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More "Surly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... JOHN. [Moved but surly.] I like wildcats and I like Christians, but I don't like Christian wildcats! Now I'm close hauled, trot out your tornado! Let the Tiger loose! It's the tamer, the man in the cage that has to look lively and use the red hot crowbar! But, by Jove, I'm out of the cage! I'm a mere ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... Loup's face twitched for a moment, but he clinched his fingers tightly to restrain himself and answered with a surly impassability, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... cried the doctor sharply. "What's better than for a son to feel that he is bound to obey his father? If I had been a married man instead of a surly bachelor, and I had had a son, I should have expected him to obey me and do what I thought was for his ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... well and strong, and but for the bandage on his head would have been as she remembered him. He manifested interest in the gambling of the players by surly grunts. Presently ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... are just getting him aboard!" and the crowd, rushing away from the stern, carried with it the two disputants—the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, and buttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant, following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as he shifted his cap from the one ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... surly face he glanced round at her. Not for this lady's benefit had the admission ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... automatically, and, picking up the burdens they had set down, trudged on their way, not realising for some time how much offended they were at the curt behaviour of the "mad English." The children by this time had ceased staring and returned to their play; the waggoner, muttering some surly words, drove on. Julia sat on the bank by the roadside, and tried to brush the dust from her dress. The Englishman, after making some parting remarks to the waggoner, this time in Dutch, though still in the quiet, drawling voice which was much at variance ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... be some truth in her objection. Lydgate said, "Very well," with a surly obedience, and thus the discussion ended with his promising Rosamond, and not with ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... lovely Mrs. Dash; 'Tis wrong to mention names; When for her surly husband's cash She urged in vain her claims. "I want a little money, dear, For Vandervoort and Flandin, Their bill, which now has run a year, To-morrow mean to ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... of the window. They saw the landlord of the hotel, a surly-looking fellow, with a big black mustache and tanned cheeks, striding across the yard to the professor, who ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... sourly. Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly monosyllables. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Frenchman started for his gig, amid the "Haw! haw! haw! and ha! ha! he! he!" of the landlord and lawyer. "That for you," said the Frenchman, as he gave the surly Dutchman-hostler a real half-dollar, took the dirty "ribbons" and drove off. Now, the farmer, one of the three spectators present, had quietly watched the proceedings, and being gifted with enough insight into human nature to see something more than "an old French barber" ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... of his surly manner, and his attempts to escape, he had been more strictly bound than before and to get him out of the way had been removed from the flagship, which was already overcrowded, and placed in one of the other electric ships, and this ship—as it happened—was one of those ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... the manner in which it was supplied with labourers, and his own experience in old Peter's case had made them seem not unlikely. He had seen Catharine's husband, in the justice's court, and the next day, in the convict gang behind Turner's buggy. The man had not looked like a criminal; that he was surly and desperate may as well have been due to a sense of rank injustice as to an evil nature. That a wrong had been done, under cover of law, was at least more than likely; but a deed of mercy could be made to right it. The love of money might be the root of all evil, but its control ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the most surly feelings on both sides, threatened the very existence of the young government. Washington and Hamilton were thoroughly alarmed. Hearing of the extremity to which the contest had been carried and acting on the appeal from the Secretary of the Treasury, Jefferson ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... he often passed his holidays in a small lodge standing in the grounds of the villa. "Lord Thurlow," asked a lady of him, as he was leaving the Queen's Drawing-room, "when are you going into your new house?" "Madam," answered the surly Chancellor, incensed by her curiosity, "the Queen has asked me that impudent question, and I would not answer her; I will not tell you." For years Loughborough and Erskine had houses in Hampstead. "In Lord Mansfield's ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the room was strong with stale liquor and tobacco, the lingering aroma of the night's vanished revels. In the far corner sat the girl she had followed; a glass of raw whiskey and another of water stood on the table before her. Susan seated herself near the door and when the swollen-faced, surly bartender came, ordered whiskey. She poured herself a drink—filled the glass to the brim. She drank it in two gulps, set the empty glass down. She shivered like an animal as it is hit in the head with a poleax. The mechanism of life staggered, hesitated, went on with a sudden ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 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 persons would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Gobbets, small lumps. Gowden, golden. Gowsty, gusty. Grat, wept. Grieve, land-steward. Guddle, to catch fish with the hands by groping under the stones or banks. Gumption, common sense, judgment. Guid, good. Gurley, stormy, surly. Gyte, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deep voices, betrayed the arrival of the others: Langford, Morrison, Thompson the Government Agent, and the one police official whom Phil felt was absolutely above suspicion,—Howden, who was Chief Palmer's deputy—and Brenchfield, surly as a bear;—all powerful men and capable of giving a good account of themselves ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... coffee and bolting their food. From the kitchen beyond came the crackling of fats, the odor of frying things and the aroma of strong coffee. The clatter of tin pans and cups, the rattle of pewter knives and forks and the commands of hungry men to the surly lads who served them assailed the refined ears of the young Virginian as he stopped irresolutely at the ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... coarse, surly, ill-mannered brute, whose delight was to "provoke" his young wife, who he tells us "is a young lady, a fine lady, a witty lady, and a virtuous lady, but yet I hate her." In a drunken frolic he intercepts ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... about the surly answer I had received from the man on the banks of the river, I said: "I wonder why those men are camped there? They must have been there ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... days of power and success, days of a glamour that lingered long in his mind. Beyond a doubt he was destroying MacDougall's plan and realizing his own. Sometimes he met a surly Mexican who would not listen to him, but nearly always he won the man over in the end. He was amazed at his own resourcefulness and eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition in him had been broken down, some magical elixir ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... Mr Gordon's query, which not only surprised but grieved his young companion; and the surprise was increased when the sick man replied in a surly tone— ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. But notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow—a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket—and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... why the book-keeper's manner was now so different. Van Zandt was older, but he was not so very old, not more than sixty, and old age in itself is not sufficient to make a man surly and to sour his temper. That the Major had had trouble in his family was well known. His wife had been flighty and foolish, and it was believed that she had run away from him; and his only son was a wild lad, who had been employed ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... tone of command, he, evidently much surprised and obeying from the force of habit in one accustomed to yield to others, crossed over the line, the broad country yokel grin with which he had received my first reply, giving place to a surly look. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... disappointment, and Saxe revelled in the wondrous scenery, growing more sure-footed and firm of nerve day by day when in the mountains, and happy and full of fun when back in Andregg's valley, leaving the donkey or his companion Gros, and accompanying heavy, surly, stupid, strong Pierre up the green alps to fetch home the goats and cows, becoming a perfect adept with a great wooden Alpine horn, whose notes evoked wonderful echoes among the mountains ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... other, quite privately, that their chief talked a lot of nonsense about "that there mean-tempered old buffalo," they nevertheless came gradually to look upon Last Bull with a kind of awe, and to regard his surly whims as privileged. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... shop, and which he had caught up as the readiest weapon of working his foeman damage, and advanced therewith upon him. The cautious Scot (for such our readers must have already pronounced him, from his language and pedantry) drew back as the enraged ship-chandler approached, but in a surly manner, and bearing his hand on his sword-hilt rather in the act of one who was losing habitual forbearance and caution of deportment, than as alarmed by the attack of an antagonist inferior to himself ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved like a bird's beak. And when folk wished to go across to the Amberley flats that lie under the splendid shell which was once a castle, Harding would carry them, if he was there and neither too busy nor too surly. And when they asked the fee he always said, "When I work in metal I take metal. But for that which flows I take only that which flows. So give me whatever you have heart to give, as long as it is not coin." And they gave him willingly anything they had: a flower, or an egg, or a bird's ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Then to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally growling: "Lascars, likely!"—and proceeded to hail in something he afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to attract the surly pair who played ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... smoored[106] or crushed her wt a great meikle stone greater than 2 milstones, which God knows whence he brought, but she miraculously supported it wt hir head, as the woman heir carries the courds and whey on their head. Surly she had a gay burden; and never rested till she came to that place wheir its standing even now. They talk also that she brought the 5 pillars on which its erected till above a mans hight in hir lap wt hir. I mocking at this fable, I fell ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... should hope to see a battle, I could not conceive, but let him go quietly to sleep away his folly. Next day he made two mistakes in the first bill, disobliged a customer by surly answers, and dated all his entries in the journal in a wrong month. At night he met his military companions again, came home late, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... seem' as I've got to," was the surly answer. But Jasper's face was dark with suspicion, and Rome studied it keenly. The Lewallens once had been men whose word was good, but he did not ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... than usual, in honor of the masque: and Jurgen knew that this young bishop was to become Pope of Rome, no less; and that the child he joked with was to become the woman for possession of whom Guiron des Rocques and the surly-looking small boy yonder, Maugis d'Aigremont, would contend with each other until the country hereabouts had been devastated, and the castle wherein Jurgen now was had been besieged, and this part of it burned. And wildly droll and sad it was to Jurgen thus to remember all that ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... lady dear!" Her fearful damsel cries; "You reckon not, I deeply fear, How swift the moontide flies! The surly warder will awake, The morning dawn, anon,— My heart beginneth sore to quake,— I fear we ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... Why? He was such a surly fellow. Why? If you asked him for candy, He'd hide his away; He never would play What the rest wished to play; He would say horrid words ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... Jurgis was saved because of Ona. He never would take but the one drink at noontime; and so he got the reputation of being a surly fellow, and was not quite welcome at the saloons, and had to drift about from one to another. Then at night he would go straight home, helping Ona and Stanislovas, or often putting the former on a car. And when he got home perhaps he would have to trudge several blocks, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... but Edmund saw that he was far from pleased at his father's words, and a look of surly determination on his face showed the young Saxon that he would go his own way in the matter if it lay ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... in regard to my work or anything else. The only exception was Mr. A. L. Smith. The reason, I now feel sure, was that they believed that to take notice of me would have only made me more uppish. I daresay they imagined I should have been rude or surly, or have attempted to snub them. Still, the fact is something of a record, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the troubadour and his little companion reached Montfaucon late in the afternoon of the day following the departure of the Count's guests. The porter, a surly looking fellow, hesitated about admitting them, and before opening the wicket gate consulted some one within. The castle seemed to be in a somewhat disorderly state. Soldiers were playing dice by the gateway, and horses were stamping ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... fair Creature I'd sometimes retire, Her Conversation wou'd new Joys inspire. Give Life and Edge so keen, no surly Care } Wou'd venture to assault my Soul, or dare } Near my Retreat to hide one secret Snare. } But so Divine, so Noble a Repast. I'd seldom, and with Moderation caste. For highest Cordials all their Virtue lose, By a too freequent, and to bold ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... so loud that the mother rushed out of her hovel to ascertain the cause; and seeing the purloining pig make off munching his booty, the woman in her heat struck the grunter so smart a blow, that the surly rascal took it into his head to go home very much indisposed, and after a certain time resolved to die,—a resolution that he accordingly put into practice; upon which the owner instituted judicial proceedings ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... was wonderous tyrannical and surly; If a patriot only touch'd on the Queen or Master Burleigh, She'd send a file of soldiers in less than half an hour, sir, Just to bid him make his speeches to the prisons of the Tow'r, ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... of these up-town apartments as it was falling dusk, and it was long before the janitor appeared. Then the man was very surly, and said if he looked at the flat now he would say it was too dark, like all the rest. His reluctance irritated March in proportion to his insincerity in proposing to look at it at all. He knew he did not mean ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Public Prosecutor in a surly and obstinate mood, following on an interview which he had just had with citizen Commissary Cuisinier on the matter of ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... us one mule for our luggage, and the beast was unlikely to be overburdened, for at the last minute he had turned surly, and as he sat like a general of division to watch his patch-and-string command go by he showed how Eye of Zeitoon only failed him for a title in giving his other eye—the one he kept on us—too little credit. It was a good-looking crowd of irregulars that he reviewed, and every bearded, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... treat their antagonists with insolence and scorn: the presbyterians were incensed to see their friends disgraced, and their enemies distinguished by the royal indulgence. They insisted upon the authority of the law, which happened to be upon their side: they became more than ever sour, surly, and implacable; they refused to concur with the prelatists or abate in the least circumstances of discipline; and the assembly was dissolved without any time or place assigned for the next meeting. The presbyterians pretended an independent right of assembling annually, even ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... well if the passenger, on landing, is not besmirched with coal-dust, after a narrow escape of being shoved into the sea off the stage. But, after all, civility pays in Grenada, as in the rest of the world; and the Negro, like the Frenchman, though surly and rude enough if treated with the least haughtiness, will generally, like the Frenchman, melt at once at a touch of the hat, and an appeal to 'Laissez passer Mademoiselle.' On shore we got, through be-coaled Negroes, men and women, safe and not very much be-coaled ourselves; and were driven up ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Despair, and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping; wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then with a grim and surly voice he bid them awake, and asked them whence they were, and what they did in his grounds. They told him that they were pilgrims, and that they had lost their way. Then said the giant. You have this night trespassed on me by trampling ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... hour Of New Year's month or surly Yule Furred snows, charged tuft above tuft, tower From darksome ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... the same roof with such an old sorciere! Nevertheless, I crossed the street, and accosted the hag with a smile. "Good-day, Maman Paquet. Can you tell me anything of your lodger, Noemi Bergeron?" "Hein?" She was deaf and surly. I repeated my question in a louder key. "I know nothing of her," she answered, in a voice that sounded like the croak of a frog. "She couldn't pay me her rent, and I told her to be off. Maybe she's drowned by this." "You turned her out?" I cried. "Yes, turned ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the sense. Look how the fair one weeps!—the conscious tears Stand thick as dew-drops on the bells of flowers: Honest effusion! the swoln heart in vain Works hard to put a gloss on its distress. Strength, too,—thou surly, and less gentle boast Of those that laugh loud at the village ring! A fit of common sickness pulls thee down With greater ease than e'er thou didst the stripling 260 That rashly dared thee to the unequal ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... its door was shut, and on the jamb thereof hung a slug-horn. The damsel, who seemed to know what to do, set her mouth to the horn, and blew a blast; and in a little while the door was opened, and a big man clad in red scarlet stood therein: he had no weapons, but was somewhat surly of aspect: he spake not, but stood abiding the word: so the damsel took it up and said: "Art thou not the ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... replied the landlord of the Trumpeter, in a surly tone, for he did not much like the appearance of his ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of April the weather continued to be a succession of neat and rapid changes. One day the soft airs of spring seemed to be stealing along the valley, and, in unison with an invigorating sun, attempting covertly to rouse the dormant powers of the vegetable world, while, on the next, the surly blasts from the north would sweep across the lake and erase every impression left by their gentle adversaries. The snow, however, finally disappeared, and the green wheat fields were seen in every direction, spotted with the dark and charred ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... spoke, the surly mutineers were riding slowly towards the coach. Every man had his pistol on the high pommel of the saddle. Their faces wore an ugly look. As they passed the officer, one of them, pointing ahead of him with ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... for?" asked the surly voice again. "Were it not for those rascal Frenchmen up above, I would come out and split ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... demand for them secret, merely informing the Chamber that negotiations with Prussia were in progress. Ollivier took his dejeuner at the palace, where the household staff greeted him very coldly, and the empress, by whom he sat, turned her back on him. In the Chamber Duvernois asked in a surly tone when the debate on his interpellation would come on, and July 15 was fixed for it. Everything now depended on the issue of Benedetti's interview with the king at Ems, which took place early on the morning of the 13th, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... a 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 years later—and did, in that respect, try ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... glide up and down the stairs, and through the passages; and the Captain sometimes met him in one place and sometimes in another. But by a caprice incident to such tempers he treated this cleric exceptionally, and even with a surly sort of courtesy, though he grumbled about his visits behind ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... question the Gourlays. He had been too long in their service to be of use to any other; while there was a hand's turn to be done about the House with the Green Shutters he was glad to have the chance of doing it. His respect for his surly tyrant was as great as ever; he took his pittance of a wage and was thankful. Above all he worshipped young Gourlay; to be in touch with a College-bred man was a reflected glory; even the escapades ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... summer-house, and still with one hand mechanically kept her hold of the dog. It was well for the priest that she did so. Scarammuccia's formidable teeth were in full view, his shaggy coat was bristling, his eyes were starting, his growl had changed from the surly to the savage note; he was ready to tear down, not Father Rocco only, but all the clergy in Pisa, at a ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... Catch's, who passed the time of day to us with a cheerful bow-wow; although I was surprised to see that he had not "a posy tied to his tail," according to the orthodox adage of typical smartness. Then there was the milkman's dog, a gaunt retriever like mine, but of a very bad disposition, and a surly brute withal. He and Catch were deadly foes, as is frequently the case with dogs of the same breed; so, of course, they could never meet without quarrelling: on this occasion they exchanged ferocious challenges, and parted with signs and symptoms of unmitigated contempt on both sides, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... nursing their scars, Sit the old fighting-men broke in the wars— Sit the old fighting men, surly and grim Mocking the ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... in the island of Skye is, beyond question, the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been reading his famous Journey, with its diverting remarks on second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... of it, in fact, and such a day as neither had had for forty years; for, first, they went to Bartlett's Hill, where the boys and girls were coasting, and coasted with them for a full hour,—and then it was discovered by the younger portion of his flock that the parson was not an old, stiff, solemn, surly poke, as they had thought, but a pleasant, good-natured, kindly soul, who could take and give a joke, and steer a sled as well as the smartest boy in the crowd; and when it came to snow-balling, he could send a ball further than Bill Sykes ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... bargains when they traded with him—and he allowed them to make no other kind,—they must stand or fall by them. Where his lands joined those of his neighbours, there was always "a lane for the rabbits," as the saying is. He would join fences with none of them. Indeed, he was a surly neighbour, though he did not ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... left Camp Chase, where every one had been uniformly polite and respectful in demeanor, and I had enjoyed privileges which amounted almost to liberty, the gloom of the penitentiary and the surly, ban-dog manner of the keepers were doubly distasteful, and the feeling was as if I were being buried alive. I found that, during my absence, the prisoners had been removed from the hall, which they had all the time previously occupied, to another in which ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly, stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of relatives, who wish to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... unable to detect anything to justify the least apprehension on my part. Of course it was impossible for me to observe the pair when they were alone together after the day's work was done, but although Svorenssen maintained his usual surly demeanour I attached little importance to that, for I believed it to be natural to him, while there was no doubt that both men ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... the Indian and designating the status of the slave as the normal status of the Negro. The probable reason is that racial characteristics of the Indian made him a bad subject for slavery. The Massachusetts colonists found the Pequot Indians surly, revengeful and in the words of Cotton Mather unable to "endure the Yoke."[137] The Negro, on the contrary, proved himself much more tractable and therefore more profitable as a slave. These plastic race ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... graceful on the bounding steed; So well in paint and stone they judged of merit: But kings in wit may want discerning spirit. The hero William, and the martyr Charles, One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles; Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear, 'No Lord's anointed, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... awaited the pair on entering the mud-floored room to find quite a decent meal awaiting them on the table, and their sour-looking heavy hostess ready to wait on them with a kind of surly civility. ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... A surly growl that might have been, "Relieve the wheel and look-out," came from the poop, and we were dismissed muster; the starboard watch to their rest; we of the port to take ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... an agony of excitement, but unable to endure the notion of approaching the scene of action; and his half-choked surly 'Don't' was sufficient to deter his brother Thomas, who had never shown himself so kind, considerate, and free from sneer or assumption. In 'hours of ease' he might seem selfish and exacting, but a crisis evoked the latent good in him, and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little baby I often wanted to take him onto my lap and laugh and play with him. But he was so cold and distant! A funny little mite, even with boys of his own age. Nobody seemed to understand him exactly; certain people even thought that his was a surly nature. ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... to her proper port—was more difficult still to seal up effectually. There—long after every other port was closed—the desperate, but wary, sea-pigeon would evade the big and surly watcher on the coast. Light draught, narrow, low in the water, swift and painted black—these little steamers were commanded by men who knew every inch of coast; who knew equally that on them depended life and death—or more. With banked ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... a very small fortune, which he inherited from an industrious farmer his uncle, in hunting, horse-racing, and cock-fighting, and had been married by my landlady for certain purposes, which he had long since desisted from answering; for which she hated him heartily. But as he was a surly kind of fellow, so she contented herself with frequently upbraiding him by disadvantageous comparisons with her first husband, whose praise she had eternally in her mouth; and as she was for the most part mistress ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... afraid of a tiger, even of a genuine tiger from Bengal. To prove to the porters how slight was the estimation he placed on the supposed enemy, and also to drill them in the case of similar rencounters, he pushed the whole troop pellmell into the thickest part of the reeds, with the surly order to cut down the canes for sheds. Drawing his own knife, he slashed right and left among the stems, which the Indians, trembling with fear, were obliged to make into sheaves on the spot and transport to the beach selected ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... fames the world enough rings: Where are thy services and sufferings? What if for nothing once you kiss'd, Against the grain, a monarch's fist? What if, among the courtly tribe, You lost a place and saved a bribe? And then in surly mood came here, To fifteen hundred pounds a-year, And fierce against the Whigs harangu'd? You never ventured to be hang'd. How dare you treat your betters thus? Are you to be compared with us? Come, Spaniard, let us from our ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... cathedral city, opened out to let him pass, and there was much less swearing and drinking when his black coat and clerical collar came into view. Mosk saw that the appearance of the chaplain was detrimental to business, and resenting his presence gave him but a surly greeting. As to Bell, she tossed her head, shot a withering glance of defiance at the bland new-comer, and withdrew to the far ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Blossom knocked at his daughter's door the next morning it opened upon her completely dressed, but withal somewhat pale, and, if the truth must be told, a little surly. ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... and a creaking of doors, two turnkeys led Lecour down into a region of darkness. The turnkeys, like their chief, were surly sots. They took him along a low passage where mastiffs which patrolled it eyed him, threw back a cell door, thrust him in, and ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... especially hard hit; Spain and Italy were both unusually low-spirited; and there was an extra solemnity about the British Isles that told its own sad tale. Englishmen, when they have lost more than they can afford, generally take it out of themselves in surly, brooding self-reproach. Frenchmen give vent to their disgust and annoyance by abusing the game and its myrmidons. You may hear them, loud and savage, on the terrace, "Ah! le salle jeu! comment peut-on se laisser eplucher par des brigands de la sorte! Tripot, infame, va! je ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... knew; Where honey from the hollow oaks doth ooze, and crystal rills Come dancing down with tinkling feet from the sky-dividing hills; There to the pails the she-goats come, without a master's word, And home with udders brimming broad returns the friendly herd. There round the fold no surly bear its midnight prowl doth make, Nor teems the rank and heaving soil with the adder and the snake; There no contagion smites the flocks, nor blight of any star With fury of remorseless heat the sweltering herds doth mar. Nor this the only bliss that waits ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... upon the piano, with all the airs and graces of a first-class dandy. However, Jocquelet, in the old artisan's role, was emphatic and exaggerated, and an ugly and commonplace debutante was an utter failure. The criticisms, generally routine in character, were not gracious, and the least surly ones condemned Amedee's attempt, qualifying it as an honorable effort. There were some slashes; one "long-haired" fellow from the Cafe de Seville failed in his criticism—the very one who once wrote a description of the violation of a tomb—to ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... baskets of good fare was appetising, and the company soon collected on the shady turf, where Richard made himself extremely useful, and the feast was spread without any worse mishap than Nipen's running away with half a chicken, of which he was robbed, as Tom reported, by a surly-looking dog that watched in the outskirts of the camp, and caused Tom to return nearly as fast as the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... person addressed, and drawing his hand contemptuously over his face; "why, I beat Symmonds in this very yard in one round three years ago; didn't I, Symmonds?" said he to the understrapper, who held down his head, muttering in a surly tone, "I didn't come here to fight; let every one take his own part." "That's right, Symmonds," said the other, "especially every one from whom there is nothing to be got. I would give you half-a-crown for all the trouble you have ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... in our possession, whom we instructed, with little trouble, in a variety of tricks; although at first surly and stupid, he soon exhibited great aptness and pleasure in repeating the various lessons which we taught him. If he had been younger we might have given him an opportunity of displaying himself in the field, as we are confident, from his tractable ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... from personal friends and a little surly mention from the tribe of Jeffrey, the volume attracted little or no attention. This coldness on the part of the public shot an atrabilarian tint through the ambition of our poet, and the fond hope of a success in literature faded ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... evidently resolved to make amends for its surly reception of the strangers the previous evening, by greeting them with one of its sweetest ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... encouraging him to remember his Creator, but by instilling into him dread of the club, the dungeon, and the bullet. He must learn to fear not God, but the warden, the captain and the guard. He is to be hustled about, cuffed, shoved, kicked, put in the hole, punished for not comprehending surly and half inarticulate orders, or for not understanding gestures without words; all of which encouragements to obedience are, indeed, specifically forbidden by the rules which were formulated in Washington and disseminated for the information of the investigation committees and of ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while the clothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess and rehearsed his deeds—many of them interspersing their flatteries with coarse invectives against the operative class—was a delectable sight for Mr. Yorke. His heart tingled with the pleasing ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... puppet on 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
... morning," said Donkin, in a strangely trembling voice, as though restraining laughter or rage. Jimmy seemed satisfied.—"Give me a little water for the night in my mug—there," he said. Donkin took a stride over the doorstep.—"Git it yerself," he replied in a surly tone. "You can do it, unless you are sick."—"Of course I can do it," said Wait, "only... "—"Well, then, do it," said Donkin, viciously, "if yer can look after yer clothes, yer can look after yerself." He went on deck without a ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... said a surly-looking backwoodsman, who sat with one hand thrust into the bosom of a hunting frock, and the other playing with the richly ornamented hilt of a dagger, while a round hat, surmounted by a huge cockade, was perched knowingly over his left ear, covering, or rather shadowing, little more than ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... of you as a sad young dog, but for all that is secretly proud of your skill at the bow and of the way you are pestering the Sheriff, whom he likes not. 'Twas for my father's sake that I am now in the open, an outlaw like yourself. He has had a steward, a surly fellow enough, who, while I was away at school, boot-licked his way to favor until he lorded it over the whole house. Then he grew right saucy and impudent, but my father minded it not, deeming the fellow indispensable in managing the estate. But when ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... passed by, and, as far as Owen could judge, Nat was better treated than formerly; he hoped, therefore, that his remarks to the mate had produced some effect. The mate's manner, however, was distant and surly, showing that he had no good feeling towards him. When crossing the line the usual ceremonies were gone through, the captain not considering it necessary to forbid them. Neptune, with his wife and Tritons, came on board, accompanied by the barber ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... description, but the slight touches are enough to make us see the silent lonely streets, the churches, the high walls of the monastic gardens, the fortress-palaces. The sound of the fountains is in our ears; the little crowds of revelling men and girls appear and disappear like ghosts; the surly watch with their weapons and torches bustle round the corner. Nor does Browning neglect to paint by slight enlivening touches, introduced into Lippo Lippi's account of himself as a starving boy, the aspect by day and the character ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So when the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, "Worse and worse": he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriage to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... humour of her husband, took more pains to bring joy to his house than would another to bestow horns upon him. But although she was careful to obey him in all things, and to live at peace would have tried to excrete gold for him, had God permitted it, this man was always surly and crabbed, and no more spared his wife blows, than does a debtor promises to the bailiff's man. This unpleasant treatment continuing in spite of the carefulness and angelic behaviour of the poor woman, she being unable to accustom herself to it, was compelled to inform ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... you as a sad young dog, but for all that is secretly proud of your skill at the bow and of the way you are pestering the Sheriff, whom he likes not. 'Twas for my father's sake that I am now in the open, an outlaw like yourself. He has had a steward, a surly fellow enough, who, while I was away at school, boot-licked his way to favor until he lorded it over the whole house. Then he grew right saucy and impudent, but my father minded it not, deeming the fellow indispensable in managing the estate. But when I came back it irked me sorely to ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... uproar and taken it to be a brawl among the buccaneers. 'Twas like Vetch to shut himself aloof from the disputes of his hirelings; he was ever careful of his skin. Affecting a harsh and surly voice I cried that the quarrel was over and asked him to open the door: I had news from Spanish Town. Another oath saluted me; then I heard the sound of movements within, and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... led his party through a gap in the low stone wall over a strip of ground belonging to the very man who was least likely to overlook the intrusion. Jean Duchesne had a bad name in the neighborhood, and deserved it thoroughly; he was surly enough when sober (which was the exception), but when drunk there were no bounds to his blind, brutish ferocity, and his great personal strength made him a formidable antagonist. He was not an agreeable object to contemplate, that gaunt giant, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... little shop, and which he had caught up as the readiest weapon of working his foeman damage, and advanced therewith upon him. The cautious Scot (for such our readers must have already pronounced him, from his language and pedantry) drew back as the enraged ship-chandler approached, but in a surly manner, and bearing his hand on his sword-hilt rather in the act of one who was losing habitual forbearance and caution of deportment, than as alarmed by the attack of an antagonist inferior to himself ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr. Rawthis reported that the Indians were becoming more surly from day to day, he also expressed the opinion that there was no immediate danger, since the settlements were well protected, and the militia was well armed for war. But what was better than all this, was that the Englishmen were ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... sun in the gloomy sky Wrap him round with a mantle of cloud; But, Heaven be praised, thy step is nigh; Thou tearest away the mournful shroud, And the earth looks bright, and Winter surly, Who has toiled for nought both late and early, Is banished afar by the new-born year, When thy ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... us some towels, then," growls one of the number, a black-browed, surly-looking fellow with ponderous, bent shoulders and a slouching mien. Some of his companions titter encouragingly, others are silent. The sergeant of the guard flushes angrily and turns on ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... things Jurgis was saved because of Ona. He never would take but the one drink at noontime; and so he got the reputation of being a surly fellow, and was not quite welcome at the saloons, and had to drift about from one to another. Then at night he would go straight home, helping Ona and Stanislovas, or often putting the former on a car. And when he got home perhaps he would have to trudge several blocks, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... a surly clang, And through the dark arch a charger sprang, Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... at the window of his study, observed a decent old woman offer a paper to one of his servants, which the fellow at first refused in an insolent and surly manner. The woman however pressed her suit with all the energy of distress, and in the end prevailed. The dean, whose very soul was compassion, saw, felt, and was determined to alleviate her misery. He waited ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... advocate to the surly servant who entered the room at that moment; and from the centre of his office, the door remaining open, before the whole parlor, where the prayers had ceased, he pursued Jansoulet,—who turned his back and hastened, mumbling incoherently, toward ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... extraordinarily eloquent. Hatiz, the Persian, could not more warmly, or with choicer figure, describe his mistress' charms, than he does Lion's, or Fowler's, or whatever the brute's Christian name may be; and yet the surly, cynical, dogged expression of the bepraised beast, would almost make one imagine he understood the meaning of his master's words, and that his honest nature despised the flattering encomiums he passes upon his pink belly and legs, his broad chest, his ring-tail, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... declared, with surly spitefulness. "I have been in a dozen strikes, and this is the first time any employer ever attacked me in my affections—through my Frieda." The German's narrow eyes were alight with venomous resentment, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... she had heard little or nothing. She had found the farmhouse, had bought her supplies from a surly woman and had come away again. Asked by Mr. Muldoon if she had seen any men, she said she had seen a farmhand milking. That was all, except the outlaw ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thirteen—judgin' it to be onlucky." The forlorn one grinned his understanding, and clutching the piece of silver, elbowed into the group that crowded the roulette wheel. The cowpuncher turned once more to the surly proprietor: ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the shepherd poet, had a dog named Sirrah, who was for many years his sole companion. He was, the shepherd says, the best dog he ever saw, in spite of his surly manners and unprepossessing appearance. The first time he saw the dog, a drover was leading him by a rope, and, although hungry and lean, "I thought," Hogg tells us, "I discovered a sort of sullen intelligence in his face, ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... for them. He came back with one of the officers of the boat, much disturbed, to say that they could not be found; they must have been left behind. There was great excitement, and deep interest expressed for Mrs. Peterkin. One of the officers was very surly, and declared he could not be responsible for the inanity of passengers. Another was more courteous. Mrs. Peterkin asked if they could not go back,—if, at least, she could not be put back. He explained how this would ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... army. Much against his will Davoust was therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the forces being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him the most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom Davoust strongly and rightly suspected of treachery. When Napoleon left the capital Davoust became its ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... The surly groom looked surlier still at this, but not sufficiently so to produce any effect upon Sam, who immediately inquired, with a countenance of great anxiety, whether his master's name ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... down, trudged on their way, not realising for some time how much offended they were at the curt behaviour of the "mad English." The children by this time had ceased staring and returned to their play; the waggoner, muttering some surly words, drove on. Julia sat on the bank by the roadside, and tried to brush the dust from her dress. The Englishman, after making some parting remarks to the waggoner, this time in Dutch, though still in the quiet, drawling voice which was ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... wet and surly. Sallied, however, by the assistance of a hired coach, and left cards for Count Pozzo di Borgo, Lord Granville, our ambassador, and M. Gallois, author of the History of Venice.[382] Found no one at home, not even the old pirate Galignani,[383] ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... that a lad of about Roy's own age, but with a surly, hang-dog sort of look, emerged from ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... secret shock; Dark rolled the sympathetic waves of Forth, 470 Low groaned the startled whirlwinds of the north; TWEED ruffled half his waves to form a tear, The other half pursued his calm career; [63] ARTHUR'S steep summit nodded to its base, The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place. The Tolbooth felt—for marble sometimes can, On such occasions, feel as much as man— The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms, If JEFFREY died, except within her arms: [64] Nay last, not least, on that portentous ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... have used them, had not a friend of Mr. R— supplied us with mattrasses, sheets, and coverlets; for our own sheets were on board the felucca, which was anchored at a distance from the shore. Our fare was equally wretched: the master of the house was a surly assassin, and his cameriere or waiter, stark-staring mad. Our situation was at the same time shocking and ridiculous. Mr. R— quarrelled over night with the master, who swore in broken French to my man, that he had a good mind to poniard ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... you come? We had a glorious time. I have half a mind not to tell you what I heard said of you, but I believe you may have it second-hand. Fred Vincent was as grum as a preacher all the evening, and when I asked him what on earth made him so surly and owlish, he said, 'It was too provoking you would not come, for no one else could dance the schottisch to his liking.' Now there was a sweet specimen of manners for you! You had better teach ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... of the room—leaving Master Tobias dumb with astonishment and rage—surly and savage and very bitter, with his hand against every man because he thought that every man's ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... uttered no word, but moving softly back from the circle of firelight, carrying their almost exhausted lanterns, made ready to once more start out into the depths of the wood; with the lonely farmhouse now rented by the surly Sol Smithers just half a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... moment 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 had in ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... care anticipated her every wish. He was a tall, stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... home he met Father Antoine not far from Michaud's door. The priest would have passed with his usual surly look if Simpson had ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... his head out to get a glimpse of the fine ladies. He would much have preferred staying out in the main car and getting acquainted with people. His cunning had departed with the need. He had put things in the hands of this surly companion, and now he meant to have a good time and something to tell the gang about ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... Kearn Thode had ridden out at daybreak and ridden hard, but only the pinto knew where they were going and he was too jaded to care. A sleepless night of bewilderment and self-disgust at his own surly, unaccountable mood had brought a revelation ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... was said about his looks. She's picking that up because I was strong on how he had acted. He doesn't look as savage as he is; he fools a lot of folks that way," stated Craig, in surly tones. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... chin, and dark steady eyes—used to glide up and down the stairs, and through the passages; and the Captain sometimes met him in one place and sometimes in another. But by a caprice incident to such tempers he treated this cleric exceptionally, and even with a surly sort of courtesy, though he grumbled about his visits ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... town from this seedy chariot; but the driver, surly with sleep, opened one eye and one corner of his mouth just enough to inform him that the next "run" was not due ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... are dissatisfied, surly. It's the one department where your touch hasn't been felt. I want you to go there on Monday ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... to her constitution. [15] On an excursion to Toledo, she determined to make one effort more to regain the confidence of her ancient minister the archbishop. She accordingly sent an envoy to inform him of her intention to wait on him in person at his residence in Alcala de Henares. But as the surly prelate, far from being moved by this condescension, returned for answer, that, "if the queen entered by one door, he would go out at the other," she did not choose to compromise her dignity by ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... which is very defective in money matters. He cannot read or write, he cannot carry a message or receive one; he is no use as a guide, for, although information and ideas may be bulging from his noble brow, he lacks the power to communicate them, and, worse than all, he is surly, lazy and a constitutional kicker. He was always hanging around when we didn't want him, and when we did want him he was never to ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... joking when he came home at noon. He turned in at the front gate and the goat blocked his passage. The Cadaras had been willing to let the goat call upon the Doanes and graze while calling. "Get out of my way!" called Joe Doane in a surly way not like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a suggestion, flew through the crowd. It was greeted with surly smiles and emphatic nods. To the surprise of the officers and of the Governor, the crowd began to melt away. Splitting up in twos and threes, it sauntered off, as if it had made up its mind to submit ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... continued to be a succession of neat and rapid changes. One day the soft airs of spring seemed to be stealing along the valley, and, in unison with an invigorating sun, attempting covertly to rouse the dormant powers of the vegetable world, while, on the next, the surly blasts from the north would sweep across the lake and erase every impression left by their gentle adversaries. The snow, however, finally disappeared, and the green wheat fields were seen in every direction, spotted with the dark and charred ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Reformer would have him reverenc'd. But perhaps this Pragmatical Curate Perez was some Non-Juror, and poor Sancho did not think he should profit by his Doctrine; and then the honest fellow was much in the right. This puts me in mind of a passage in one of Mr Crown's Comedies, where a surly Joyner is rallying with a Doctor of no very good Reputation too; Sirrah, Sirrah, says the Doctor, I shall have your Ears—No, No, says Chizzel, never when you preach, Doctor. Our Absolver may apply this ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... act the character of Peter is well expressed in the surly, growling bass of his soliloquy ("Vedra, vedra"). It is followed by a characteristic drinking-chorus ("Alla Finlanda, beviam"), a wild, barbaric rhythm in the minor, which passes into a prayer as they invoke the protection of Heaven ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... not at work, we did not see the actual process. Leaving the sugar-house, we went in pursuit of the mayoral, or overseer, who seemed to inhabit comfortable quarters, in a long, low house, shielded from the sun by a thick screen of matting. We found him a powerful, thick-set man, of surly and uncivil manners, girded with a sword, and further armed with a pistol, a dagger, and a stout whip. He was much too important a person to waste his words upon us, but signified that the major-domo would wait on us, which he presently did. We now entered the negro ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... bow before. Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave Seek thy acquaintance, hail their first advance: From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save, May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. Some surly Cato, Senator austere, Haply may wish to peep into thy book: Seem very nothing—tremble and revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er look. They love not thee: of them then little seek, And wish for readers triflers like thyself. Of ludeful matron watchful catch the beck, Or gorgeous ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... this bitter cold night, Dilly Danforth?" exclaimed he, in a surly tone, as the furious blast rushed in his face, and nearly extinguished the lamp he held in ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... "Well," objected Annixter, a surly note in his voice, "I WAS going to RIDE over." "Oh, never mind, then," returned Presley easily. "I was to blame for forgetting it. Don't bother about it. I'll come over some of these days ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... gentleman! No, we come to a master, to work that we do not starve. A landowner," she said, and regarded Sam in his purple and fine broadcloth with fierce and desperate distrust that the other women also expressed with hissing breaths which brought surly growls of suspicious ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sentimentalist,—does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.—The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... old Eschevinage—to people who have learnt nothing and studied nothing? Such is not the result of these long reflections. I wished to enable people to foresee the struggle, not the defeat. I even hasten to add, that by the side of the surly, harsh, rude, positive Eschevin, the type of whom, to say the truth, is fortunately becoming rare, an honourable class of citizens exists, who, content with a moderate fortune laboriously acquired, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... of the Indian and designating the status of the slave as the normal status of the Negro. The probable reason is that racial characteristics of the Indian made him a bad subject for slavery. The Massachusetts colonists found the Pequot Indians surly, revengeful and in the words of Cotton Mather unable to "endure the Yoke."[137] The Negro, on the contrary, proved himself much more tractable and therefore more profitable as a slave. These plastic race traits, in fact, have enabled the Negro to survive while the less adaptive Indian has disappeared. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... by your love for me, My secret closely hide.' Her quiet tongue, for full three days, The secret kept so well, I almost grew to hope that she This secret wouldn't tell. Alas! upon the following day She had revealed it, for I found Some surly men with warrants arm'd Were slyly lurking round. They took me to the county jail My tristful Kate pursuing, And all the way she sobb'd and cried 'Oh! what have I been doing?' Before the judge I was arraigned, Who sternly frowning gazed on me, And by his clerk straightway inquired, What was the ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... my lap and laugh and play with him. But he was so cold and distant! A funny little mite, even with boys of his own age. Nobody seemed to understand him exactly; certain people even thought that his was a surly nature. ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... I was for some time at a loss what I had best do, for knowing that in the variety of dispositions observable among the Indians, the surly and savage temper is the most prevalent, I had good reason to conclude, that if I obtruded myself upon them, my reception would be but indifferent. Necessity, however, put me upon the risk; I accordingly pushed into the next wigwam upon my hands and knees, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... asked of Claire was that she should continue to believe in him and make his way easy for him. She could fight for his freedom with a surly uncle, but having won it, she shouldn't afterward expect a fellow to do things with it which would end in his being ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... preponderate; this not to say that they were so much coarse and crude as they were fierce, absorbed, self-centered. Each man depended upon himself and needed to do so. The crew on the decks were relics from keel-boat days, surly and ugly of temper. The captain was an ex-pilot of the lower river, taciturn and surly of disposition. Our pilot had been drunk for a week at the levee of St. Louis and I misdoubt that all snags and ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... the fellow had carried out these wishes with the surly good-nature characteristic of him, Jack set ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... came only a deep, surly growl. Lieutenant Trent turned around, then faced front once more; he had no ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... the tone in which he spoke them, surly as it was, showed me plainly enough that he had repented already of his insolent answer to my application, and that he had come in a mighty bad temper to try and set matters right again before it was too late. Seeing my daughter in the room with me (I had been afraid to let ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... of about thirty sail, and from each vessel there proceeded, on its launching into the stream, such a din of gongs and crackers and such volumes of smoke from the burnt offerings, that the deity of the river must have been in a very surly humour if he was not pleased with such a multitude of oblations. The safe arrival, on the opposite bank, of the whole squadron was a proof of his having accepted the homage, and accordingly he was again addressed in a volley of crackers ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... across the chamber and faced the surly Governor. "I brought the boy here, Your Excellency, so that you might get the thing straight. I hope you believe him, even if you don't take much stock in me!" Morrison's face matched the others in gravity. There was an incisive snap in his tone. "I happened to be ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... 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 of stone, but having a small grated window near the roof, at the further ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... carpets of gold spread by the little genii of the woods—the whortleberry bushes were drenched in rich radiance, the fruit seeming like the concentrated radiance in the act of dropping—whilst the straggling, tall, surly grenadiers of hemlocks had put on high-pointed yellow caps, with rays streaking through their branches like muskets. The cow-bells were now tinkling everywhere, striking in an odd jumble of tones—tingle ling, tingle ling ting tingle—as their owners collected together to eat their ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... as if by magic; not so Waring, who lay suffering and irritable on the lounge in the long room, while the girl tended him with a joy that shone out in every word, every tone, every motion. She saw not his little tyrannies, his exacting demands, his surly tempers; or rather she saw and loved them as women do when men lie ill and helpless in their hands. And old Fog sat apart, or came and went unnoticed; hours of the cold days he wandered through the forests, ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... 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 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... governor of the castle at Plescow was a surly fellow, and was reprimanded by the czar, at least so I heard, for not having treated me sufficiently well. I was only three or four days there, and the only officer I saw besides Doctor Kelly was a friend of his, another doctor. He was at the table when I dined ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... by order of the Queen," replied Ashton, with his accustomed surly manner, "and need enough in ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and of the chevrons reaching to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in certain armies of South America, all were sergeants. It was a trifling compensation for the miseries of exile and for the harsh treatment of surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the first days of each new quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then been known to smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black skins for the negro blood in ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, "Worse and worse": he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriage to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... trouble, for he had a loud, hoarse voice, and the flock all ran together whenever he shouted. There was a church at Thorhall-stead, but Glam would never go to it nor join in the service. He was unbelieving, surly, and difficult to deal with, and ever one felt ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... her. He heard the story of the tragedy from the surly inn-keeper, who crossly maintained that his business had been ruined. Booth was vaguely impressed, he knew not why, by Burton's description of the missing woman. "I'd say she was about the size of Mrs. Wrandall herself, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... would be the end of all this more clearly than Sylvia did herself; and, impotent to hinder what he feared and disliked, he grew more and more surly every day. Yet he tried to labour hard and well for the interests of the family, as if they were bound up in his good management of the cattle and land. He was out and about by the earliest dawn, working all day long with ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... meant to stand alone, to face a small hostile world, to have a surfeit of fighting. The station of Seven Islands was the hardest in all the district of the ancient POSTES DU ROI. The Indians were surly and crafty. They knew all the tricks of the fur-trade. They killed out of season, and understood how to make a rusty pelt look black. The former agent had accommodated himself to his customers. He had no objection to shutting one of his eyes, so long ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... along the corridor of the busts. I was holding my little sister's hand, and just in front of us was the very fat and very solemn Madame Nathalie. She was a Societaire of the Comedie, old, spiteful, and surly. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... morning I rose only half refreshed, and made my way anxiously to the office. One of the first fellows I met was Wallop, who greeted my approach with a surly grin. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... cried, selecting him because after Milo his eyes were keenest of them all. "Keep thy eyes open for Milo's flares, and mark well the direction. Hanglip, thou surly dog! Take ten men and lay me out a good anchor astern, with a stout hawser. Be brisk! Come aboard in ten minutes, ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... once introduced to the second mate, and Miss Arminster thought she had seldom seen a more unprepossessing individual. He was surly and shifty-eyed, and she confided to the Bishop, when they were alone, that she was glad they were not going far from land under that man's charge, for ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... me, and I explained. Then she turned again to the surly host with a smile that must have caused him to regret ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... was cross and surly, and evidently in a bad humour, and most decidedly refused to shake hands, while he growled out words of annoyance and even threatening at the coming of a missionary ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... lowering, surly face was well described by his name. The fierce expression of his countenance was greatly heightened by the masses of heavy black hair hanging round it, quite contrary to the usual fashion among the Winnebagoes. They, for the most part, remove a portion of their hair, the remainder of ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... such a day as neither had had for forty years; for, first, they went to Bartlett's Hill, where the boys and girls were coasting, and coasted with them for a full hour,—and then it was discovered by the younger portion of his flock that the parson was not an old, stiff, solemn, surly poke, as they had thought, but a pleasant, good-natured, kindly soul, who could take and give a joke, and steer a sled as well as the smartest boy in the crowd; and when it came to snow-balling, he could send a ball further than Bill Sykes himself, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... your master is surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning. Then if you refrain, he is at you again, For he likes to get value for money: ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... would have supposed him ripe for rebellion. But all this ill humour lasted only till the throne was really in danger. It was precisely when those whom the sovereign had loaded with wealth and honours shrank from his side that the country gentlemen, so surly and mutinous in the season of his prosperity, rallied round him in a body. Thus, after murmuring twenty years at the misgovernment of Charles the Second, they came to his rescue in his extremity, when his own Secretaries of State and the Lords of his own Treasury had deserted ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... interview, he had just seen the President, and it is hinted that, not only did Don Porfirio refuse to pardon the counterfeiters, but showed a dangerous inclination to investigate the reason of the indian governor's intervention. No wonder that the old man was gruff and surly to his visitors, after the loss of ten thousand dollars which he had looked upon as certain, and with uncertainty as to the final outcome ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... conversation happening to turn upon dogs, Mr. Day told him he had heard he was very famous for enticing dogs away, and that Sir William Courtenay's steward had told him there was not a dog could resist his allurements; however, he believed he had one that would; he then ordered a surly morose dog to be brought out, and offered to lay a wager he could not entice him away, which he readily accepted, and began to whistle to the dog, but found him very surly; upon which he took out a little bottle, and dropping a few drops ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... yer ol' church," he muttered as he turned away. The man growled a surly response but Tode ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... somewhere or other, and trying to keep one eye on Thoburn while I kept Mr. Pierce straight with the other—that day, during luncheon, Mike the bath man came out to the spring-house and made a howl about his wages. He'd been looking surly for two days. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... boys in two minutes. He arrived breathless near the group of children who were dressing themselves. He looked at them, and was asking himself if he must go nearer to them, when one of the group looked at him with a surly air. Little Frank translated this into: "What business ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... and the leafy trails. All this was present with him as he watched the oncoming figure. Great men kept their word. Had not Mr. Jefferson said that he would overtake them?—and there he was! He was coming down to the camp-fire, he was going to stop and talk to the surly giant, like Giant Despair, who sat ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... their van. 'Twas here Mohegan met again The blood that in Mohegan flowed, But each regarded not the vein, Though kinsmen, foes they firmly stood. This lake-land, rich in fish and game, Was ground for strife and war and blood; From west and south the warriors came In battle paint and surly mood. The Kitchewonks near northern lake Upon the Rippowams looked down, And hoped their power and pride to break E'er harvest-moon had ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore, As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore; Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far, Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar! The deep, The deep, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... at McMurdo with eyes which showed that he had not forgotten nor forgiven. "Well, he can come if he wants," he said in a surly voice. "That's enough. The sooner we ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... conversation between himself and Julian. Formerly he had now and then tried his best to find some common subject for talk with her, but the effort had been vain; she was hopelessly stupid, and more often than not in a surly mood, which made her mere presence difficult to be endured. Of late, whenever he came, she made her illness an excuse for remaining in her bed-room. And hence arose another trouble. The two rooms were only divided by folding doors, and when Harriet got impatient with what she conceived to be ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Flores with a wicker-covered demijohn of wine between them—and Pete lounging on the doorstep, smoking and gazing across the canon at the faint stars of an early evening. With the wine, old Flores's manner changed from surly indifference to a superficial politeness which in no way deceived Pete. And Malvey, whose intent was plainly to get drunk, boasted of his doings on either side of the line. He hinted that he had put more than one Mexican out of the way—and he slapped Flores on the back—and Flores ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... drew into the station his valets breathed great sighs of relief, and his French chef and negro porter mopped the perspiration from their troubled brows, while silently offering peans of gratitude for safe delivery. When the surly giant descended the car steps his waiting footman drew back in alarm, as he caught his master's black looks. When he threw himself into the limousine, his chauffeur drew a low whistle and sent a timidly significant glance in the direction of the lackey. And when at last he flung open the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... though her excuse for the absence of Elsie failed to satisfy the surly-tempered trader. The younger girl did not appear until Slade dropped the rope ladder and went scrambling down the cliff face. Carmena was already lowering Lennon's outfit to the trader's Navaho followers, who ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... same period as the one above referred to, gives us a graphic description of the varieties of character among the feudal peasants. One example is given of a man who will not tell a traveller the way, but merely in a surly way answers, "You know it better than I" (Fig. 67). Another, sitting at his door on a Sunday, laughs at those passing by, and says to himself when he sees a gentleman going hawking with a bird on his wrist, "Ah! that bird will eat a hen to-day, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... round her dear boy's knees—all had to suffer. Ethel Newcome, the Baronet's sister, was the only person in his house to whom Sir Barnes did not utter oaths or proffer rude speeches. He was afraid of offending her or encountering that resolute spirit, and lapsed into a surly silence in her presence. Indistinct maledictions growled about Sir Barnes's chair when he beheld my wife's pony-carriage drive up; and he asked what brought her here? But Ethel sternly told her brother that Mrs. Pendennis ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... terrified the women, and was eventually recognised at Leh as a murderer, and as great a ruffian in reality as he was in appearance. An attendant of this kind is a mistake. The brutality and rapacity he exercises naturally make the people cowardly or surly, and disinclined to trust a traveller ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... With all deference to such distinguished judges, I venture to think that the popular instinct on this point is right, and even that Dr. Johnson is not so wrong as usual. Johnson disliked Gray and spoke of him with surly injustice. Gray, in turn, could not abide Johnson, whom he called Ursa major. Johnson said that Gray's odes were forced plants, raised in a hot-house, and poor plants at that. "Sir, I do not think Gray a first-rate poet. He has not a bold imagination, nor much command of words. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and thinner, until it had no more warmth in it than the shadow of a ghost, and, like its resemblance, was about to flit and fade away. At last she said, in a softened tone, as if the remembrance of the Christmas legend had softened her surly thoughts and ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... the land, for which he is paid ten sous the fathom. He is accustomed to working in a marshy soil, and so, as he says, he gets jobs which no one else cares to take. He can make about three francs a day by clearing out ponds, or draining meadows that lie under water. His deafness makes him seem surly, and he is not naturally inclined to say very much, but there is a good ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... you there was no more loud talk in the cabin that day; only the long, low wash and pound and break of the seas abeam, with the surly wail that portends storm. I do not believe any of us ever realized what a frail chip was between life and eternity till we heard the wrenching and groaning of the timbers in the silence ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... of this the Four Quarter Days involuntarily looked at each other, & smiled; April Fool whistled to an old tune of "New Brooms" & a surly old rebel at the further end of the table {who was discovered to be no other than the Fifth-of-November} muttered out distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company, words to this effect, that, "when the old one is gone, ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane
... discuss art, or to reform the State, had a way of suggesting that Mary had better be asked to lend them her rooms. She always met the request with the same frown of well-simulated annoyance, which presently dissolved in a kind of half-humorous, half-surly shrug, as of a large dog tormented by children who shakes his ears. She would lend her room, but only on condition that all the arrangements were made by her. This fortnightly meeting of a society for the free discussion of everything entailed a ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... She looked surly and had a bandage round her head, a sure sign of trouble—Hannah always referring a pain in her temper to her ear or her head or her teeth. She clutched my arm in the hall ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to him they realized where they were, and glanced around uneasily. The guards raised their crossbows again, and the prisoners stepped back to the wall and looked surly. ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... getting on shore; and it is well if the passenger, on landing, is not besmirched with coal-dust, after a narrow escape of being shoved into the sea off the stage. But, after all, civility pays in Grenada, as in the rest of the world; and the Negro, like the Frenchman, though surly and rude enough if treated with the least haughtiness, will generally, like the Frenchman, melt at once at a touch of the hat, and an appeal to 'Laissez passer Mademoiselle.' On shore we got, through be-coaled Negroes, men and women, safe and not very much be-coaled ourselves; and were ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... you will," responded the doctor soberly. "As for going off my head, Lord bless you, man, it's in the temperament. I might never lose my head in just that way. We're not made alike, you see. Now I should be struck with a dumb devil, and grow surly and cynical as time went on, and of all contemptible men a cynic is the worst. You will have your burst of passion, and carry a tender spot to your grave, but you can't squeeze all the sunshine out of your soul, any more than out ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... which I send you that of his grandson, your loving and attached Beethoven. It has been brought out here by Artaria, who, as well as many other publishers, has often urged this on me. I intend soon to write to Stoffeln [Christoph von Breuning], and plainly admonish him about his surly humor. I mean to sound in his ears our old friendship, and to insist on his promising me not to annoy you further in your sad circumstances. I will also write to the amiable Lorchen. Never have I forgotten one of you, my kind friends, though you did not hear from me; but you know ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... Here's no foolish surly Lover, That his Passions will discover; No conceited fopish Creature, That is proud of Cloaths or Feature: All things here serene and free are, They're not Wise, are not as we are; Who acknowledge Heavens Blessings, In our innocent Caressings: Then let us Sing, let us Dance, ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... day, when only himself and the flossy ball of sleeping Skye were in the place, this thought added to Mr. Traill's discontent. There had been few guests. Those who had come in, soaked and surly, ate their dinner in silence and discomfort and took themselves away, leaving the freshly scrubbed floor as mucky as a moss-hag on the moor. Late in the afternoon a sergeant, risen from the ranks and ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... Smit was a surly fellow, and refused shelter to the traveller, who was therefore obliged to continue his journey during the night. Next day the unfortunate man's mangled body was found not far off, a few yards from the foot of a small tree. The traces revealed clearly that he had been ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... been trudging all day from point to point, only to hear the old story: times were hard, work was dull, nobody wanted him, and he felt morose and surly—out of humor with himself ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his white lord, with his head thrown back, truculent and be-weaponed like a janissary, with kriss, chopper, and lance (besides carrying Jim's gun); even Tamb' Itam allowed himself to put on the airs of uncompromising guardianship, like a surly devoted jailer ready to lay down his life for his captive. On the evenings when we sat up late, his silent, indistinct form would pass and repass under the verandah, with noiseless footsteps, or lifting my head I would unexpectedly make him out standing ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... practice rendered them all good actors. The time they remained in waiting for Raoul was consequently spent in eluding attempts to induce them to betray themselves, and in caricaturing Englishmen. Two of the four folded their arms, endeavored to look surly, and paced the quay in silence, refusing even to unbend to the blandishments of the gentler sex, three or four of whom endeavored to insinuate themselves into their confidence by offerings ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I found he recognised me even in this dress, and it was wise to make a friend of him. Then I wanted a guide, and I was well assured he knew the way, if any man did. He is a surly scoundrel, however, and appears to have changed his character, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... suddenly, and stared at her; but before I could turn about in my chair one of the great dogs began to growl savagely, and Maria sprang forward and cuffed the surly brutes into ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... motion of a puppet on 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
... our enemy, the surly bear that I have spoken of, had taken it into his head that he would occupy our home. Of course he had lived in this district much longer than we, and, had this been his home when we first came, we should never have thought of disputing possession with him. ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... on the Death of General Wolfe, still occasionally reprinted, does not rise above a low level of mediocrity. But here is a paragraph on the Mineral Riches of the Earth, which, many years later, found favor in the eyes of the surly Cheetham, and may still be read ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... for a while was totally unconscious. When he regained his reason he found himself, near his journey's end, divested of his free papers and all others. On his arrival at St. Charles he was seized by a huge, surly looking slaveholder who claimed him as his property. The contract had previously been concluded by his Judas-like friend, who had received the bounty. Oh, what a sad disappointment. After serving for thirty years to be thrust again into bondage ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... but little more than half done my unwelcome task, my friend and I were met on our way to the bull's stable by the farm bailiff, who informed us gravely that "Thunder and Lightning" was just then in such an especially surly state of temper as to render it quite unsafe for me to think of painting him. I looked inquiringly at Mr. Garthwaite, who smiled with an air of comic resignation, and said, "Very well, then, we have nothing for it but to wait ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... at all. I tried to get the doorkeeper to tell me about him, but he's such a surly old fellow, and he's so used to that sort of thing, that he pretended ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laborer. He was employed at different times in a sawmill, on the street gangs, as a roustabout on the levee, as a helper at the sugar works and as a coal shoveler in the engine room of the St. Charles Hotel. At each of the places where he worked he was known as a quiet, rather surly fellow, who had little to say to anybody, and generally performed his tasks in morose silence. He managed to convey the impression, however, of being a man of more than ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... my garden is bounded by a deep river; on another by a rugged mountain, abarrier against the noon-day heats, and which never refuses, not even at mid-day, to lend me its friendly shade; but the sweet air reaches me through all obstacles. In the distance a surly wall makes me inaccessible to both man and beast. Figs, grapes, walnuts, almonds—these are my delights. My table is also graced with the fish that abound in my river; and it is one of my greatest pleasures ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... old Frenchman started for his gig, amid the "Haw! haw! haw! and ha! ha! he! he!" of the landlord and lawyer. "That for you," said the Frenchman, as he gave the surly Dutchman-hostler a real half-dollar, took the dirty "ribbons" and drove off. Now, the farmer, one of the three spectators present, had quietly watched the proceedings, and being gifted with enough insight into human nature to see something more than "an old French barber" in the person and manner ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... you," he blundered on. "You told me of the fellow you saw riding away from The Whispering Pines at the time you entered the grounds. I passed the story on to the coroner, and he to a New York detective they have put on this case. He and Arthur's own surly nature did the rest." ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... rayther rough, An if prospects for better be dark; He nivver turns surly an gruff, Or shows discontent in his bark. Ther's nubdy can tice him away,— He owns but one maister,—that's me, He seems to know all 'at aw say, An maks th' best ov his lot, ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... evidently much surprised and obeying from the force of habit in one accustomed to yield to others, crossed over the line, the broad country yokel grin with which he had received my first reply, giving place to a surly look. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in a surly voice; "and more's the pity for the rest of us tenants, for he is a regular fiend incarnate, sir, and has a fit of the delirium tremens as regularly as the month comes round. He's got 'em now. A fine dance he leads that poor daughter ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
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