"Churlish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what Truth is, but it is impossible to utter it. The face of your listener, his eyes mirthful or sorry, his eager expectance or his churlish disdain insensibly distort your message. You find yourself saying what you know he expects you to say, or (more often) what he expects you not to say. You may not be aware of this, but that is what happens. In order that the world may go on and human beings thrive, nature ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... Forcing diuorce betwixt my loue and me; For in the late conflict with Portingale My valour drew me into dangers mouth Till life to death made passage through my wounds. When I was slaine, my soule descended straight To passe the flowing streame of Archeron; But churlish Charon, only boatman there, Said that, my rites of buriall not performde, I might not sit amongst his passengers. Ere Sol had slept three nights in Thetis lap, And slakte his smoaking charriot in her floud, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... deacon making an official visit to a dying neighbor, who was a very churlish and universally unpopular man, put the usual question—"Are you ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... appointed troop," Archie said looking at the men, who were drawn up in order, "and not to be despised. Their leader looks an honest fellow; and if the lady means honestly it were churlish indeed, to refuse her aid when she ventures to break with her family and to declare for Scotland. No; methinks that, with your permission, I will run the risk, such as it may be, and will join this band with my own. ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... of churlish disposition, And little recks to find the way to heaven, By doing deeds of hospitality. 332 SHAKS.: As You Like It, Act ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... batter hit it safely. Nevertheless, with the contest ended and the fellows trooping toward the gymnasium, he noticed that no one had any word of praise for him, while several expressed their surprise over the showing Hooker had made. Even Grant, whose friendly advance had been met with churlish spleen, commended Hooker. Phil felt as if the very ground was slipping from beneath his feet, and it made him sore and sick at heart. He paid little attention to the talk of the fellows while dressing, until of a sudden the words of Nelson ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... churlish to refuse them, and Edmund had no thought of doing so, for he needed money, and these things in those days were equivalent ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... I think I can direct you how to keep clear of any breach of your oath, and yet fully to relieve our distressed fellow-pilgrims.—I see some suspicious looks are cast towards me, which are caused perhaps by the churlish manner in which this violent, and, in this case, almost insane young warrior, has protested against receiving my assistance. My great offence is the having given him warning, by precept and example, of the treachery ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to interest me; and conscious that my somewhat frigid attitude was churlish, if she was really what she professed to be—namely, a friend of Lady Coverly's—I endeavored in turn to display an intelligent interest in the history of the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... portion of his existence that were not harsh and wild and stern. His father, honest even to the verge of fanaticism, was letting his heart corrode to bitterness under the sense of hopeless indebtedness. The churlish fields attached to the place offered but a grudging reward for the hardest labor. There was no hope of his acquiring a profession or even an education beyond the scant opportunity of Allen Wight's school, unless he himself could earn the means to pay for it. Still he was neither ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... told nothing of the benevolent conspiracy, but one evening shortly later he found himself sitting at a cafe table with his sponsor and a stout man, almost as silent as himself. The stout man responded with something like churlish taciturnity to the half-dozen men and women who came over with flatteries. But later, when the trio was left alone, his face brightened, and he turned to the boy ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... live," responded the churlish voice. "I have a wife and children to feed and clothe, and no man would employ me. If I have turned traitor, it is because I have been driven ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Falckner in New York.—In 1669, five years after the fall of New Amsterdam, Magister Jacobus Fabricius was sent over by the Lutheran Consistory of Amsterdam to minister to the Lutherans in New York and Albany. Being of a churlish and quarrelsome nature, he soon fell out with the authorities of Albany and was banished from the town. The New York congregation was torn by factions, many demanding the resignation of Fabricius ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... that his views of life alter with tantalizing but pleasant suddenness. Just now I am speaking only of content and exhilaration; but I may soon see another side of the picture. The afternoon glides by like the morning; no churlish houses and chimney-pots hide the sun, and we see him describe his magnificent curve, while, with mysterious potency, he influences the wind. Dull! Why, on shore we should gaze out on the same streets or fields or trees; but here our residence is driven along like a flying cloud, and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... institution itself. You are to inquire also into your own heart and conduct, and keep careful watch over yourself, that you go not astray. If you harbor ill-will and jealousy, if you are hospitable to intolerance and bigotry, and churlish to gentleness and kind affections, opening wide your heart to one and closing its portals to the other, it is time for you to set in order your own temple, or else you wear in vain the name and insignia of a Mason, while yet uninvested ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... heights, their mother lately slain, Six surly wolf cubs by their owner ta'en; Her own pups drown'd, a foster bitch supplies, And licks the churlish ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... and gowns and, thus disguised, dance and sing, and beg money to make merry with. They are allowed, and are not slow to take, a large amount of license in consideration of the season. It is considered to be out of character with the time, and a mark of an ill-natured churlish disposition, to take offence at anything they do or say. This mumming is kept ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... of me," he repeated absently. "But I have got into churlish, bachelor habits—that can hardly be helped, living alone, or on board ship, as I do—and I have pretty well forgotten how to provide adequately for the entertainment ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... I said, "I should like an understanding. Remember how little all this can mean to me,—a trader,—and do not think me churlish if I try to keep myself free from this intrigue. I will go to the prisoner now, if you wish; but, that done, I beg you to hold me excused of any further ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... woman-like, to their security; for they were always expected to be solemnly, not improperly, intoxicated by the end of supper; no wise fuddled, but muddled; for the graceful superstition of the day suspected severe sobriety at solemnities as churlish and ungracious. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... The pony phaeton flies around briskly, and invitations are accepted on nearly every hand. Floyd Grandon would much prefer to decline, but he cannot, without seeming churlish, and Violet takes it as a matter ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the road open to an argument. He was in ecstasy; a long argument—an argument full of churlish flings and boorish slurs, which he fondly believed passed for polished satire and keen irony. He did not know Rocjean; he never could know a man like him; he never could learn the truth that confidence will overpower strength; only at last, when through his hide and bristles entered the flashing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... D'Effernay, in a churlish tone, and he pressed his lips together tightly, as Emily came into the room: he went ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... at the ball, if you had been dressed out in that damned coat, which would have made you look just like the village bridegroom to whom we sold it? and yet how you stormed at London when you thought it lost; what fine stories you told the king about the quicksand; and how churlish you looked, when you first began to suppose that this country booby ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... to priestesses? I would swear that that is a pretence, and that this churlish Hittite, instead of going to a feast with women, is going to ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... very heart will break, Quoth she, to hear this churlish bird thus speak Of Love, and of his holy services; Now, God of Love! thou help me in some wise, That vengeance on this Cuckoo I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... the facts did not come to light till after his death. He kept an exact account of his salary, of his share of the profits accruing from the trade in salt, and of those presents which, according to the fashion of the East, it would be churlish to refuse. Out of the sum arising from these resources, he defrayed the expenses of his situation. The surplus he divided among a few attached friends who had accompanied him to India. He always boasted, and as far as we can judge, he boasted with truth, that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rather not," he bluntly persisted, hating himself for the churlish response, and all the time wanting to go—certain to have gone if he had given himself time to think. Soldiers and sailors, with their habit of unquestioning obedience to authority, are almost always "good" churchmen, and, as she had pointed out, this offer of Christian ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... the large and hospitable cradle of the Free Press, where the peer and the commoner, the priest and the alderman, the friar and the swaddler,[2] can stretch themselves at full length, provided they be not too churlish, let us laugh at those who breed useless quarrels, and set to the world the bright example of toleration and benevolence. A peaceable life and happy death to all Adam's children! May the ministers of religion of every denomination, whether they pray at the head of their ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... churlish speech, and feared it had given her offence. But here I was wrong, for presently ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... Emerson himself than whimsical eccentricity or churlish austerity. But there was occasionally an air of bravado in some of his followers as if they had taken out a patent for some knowing machine which was to give them a monopoly of its products. They claimed more for each other than was reasonable,—so much occasionally that their pretensions ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Unpaid, must constant lectures read; On earth it often doth befall, They're paid, and never read at all. Parsons must practise what they teach, And bishops are compell'd to preach. She who on earth was nice and prim, Of delicacy full, and whim; 450 Whose tender nature could not bear The rudeness of the churlish air, Is doom'd, to mortify her pride, The change of weather to abide, And sells, whilst tears with liquor mix, Burnt brandy on the shore of Styx. Avaro[212], by long use grown bold In every ill which brings him gold, Who his Reedemer would pull down, And sell ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... kings, they recognized the desolated cities, the wasted fields, and the rivers polluted with blood, of this geometrical measurement, as the honorable member of Europe called England? In that condition, what should we think of Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever power afforded us a churlish and treacherous hospitality, if they should invite us to join the standard of our king, our laws, and our religion,—if they should give us a direct promise of protection,—if, after all this, taking ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... student's joy and expectation, and the most accepted guest, to whom they lend a willing hand to discharge him of his burden. His first greeting is commonly, Your friends are well; [and to prove it[30]] in a piece of gold delivers their blessing. You would think him a churlish blunt fellow, but they find in him many tokens of humanity. He is a great afflicter of the high-ways, and beats them out of measure; which injury is sometimes revenged by the purse-taker, and then the voyage miscarries. No man domineers more in his inn, nor ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... and Kermit had urged, as strongly as possible, that the name be kept as Rio da Duvida. We felt that the "River of Doubt" was an unusually good name; and it is always well to keep a name of this character. But my kind friends insisted otherwise, and it would have been churlish of me to object longer. I was much touched by their action, and by the ceremony itself. At the conclusion of the reading Colonel Rondon led in cheers for the United States and then for me and for Kermit; and the camaradas cheered with a will. I proposed three cheers for Brazil and then ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... grouch get richer quicker than the friendly sort of man? Can the grumbler labor better than the cheerful fellow can? Is the mean and churlish neighbor any cleverer than the one Who shouts a glad "good morning," and ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... for her too harsh and churlish grew, And Abel (the dam dead) would use this new For the field; being of two kinds thus made, He, as his dam, from sheep drove wolves away, And, as his sire, he made them his own prey. Five years he lived, and cozened with his trade, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... hospitality, and, though there were occasionally sharp differences of opinion, we got on very well together. When the king treated our leader so affectionately, calling him "Father," and placing his arm round his neck, the members of the royal household could not afford to be churlish. ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... Goddess reminds him that the second person in the indictment is now everywhere called 'The elderly shepherd';—but immediately after the bridal bells this husband became sour and insupportable, and either she had the trick of putting him publicly in the wrong, or he lost all shame in playing the churlish domestic tyrant. The instances are incredible of a gentleman. Perry Wilkinson gives us two or three; one on the authority of a personal friend who witnessed the scene; at the Warwick whist-table, where the fair Diana would let loose her silvery laugh in the intervals. She was hardly out of her teens, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be looked in the face; it blinded the eyes that strove to search it; it seemed to flap and beat them with harsh, churlish wings; it was as full of insult as the billows. Its cry was not multitudinous like that of the sea, but one and incessant and invariable, a long scream that almost hissed. On reaching the wreck, however, this shriek became hoarse with ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... and her stores were ever ready to supply the wants of the homeless, the poor, the suffering; her wealth was freely spent for food for the starving while supplies could yet be bought either near or in distant baronies; and when known supplies failed her lavish offers tempted the churlish farmers, who still hoarded grain that they might enrich themselves in the great dearth, to sell some of their garnered stores. When she could no longer induce them to part with their grain, her own winter provisions, wine ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... watch even the track of our own vessel. But on the mountain-top, how eagerly we trace out the "road that brings places together," as Schiller says. It is the first thing we look for; till we have found it, each scattered village has an isolated and churlish look, but the glimpse of a furlong of road puts them all in friendly relations. The narrower the path, the more ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... have bent the churlish brow, And curl'd the lip of scorn; For they at home had brats enow, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... hospitality characteristic of the frontier, with much more than the average frontier refinement; a hospitality, moreover, which was never marred or interfered with by the frontier suspiciousness of strangers which sometimes made the humbler people of the border seem churlish to travellers. When Federal garrisons were established along the Ohio the officers were largely dependent for their social pleasures on the gentle-folks of the several rather curious glimpses of the life of the time. [Footnote: ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... was sorry, when the day came. The others of the staff were already out in the docking lock in the rim, waiting to greet the replacements from the ferry. Kieran, hating to leave, lagged behind. Then, realizing it would be churlish not to meet this young Frenchman who was replacing him, he hurried along the corridor in the big spoke when he saw the ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... I am not, but sore need will there be that I should have it, nor never did knight refuse to do the thing I asked nor deny me any boon I demanded of him. Now God grant you be not the most churlish." ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... from them, turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread; No product here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the soldier and his sword. No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May; No Zephyr fondly soothes the mountain's breast, But meteors glare, and stormy ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... cuff him was cooled by a sudden frost. He said as carelessly as possible: "You are a churlish fool; but it is likely you have seen Robert Sans-Peur in Nidaros. He was there shortly before ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the other people must; for His Majesty has been graciously pleased to turn me into a Baronet. He says that I have earned it; and perhaps I have; at any rate, he put it so nicely that without being churlish I could not refuse. And it will be a good thing for Frank, I hope, by bringing him back from his democratic stuff. To myself it is useless; but my children ought ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Why, churlish critic, do you hope sincerely The rumour, which you mention, is untrue? Mere prejudice makes you regard severely The cause of liberty which we pursue. We are, The Prattler will establish clearly, Quite competent to edit a review; The age of greatest wisdom will be seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... formidable Templar. It was, indeed, a splendid moment! What matter that no Templar was allowed by the rules of his Order to take part in so secular and frivolous an affair as a tournament? It is the privilege of great masters to make things so, and it is a churlish thing to gainsay it. Was it not Wendell Holmes who described the prosaic man, who enters a drawing-room with a couple of facts, like ill-conditioned bull-dogs at his heels, ready to let them loose on any play of ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they took us for visitors from the spirit world. As a rule the Tchuktchi costume is becoming, but these people wore shapeless rags, matted with dirt, and their appearance suggested years of inactivity and bodily neglect. I noticed, however with satisfaction that their churlish greeting was not unmingled with fear, although they obstinately refused the food and shelter begged for by means of signs, pointing, at the same time, to a black banner flapping mournfully over the nearest hut. This I knew (from my experiences at Oumwaidjik in 1896) to ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... plough, When ev'ning came, and her sweet cooling hour, Should seek to wander in a neighbour copse, Where greener herbage wav'd, or clearer streams Invited him to slake his burning thirst? The man were crabbed who should say him nay; The man were churlish who should ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... a place of resort for Jan in some of his leisure time. At first the painter and decorator had been churlish enough to him, but, finding that Jan was skilful with a brush, he employed him again and again to do his work, for which he received instead of giving thanks. Jan went there less after he got a paint-box, and could produce effects with good materials of his own, instead of ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Vernon has really been so kind as to offer to lend you a horse, it would be ungrateful and churlish to refuse, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... of conjecture to the region of fact we owe entirely to the enthusiasm and unwearied zeal of Major Davis, and no fair mind can deny him the credit of being the practical discoverer of the great Roman Bath. More credit than this he has never claimed; less than this only the churlish and envious ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis
... may be," replied one of the officers. "How they will prove when they come into action with the enemy, I can not tell; but a more perverse and churlish set of fellows in camp, than these I have got in my regiment, I never knew. The other day, for example, when there had been a sacrifice, the meat of the victims was sent around to be distributed to the soldiers. In our regiment, when ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... name of this Society, and in the name of my fellow-countrymen generally, I here solemnly protest against the perpetration of any more acts of useless and churlish Vandalism, in the needless destruction and removal of our Scottish antiquarian remains. The hearts of all leal Scotsmen, overflowing as they do with a love of their native land, must ever deplore ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... coffee, a tin dish of hot saleratus biscuit, and a plate of fried beef. There was something odd and depressing in this silent exclusion of my presence. Had Johnson's "old woman" from some dark post of observation taken a dislike to my appearance, or was this churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or was Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban of Johnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bedridden crone? ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... all the people at our table, but I forgot one—a very aged man with a long white beard, rather like the evil magician in the fairy tales, but most harmless. "Old Sir Thomas Erpingham," I call him, for I am sure a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than the churlish turf of India. He is very kind, and calls us Sunshine and Brightness, and pays us the most involved Early Victorian compliments, which we, talking and laughing all the time, seldom ever hear, and it is left to ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... shaped himself like to the horse that the fellow followed, and so stood before the fellow: presently the fellow took hold of him and got on his back, but long had he not rid, but with a stumble he hurled this churlish clown to the ground, that he almost broke his neck; yet took he not this for a sufficient revenge for the cross-answers he had received, but stood still and let the fellow mount him ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... since you ask me, sir, I should be merciful because of your misfortunes. And yet, Sir Crispin, your profligacy and the evil you have wrought in life must weigh heavily against you." Had this immaculate bigot, this churlish milksop been as candid with himself as he was with Crispin, he must have recognized that it was mainly Crispin's offences towards himself that his mind now dwelt on indeeper rancour than became one so well acquainted with the ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... years, and he places that emolument at a lower figure than Burke did. He could not have received more than between two and three thousand pounds of public money; and when we consider what manner of men have fattened on the national purse, it would be churlish to grudge that small sum to the historian of the Decline and Fall. The misfortune is that, reasonably or otherwise, doubts were raised as to Gibbon's complete straightforwardness and honourable adhesion to party ties in accepting office. He says himself: "My acceptance ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... "Yet that thy churlish soul may plead A favor to a dying foe, I'll ask thee, Stuyvesant, ere I bleed, Let me once more on my gray steed Thrice round the timbered enceinte go: Fire, when I ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... yon star is he, Thou fickle as an April sky, More churlish too than Adria's sea, With thee I'd ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... for Sundays, being also served out to them. Bill was regarded as a big-brained benefactor of the human race; joy reigned in the foc'sle, and at night the hatch was taken off and the prisoner regaled with a portion which had been saved for him. He ate it ungratefully, and put churlish and inconvenient questions as to what was to happen at the ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... remained in the gorgeous tent, The virtuous virgin and the vicious deceiver, Dreadful and direful; they dared not, however, Awaken the warrior, not one of the earls, Nor be first to find how had fared through the night 260 The most churlish of chieftains and the chastest of maidens, The pride of the Lord. Now approached in their strength The folk of the Hebrews. They fought remorselessly With hard-hammered weapons, with their hilts requited Their strife of long standing, with stained ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... compulsion, as [6278]Nevisanus observes, because their husbands are so hard, and keep them so short in diet and apparel, paupertas cogit eas meretricari, poverty and hunger, want of means, makes them dishonest, or bad usage; their churlish behaviour forceth them to fly out, or bad examples, they do it to cry quittance. In the other extreme some are too liberal, as the proverb is, Turdus malum sibi cacat, they make a rod for their own tails, as Candaules did to Gyges in [6279]Herodotus, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... he asks me a favor," writes Cicero to Atticus, "there is always something arrogant and churlish: still he ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... slave route, we found the people more churlish than usual. On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We have been made wary by those who come to buy slaves." The calamity of death having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their sympathies. They pointed out their usual burying-place, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... Salamis Estates, there is a pond. We fear we cannot describe this pond to you in a way to carry conviction. You will think we exaggerate if we tell you, with honest warmth, how fair the prospect is. Therefore, in sketching the scene, we will be austere, churlish, a miser of adjectives. We will tell you naught of sun-sparkle by day where the green and gold of April linger in that small hollow landskip, where the light shines red through the faint bronze veins of young leaves—much as it shines red through the finger joinings of a child's hand held toward ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before,—the very sight of it stirr'd up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought 'twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more charity for the man who could ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... peevish like spoiled children. Whatever they set their eyes on, or make up their minds to, they must have that instant. They may pay for it hereafter. But that is no matter. They snatch a joy beyond the reach of fate, and consider the present time sacred, inviolable, unaccountable to that hard, churlish, niggard, inexorable taskmaster, the future. Now or never is their motto. They are madly devoted to the plaything, the ruling passion of the moment. What is to happen to them a week hence is as if it were to happen to them a thousand years ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... hospital for part of a day. But whatever alleviations he might thus have occasionally enjoyed, he was for seven long years a prisoner in the asylum, tantalised by continual expectations held out to him of approaching release. One person only—the nephew of his churlish jailer—acted the part of the Good Samaritan towards him, cheered his solitude, wrote for him, and transmitted the letters of complaint or entreaty which he addressed to his friends, and which would otherwise have been suppressed or forwarded to his relentless enemy. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... to go forwards, but he was ashamed to seem churlish to so hospitable a man; and he was curious to see that wondrous bed; and, besides, he was hungry and weary; yet he shrank from the man, he knew not why; for though his voice was gentle and fawning, it was dry and husky like a toad's; and though ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... answered me very shortly that he did not know his grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to do with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter. He seemed to think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine," and she laughed as she spoke, "and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon. I suppose that it was natural he should think so. And I am so glad that I wrote. For he told me that although ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... that woorthie man the ambassador to shew you. [Sidenote: The cause of staying the present.] At the departure of Sinan Bassa the chiefe Vizir, and our ambassadors great friend toward the warres of Hungarie there was another Bassa appointed in his place, a churlish and harsh natured man, who vpon occasion of certaine Genouezes, escaping out of the castles standing toward the Euxine Sea, nowe called the black Sea, there imprisoned, apprehended and threatened to execute one of our Englishmen called Iohn ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... perceiving your delusion, I gave warning, and protested, and opposed the abandonment of Thermopylae and the Phocians—that I, being a water-drinker, [Footnote: It was Philocrates who said this. There were many jokes against Demosthenes as a water-drinker.] was naturally a churlish and morose fellow, that Philip, if he passed the straits, would do just as you desired, fortify Thespiae and Plataea, humble the Thebans, cut through the Chersonese [Footnote: This peninsula being exposed to incursions from Thrace, a plan was conceived of cutting through the isthmus ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... now because the low and ignorant do it. If there was ever an instance of consummate folly, of churlish ingratitude, it is our general attitude toward work and the workers. Here are three millions of laboring benefactors; feeding us; clothing us; building our houses; spinning and weaving and sewing for us;—hewing wood and drawing ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... declared their approval of its being sent to the king, and courteously acknowledged the action of the citizens in first submitting it to the judgment of their lordships.(735) It was otherwise with the Commons, who again returned a churlish reply. The deputation was given to understand that the House had been put to some inconvenience in giving them an audience, being busily engaged at the time in pressing business. The petition, however, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... pine torch, Bianca. The old staircase Is full of pitfalls, and the churlish moon Grows, like a miser, niggard of her beams, And hides her face behind a muslin mask As harlots do when they go forth to snare Some wretched soul in sin. Now, I will get Your cloak and sword. Nay, pardon, my good Lord, It is but meet that ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... I am churlish, and in conditions[58] different from many: yet one thing I ashame not to affirm, that familiarity once thoroughly contracted was never yet broken on my default. The cause may be that I have rather need of all, than that any have need ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... man, and by contributing to his wants. They have become a part of the family; and their individual characters are as well understood and appreciated as those of the human members. One tree is harsh and crabbed, another mild; one is churlish and illiberal, another exhausts itself with its free-hearted bounties. Even the shapes of apple-trees have great individuality, into such strange postures do they put themselves, and thrust their contorted branches so grotesquely in all directions. And when they have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... the Salisbury, less churlish than Matthews, at once put two pinnaces and seventy-six men at the Council's disposal. A small expedition of eleven gallivats under Stanton was also fitted out, and a battery erected by the Portuguese at ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... own case, have allowed for no wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... within it, as in an embryo state, the rudiments of all true virtue; which, striking deep its roots, though feeble perhaps and lowly in its beginnings, silently progressive; and almost insensibly maturing, yet will shortly, even in the bleak and churlish temperature of this world, lift up its head and spread abroad its branches, bearing abundant fruits; precious fruits of refreshment and consolation, of which the boasted products of philosophy are but sickly imitations, void of fragrance and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... up here. I dismissed all the servants save the two you have seen, and have for years refused to mix with my fellows. I grew churlish and bitter. I talked strangely, until stories were circulated about me, wild and foolish, of course, but still making me become more a misanthrope than ever. Why I gave you admittance yesterday I do not know, but acting on sudden impulse I did so, and then was led to allow ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... intrude into. But, all the more because of that, a spell of love and fear and reverence lay on Mercy's heart and mind all her after-days from that so solemn and so eventful morning when she first saw Christiana's haggard countenance and heard her remorseful cries. My so churlish carriages to him! Now, such carriages between man and wife had often pained and made ashamed Mercy's maidenly heart beyond all expression. Till she had sometimes said to herself, blushing with shame before herself as she ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... number of banana-trees I have often seen a score or two of young people making a merry foray on the great golden clusters, and bearing them off, one after another, to different parts of the vale, shouting and trampling as they went. No churlish old curmudgeon could have been the owner of that grove of bread-fruit trees, or of these gloriously ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... sent to torment her; and, driven from land to land, under an evil spell, beset with dangers, she had found no resting-place but the island of Delos, held sacred ever after to her and her children. Once she had even been refused water by some churlish peasants, who could not believe in a goddess if she appeared in humble guise and travel-worn. But these men were ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... records itself in memory as a dismal dream out of which there were awakenings only for train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... head of the table, and Archie noticed the circumstance, though it did not seem a proper time to make any remark about it. For Sophy was not able to eat, and did not rise from her couch; and Madame seemed to fall so properly into her character of hostess, that it would have been churlish to have made the slightest dissent. Yet it was a false kindness to both; for in the morning Madame took the same position, and Archie felt less able than on the previous night to make any opposition, though he had told himself continually on his ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... master, that twelve people have died from the heat?" said a churlish old woman in ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... priests—Spanish or native—were very hospitable to travellers, and treated them with great kindness. Amongst them there were some few misanthropes and churlish characters who did not care to be troubled by anything outside the region of their vocation, but on the whole I ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... a churlish miser and little to be trusted, and it seems Abigail, who "was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance," had heard nothing of this little affair, but she was equal to the emergency and she at once prepared many presents of wine, and figs, and raisins ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... a string of beauties such as it rarely falls to the lot of the critic to commemorate. Had age and personal hardihood been added, it would have defied the cavils of the most churlish criticism, and deprived even enmity of all ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... is somewhere about, I suppose," was the answer, and it was given in such a surly tone with such a churlish manner that Viola flushed with anger and bit her lips to keep ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... believed the question to be superfluous, for there was only one "gentleman" who could possibly come. Captain Fanshawe had found out her address, and it was Christmas-time, when a visitor was justified in counting on a hospitable reception. At Christmas-time it would be churlish for a hostess to deny a welcome. Every pulse in Claire's body was throbbing with anticipation as she ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... conveyed, then, through the medium of characterization, with the help of little human touches. The girl must be shown as sweet, clean, without a wrong thought; the man must be clearly depicted, his reason for being so seemingly churlish and careless of the duties imposed upon him by his ownership of many tenements must be handled in such a way that he will not be ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... for wickedness is a sin against himself and his God. If this be so, the social element in drinking makes it all the more dangerous. Men and women drink often because it is considered a kind and hospitable thing to offer it, and an ungenerous and churlish thing to refuse it. What is this but calling a thorn ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack than the sensual rarity, there my friends (or any good man) may command me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to myself. Nay, I should think it an affront, an undervaluing done to Nature who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs of remorse I ever felt was when a child—when my kind old aunt had strained her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my way home through the Borough I met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... not a large sum. John o' the Scales had often had twice as much from him, but the churlish fellow started up ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... a fearless bound to the depths profound, She rushes with proud disdain, While pale lips tell the fears that swell, Lest she never should rise again. With a courser's pride she paws the tide, Unbridled by bit I trow, While the churlish sea she dashes with glee In a cataract from her prow. Then a ho and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the object of all her care, solicitude and affection. She will see nothing but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his sorrows, divert his fatigue, and share his pleasures. If she becomes the property of a churlish or negligent husband, she will suit his taste also, for she will not long survive ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... sports. We walked across the downs, and while watching the racing I was accosted by the head master, who asked me if I would like to see the college. The sports were more interesting than refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse and we went together. No doubt we visited the kitchens and the chapel, but what I remember was a long hall wainscoted with oak and furnished with oak tables and chairs and benches, In this hall there were some thirty or forty boys, of ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... also, they journeyed to an Indian village, where a priest laboured. Him they besought; and when spring came they set forth to Lonely Valley again that the woman and the smothered dead—if it might chance so—should be put away into peaceful graves. But thither coming they only saw a grey and churlish river; and the poppet-head of the mine of St. Gabriel, and she who had knelt thereon, were vanished into solitudes, where only God's cohorts have the rights ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... proverb there said is, in English, That bird or fowl, soothly, is dishonest What that he be, and holden full churlish That useth to defoulen his own nest. Men to say well of women, it is the best: And naught for to despise them, ne deprave; If that they will ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... houses in London, is well known to many to be particularly unsocial, as there is no Ordinary, or united company, but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation to hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full-minded man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman got into a dispute concerning the cause of some part of mankind being black. 'Why, Sir, said (Johnson,) it has been accounted for in three ways: either ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... stick, the next that comes to hand, Which if it straight and even be, and have no knots at all, A gentle husband then they think shall surely to them fall; But, if it foul and crooked be, and knotty here and there, A crabbed, churlish husband then they earnestly ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... young Wykehamists was shy and churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the chapel, and the chambers, and expatiated on the chances of attaining to New College. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked home. All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for she is a nervous, highly strung woman, and I had ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... coverts; one hiding place being the cow-stable. Here Charles Hosmer happened to find me, just incidentally, as it seemed, but really by kindly design no doubt, and gave me a hearty greeting which I couldn't be so churlish ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... served him testified to his merits as a prompt and liberal paymaster. I do not think that in all his life Philip Jocelyn had ever directly or indirectly caused a pang of pain or sorrow to any human being, unless it was, indeed, to a churlish heir-at-law, who may have looked with a somewhat evil eye upon the young man's vigorous and healthful aspect, which gave little hope to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Majesty, who truly is most fair and gracious—quite other than Carlotta—whom I love not at all! And if I held some grudge against the King for seizing of my father's lands (which broke his heart before he died) one cannot long be churlish in presence of our Janus, who hath a matchless fashion of grace with him, so that all think to have won his favor. Verily, that is a King for Cyprus!—he mindeth one of Cinyras. I must tell thee the tale of our hero of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to announce that the Chevalier de Seingalt (the hostess had addressed Casanova by this title, and Olivo promptly followed suit) was so churlish as to refuse the invitation of an old friend, on the ridiculous plea that to-day of all days he had to leave Mantua. The woman's look of gloom convinced Olivo that this was the first she had heard of Casanova's intended departure, and the ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... who had come from the house in search of the kinsman he dared not suffer out of his sight. He had approached unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that what he had overheard was not to his liking. But Asgill supposed that James's ill-humour was directed against his enemy, and he appealed ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... constantly turn the keys of their churlish doors, and others, from time to time, "sport oak."—Harv. Mag., Vol. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... pointed to this infirmity was given to him. The blow on the head, dealt to him by some French soldier at the sack of Brescia in 1512, may have made him a stutterer, but it assuredly did not muddle his wits; nevertheless, as the result of this knock, or for some other cause, he grew up into a churlish, uncouth, and ill-mannered man, and, if the report given of him by Papadopoli[94] at the end of his history be worthy of credit, one not to be entirely trusted as an autobiographer in the account he himself gives of his early days in the preface to one of his works. Papadopoli's ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Still, a phrase that would not be dismissed by a superior curl of the lips. Maggie was not Clara, and she did not invent allegations. His fault! Yes, his fault! Beyond doubt he was occasionally gruff, he was churlish, he was porcupinish. He did not mean to be so—indeed he most honestly meant not to be so—but he was. He must change. He must turn over a new leaf. He wished it had been his own birthday, or, better still, the New Year, instead of his auntie's birthday, so that he ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... shines over river and city," and the tolling bells and echoing cannon sound over hushed London, and the silent masses line the streets, and the learned and the noble stand uncovered around the open grave, it would be a diseased and churlish mind which did not feel the ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... the King kept Sir Damas from deeds of violence; yet, to the end, he remained cowardly and churlish, unworthy of the golden spurs of knighthood. But Sir Ontzlake proved him a valiant knight, fearing God and the King ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... many guide-books about her, some on large paper at ten guineas the volume. I have sometimes fancied, indeed,' he added, doubtfully,' that it was their own capacity for admiring Nature that they admired, but that were a churlish thought. For, do they not run innumerable excursion trains for the purpose of bowing at her shrine? Epping Forest must be one of Nature's favourite haunts, from the numbers of people who come here to worship her, especially on Bank Holidays. Those are her high festivals, ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... passed for a greeting, or might have been a slight protest at finding the door closed, drew the stool from which Uncle Jim had just risen before the fire, shook his wet clothes like a Newfoundland dog, and sat down. Yet he was by no means churlish nor coarse-looking, and this act was rather one of easy-going, selfish, youthful familiarity than of rudeness. The cabin of Uncles Billy and Jim was considered a public right or "common" of the camp. Conferences between individual ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... We attempted in vain to buy the boma, or fetish-drum, a venerable piece of furniture hung round with human crania, of which only the roofs remained. King Blay, however, eventually sent us home a boma, and it was duly exhibited in town. Kikam was the only place in Apollonia where we met with churlish treatment; no hospitality, however, could be expected when the strangers were supposed to be mixed ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... not think me ungrateful or churlish, Mr. Fentolin," he begged. "I have a habit of keeping promises which I make to myself, and to-night I have made myself a promise that I will be back at the Tower by ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in former days, set a silver basin before us, wherein there was the leg of a beaver, and desired all the nations to come and eat of it,—to eat in peace and plenty, and not to be churlish to one another; and that if any such person should be found to be a disturber, I here lay down by the edge of the dish a rod, which you must scourge them with; and if your father should get foolish, in my old days, I desire you may use it upon me as ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... in alienation. Dulcie thought that Sam Winnington would have bridged it over at one time, if Will would have made any sign of meeting his overtures, or acknowledged Sam's talents and fortune: nay, even if Will had refrained from betraying his churlish doubts ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... brother, I beg you not to let the present straits you labour under to narrow your mind, or render you morose or churlish, but rather resign yourself and all your affairs to Him who best knows what is fittest for you, and will never fail to provide for whoever sincerely trusts in Him. I think I may say I have lived in a state of affliction ever since I was born, being the ridicule of mankind and ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... neither permit me to enter your house nor shake your hand? I was not so churlish when ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... green-stall to keep, To swig porter all day, on a flock-bed to sleep, [4] I was so good-natur'd, so bobbish and gay, [5] And I still was as smart as a carrot all day: But now I so saucy and churlish am grown, So ragged and greasy, as never was known; My Nancy is gone, and my joys are all fled, And my arse hangs behind me, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... accordingly he took every opportunity to declare that he would never part with an inch of his land while he was in the flesh. A wag in the neighborhood had expressed the opinion that the old gentleman waxed hale and hearty on his own bile. He was certainly a churlish individual in his general bearing toward his fellow-beings, and violent in his prejudices. For the last ten years his favorite prophecy had been that the country was going to ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... offence serves not (were it the worst 10 You can imagine) without greater proofes To sever your eternall bonds and hearts; Much lesse to touch her with a bloudy hand. Nor is it manly (much lesse husbandly) To expiate any frailty in your wife 15 With churlish strokes, or beastly ods of strength. The stony birth of clowds will touch no lawrell, Nor any sleeper: your wife is your lawrell, And sweetest sleeper; doe not touch her, then; Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour 20 To her that is more gentle ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... loses in grandeur and picturesque effect, it gains in fertility of soil and warmth of temperature. In the lower division of the province you feel that the industry of the inhabitants is forcing a churlish soil for bread; while in the upper, the land seems willing to yield her increase to a moderate exertion. Remember, these are merely the cursory remarks of a passing traveller, and founded on no ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... the Medusa might destroy the dragon which guarded it, and then rob him of his treasures. He therefore refused to grant the hospitality which the hero demanded, whereupon Perseus, exasperated at the churlish repulse, produced from his wallet the head of the Medusa, and holding it towards the king, transformed him into a stony mountain. Beard and hair erected themselves into forests; shoulders, hands, and limbs became huge rocks, and the ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the Friend had said to him, and he did not so much as turn himself toward the hall; for he said: 'Belike these men are outlaws and Wolves of the Holy Places, yet by seeming they are good fellows and nought churlish, nor have I to do with taking up the feud against them. I will abide the morning. Yet meseemeth that she drew me hither: ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... bumper against his, and having emptied it at a draught, turned it towards him bottom upwards, with the orthodox twist. Soon, however, things began to look more serious even than I had expected. I knew well that to refuse a toast, or to half empty your glass, was considered churlish. I had come determined to accept my host's hospitality as cordially as it was offered. I was willing, at a pinch, to payer de ma personne; should he not be content with seeing me at his table, I was ready, if need were, to remain UNDER it! but at the rate we were then going it seemed ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... call the Queen of Love—but thy lips, say they, burnt with another name! Bethink thee, faint heart, there is not a man in all this city but would count death a small price to pay for my favours; and I ask of thee one little service, and thou shalt name thine own reward. Surely 'tis churlish ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... the light allowed them to see was friendly and receptive, as though he listened to brilliant suggestions. He had a nice courtesy, and Miss Hinsdale felt continually that she was cleverer than usual this evening, and no one took his silence to be churlish, though they all innocently wondered why he did not talk more; however, it was probable that a man who had been so interestingly and terribly shot would be rather silent ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... a few moments' delay. So far as he was personally concerned he felt very unlike the frivolity of the typical musical comedy; but still, he had finished his dinner by this time and was not disposed to be churlish. Fenwick had completed his repast also, and was sipping his coffee in an amiable frame of mind, heedless apparently of business worries of ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... here and there upon the rare bushes, whilst swallows joined the caravan, and skimmed round and round for hours among the camels, almost brushing the faces of the drivers. Lizards glanced and snakes writhed across the path. We started three wadan or mouflon, churlish animals, fond of such solitudes. As to the birds, our people say they do not drink in winter, and in summer leave the Hamadah altogether. Four-fifths of the surface were utterly barren. Little mounds marked ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... eyes of Hagal's thrall-wench; of no churlish race is she who at the mill stands. The millstones are split, the receiver flies asunder. Now a hard fate has befallen the warrior, when a prince must barley grind: much more fitting to that hand is the falchion's hilt than ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson |
