|
|
|
More "Testy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... William the Testy ruled New Amsterdam,— A tall man he,— Whose rule was meant by him to be no sham, But rather like the stern paternal style That sways the city now. He made the while ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... distressed if you had thought such alteration necessary," returned her son, very much surprised at this reference to his father. For Mrs. Drummond rarely consulted her husband on such matters. In this case, however, she had done so, and Mr. Drummond had been unusually testy—indeed, affronted—at such a ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Marston, is not your son about to come down here?" asked Doctor Danvers, who perceived that the altercation was becoming, on Marston's part, somewhat testy, if not positively rude. ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... teasing, unsuitable, angry, boisterous, choleric, disgusting, gruff, hectoring, incorrigible, mischievous, negligent, offensive, pettish, roaring, sharp, sluggish, snapping, snarling, sneaking, sour, testy, tiresome, tormenting, touchy, arrogant, austere, awkward, boorish, brawling, brutal, bullying, churlish, clamorous, crabbed, cross, currish, dismal, dull, dry, drowsy, grumbling, horrid, huffish, insolent, intractable, irascible, ireful, morose, murmuring, opinionated, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the storm subsided, rumbling off in half a dozen testy assertions on the general's part that he, Puddock, had distinctly used the word 'wounded,' and now and then renewing faintly, in a muttered explosion, on the troubles and worries of his command, and a great ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... only feckless—only feckless, as the Scotch say," she rejoined with testy sadness. "Well, since everybody is going, I am going too. I am going with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... favorite instruments of political success was unable to find compensation in personal popularity or the graces of manner. Cold and repellent, he leaned backward in his desire to do the right, and alienated men by his testy and uncompromising reception of advances. And yet there never was a president more in need of conciliating, for already the forces of the opposition were forming. Even before his election he had been warned that the price of his victory would be an organized opposition ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 700 ADDISON: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... would not have his last hours soothed by the finest orchestra. After a week, during which we sent every day to inquire after Mr Whortleback's health, we ventured to resume the piano and harp; upon which the old gentleman became testy, and sent for a man with a trumpet, placing him in the balcony, and desiring him to play as much out of tune as possible whenever the harp and piano sounded a note. Thus were we at open hostility with our only neighbour; ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... brasses of the launch; the yard-man was raking up the dry strips of palm from beneath the cocoanut trees; Aunt Varina was ordering new supplies, and entering into conspiracies with the cook. The nurses asked me timidly, what was He like, and even Dr. Gibson, a testy old gentleman who had clashed violently with me on the subject of woman's suffrage, and had avoided me ever since as a suspicious character, now came and confided his troubles. He had sent home for a trunk, and the graceless express companies had ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... I might," was the testy reply. "But I was a fool, and didn't. Carr, I swear to you I fell into the trap unconsciously; I did not foresee danger. Maude is a charming girl, there's no denying it; but as to love, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... personage of some consequence; she was a distant cousin, and had been for years on cool terms with us all, on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit, about the time of my christening. She was seventy years old; she was infirm, rich, and testy; moreover, she was my godmother, though I had forgotten the fact; but it seems that though I had formed no expectations of a legacy in my favor, my aunts had done so for me. Aunt Margaret was especially ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... caution, generally, he yet persisted in the practice of enclosing bank-notes in letters. Persons cognizant of this habit had remonstrated with him; not his clerks—of course they had not presumed to do so. Mr. Galloway, who liked his own way, had become somewhat testy upon the point, and, not a week before the present time, had answered in a sort of contradictory spirit that his money-letters had always gone safely hitherto, and he made no doubt they always would go safely. The present loss, therefore, coming as ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... narrow-minded, selfish man, caring very little for any one's comfort but his own, and at times was exceedingly cross and testy. Unfortunately, he took great interest in politics, and was quite an oracle in the village bar-room. He was bigoted and "set" in his opinions, considering all who differed from him as enemies to their country, and called them rascals and hypocrites freely. His wife had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... to Coventry; a punishment inflicted by officers of the army on such of their brethren as are testy, or have been guilty of improper behaviour, not worthy the cognizance of a court martial. The person sent to Coventry is considered as absent; no one must speak to or answer any question he asks, except ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Holland's voice was testy. "I assure you, Joe, the particular assignment was quite important. We simply cannot afford to move, here in the West, until we know what the Sov-world will do. Your task was a delicate one, obviously. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... unexpected. Again the officer found himself gazing into the strange, refined face and wonderful eyes. The man was not blind, of that he was certain. Neither was his voice harsh or testy. Rather was it soft and polite, of one merely stating a fact. Yet how could it be? He remembered the cigar clerk. Neither cigar nor sun! From what manner of land could the man come? A detective has a certain gift of intuition. Though on the face of it, outside of the man's personality, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... husband is not only an unbeliever, but one very froward, peevish, and testy, yea, so froward, &c., that I know not how to speak to him, or behave myself ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he'll much outstrip his bounds, And hunts not closely with the other hounds: He'll venture on a lion in his ire; Curst Choler was his dam, and Wrong his sire. This Choler is a brach that's very old, And spends her mouth too much to have it hold: She's very testy, an unpleasing cur, That bites the very stones, if they but stur: Or when that ought but her displeasure moves, She'll bite and snap at any one she loves: But my quick-scented'st dog is Jealousy, The truest of this breed's in Italy: ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... your kill-joy character and your single track mind you testy, old bachelor, you are a very nice cat," said Durtal, in an insinuating, wheedling tone. "Then too, for many years now, I have told you what one tells no man. You are the drain pipe of my soul, you inattentive and indulgent confessor. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the world is the different way in which whist affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend,—not at all! The best-tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall and the Rectory. The squire, who was esteemed as ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... testy voice which he knew for that of his own father, "is it not enough to have killed your cousin? Would you fall on your brothers and me also, that you come at us clad in mail and with bare steel ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... desired time to consider. Pitt asked him abruptly, if he wanted a quarter of an hour: he replied, "he did not want to inform either his head or his heart, for both were satisfied what to do; but that he would ask the King's leave." He wants to fight Pitt. He is a most testy little old gentleman, and about eight years ago would have fought Alderman Perry. It was in the House, at the time of the excise: he said we should carry it: Perry said he hoped to see him hanged first. "You see me hanged, you dog, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... you beat the iron twice over," said Henry. "It is thus we always end, father, by your being testy with me for not doing that thing in the world which would make me happiest, were I to have it in my power. Why, father, I would the keenest dirk I ever forged were sticking in my heart at this moment if there ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the office in a rather humbled and testy mood. He disliked to ask favors at any time and now felt that he had confided himself to the mercy of this callous aristocrat and met with a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor land jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated and refused ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... windows of the farm-house are grated heavily, and as from each of the rear corners of the square there projects a crusty tourelle from which a raking fire could be kept up along the walls, the place has quite the air of a testy little fortress—and a fortress it was meant to be when it was built three hundred years and more ago (the date, 1561, is carved on the keystone of the arched entrance) in the time ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the minor arts, then the private knowledge and enjoyment of its products is an element in the culture of the community. But it is more than that; it is both a pledge and a stimulus to excellence in future production. Artists in all fields are popularly stigmatized as a testy lot—irritabile genus—but their techiness does not necessarily mean opposition to criticism, but only to uninformed and unappreciative criticism, especially if it be cocksure and blatant. There is nothing that the true artist craves so much—not even praise—as understanding of his work and ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... she had made a mistake; she was sensitive and it nettled her to notice the smile on Alfred's face. In tones quite testy she advised him to "hold his laff 'til he could feel hit. Ye needn't git so peart, ye hain't out of danger yit, ye're liable to have anuther collapse or sumthin' else. Ye'll never look as white aroun' the gills when ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... much to the manners of the canine race, he may have remarked the very different manner in which the individuals of the different sexes carry on their quarrels among each other. The females are testy, petulant, and very apt to indulge their impatient dislike of each other's presence, or the spirit of rivalry which it produces, in a sudden bark and snap, which last is generally made as much at advantage as possible. But these ebullitions of peevishness lead to no very serious ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... shoulders bare: He'd stuck to her while living; so she said She'd give him, if she could, the slip when dead. Be cautious in attack; observe the mean, And neither be too lukewarm, nor too keen. Much talk annoys the testy and morose, But 'tis not well to be reserved and close. Act Davus in the drama: droop your head, And use the gestures of a man in dread. Be all attention: if the wind is brisk, Say, "Wrap that precious head up! run no ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... not I given you reasons and have you not overruled them, every one?" was the almost testy answer. "A woman is a woman, and God never ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly everybody is. A testy word now and then shows the nerves are strained a little, but every one laughs and makes his little jokes as if it were all in fun....I ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... Apply it to a criminal case. Ha! ha! if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the accused commit the crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind would be biased: no impartiality from him! Or your testy accused might object to another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... oxen, unsavory poultry, damaged butter, and bad markets. And if, as a matter of necessity, to "keep the cold out of his stomach," occasionally a wayfarer stopped his team and ventured to call for "somethin' warmin'," the testy publican stirred up the beverage in such a spiteful way, that, on receiving it foaming from his hand, the poor customer was half afraid to open his mouth, lest the red-hot flip iron should be ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the bits and scraps of cloth that were shred in the tailoring. How far she believed in the wonderful tales she told, and the odd little charms she practised, no one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the stranger were the things she remembered, and the more testy she was if any one doubted their truth. "Bairns are a blessing!" said she. "It is ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Pictures hang on the walls, and the atmosphere of the whole place is one of courtesy and culture rather than of mere modern commerce. One of the portraits here is that of Mr. Brooke's granduncle—a handsome, full-blooded, rather testy-looking old warrior, in the close-fitting scarlet uniform of the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Fernandez took it to Europe; Drake and Raleigh introduced it in England, and though its use was regarded as a sin, to be checked not merely by royal "counterblasts" and by edicts like that of William the Testy, but by laws prescribing torture, exile, whipping, and even death, it was not long in reaching the uttermost parts of ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... waxed warmer these disappeared, and vivid hissing jets of ignited gas shot forth in abundance. The hissing annoyed me; why, I could not divine; but as the heat increased I cooled from the state of excitement produced by the testy destruction of my papers, model, and specimen. I sat down at the fire; had I not better, said I, have made my wants known to the servant, than have acted as I have done? No, I hate asking for what, as a duty should have been ready to my hands. I endeavoured to persuade myself that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... glad I have found out all their plots, and their Conspiracies; this shall t'old Monsieur Miramont, one, that though he cannot read a Proclamation, yet dotes on Learning, and loves my Master Charles for being a Scholar; I hear he's coming hither, I shall meet him; and if he be that old, rough, testy blade he always us'd to be, I'le ring him such a peal, as shall go near to shake their Belroom, peradventure beat'm, for he is fire and flax; and so ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and his generous impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics that gave him ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mood would often follow the testy humor. The plunge of a three-pound fish, the slap-dash of a dozen smaller ones would startle you into nervous casting. But again you might as well spare your efforts, which only served to acquaint the trout with the best frauds in your fly book. They would rush ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... from her afternoon slumber, was inclined to be testy. As far as she was concerned, she was very much against the idea of Constance marrying any one, for the girl's presence saved her a great deal of trouble in many ways; the consultations with the housekeeper, the choosing ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... right and power to defend all that approach you for sanctuary; your very Beauty is a Guard to all you daigne to make safe: for You were born for Conquest every way; even what Phanatick, what peevish Politician, testy with Age, Diseases, miscarried Plots, disappointed Revolutions, envious of Power, of Princes, and of Monarchy, and mad with Zeal for Change and Reformation, could yet be so far lost to sense of Pleasure, as not to turn a Rebel to Revenge the Good old Cause, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... to his father is supposed to have been written in June 1523.(128) It is a bitter complaint of the testy manner in which his father always treated him, and the continual interruptions of his work. It must have been a great grief to Michael Angelo when the old man came to die if he had not made up this quarrel with him, ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... prayer; Or thou shalt keep the fasts of Barbary, Shalt wait amid the crowds that throng the well From sultry noon till the skies fade again, To draw up water and to bring it home In the cracked gourd of some vile testy knave, Who spurns thee back with bastinadoed foot For ignorance or delay ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... them, hunting for shells, popping the buds of seaweed; while Mavis sat on a dry bit of rock, looking large, red, overblown, and adored her family. The little boy soon became, frankly, a nuisance, wanting his sister's shells, refusing to catch daddy, wishing to paddle in his boots; and Dale, testy at last, very hot and perspiring said: "Ma lad, if you wear out my patience, you'll ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... mind stepping inside, sir? It's a raw wind that is blowing. I think I must have taken a bit of a cold yesterday during—ahem! Thank you, sir. I will tell Mrs. Thorpe that you are here." Murray was rather testy. He had ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... granted that Trenholme was of gentle extraction, he treated him with the generosity of pride in the matter of rations; but he assumed airs of a testy authority which were in exact proportion to his own feeling of physical and social inferiority. Seen truly, there was a pathos in this, for it was a weak man's way of trying to be manful but his new labourer, could not be expected to see ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... wayward is this foolish love, that, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse, and presently, all ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the old man with the testy impatience of one ready to argue, but incapable of reasoning. "'Tain't no talk o' swingin', now: that was a bit o' brag on the boy's part: he's so eager to save his neck as you or me either. Awnly Jonathan's bin ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... streets of By-and-by, one arrives at the house of Never.—Spanish Proverb [Footnote: By-and-by has no real streets, the London journals do not actually thunder, nor were the cheeks of William the Testy literally scorched by his fiery gray eyes. Streets, house, colored, thunder, and scorched are not, then, used here in their first and ordinary meaning, but in a secondary and figurative sense. These words we call Metaphors. By ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... cavaliers who abet the sausage-seller, Agoracritus, egged on by the discontented family servants (the generals), Nicias and Demosthenes, to outbid with shameless flattery the rascally Paphlagonian steward, Cleon, and supplant him in the favor of their testy bean-fed old master, Demos (or People). At the close, Demos recovers his wits and his youth, and is revealed sitting enthroned in his glory in the good old Marathonian Athens of the Violet Crown. The prolongation of the billingsgate in the contest between ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in a testy old huntsman, as hot as a pepper-corn; a meagre, wiry old fellow, in a threadbare velvet jockey-cap, and a pair of leather breeches, that, from much wear, shone as though they had been japanned. He was very contradictory and pragmatical, and apt, as I thought, to differ ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval officer whom I had noticed when the passengers ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... which prevail in it; but, to the bibliomaniac, it is doubly curious, when he is informed that only eighty copies of this Typographical Treatise (of 100 pages—including the Appendix) were printed. The author was a testy, but sagacious, bibliomaniac, and should have been introduced among his brethren in PART V. It is not, however, too late to subjoin the following: Bibliotheca Moresiana. A Catalogue of the Large and Valuable Library of Printed ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... says that he thinks they ought to know how you abuse them. He borrows money of you, and if you ask him for repayment, he says he is not accustomed to be dunned. He never can bring himself to apologise for anything, and if you lose your temper with him, he says you are getting testy in your old age. His one idea is to be formidable, and he says that he does not let people take liberties with him. He takes a mean and solitary view of the world, and other people are merely channels for his own wishes, or obstacles to them. The only way is to keep him at arm's ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... He was invariably testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... wig pushed oblique upon his contracted forehead. The wig was always pushed crooked whenever he was in a brown or rather, a black study. Barbara, who did not, like Susan, bear with her father's testy humour from affection and gentleness of disposition, but who always humoured him from artifice, tried all her skill to fathom his thoughts, and when she found that it would not do, she went to tell ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... thirty transports. When they reached Kinsale, after suffering severely at sea, and parting company with several of their comrades, the soldiers were reduced to 3,400 men—a number inferior to Dowcra's force on the Foyle. The General, Don Jaun del Aguila, was a brave, but testy, passionate and suspicious officer. He has been severely censured by some Irish writers for landing in the extreme South, within fourteen miles of the English arsenal and head-quarters at Cork, and for his general conduct as a commander. However vulnerable he may be on the general charge, he ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Solo contains a plot, which is founded on history, renders it doubly attractive. Anyone acquainted with German history at the time of Frederic the Great will not fail to recognize him and his testy father under the assumed names of the young prince and the reigning head ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... sufficient, with the help of his admirable talents and of his insinuating address, to procure clients. He rose very rapidly into business, and soon entertained hopes of being called within the bar. He applied to Lord Burleigh for that purpose, but received a testy refusal. Of the grounds of that refusal we can, in some measure, judge by Bacon's answer, which is still extant. It seems that the old Lord, whose temper, age and gout had by no means altered for the better, and who loved to mark his dislike of the showy, quick-witted young men of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hornets were the direct progeny of the snorting war-horse. The phrase "mad as a hornet" has become a proverb. Think, then, of a brush loaded and tipped with this martial spirit of Vespa, this cavorting afflatus, this testy animus! There is more than one pessimistic "goose-quill," of course, "mightier than the sword," which, it occurs to me in my now charitable mood, might have been thus surreptitiously voudooed by the war-like hornet, and the plug ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... th' taan, an' wor trudgin hooam beside owd Testy—that's his donkey's name, an' aw owt to tell yo hah it happen'd to be call'd Testy; ther's nowt like explainin' things as we goa on. Chairley used to goa to th' Sunday Skooil, an' he wor allus soa weel ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. Braddock's testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his contempt for the Colonial soldiers, and his stubborn adherence to military maxims that were inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness, alienated the respect and confidence of the ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... the inquest was opened at ten-o'clock that morning. It seemed to Copplestone that it would have been a physical impossibility to crowd more people within the walls than had assembled when the coroner, a local solicitor, who was obviously testy, irritable, self-important and afflicted with deafness, took his seat and looked sourly on the crowd of faces. Copplestone had already seen him in conversation with the village doctor, the village police, Chatfield, and Marston Greyle's ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... she says, 'and don't sit up all night.' 'Oh,' says Esmeralda, smiling, 'I've a fancy to brush out me hair. Take no notice of me, but just lie down and turn your face to the wall, and I'll be as quiet as a mouse.' 'I never can sleep with a light in the room,' says Bridgie, quite testy... I was in my own bed in the dressing-room, so I heard what they said, and was stuffing the bedclothes into my mouth not to laugh out, and spoil the fun. 'If you are going to make a night of it, I'll sit down and read, and you can let me know when you are ready.' ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... They lived together happily, though no children were born to them, and it has been proved that the reputation which has been given her, of being little better than a common scold, who imbittered his life by her termagancy, is the creation of the ill temper of one of the testy friends of Duerer, Willibald Pirkheimer, who, in the spirit of spitefulness, besmirched her character in a letter which unfortunately survives to this day, and in which he accuses her of having led ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... played with Dame Jehane's hand), and Gaston of Bearn, and (I think) Lady Tibors of Vezelay. Then came the usher suddenly into the room with his wand, and by the door fell upon one knee, a sort of state which Count Richard had always disliked. It made him testy. ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... loud, you'll waken little Gottfried," said Philippina in a testy, morose tone. "And get out ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... at a small cost. And besides, while you are serving yourself, you are also obtaining the character of civility, diligence, and good-nature. But the arts which cost you much labour—a long subservience to one testy individual; aping the semblance of a virtue, a quality, or a branch of learning which you do not possess, to a person difficult to blind,—all these never begin except for great ends, worth not only the loss of time, but the chance of detection. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... salt marshes which spread their reeking bosoms along the coast, at the bottom of Kip's Bay, counseled by all means to return thither, and found the intended city. This was strenuously opposed by the unbending Ten Broeck, and many testy arguments passed between them. The particulars of this controversy have not reached us, which is ever to be lamented; this much is certain, that the sage Oloffe put an end to the dispute, by determining to explore still farther in the route which the mysterious porpoises had so clearly ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... as tender as a lamb. A cross word from his father, when he had made a cross stitch, would almost break his heart; but half a word of kindness revived him again—and he seldom went long without it; for the old man, though rendered rather testy and crabbed in his temper, by his many troubles and disappointments, was naturally of a loving, compassionate disposition, and, moreover, regarded Hans as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... answered with artful frankness: "I am trying to get back into my normal condition. I have been out of balance somehow, ever since this business commenced; have been as testy as an old woman of eighty. It is time I began to redeem myself. But I must not detain you. I see you begin to look uneasy. Until to-morrow, I commend you to the tender mercies of Simon ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;—he would grow testy upon it at any time;—but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... happiness, and practised considerable sociability. His terrifying demeanour, his amazing personal dignity and majesty, the certainty that he would say whatever came into his head, whether it was profound and solemn, or testy and discourteous, gave him a personal ascendancy that never ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... turn a little testy as the constable finished. He seemed a magistrate who liked to be paternal, and he appeared to grow impatient under the extraordinarily correct ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... as well as you do," was the testy reply, "but I haven't got the time to run to the other side of the water, and I want money in a hurry—in a great hurry, or I should not have come ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... use the word "Mexico" what picture does it evoke in a resident of New York? Likely as not, it is some composite of sand, cactus, oil wells, greasers, rum-drinking Indians, testy old cavaliers flourishing whiskers and sovereignty, or perhaps an idyllic peasantry la Jean Jacques, assailed by the prospect of smoky industrialism, and fighting for the Rights of Man. What does the word "Japan" evoke? Is it a ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... is fond and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild, Continuance tames the one, the other wild. Like an unpractis'd swimmer, plunging still With too much labour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... I pulled on my boots and joined the others in the lower hall, and the three of us, Mr. Webster, Roger, and I, hurried down the street in time to the old man's testy exclamations, which burst out fervently and often profanely whenever his lame foot struck the ground harder than usual. "Pirates—mutineers—young cubs—laying abed— cockcrow—" and so on, until we were in a boat and out on the harbor, where the ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... by this novel gentleness in the formerly so testy and proud companion, all now with a single mind desire him to stay, nay, refuse to let him go. He turns from them resolutely: "Detain me not! It would ill profit me to tarry! Never more for me repose! ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... over there, at Isca, and Owen was at the wedding as my best man, though he is ten years younger than I. That is how he came to be the girl's godfather, you see. Now I wanted her back, for it is lonely at Pembroke without her, and I am apt to wax testy with folk if she is not near to keep things straight. So I sent word by Thorgils six weeks ago that she was to come back, and he was to bring her. I have had the men watching for the ship ever since. Good it ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... rough, and rendered still more testy by the interruption of his sleep, the burgomaster was not quite deficient in sense of feeling. He perceived at once, that a man thus accompanied, ought not to inspire any great distrust. "Poor dear children!" said he, as he examined ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the testy reply. "For thousands of years the world has been gazing upon dead stones and canvases, reading dead words. Dead—all, I tell you, all of these arts. And painting is only in two dimensions—a poor copy of nature. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... more. Fret till your proud heart break. Go show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Under your testy humour? By the gods! You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Though it do split you; for from this day forth I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... seem almost strange to us. Nor do they express the characters. There is an expression, but it seems not the one to which we are accustomed. Mr. Pickwick is generally shown as a rather "cranky" and testy old gentleman in his expressions, whereas the note of all "Phiz's" faces is a good softness and unctuousness even. Now this somewhat philosophical analysis points to a principle in art illustration which accounts in a great measure for the unsatisfactory results where it is attempted ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... ask Aunt Cordelia. But Aunt Cordelia turned testy, and even told Emily Louise to ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... as was his custom before he set off for his club, and his foot was extended upon a stool—for Abernethy had just been in to treat him for an incipient attack of the gout. It may have been the pain, or it may have been his disappointment at my career, but his manner was more testy than was usual with him, and I fear that there was something of a sneer in his smile as he spoke of my deficiencies. For my own part I was relieved at the explanation, for my father had left London in the full conviction that a vacancy would ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Lifter's arm became well, that repentant and unwilling robber was obliged to make up for lost time. His first most important enterprise was to obtain entrance into the house of a large cattle dealer in York, the testy old person by the way, whose negro servant he had endeavoured in vain to rob upon the highway. It became known to the Rev. Mr. Jonas that there was a strong box in the old gentleman's house, and the same was full ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... any one testy, and Aspinall, had he known it, would have been less surprised than he was to have his head almost snapped off as the two fellow-fags sat at work in their senior's ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... be really comfortable," she proposed, and James transferred his mild abhorrence to her. "Comfortable, without a fellow to put out his things!" He scoffed at her. But she was rather short with him, even testy. "My dear James, Mr. Urquhart's things are things to be put on or taken off—like Lord Considine's 'so-called clothes.' To you they seem to be robes of ceremony, or sacrificial vestments." James stared rather through than at her, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... affection for his memory. If he was bad, so were others bad. There were many worse than he. Such were the excuses she made for her late husband. Old Mr. Wharton, who really thought that in all his experience he had never known any one worse than his son-in-law, would sometimes become testy, and at last resolved that he would altogether hold his tongue. But he could hardly hold ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... was at that time the most famous physician in Europe. He was also the greatest authority on systematic botany. Great men flocked to his door, but the testy old Dutchman let them wait until it suited him to receive them. Peter the Great had to cool his heels in his waiting-room two long hours before his turn came. Linnaeus he would not see at all—until he sent him a copy of his book. Then he shut the door ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... She's a natural-born tyrant. I tried to escape her this morning; had got as far as one foot out of bed when she bore down upon me, calmly, devilishly calmly, pointed to my offending foot, and said: "Back, sir!" Then we argued a bit—I'm afraid I was a trifle testy—and finally she laid hands upon my ankle in the most scientific manner and had me on my back before I could think of the proper adjectives ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... shoe. "If he had had half of the two thousand a year that Papa gave him, or the half of that, I would marry him. But what is the good of taking on with a beggar? We're poor enough already. There's no use in my going to live with an old lady that's testy and cross, maybe, and would grudge me every morsel of meat." (Sure, it's near dinner time, and Suky not laid the cloth yet.) "And then," added Miss Costigan quite simply, "suppose there was a family?—why, Papa, we shouldn't be as well ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abused me very Generally and very Grosly, my chief Delight was, that they never reviled me so much as when I was in my greatest Glory, as Dogs never are so apt to Bark at the Moon, as when she is at the Full. Besides, let me tell you, testy Sir, with the old Poet Nomina mille, mille nocendi Artes. 'Tis so easy to be malicious, and at the same time so mean, that true Worth never Triumphs so eminently over its Enemies, as when they expose their Weakness and Envy ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... of fourteen miles, passing our second station in Urima by two miles, partly to avoid the chief of that village, a testy, rude, and disagreeable man, who, on the last occasion, inhospitably tried to turn us out of a hut in his village, because we would not submit to his impudent demand of a cloth for the accommodation—a proceeding quite ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... than he ought to have been at all that Mr. Bell was saying. He was not in a mood for joking. At another time, he could have enjoyed Mr. Bell's half testy condemnation of a town where the life was so at variance with every habit he had formed; but now, he was galled enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sneer in Cobb's voice grated also on old Judge Bowman, who threw down his book and looked up over his bowed spectacles. He was a testy old fellow, with a Burgundy face and shaggy white hair, a chin and nose that met together like a parrot's, and an eye like a hawk. It was one of his principles to permit none of his intimates to speak ill of his friends in his hearing. Criticisms, therefore, by an outsider ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rather testy with Mr. Eastman. "For the life of me, I can't see how things have come to this pass," he said sharply. "Hope Mills has been considered as sound as a nut,—one of the surest places in the country. Mr. Lawrence has ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... that unpleasant state of prickly heat when testy old gentlemen could commit slaughter with ecstasy. Had it been the maid holding a candle who had dared to advise, he would have overturned her undoubtedly, and established a fresh instance of the impertinence, the uselessness and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he said, apologetically. "What our fine young friend here told me was like some one stepping on my gouty foot. I've been maybe a little too zealous—too exacting. Then I'm old and testy ... What does it matter? How could it have been prevented? Alas! it's black like that hideous Benton ... But we're coming out into the light. Lodge, didn't you tell me this Number Ten bridge was ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... foretold by an old Lourpidon hag that his kingdom should be restored to him at the coming of the Cocklicranes, which she called Coquecigrues. What is become of him since we cannot certainly tell, yet was I told that he is now a porter at Lyons, as testy and pettish in humour as ever he was before, and would be always with great lamentation inquiring at all strangers of the coming of the Cocklicranes, expecting assuredly, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at their coming he shall be re-established in his kingdom. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in fact, the very reverse of his predecessors, being neither tranquil and inert, like Walter the Doubter, nor restless and fidgeting, like William the Testy; but a man, or rather a governor of such uncommon activity and decision of mind that he never sought nor accepted the advice of others; depending bravely upon his single head, as would a hero of yore upon his single arm, to carry him through all difficulties and dangers. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... was considered a great favourite with the lodgers; was never known to utter a testy word, save and only then, when the 'bacco grew short; like the rest of his tribe, he was an eternal smoker. This misfortune however, in being short of Virginia, was seldom of long duration. He never kept that ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... "No; don't get testy, Olive. I'm not producing any brief for Opdyke. In fact, he doesn't need one; we both of us know already what he stands for. But I do hate to see a girl like you go off her head about such a man as Brenton, a ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... speaking, expected that he would break a blood vessel, by giving himself up to such unbounded fury. It seems the family at Tottenham did not know of the precaution that is used upon such occasions, by a testy old baronet of this county, who does not live a hundred miles from Stoneaston, which I am credibly informed is as follows—whenever the baronet has one of these sudden and violent paroxysms of passion, which is not very unfrequently, her ladyship prevails upon him to sit down while she ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... something in the sanguine, floridly handsome youth, with his alertness of mind turned wholly, amid the vexing preoccupations of an age of war, upon embellishment and the softer things of life, which soothed the testy humours of the old Duke, like the quiet physical warmth of a fire or the sun. He was ready to preside with all ceremony at a presentation of Marivaux's Death of Hannibal, played in the original, with such imperfect ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... farce enacted with much applause at the Priory, Stanmore; and damned with great expedition at the late theatre, Covent Garden. It was entitled 'Whistle for It'. [See note, 'supra', on line 57.] His review of James Beresford's 'Miseries of Human Life; or the Last Groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive', appeared in the 'Edinburgh Review 'for ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... encourage us. This little maiden was now become a very great favourite with me, having long outgrown, no doubt, her childish fancies and follies, such as my mother and Annie had planted under her soft brown hair. It had been my duty, as well as my true interest (for Uncle Ben was more and more testy, as he went on gold-digging), to ride thither, now and again, to inquire what the doctor thought of her. Not that her wounds were long in healing, but that people can scarcely be too careful and too inquisitive, after a great horse-bite. And she always let me look at the arm, as I had been ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... note that in Knickerbocker's History of New York, Washington Irving turns aside from the ostensible object of a humorous sketch of early New York to ridicule President Jefferson. William the Testy, a dreamer, a speculative philosopher, an impractical inventor, with a smattering of all knowledge, was easily recognised as the President of the United States. His suggestion of windmills as a means of defence ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... to make any one testy, and Aspinall, had he known it, would have been less surprised than he was to have his head almost snapped off as the two fellow-fags sat at work in their senior's study ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... gone away out of humour in this way, and he said to Paumgartner, who had just emptied his last glass and rose to go too, "For the life of me, I can't understand what the old gentleman meant by his talk, and why he should have got testy about it at last." "My good friend Master Martin," began Paumgartner, "you are a good and honest man; and a man has verily a right to set store by the handiwork he loves and which brings him wealth and honour; but he ought ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... us. This little maiden was now become a very great favourite with me, having long outgrown, no doubt, her childish fancies and follies, such as my mother and Annie had planted under her soft brown hair. It had been my duty, as well as my true interest (for Uncle Ben was more and more testy, as he went on gold-digging), to ride thither, now and again, to inquire what the doctor thought of her. Not that her wounds were long in healing, but that people can scarcely be too careful and too inquisitive, after a great horse-bite. And she always let me ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... just, sentiments which prevail in it; but, to the bibliomaniac, it is doubly curious, when he is informed that only eighty copies of this Typographical Treatise (of 100 pages—including the Appendix) were printed. The author was a testy, but sagacious, bibliomaniac, and should have been introduced among his brethren in PART V. It is not, however, too late to subjoin the following: Bibliotheca Moresiana. A Catalogue of the Large and Valuable Library ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... waken little Gottfried," said Philippina in a testy, morose tone. "And get out of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... gods! Must I endure all this? Bru. All this? ay, more! Fret till your proud heart break; Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble! Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Under your testy humor? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, I'll use you for my mirth,—yea for my laughter, When you are waspish! Cas. Is it come to this? Bru. You say, you ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and rendered still more testy by the interruption of his sleep, the burgomaster was not quite deficient in sense of feeling. He perceived at once, that a man thus accompanied, ought not to inspire any great distrust. "Poor dear children!" said he, as he examined them with growing interest; ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... remark, and Burton endorsed the saying, "no man is great unless he is also superbly dressed." As Jacob stuttered, one of his correspondents thought his name was J. J. J. J. J. Jacob, and terribly offended the testy General by writing it so. A brave and self-confident, but rancorous old man, Jacob by his senseless regulations brought the Indian army to the verge of ruin. This peccadillo was passed over, but a more serious offence, his inability to play whist, was remembered against ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook addresses a crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... there, at Isca, and Owen was at the wedding as my best man, though he is ten years younger than I. That is how he came to be the girl's godfather, you see. Now I wanted her back, for it is lonely at Pembroke without her, and I am apt to wax testy with folk if she is not near to keep things straight. So I sent word by Thorgils six weeks ago that she was to come back, and he was to bring her. I have had the men watching for the ship ever since. Good ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... morning of the 5th:—Alphonso is the first up—or rather down, having rolled off his uncomfortable bed, constructed upon four chairs, in the drawing-room. Mrs. Brown, too, must have risen on the wrong side of her teaster, so testy is she this morning—thanking her stars that Twelfth-day has arrived, to put an end to the Christmas miseries!—Soon, now, will that little pest, Tom, be packed back to "Tortwhack House;" and the juvenile party, of ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... his Father—But come, Cousin and Madam, (said she to the young Ladies) go down to him immediately, or I fear he'll come up to you. Lucretia knew she must, and t'other would not be there alone: So down they came to the Old testy Gentleman. Your Servant, Lady, (said he to Diana) Lucretia then kneel'd for his Blessing. Very well, very well, (cry'd he hastily) God bless you! Where's your Brother? Ha! Where's your Brother? I know not, Sir, (she answer'd) I have not seen ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... bookstall for fivepence a capital little book, in good condition, on GARDENING. I procured and sowed some half-hardy annuals in what I fancy will be a warm, sunny border. I thought of a joke, and called out Carrie. Carrie came out rather testy, I thought. I said: "I have just discovered we have got a lodging-house." She replied: "How do you mean?" I said: "Look at the BOARDERS." Carrie said: "Is that all you wanted me for?" I said: "Any other time you would have laughed at my ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... disasters, was foretold by an old Lourpidon hag that his kingdom should be restored to him at the coming of the Cocklicranes, which she called Coquecigrues. What is become of him since we cannot certainly tell, yet was I told that he is now a porter at Lyons, as testy and pettish in humour as ever he was before, and would be always with great lamentation inquiring at all strangers of the coming of the Cocklicranes, expecting assuredly, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at their coming he shall be ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... jokes, but you could if you would—you know you could: and in your quiet way you enjoy them extremely. Now many people neither make them, nor understand them when made, nor like them when understood, and are suspicious, testy, and angry with jokers. Have you ever watched an elderly male or female—an elderly "party," so to speak, who begins to find out that some young wag of the company is "chaffing" him? Have you ever tried ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'and don't sit up all night.' 'Oh,' says Esmeralda, smiling, 'I've a fancy to brush out me hair. Take no notice of me, but just lie down and turn your face to the wall, and I'll be as quiet as a mouse.' 'I never can sleep with a light in the room,' says Bridgie, quite testy... I was in my own bed in the dressing-room, so I heard what they said, and was stuffing the bedclothes into my mouth not to laugh out, and spoil the fun. 'If you are going to make a night of it, I'll sit down and read, and you can let me know ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... follow the testy humor. The plunge of a three-pound fish, the slap-dash of a dozen smaller ones would startle you into nervous casting. But again you might as well spare your efforts, which only served to acquaint the trout with the best frauds in your fly ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... an answer altogether unexpected. Again the officer found himself gazing into the strange, refined face and wonderful eyes. The man was not blind, of that he was certain. Neither was his voice harsh or testy. Rather was it soft and polite, of one merely stating a fact. Yet how could it be? He remembered the cigar clerk. Neither cigar nor sun! From what manner of land could the man come? A detective has a certain gift of intuition. Though on the face of ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Egbert was the odd one in the Saxon family. He had inherited a testy strain of temper, and was frequently most obstinate and perverse. It was unfortunate that he was an articled pupil in his father's office, for he fretted and tried Mr. Saxon far more than Athelstane would have done in the circumstances. Egbert's saving quality was his intense love for ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... unworthy of his capacity. He, like the rest of his party, could see in the usurper nothing but what was odious and contemptible, the heart of a fiend, the understanding and manners of a stupid, brutal, Dutch boor, who generally observed a sulky silence, and, when forced to speak, gave short testy answers in bad English. The French statesmen, on the other hand, judged of William's faculties from an intimate knowledge of the way in which he had, during twenty years, conducted affairs of the greatest moment and of the greatest difficulty. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he sat in the reading room of the old Gaunt House, where by an open fire in winter or by an open window in summer he discussed the blunders of Braxton Bragg and similar congenial topics with a little group of aging, fading, testy veterans. On his way to the Shawnee Club he would come by the Evening Press office and stay an hour, or two hours, or three hours, to go away finally with a couple of favored exchanges tucked under his arm, and leave us with our ears still dinned and tingling. Once in a while of a ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... practice is very trying to the spirit, but no one ever saw Mr. Choate discomposed or ruffled, and the sharp contentions of the most protracted and hotly contested trial never extorted from him a testy remark, a peevish exclamation, a wounding reflection. He never wasted any of his nervous energy in scolding, fretting, or worrying. Such invincible and inevitable sweetness of temper would have made the most commonplace man attractive: we need not say what a charm ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and on, the testy v. Wincke indulged in invective, his theme ever being "The rule of law." This George v. Wincke in spite of his medals and his family tree was on the liberal side, bag ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... in general, I think it may be justly remarked that if the qualities rehearsed above constitute hysterical neuropathy, then every testy, sensitive, impulsive, and benevolent person is neuropathically hysterical. In particular we may demur to the terms "puerile ideas," "unreasonable vanity regarding external appearances." It would be difficult to ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... By-and-by, one arrives at the house of Never.—Spanish Proverb [Footnote: By-and-by has no real streets, the London journals do not actually thunder, nor were the cheeks of William the Testy literally scorched by his fiery gray eyes. Streets, house, colored, thunder, and scorched are not, then, used here in their first and ordinary meaning, but in a secondary and figurative sense. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... Mr. Le Mesurier, with a testy laugh at the other's warmth. 'We know the length of your enthusiasms, my dear Conway. But I'll grant all you like about Drake. I only say that my daughter isn't ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... rest, M. Botte, which seems to have been a favourite, is a rather conventional extravaganza with a rich, testy, but occasionally generous uncle; a nephew who falls in love with the charming but penniless daughter of an emigre; a noble rustic, who manages to keep some of his exiled landlord's property together, etc. M. de Roberval, though in its original issue ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... summoned to the door by a violent ringing of the bell. Visions of apoplexy—of—in fact, of any thing that might befall a testy gentleman of seventy-three, inclined to make incessant trips to the West Indies—rushed to his mind as he rushed to the door. He ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... would scream and run away if I attempted to touch her hair. So that, frequently, when, after much trouble and toil, I had, at length, succeeded in bringing her down, the breakfast was nearly half over; and black looks from 'mamma,' and testy observations from 'papa,' spoken at me, if not to me, were sure to be my meed: for few things irritated the latter so much as want of punctuality at meal times. Then, among the minor annoyances, was my inability to satisfy Mrs. Bloomfield with ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Mr. Ponsonby, had not been attained. He had been ailing for some time past, and, instead of deriving benefit from the sea-breezes, only missed the comforts of home. He was so testy and exacting that Mary would have seldom liked to leave him to himself, even if she had been disposed to lead the life of a fish; and she was seldom away from him, unless Robson came down from Lima ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opens and Dad comes in stamping and blowing. Dad is late, but men are always late. It is expected that they should come in late and laugh at the women who chide and remind them that candles cost and that it makes the maid testy ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... I reckon. It won't hurt him to tell the truth. He was as testy as a snapping turtle—you know that. Plenty of folks disliked him. Most likely the person who attacked him was a tramp who hoped to find money. By the way, did anybody look to see if there had been robbery as ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... written twenty lines of his poem on God, and the awful thing was that he'd practically proved the fact that God did not exist. He did not see that he was teasing her, and he went on to wonder what would happen if God did exist—"an old gentleman in a beard and a long blue dressing gown, extremely testy and disagreeable as he's bound to be? Can you suggest a rhyme? God, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... that in these turbulent days young Washington, whom Braddock had taken on his staff as a colonel and for whom he had a warm personal regard, was the best mediator between the testy general and the stubborn population. In his difficult position, and while yet scarcely more than a boy, he was showing all the great qualities of character that he was to display so grandly in the long war twenty ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... endeavouring to calm their own spirits, some are attempting to calm the spirits of others. Timid old ladies, who cannot get reconciled to railways at all, are convinced that "something is going to happen," and testy old gentlemen are stumping about in search of wives and daughters, wishing that railways had never been invented, while a good many self-possessed individuals of both sexes are regarding the scene with ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... inquest was opened at ten-o'clock that morning. It seemed to Copplestone that it would have been a physical impossibility to crowd more people within the walls than had assembled when the coroner, a local solicitor, who was obviously testy, irritable, self-important and afflicted with deafness, took his seat and looked sourly on the crowd of faces. Copplestone had already seen him in conversation with the village doctor, the village police, Chatfield, and Marston Greyle's solicitor, and he began to see the force of ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... big furry bundle of silky brown, his quills not yet having pushed their way through his thick hair, Phil thought him very comfortable to nurse, and Mrs. Urson was as pleased with his admiration of her offspring as the Lady Ondatra had been. His father, however, was inclined to be testy. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... was of gentle extraction, he treated him with the generosity of pride in the matter of rations; but he assumed airs of a testy authority which were in exact proportion to his own feeling of physical and social inferiority. Seen truly, there was a pathos in this, for it was a weak man's way of trying to be manful but his new ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... Those numerous women who always know themselves to be right Two people love, there is no such thing as owing between them Waited serenely for the certain disasters to enthrone her What will be thought of me? not a small matter to any of us When testy old gentlemen could commit slaughter with ecstasy Why, he'll snap your head ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... yet when, as a prelude to getting the better of the Dragon, he adulterated his drink (Mr. Lemon played the Dragon) with sherry, the sly relish with which he watched the demoralization, by this means, of his formidable adversary into a helpless imbecility, was perfect. Here Dickens played the testy old Baron, and took advantage of the excitement against the Czar raging in 1855 to denounce him (in a song) as no other than own cousin to the very Bear that Fortunio had gone forth to subdue. He depicted him, in his desolation of autocracy, as the Robinson ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... to her that her father, the darling of her thought, had seemed slow to appreciate her marriage sacrifice, and was testy at her willingness to loosen her heart with her vestal ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... polishing the brasses of the launch; the yard-man was raking up the dry strips of palm from beneath the cocoanut trees; Aunt Varina was ordering new supplies, and entering into conspiracies with the cook. The nurses asked me timidly, what was He like, and even Dr. Gibson, a testy old gentleman who had clashed violently with me on the subject of woman's suffrage, and had avoided me ever since as a suspicious character, now came and confided his troubles. He had sent home for a trunk, and the graceless ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... how tiresome you are, Hannah, everlastingly repeating the same word over and over again! You shall not make us miserable. We intend to be happy, now, Nora and myself. Do we not, dearest?" he added, changing the testy tone in which he had spoken to the elder sister for one of the deepest tenderness as he turned and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... able to command the Fates themselves. My Lord Marlborough could soothe the fretted vanity of a petty German Prince, he could confront with composure the stupid rancour of those who could not comprehend him, in the most wooden of heavy Dutchmen he could awaken a slow understanding, the most testy royal temper he knew how to appease, and, through all, wear an air of dignity and ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sir, as well as you do," was the testy reply, "but I haven't got the time to run to the other side of the water, and I want money in a hurry—in a great hurry, or I should not have come to you," ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was the testy reply. "But I was a fool, and didn't. Carr, I swear to you I fell into the trap unconsciously; I did not foresee danger. Maude is a charming girl, there's no denying it; but as to love, I never glanced ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Leon Gaur, "a mighty strong giant," who first built caves and dungeons here, in which he confined all the poor stragglers he could catch, and fatted them for his table. Others affirm that it was old King Lear, whom you will sometime read about in Shakspeare, as being afflicted with a very testy temper and two wicked daughters, who were quite ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;— As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know;— For, if I should despair, I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee; Now this ill-wresting world is grown ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... before he set off for his club, and his foot was extended upon a stool—for Abernethy had just been in to treat him for an incipient attack of the gout. It may have been the pain, or it may have been his disappointment at my career, but his manner was more testy than was usual with him, and I fear that there was something of a sneer in his smile as he spoke of my deficiencies. For my own part I was relieved at the explanation, for my father had left London in the full conviction that a vacancy ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... observe was that of four children of a person called John Goodwin, a mason. The eldest, a girl, had quarrelled with the laundress of the family about some linen which was amissing. The mother of the laundress, an ignorant, testy, and choleric old Irishwoman, scolded the accuser; and shortly after, the elder Goodwin, her sister and two brothers, were seized with such strange diseases that all their neighbours concluded they ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... the man's shoulder with a testy, balked gesture. "Yes! enjoyin' th' racket an' dhrunk like th' rist, I guess! . . . 'Tis a foine ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... knitting hearth-rugs out of the bits and scraps of cloth that were shred in the tailoring. How far she believed in the wonderful tales she told, and the odd little charms she practised, no one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the stranger were the things she remembered, and the more testy she was if any one doubted their truth. "Bairns are a blessing!" said she. "It ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... says Rosalba. 'You know Blackstick has been very kind to us, and we must not offend her.' But the Fairy was not listening to Giglio's testy observations, she had fallen back, and was trotting on her pony now, by Master Bulbo's side, who rode a donkey, and made himself generally beloved in the army by his cheerfulness, kindness, and good-humour to everybody. He was eager to see his darling Angelica. He thought there never ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it,' cried a testy old gentleman, who was economically travelling by third-class, 'there are only three seats vacant. The rest of the train is nearly empty. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... 'cheerfulness' even then, was the remarkable thing in me—certainly it has been remarked about me again and again. Nobody has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside,—I do abhor so that ignoble groaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy and Sensitude'—yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything. Think if I could mean to complain of 'low spirits' now, and to you. Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... now, that'll do. I was invited here to breakfast, and I'd like to have it," cried the old gentleman, in a testy voice, which the good-natured gleam in his sharp eyes denied. So everybody pranced into the dining-room, and Bea was placed behind the coffee-urn, and couldn't do a thing but blush, and look too happy and overcome to attend ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... roads) as one of those works of charity which rich merchants must do for the salvation of their souls. Thomas Paycocke's choice of roads no doubt reflects many a wearisome journey, from which he returned home splashed and testy, to the ministrations of 'John Reyner my man' or 'Henry Briggs my servant', and of Margaret, looking anxiously from her oriel window for his return. In his own town he leaves no less than forty pounds, of which twenty pounds was to go to amend a section ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... was engaged in this occupation there was a testy rap at the door, and Mrs. Driver appeared. She eyed my manoeuvres with the rejection form with a severe frown. After a preliminary sniff she embarked upon a rapid lecture on what she called my irregular and untidy habits. I had turned her second-floor back, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... to the accused! Apply it to a criminal case. Ha! ha! if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the accused commit the crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind would be biased: no impartiality from him! Or your testy accused might object to another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel squint of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Detestation of aged Avarice. The Petulancy of a peevish old Fellow, who loves and hates he knows not why, is very excellently performed by the Ingenious Mr. William Penkethman in the Fop's Fortune;[5] where, in the Character of Don Cholerick Snap Shorto de Testy, he answers no Questions but to those whom he likes, and wants no account of any thing from those he approves. Mr. Penkethman is also Master of as many Faces in the Dumb-Scene as can be expected from a Man in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of caution, generally, he yet persisted in the practice of enclosing bank-notes in letters. Persons cognizant of this habit had remonstrated with him; not his clerks—of course they had not presumed to do so. Mr. Galloway, who liked his own way, had become somewhat testy upon the point, and, not a week before the present time, had answered in a sort of contradictory spirit that his money-letters had always gone safely hitherto, and he made no doubt they always would go safely. The present loss, therefore, coming as it ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor land jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... slept fitfully, though they arose in testy humor the following morning and took immediate recourse to their ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... exception, however, in a testy old huntsman, as hot as a pepper-corn; a meagre, wiry old fellow, in a threadbare velvet jockey-cap, and a pair of leather breeches, that, from much wear, shone as though they had been japanned. He was very contradictory and pragmatical, ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... she was taking his suggestion about writing to the papers seriously, it jumped with his peculiar sense of humour—which had never developed beyond the stage into which it had blossomed in his subaltern days—to egg her on "to draw" the testy old gentleman by threats of publicity. It was his masculine mind, therefore, that was really responsible for her "unnatural" action in that matter. In bygone days when there was any mischief afoot the principle used to be, chercher la ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... foot-lights; alleging that no performer should mar the illusion by stepping out of the frame. Dowton was the first actor who, like Manfred's ancestor in the Castle of Otranto, took the liberty of abandoning the canon. "Don't tell me of frames and pictures," ejaculated the testy comedian; "if I can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I'll walk out of it!" The proscenium has since been new-modelled, and the actors thereby brought nearer ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... know, he wants to be really comfortable," she proposed, and James transferred his mild abhorrence to her. "Comfortable, without a fellow to put out his things!" He scoffed at her. But she was rather short with him, even testy. "My dear James, Mr. Urquhart's things are things to be put on or taken off—like Lord Considine's 'so-called clothes.' To you they seem to be robes of ceremony, or sacrificial vestments." James stared rather ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... one morning by calling on Prof. Darmstetter. It was three weeks since I had seen him, and he was testy. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... last known letter to his father is supposed to have been written in June 1523.(128) It is a bitter complaint of the testy manner in which his father always treated him, and the continual interruptions of his work. It must have been a great grief to Michael Angelo when the old man came to die if he had not made up this quarrel with him, for he loved ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... of your kill-joy character and your single track mind you testy, old bachelor, you are a very nice cat," said Durtal, in an insinuating, wheedling tone. "Then too, for many years now, I have told you what one tells no man. You are the drain pipe of my soul, you inattentive and indulgent confessor. Never shocked, you ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... on the fertile island of Amager which abuts on the city. Every morning these Amager peasants may be seen driving their laden carts across the bridge which joins their island to the mainland. These genial, stout, but sometimes testy Amager wives have it all their own way in the market-place, and are clever in attracting and befooling a customer. So it has become a saying, if you look sceptical about what you are told, the "story-teller" will say, "Ask Amager mother!" which means, "Believe ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... reading a paper, and peered over his glasses at the new-comers with a pair of sharp eyes, saying in a testy tone, which would have rather daunted any one who did not know what a kind heart he had ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... them with his broad hand, and swept them into his own pocket! At that sinister action Waife felt his heart sink into his shoes; but his face was as calm as a Roman's, only he resumed his pipe with a prolonged and testy whiff. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Adrian?" asked Dirk in a voice at once testy and relieved. "Then why did you not come to the side entrance instead of forcing ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... all this insincerity, and feeling bitter against the person who had provoked it, when an unseen hand opened the door of a room on the Pincio side of the drawing-room, and the testy voice of her aunt called to her ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Coventry; a punishment inflicted by officers of the army on such of their brethren as are testy, or have been guilty of improper behaviour, not worthy the cognizance of a court martial. The person sent to Coventry is considered as absent; no one must speak to or answer any question he asks, except relative to duty, under penalty of being also sent to the same place. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... man, but his claims as a poet. For this, unquestionably, there are some subordinate reasons. Pope's religious creed, his political connexions, his easy circumstances, his popularity with the upper classes, as well as his testy temper and malicious disposition, all tended to rouse against him, while he lived, a personal as well as public hostility, altogether irrespective of the mere merit or demerit of his poetry. "We cannot bear a Papist to be our ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... hitherto had been left wholly to the attention of servants, Lady Wyvern having long been dead, and her two daughters of that type which devotes itself entirely to the pleasures of society and the demands of the world. A regular pepper-box of a man—testy, short-tempered, exacting—Sir Horace had flown headlong to Superintendent Narkom's office as soon as that gentleman's note, telling him of the Vanishing Cracksman's latest threat, had been delivered, and, on Miss Lorne's advice, had withheld all news of it from the members of his household and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... whether grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 700 ADDISON: Spectator. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... thought and knowledge upon which he could draw with perfect ease and assurance. When I was first introduced to him, he appeared to be rather distant in manner than inviting friendly approach. But I was told that ill health had made him unsociable and somewhat morose and testy, and, indeed, there was often the trace of suffering and weariness in his face. It was also remarked in the Senate that at times he was ill-tempered and inclined to indulge in biting sarcasms and to administer ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... be irascible &c adj.; have a temper &c n., have a devil in one; fire up &c (be angry) 900. Adj. irascible; bad-tempered, ill-tempered; irritable, susceptible; excitable &c 825; thin-skinned &c (sensitive) 822; fretful, fidgety; on the fret. hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy^, tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy, pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish, sudden and quick in quarrel [As You Like It]. querulous, captious, moodish^; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bad, so were others bad. There were many worse than he. Such were the excuses she made for her late husband. Old Mr. Wharton, who really thought that in all his experience he had never known any one worse than his son-in-law, would sometimes become testy, and at last resolved that he would altogether hold his tongue. But he could hardly hold ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild, Continuance tames the one, the other wild. Like an unpractis'd swimmer, plunging still With too much labour drowns for want ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... pulled on my boots and joined the others in the lower hall, and the three of us, Mr. Webster, Roger, and I, hurried down the street in time to the old man's testy exclamations, which burst out fervently and often profanely whenever his lame foot struck the ground harder than usual. "Pirates—mutineers—young cubs—laying abed— cockcrow—" and so on, until we were in a boat ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... do, for there's no standing against this frankness; and, to be as frank with you, my lord, I was wrong myself to be so testy—I ask pardon, too. A M'Leod never thought it a disgrace to crave a pardon when he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... wheel would not have his last hours soothed by the finest orchestra. After a week, during which we sent every day to inquire after Mr Whortleback's health, we ventured to resume the piano and harp; upon which the old gentleman became testy, and sent for a man with a trumpet, placing him in the balcony, and desiring him to play as much out of tune as possible whenever the harp and piano sounded a note. Thus were we at open hostility with our only neighbour; and, as we were certain if my daughters touched their instruments, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... plots, and their Conspiracies; this shall t'old Monsieur Miramont, one, that though he cannot read a Proclamation, yet dotes on Learning, and loves my Master Charles for being a Scholar; I hear he's coming hither, I shall meet him; and if he be that old, rough, testy blade he always us'd to be, I'le ring him such a peal, as shall go near to shake their Belroom, peradventure beat'm, for he is fire and flax; and so have at ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... made, and the will hung up opposite to her bed, unknown to any one but Leonard; and, by dint of his repeated reading it over to her, she learnt all the words, except "testatrix," which she would always call "testy tricks." Mr Benson had been too much gratified and touched, by her unconditional gift of all she had in the world, to reject it; but he only held it in his hands as a deposit until he could find a safe investment befitting so small a sum. The little rearrangements of the ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance, which will not seem strange when I acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three several times. The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of a testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done: besides, it was observed of him, that he grew more surly every time he came out of the lion, and having dropped some words in ordinary conversation, as if he had not ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... We of the world and its prizes and duties must do her an injury to make her tongue musical to us, and her argument worthy of attention. So it seems. How to keep the proper balance between those two testy old wranglers, that rarely pull the right way together, is as much the task for men in the grip of the world, as for the wanton youthful fry under dominion of their instincts; and probably, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... correspondent," I explained to the row of angry faces; and while my German friend soothed and reassured his testy compatriots, I moved away, glad enough to escape another visit to jail. Those personally conducted jail tours were not so bad, I had found, with a handsome gendarme at your side; but a howling ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... capital; there is acrimony in his face, and combativeness in his fists—both clenching confidently his own argument, and ready for action; the very drawing back of one leg, and protrusion of the other, is indicative of testy impatience. The vicar is a little too loose and slovenly, both in attitude and attire; the uniting of the figures (artistically speaking) is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... to ask for them? Can't you bring them as I have told you? It makes me so late with my work." And, having delivered himself of these testy remarks, he threw himself into an arm-chair and proceeded to devour ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... divine that during my absence his flesh had been growing more and more laggard to the enterprise, his spirit testy and unreconciled. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... me," he said, apologetically. "What our fine young friend here told me was like some one stepping on my gouty foot. I've been maybe a little too zealous—too exacting. Then I'm old and testy ... What does it matter? How could it have been prevented? Alas! it's black like that hideous Benton ... But we're coming out into the light. Lodge, didn't you tell me this Number Ten ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... characteristic of the contemporary rhetoric. A single illustration of a fault sufficiently notorious will be sufficient. When Nestor, in the eleventh book, rouses Diomed at night, Pope naturally smoothes down the testy remark of the sleepy warrior; but he tries to improve Nestor's directions. Nestor tells Diomed, in most direct terms, that the need is great, and that he must go at once and rouse Ajax. In ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... your tongue, my feirie auld wife, [hold] O, haud your tongue now, Nansie, O: I've seen the day, and sae hae ye, Ye wad na been sae donsie, O; [would not have, testy] I've seen the day ye butter'd my brose, [oatmeal and hot water] And cuddl'd me late and earlie, O; But downa-do's come o'er me now, [cannot-do is] And, oh, I find it sairly, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... in order to vanquish this aversion, stepped to the door of the next room, and begged the favour of speaking with Emilia, to whom he introduced the testy old bachelor as one of his particular friends, who desired to have the honour of giving her away. The bewitching smile with which she received his salute, and granted his request, at once overcame the disapprobation of the misanthrope, who, with a relaxation in his countenance, which had never ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Anthony), a testy but warm-hearted old gentleman, who imagines that he possesses a most angelic temper, and when he quarrels with his son, the captain, fancies it is the son who is out of temper, and not himself. Smollett's "Matthew Bramble" evidently suggested this character. William ...
— 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.
... sound than a most unearthly snore, he unceremoniously entered the room, and laying his brawny hands upon the prostrate form of the sleeper, shook him violently and long. This attack was replied to by a testy observation that he "knew all about it, and there was not the least occasion to shake him so." "Boots" thereupon left the room, somewhat doubtingly, and only to return in a few minutes afterwards and find the Rev. Mr. — as sound asleep as ever. This time ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... William, pray ye, be not angry; you must bear with old folks, they be old and testy, hot and hasty. Set not your wit against mine, William; for I thought you ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... aspire to the honour and glory of carrying a box—not forgetting those who carry it in the waistcoat-pocket, and funnel it up the nose with a goose-quill. How beautifully simple and unanswerable is the oft-told tale, of the reply of a testy old gentleman who hated snuff as much as a certain elderly person is said to hate holy-water—when offered a pinch by an "extensive" young man with an elaborate gold-box. "Sir," said the indignant patriarch, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... wishes, broken legs, overturned carriages, spavined horses, sprained oxen, unsavory poultry, damaged butter, and bad markets. And if, as a matter of necessity, to "keep the cold out of his stomach," occasionally a wayfarer stopped his team and ventured to call for "somethin' warmin'," the testy publican stirred up the beverage in such a spiteful way, that, on receiving it foaming from his hand, the poor customer was half afraid to open his mouth, lest the red-hot flip iron should be plunged ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was seated on the porch of his house in Gentryville, Indiana, one spring afternoon when a small boy called to see him. The Squire was a testy old man, not very fond of boys, and he glanced up over his book, impatient and ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... evenings, Dobbins is to be seen, two or three times in the week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slackened rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to turn upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Roger," was the testy reply; "I am not in the habit of annoying my neighbours. Well now, look here, what I want to know is, what is the meaning of this absurd journey ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lads of the studio enjoyed, I promise you Mr. Clive's wrath against Chivers was speedily turned into compassion and kindness, and he sought, and no doubt found, means of feeding Chivers without offending his testy independence. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the sort." Simpson's answer was very testy. "What call have you to interfere with the Magdalens?" His anger rose from a cause perhaps more explicable to an onlooker ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... take my words deep. For instance, not long ago I missed some stock, an', happenin' into Greaves's place one Saturday night, I shore talked loud. His barroom was full of men an' some of them were in my black book. Greaves took my talk a little testy. He said. 'Wal, Gass, mebbe you're right aboot some of these cattle thieves livin' among us, but ain't they jest as liable to be some of your friends or relatives as Ted Meeker's or mine or any one around heah?' That was where Greaves an' me fell out. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... get angry. He found a stone and he banged the door. He threatened Aunt Judy with the law. He told her she had no right to go to bed and keep the company out of their station, when the creek was up; but, from her testy answers, his threats seemed to have made but little impression upon her. She didn't care if they stopped her pay, or fined her, or sent her to prison. She never heard of "sich bisness, a-wakin' ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... Captain General, and confronted the pride of the Duke of Buckinghamshire with pride still more inflexible, could be the same being who had passed nights of sleepless anxiety, in musing over a cross look or a testy word of a patron. "Faith," he wrote to Stella, with bitter levity, "Sir William spoiled a fine gentleman." Yet, in justice to Temple, we must say that there is no reason to think that Swift was more unhappy at Moor Park than he would have been in a similar ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bravest of the brave on the battle-field, he was neither a sagacious administrator nor a successful commander. And he honestly confessed his deficiencies, and disliked the post to which he had been elevated. He scorned baseness, intrigue, and petty quarrels, and he was impatient of control. Testy, choleric, and quarrelsome, with a high sense of honour, and a keen perception of insult, very modest and very proud, he was not likely to feed with wholesome appetite upon the unsavoury annoyances which were the daily bread of a chief commander in the Netherlands. "I ambitiously affect ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... called to invite Zenas to these meetings. At times the young man seemed strangely subdued and docile, and Neville rejoiced over what he considered the yielding of his will to the hallowed influences of the good Spirit of God. At other times he seemed wilful and wayward, or even petulant and testy, giving evidence of the resistance of his human will to the Divine drawings of which he was the subject. At such times the faith of Neville was sorely tried; but his patience and forbearance were never exhausted, and the sisterly affection and tenderness of Katharine ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... better for a touch of it. I had no intention of insulting the worthy man, I give my word. I must have my joke, sir. No harm meant." And he nodded at John Paul, who looked as if he would sink through the floor. "Robert Carvel is as testy as the devil with the gout, and you are not unlike him ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Martin, in a testy tone, "whether she's deaf or whether she's blind, it ain't no way a fit post for you, Miss Primrose. You've got to stay here now, and take care of that precious little lamb, and you had better send for Miss Jasmine ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... from behind the man's sturdy legs, awaiting hostilities. The latter, an imperturbable Dutchman, eyed the intruder askance, smoking as impassively in his face as one of his ancestors before William the Testy. From his point of vantage on the threshold the care-taker looked down upon the master so indifferently, while the dog glared so viciously that the land baron ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his judgment upon matters that are really important as between man and man, and man and God, than I would trust the town lawyer. And if he has grown a little testy with some of the innovations of modern life, and thinks they did everything better forty years ago—and says so—he speaks, at ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... and be not so testy, and for your satisfaction I can solemnly promise, that if the oysters are stewed, you shall have good and sufficient notice of the moment they are to be on table—But, bless my heart, how the fire rages!—I ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... was no stranger to Cargrim's ambition, as it was not the first time that the chaplain had hinted that he would make a good rector of Heathcroft, therefore he did not feel surprised at being approached so crudely on the subject. With a testy gesture he pushed back his chair and looked rather frowningly on the presumptuous parson. But Cargrim was too sure of his ability to deal with the bishop to be daunted by looks, and with his sleek head on one side and a suave smile on his pale lips, he waited for ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... seen Eva's window open, and longs to make himself heard, steps up to the shoemaker's window. In answer to his testy questions why he is at his bench at such an hour, Hans Sachs good-humouredly replies that he must work late to finish the shoes about which he has been twitted in public. At his wit's end to silence the shoemaker and sing his serenade, Beckmesser artfully pretends that he would ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... regard to David's change of position, the landlord of the Parlour was in a very testy ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Justice Brisac, and uncle of the two brothers, Charles (the scholar) and Eustace (the courtier). Miramont is an ignorant, testy old man, but a great admirer of learning and scholars.—Beaumont and Fletcher, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... members of a sentence thrown out, ending in a cough; at length his voice forced its way into a slow, but absolute tone of a man who feels the weight of his purse, if not of his ideas, every portion of his speech being marked by a testy puff of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... cheered the battle to the last; but when I heard this fatal command, which, if obeyed, might bury assailant and defender in common ruin, I ordered the remnant to throw down their arms, while I struck the flag and warned the rash and testy Englishman to beware. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... white linen cap and India silk morning-gown. He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor land jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com
|
|
|
