visit Montpellier-le-Vieux, refused with a growl to have anything to do with him. Several times during the course of luncheon he caught the fellow eyeing him strangely, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... his mouth, and his attire consisted of a shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers upheld by no visible support, and a pair of old slippers. Apparently satisfied from his prolonged inspection of the two visitors that they were not in search of lodgings, he replied in a surly tone: ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Miss Edith's shoulder. "I don't understand music," he said, in his most surly voice. These were the distinct utterances which enchanted Bice amid the murmurs of more ordinary applause. She was delighted with them. She clapped her hands once more with a delight which was contagious. "Ah, I know now, this is what it is ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... gray car did not come again. Supplies appeared in another gray car, driven by a surly Fleming. The waking hours were full, as usual. Sara Lee grew a little thin, and seemed to be always listening. But there was no Henri, and something that was vivid and joyous seemed to have gone out ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Grant watched his progress—she smiling, he surly and sneering. "Yet you like him," ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... so much trouble. As he came toward them, frowning, they observed that he had buckled a pistol round him as if to resist any intrusion in case it should be attempted without instructions. Dick handed him Presby's order, and the man read it through in surly silence; then his entire attitude underwent a swift change. He ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner where Father Ferapont's cell stood. "Maybe he will speak as you are a stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him," the beekeeper had warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in the utmost apprehension. It was rather late in the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... see the light in which I was placed! Even my own friends went over to the duke's side, and I was forced to shake his damned hand and join him at the Red Cock for breakfast or show a surly front by my refusal. I was made a laughing stock for the whole party. Put in the wrong in every way; and even Billy Deuceace, a man of penetration, was so deceived by this, that afterward he bade me, with a laugh, 'fight about ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... to me. He used to be very civil to Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as surly ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... sweat and his flanks were palpitating with fatigue when Lone rode up to the corral and dismounted. Pop Bridgers saw him and came bow-legging eagerly forward with gossip titillating on his meddlesome tongue, but Lone stalked by him with only a surly nod. Bob Warfield he saw at a distance and gave no sign of recognition. He met Hawkins coming down from his house and stopped ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... however, this difference may arise more from the want of Liberty than the power of climate. Oh Liberty! sweet Liberty! without thee life cannot be enjoyed! Thou parent of comfort, whose children bless thee, though they dwell among the barren rocks, or the most surly regions of the earth! Thou blessest, in spite of nature; and in spite of nature, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... Knight," replied Sir Galahad. "I shall have need to make assurance that my horse is secured so that he may not be stolen." And laughing and full at ease he left the beaten knight to his surly thoughts. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... few pretty hot moments on the platform when Bucks, among a group of five camp malefactors on their way to Medicine Bend, confronted the two men who had tried to kill him, and unhesitatingly pointed them out. Seagrue, tall and surly, denied vehemently ever having been at Point of Rocks and ever having seen Bucks. He declared the whole affair was "framed up" to send him to the penitentiary. He threatened if he were "sent up" to come back and kill Bucks if it was twenty ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... "A surly silence ensued, during which Pa worked slowly, with anything but a good grace. Leroy was right. The tundra was a hard and peculiar proposition. Nothing like it had we ever seen before. For miles on three sides of us it spread itself like a carpet of green, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... not on a stern and rock-bound coast. Such scoffers evidently never sailed in by White Horse beach and "Hither Manomet" when a winter northeaster was shouldering the deep sea tides up against the cliff and a surly gale snatched the foam from high-crested waves and sent it singing and stinging inland. Could they have done this it would have been easy to understand that the coast here is stern and rock-bound in very truth. The rocks are ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... think him susceptible of any tender or generous feeling. He is a visionary; surly, jealous, and envious in his disposition. When he heard me expressing myself about you in the manner you deserve, he had the impudence to say to my mother before my face that she ought not to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... as the surly creature came within hearing distance,—"if you please, sir, were the two ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... stern, carried with it the two disputants—the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, and buttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant, following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as he shifted his cap from the one ear to ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... them all aft," replied one of the men, in a surly tone; "the lady must sit where she can. She's no better ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... a transport, and I know of no place where a white volunteer appears to so much disadvantage. His mind craves occupation, his body is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, and impatient even of sanitary rules. The Southern black soldier, on the other hand, is seldom sea-sick (at least, such is my experience), and, if properly managed, is equally contented, whether idle or busy; he is, moreover, so docile that ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... opportunity to spy and gossip, considering it a part of her duties to learn everything possible of the private affairs of the lodgers. Quite unlike the traditional, smiling, good-natured "mammy" of the South, she was one of those cunning, crafty, heartless, surly Northern negresses, who, to the number of thousands, seek employment as maids with women of easy morals, and, infesting a certain district of New York where white and black people of the lower classes mingle indiscriminately, make it one of the most criminal and dangerous sections of the city. Innately ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... I jumped upon a 'bus. I mentioned to the conductor in mounting that it was a fine day. He replied that he had noticed it himself. The retort struck me as a brilliant repartee. Our coachman, all but run into by a hansom cab driven by a surly old fellow of patriarchal appearance, remarked upon the danger of allowing horses out in charge of bits of boys. How full the world of wit ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... mayhap,' said Anne demurely, as she saw her surly guide start. But he was equal to the occasion, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day following, the Indians having had some private conferences with their queen, began to be very surly, and to run in a mad and tumultuous manner up and down the streets, seemingly bent on some mischief. All the men being obliged to mount guard, the women were terrified to remain by themselves in their houses, expecting every moment to be murdered or scalped. During this confusion, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... speaking in a tone of encouragement, "we are wrong in so soon yielding to despair. Let us not give up, till we are beaten at all points. I have told you what my object was, when I first mounted upon that ledge, and discovered the cave and its surly occupant, the bear. I thought then, that, if we could find a series of ledges one above another, and sufficiently near each other, we might plant ladders upon them, and so reach the top. You see that there is such a succession of ledges—just before your faces there. Unfortunately there is one of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the important person in the family. Mrs. Shimerda and Antonia always deferred to him, though he was often surly with them and contemptuous toward his father. Ambrosch and his mother had everything their own way. Though Antonia loved her father more than she did anyone else, she stood in awe ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... genial earth, thence to suck up nutriment and bloom strong and healthy,—not to droop and fade amid sunshine and zephyrs on a soilless rock! Her marriage was no meagre prose comment on the glowing and gorgeous poetry of her wooing;—nor did the surly over-browing rock of reality ever cast the dusky shadow of this earth on the soft moonlight of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... rushing torrents and driving wind and rain; besides which, as the poor fellow repeated more than once during his story, "I was fair done up when I set out, for I'd been travelling all day." Mr. A—— told us what the man had been saying, before we all went to bed, adding, "He seems an odd, surly kind of creature, for although he declares he is going away the first thing to-morrow, if the rain be over, I noticed he never said a ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the family, and appeared very much engaged with Prescott's Conquest of Peru. But at the breakfast-table on the third day she received a start. Gertrude and Tom had been at a party the evening before. (They averaged some four parties a week.) Tom looked surly and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... ask thee the way to the fountain,' he replied. 'Tell me, and I will not trouble thee further, thou surly troll.' ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... are immediately imitated, while acts representing stages of development from which I have escaped are less likely to be imitated. We imitate the acts of hearty, jovial individuals more than the acts of others. This point cannot be pressed too far since a surly and selfish individual often seems to corrupt a whole group. Also it is not always the acts which I admire that are imitated. If I am frequently with a lame person, I am in danger of acquiring a limp; one who stutters is clearly injurious to my freedom of speech; round-shouldered ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... quite apt to get ahead or behind the season with their flowers and birds. It is not often that we catch such a poet as Emerson napping. He knows nature, and he knows the New England fields and woods, as few poets do. One may study our flora and fauna in his pages. He puts in the moose and the "surly bear," and makes the latter ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... us, allowing us to take our food in the cockpit, and to sleep in a couple of hammocks which were slung there, which had belonged to two of the men who had been killed. We had to do everything for ourselves, the seamen being either surly to us or rude. Harry and I separately, on two different occasions, endeavoured to speak to Tubbs, but a man immediately stepped up and asked us what we wanted, he having, I suppose, been directed by ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Abas in a surly tone, and at the word a tremor of excitement ran through Penghulu Mat ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... seemed half disposed, instead of replying, to pick a quarrel with his interrogator; but a glance at the athletic figure and resolute countenance of the latter, dissipated the inclination, and he answered by a surly affirmative. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Burghley's favour he seems to have been pushed on at his Inn, where, in 1586, he was a Bencher; and in 1584 he came into Parliament for Melcombe Regis. He took some small part in Parliament; but the only record of his speeches is contained in a surly note of Recorder Fleetwood, who writes as an old member might do of a young one talking nonsense. He sat again for Liverpool in the year of the Armada (1588), and his name begins to appear in the proceedings. These early years, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... all the young, beautiful, and virtuous for ever be your portion, and may your eyes never behold anything but age and deformity! May you meet with applause only from envious old maids, surly bachelors, and tyrannical parents; may you be doomed to the company of such! and after death may their ugly souls ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... lighthouse on the Irish coast. Thereupon John Potter made application for the post. He was successful over many competitors, and at last obtained the darling wish of his heart: he became principal keeper; his surly comrade, Isaac Dorkin, strange to say, obtaining the post of second keeper. Mrs Potter didn't like the change at first, as a ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... that they would deny themselves that pleasure, Patches said, "I don't blame you; he's a surly, ill-tempered beast, anyway. Which reminds me that I must be about my official business, and land him in Prescott to-night. I am going to stop at the ranch and ask the Dean for the team and buckboard, though," he added, as he climbed painfully into the saddle. "Adios! ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly. Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit; They cannot quench young feelings, fresh and early. I scotch'd, not kill'd, the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... but you are sensible, modest, and sweet-tempered, and we should get on well together. If you were happy with me I should regard you as my adopted daughter, and provide accordingly for you. Think of it for a few minutes while I look over these letters. Perhaps I seem a grim and surly old man to you; but I am not naturally so. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... surly yell from her husband, stood in the door-way, thin-lipped and austere, and announced briefly that Sir Beverley had gone down towards the Vicarage; she didn't know no ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... grew more lonesome and dreary every mile, and the snow more fine and moist. Would it turn to rain? There were no bells on the horses, and the driver, a surly, silent fellow, had not even an encouraging 'chirrup' for them, while the muffled crunching of the soft snow by the runners seemed to have a somnolent influence upon them, judging from our progress. Occasionally the gentlemen would get out and run up the hills, and once the Englishman fell full ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... time there had been no reconciliation between the miller and his younger daughter. Carry would ask her father whether she should do this or that, and the miller would answer her as a surly master will answer a servant whom he does not like; but the father, as a father, had never spoken to the child; nor, up to this moment, had he said a word even to his wife of his intended journey to Salisbury. But now he was driven to speak. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... a loud laugh of derision, in which all joined except surly Markbrunnen, whose lips protruded an extra inch beyond their usual length when he found that all were laughing at his friend. The Grand Duke at ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... "They are a surly set of beggars," Fairclough said, as they rowed off. "I don't think there is much chance of cooperation in that quarter. Indeed, I am by no means sure that, at heart, they do not approve of these Malay attacks. ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... took him some time to find out. There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them. Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and surly. It drives the French peasant absolutely mad. That village street seemed to have less sense, less fortitude, less coolness than a duck-run invaded by a terrier. The Subaltern caught a man by the arm and pushed him ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... is arrived. I have not spirits to give an account of his introduction, for he has really shocked me. I do not like him. He seems to be surly, vulgar, and disagreeable. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... sweat in many a trill, Adown Earl Walter's temples fall, And louder, louder, louder still, The surly watch for vengeance call. ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... while to illustrate our meaning by an instance or two, to show that, far from being hypercritical, our canon of criticism is extremely indulgent, and that we never take the bluff and surly objection—it cannot be!—until the improbability has reached the core of the matter. In the first story, "The Birth Mark," we raise no objection to the author, because he invents a chemistry of his own, and supposes his hero in possession of marvellous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... at the door of his cabin, and called for Master Taunton, who went in and remained, for some time, in converse with the two captains. Then he came out, looking surly and black, and Captain Francis soon after issued out with his brother, walked round the ship, said a few cheery words to all the crew; and, with a parting laugh and word of advice to the boys, to be more careful where they slept in ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... night the yellow glow from the upper windows, and the red and green of the switch lamps, close to the ground, had a festive appearance. The child's sobs drifted away. His father swung him in his arms, entered the tower, and climbed the stairs. Above, feet stirred restlessly. A surly voice came down. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... old sport named Ryder pervades Wolfville for a while. He's surly an' gnurlly an' omeny, Ryder is; an' has one of them awful lookin' faces where the feachers is all c'llected in the middle of his visage, an' bunched up like they's afraid of Injuns or somethin' else that threatenin' an' hostile—them sort of ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in the country of the sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a forty or fifty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Varney, "what has the surly groom to do with your ladyship's concerns?—no more, surely, than the ban-dog which watches his courtyard. If he is in aught distasteful to your ladyship, I have interest enough to have him exchanged for a seneschal that shall be more agreeable ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... it was a dark, misty night, and cars waiting for club members stand in a narrow side turning. Mareno is a surly brute, and he might have waited an hour without speaking to a soul. Unless another chauffeur happened to notice and recognize the car nobody would ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... this poor "body politic" of ours till, like the raving demoniacs of old, it is now foaming and wandering crazily around its own preconstructed tomb! while at the head of the Government we have only a surly, self-conceited despot in embryo! "The nation needs (as you say) at this hour the highest thought and inspiration of a true womanhood infused into every vein and artery of its life." There is no gainsaying your ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... company, which also included Russell and wife, Sol. Smith and brother, with their wives, Mrs. Rose Crampton, and, as a star, Junius Brutus Booth. How wild was the scene around us! The river was low and sluggish; the boat small and dirty; the captain ignorant and surly; the company full of life, wit, and humor. Slowly we labored on. The dense forest came frowning to the river's brink, with only here and there, at long intervals, an opening, where some adventurous pioneer had cut and burned the cane, and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the hill beat surly storms, And winter nights were dark and rainy, I'd seek some dell, and in my arms ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Garo[29] is hardy, stout, and surly-looking, with a flattened nose, blue or brown eyes, large mouth, thick lips, round face, and brown complexion. Their buniahs (booneeahs) or chiefs, are distinguished by a silken turban. They have a prejudice ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... by their clubs and their sport, prostituted by the Americans and the Jews, and, by way of showing how up to date they are, they play the degraded parts allotted to them in fashionable plays, and support those who have degraded them. They're an apathetic and surly middle-class: they read nothing, understand nothing, don't want to understand anything; they only know how to vilify, vilify, vaguely, bitterly, futilely—and they have only one passion: sleep, to lie ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... in a surly tone. "It's a harder thing for her to marry a pauper, I should think, and to bring a regiment of children into the world, always wanting shoes and stockings. But you're a bachelor, you see, Mr. Fenton, and can't be expected to know what shoes and stockings are. Now there happens ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the following morning the carriage which had brought Bertram to Hazlewood House was, with his two silent and surly attendants, appointed to convey him to his place of confinement at Portanferry. This building adjoined to the custom-house established at that little seaport, and both were situated so close to the sea-beach that it was necessary ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... an impressive individual, bulky and stern. His face was thinner than the rest of his body, and Kid Wolf was rather puzzled to read the surly eyes that gleamed at him from under the bushy black brows. He was more startled still, however, when Modoc whispered in a voice just loud ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... found lying. In confirmation of this, it was said a great black man, with an axe on his shoulder, was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... now than ever before, as there were fewer mouths to feed. He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good morning—he had grown tall in his illness, and was but very little marked; and with this, and a surly bow, he went in from the smithy to the house, leaving my lady, somewhat silenced and shamefaced, at the door. He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day; and before a year ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... has the name of being a surly man," one said, "but I should not have thought that he would have turned a shipwrecked man from his door on such a day as this. They say he is a Papist, though whether he be or not I cannot say; but he has strange ways, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... to make the boy understand how grateful he was to him for his kindness, there was a rap at the door, and Bob thrust his head into the room to announce in a surly tone that breakfast ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... perhaps more dreary than of old, in many a college, for lack of the presence of men now translated to another place. As to the "society" of Oxford, that is, no doubt, very much more charming and vivacious than it used to be in the days when Tony Wood was the surly champion of celibacy. ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... who had followed us from the station sat in the dark at a table in the far corner of the room and watched every move we made. When the coffee was brought I sat smoking and surly over it, as if my head ached from the day's drink; Grim and Jeremy, aching for sleep but refusing like good artists to neglect a detail of their part, went to another table and played backgammon, betting quarrelsomely; ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... qualities do we plume ourselves? Well, I think, on steadiness, independence, loyalty, truthfulness, firmness, honesty, and love of fair play. How far we are justified in doing so, perhaps other nations are the better judges. They, I believe, generally regard us as a proud and surly race—qualities on which there is ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... is threaded with paths which invite the walker, and which are scarcely less important than the highways. I heard of a surly nobleman near London who took it into his head to close a footpath that passed through his estate near his house, and open another a little farther off. The pedestrians objected; the matter got ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... recommend a squeeze of this orange;—or the lemon, perhaps, may have more zest.'—'Sir, Sir, I am obliged to you, Sir,' cried Johnson, bowing, and turning—his head to him with a look for some time of 'surly virtue,'[198] but, in a short ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... wires, which belongs to them. Then the officers billeted their men on the inhabitants, and I had seventeen of them. My neighbor, the crazy woman, had a dozen, one of whom was the Commandant, a regular violent, surly swashbuckler. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the novelty of the enterprise began to develop into a stern reality, and there was manual labor to be performed, and hardships to be endured, and some personal sacrifices to be made, they began to lose heart, get homesick and weary, and to shirk their part; also to be surly and disagreeable. "We won't quarrel," said Ben West, "but when we get to Antelope Springs we will divide our stores and then each one will 'shift for himself,' as ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... the Carnival that one sees most conspicuously displayed that habit of social equality which is one of the special features of Italian life. Nothing is more unlike the social jealousy of the Frenchman, or the surly incivility with which a Lancashire operative thinks proper to show the world that he is as good a man as his master. In either case one feels the taint of a mere spirit of envious levelling, and a latent confession that the levelling process has still in reality to be accomplished. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... realized that a father in those circumstances would weep, but he did not feel like shedding tears, and he was ashamed of himself for what seemed lack of something within himself. What he felt then, what he had felt ever since that young doctor had passed sentence of death was surly, bitter rancor—the anger of ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... when his cousin was making her petition on his behalf to the surly Englishman on deck, he was seated in the saloon with three or four men older than himself, playing and losing, playing and losing, with almost unvarying monotony, yet with a feverish relish that ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... precarious resources of the government be dissipated in useless expenditures was dubbed avarice, and the prudence which had impelled him to restrain the rash policy of expansion and aggression which Germanicus had tried to initiate beyond the Rhine was construed as envy and surly malignity. Against all considerations of justice, logic, or good sense, this accusation was repeated, and now that destiny had cut down Germanicus, he was accused sotto voce of being responsible for his death ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... looked up to with reverence as a great intellectual giant; but that love for him which had been felt by those who were aroused to honest thinking by his earlier writings had passed away. A new generation looked upon him as an embittered and surly old man. His services were not forgotten, but he was no longer a favorite,—no longer an inspiring guide. His writings continued to stimulate thought, but were no longer regarded as sound. Commonplace people never did like him, probably ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... a surly-looking man in front. "Why didn't they have a speaker ready to address this throng, instead of keeping us waiting here ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... been born on the Mayflower, raised on Plymouth Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut, she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child. Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and suspicious when she first came here, and who really has as little cordiality or enthusiasm in her nature as a gridiron or a rolling-pin, seems now to be completely devoted to her; as nearly infatuated as one of her flinty temperament can ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... fondness towards those who inspire. them. But the boyish frolics, the exulting high spirits, the unreflecting mirth of a sailor, when enjoying himself on shore, temper the more formidable points of his character. There was nothing like these in this man's face; on the contrary, a surly and even savage scowl appeared to darken features which would have been harsh and unpleasant under any expression or modification. "Where are you, Mother Deyvilson?" he said, with somewhat of a foreign accent, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... stranger shall be like him; no longer denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly, stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of relatives, who ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... events obeys his owner, who held him with a rope fifty feet long. At present he is only half tame, and would go back to the jungle if he were liberated. He was sent up a cocoa-nut tree which was heavily loaded with nuts in various stages of ripeness and unripeness, going up in surly fashion, looking round at intervals and shaking his chain angrily. When he got to the top he shook the fronds and stalks, but no nuts fell, and he chose a ripe one, and twisted it round and round till its tenacious ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... written in a biblical style, rugged and obscure, he sought to appear like a vengeful apostle, prideful and tormented with spleen, but showed himself a deacon touched with a mystic epilepsy, or like a talented Maistre, a surly and bitter sectarian. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... yon flaming herald treads The ridged and rolling waves, As, crashing o'er their crested heads, She bows her surly slaves! With foam before and fire behind, She rends the clinging sea, That flies before the roaring ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the political news of the previous night, or rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, more excited discussion, in which one of the contestants—a red-bearded miner—had subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... then with a look of muddled curiosity, fairly broke down with, "I know your face, me dear dear friend, but, bedad, I've forgot your name." Five years of constant punch had passed since Pen and Costigan met. Arthur was a good deal changed, and the Captain may surly be excused for forgetting him; when a man at the actual moment sees things double, we may expect that his view of the past will be ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the suffering in Belgium at the beginning of the great War and finds she must do something about it. She can cook, so she will go and make soup for KING ALBERT's men. She takes her young man's photograph and his surly disapproval; also a few dollars hastily collected from her obscure township in Pa.; and becomes the good angel of a shattered sector of the Belgian line. And she finds in The Amazing Interlude (MURRAY) her prince—a real prince—in the Secret Service, and, after ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... not a drunkard, Will Sears, more's the pity. When it comes to choosing between a man who gets openly drunk and staggers down Main Street in drunken penitence to his wife and children and the man who drinks just enough to be a surly, selfish brute and yet look half-way respectable on the outside, why, give me the ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below me. From a wooded slope, on the opposite side of the valley, the crack of a gun came, waking the echoes for a minute; and then all seemed to sink into a deeper ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... about wi' surly look, And said, "What's that to thee? I'm ga'en to see a lovely maid, Mair fairer ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... Paul was surly and had evidently been drinking, for he shoved the servant roughly out of the way as he ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... withdraw. After half an hour Langdon and Herron joined them. Dumont and Fanshaw did not come until eleven o'clock. Then Dumont was so abrupt and surly that every one was grateful to Mrs. Fanshaw for taking him away to the west veranda. At midnight all went to their rooms, Pauline going with Olivia, "to make ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... 'Oh, that Captain Charteris were available! No one else ever had any real power with Lucy! It was an unlucky day when he saw that colonial young lady, and settled down in Vancouver's Island! And yet how I used to wish him away, with the surly independence he was always infusing into Owen. Wanting to take him out there, indeed! And yet, and yet—I sometimes doubt whether I did right to set my personal influence over my dear affectionate boy so much in opposition to his uncle—Mr. Charteris was on my side, though! And ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sauce.' Various fish took part in his title of nobility. The wag Mackrell continuing to be discreetly silent, and Kit Ines acting as a pacific rearguard, the crowd fell in love with their display of English humour, disposed to the surly satisfaction of a big street dog that has been appeased by a smaller ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ignorant, vulgar, and malicious. In the Mississippi book the author gives his first interview with Brown, also his last one. For good reasons these occasions were burned into his memory, and they may be accepted as substantially correct. Brown had an offensive manner. His first greeting was a surly question. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... walls of the room were so high that at first the visitors thought that the Nursery was deserted. They distinguished, however, at the farther end, a bleating, whining, restless group. Two countrywomen, with surly, brutish, dirty faces, two "dry-nurses," who well deserved their name, were sitting on mats with their nurslings in their arms, each having a large goat before her, with legs apart and distended udders. The manager seemed to ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... conversation, however, in the most dogged manner, barely returning surly monosyllables to my anxious ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... brute of a fellow that bit your corporal, sir," said the steward. "I was in there just now, and he's as surly as ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... revealed a surly personality, which now expanded and mellowed into conversation as Haymond asked questions about the setting of eel traps and lobster pots and the management of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... penurious man to the performance of generous deeds is not by remonstrating with him, however kindly, on his penuriousness, but by watching his conduct till we find some act that bears some semblance of liberality, and commending him for that. If you have a neighbor who is surly and troublesome—tell him that he is so, and you make him worse than ever. But watch for some occasion in which he shows you some little kindness, and thank him cordially for such a good neighborly act, and he will ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott |
