"Dour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scalpel) is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow incision, if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of can-dour unearths innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but it does not perceive the deepest of sins—the sin of vanity—vanity which is the mother of all day-dreams ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... the restless curiosity of the younger had led them to and fro. Out there the line between mistress and servant had inevitably been supplanted by the bond of companionship; but when they returned to the more humdrum civilization of the western world, it was Janet whose dour Scotch rectitude had re-established the distinction. She took her meals with old Bates at a little table in the butlery, found her chief relaxation in the one motion-picture house that Hambleton boasted, and for the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... practice is still followed by many, but being compelled now to give an apparently scientific reason for their conduct, they say that it is so placed to produce a draught. But this it does not do. The practice originated in the belief that the slow or dour fire was spell-bound by witchcraft, and the poker was so placed that it would form the shape of a cross with the front bar of the grate, and thus the witch power be destroyed. In early times when the poker was ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... single-tree and brought the racing dogs to an abrupt halt. The priest and he righted the sled, and Mac straddling it, tucked in a loosened end of fur. When all was again in running order, Mac was on the same side as Father Wills. He still wore that look of dour ill-temper, and especially did he glower at the unfortunate Kaviak, seized with a fresh fit of coughing that filled the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Protestants of the most dour sort, and they distrusted their new ruler because of her religion and because she loved to surround herself with dainty things and bright colors and exotic elegance. They feared lest she should try to repeal the law of Scotland's Parliament which ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... find five sech along any road out of London?" But his crowning story, which he never missed as he cracked his four bays along on the first stage west out of Reading, was that of the Berkshire Lady, which, alas! my gifted countrywoman has now laid covetous hands on and claimed for that dour Lady Mary Hay, hereditary lord ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... Mr. Mott, smoking their pipes on the makeshift bridge, studied the throng of women in dour silence. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... unusually early, and had just hung my hat and coat in the outer room, and taken my seat at my desk in the inner office, there to collect my thoughts in preparation for the grave events which the day might bring forth, when, suddenly, an ill-dressed, dour-looking individual entered the room without so much as saying, "By your leave," and after having pushed Theodore—who stood by like a lout—most unceremoniously to one side. Before I had time to recover from my surprise at this unseemly intrusion, the uncouth individual thrust Theodore ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... what strange, wide, bright places seemed suddenly to open and shine before me. Not places to shrink back from—oh no! no! One could be sure, then—SURE! Feargus had lifted his bonnet with that extraordinary triumph in his look—even Feargus, who had been rather dour. ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... plaint of the wind on the moor, Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day, And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour, And the sound of the surge as it breaks on ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... that sooner or later it must be faced. He was even inclined to force it now, for such was his way. Trouble was in her eyes, and he felt certain of its nature. Nita was not made of the stuff that could withstand the grind of the dour life of the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... underneath the castle's towering hill. Then it soared up with imposing effect, giving an impression of grisly strength which was heightened the nearer we approached. Distance lends no enchantment to Corfe, for the castle dominates the dour, gray town that huddles round it, and is never nobler than when you tap for admittance at ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... day—the mist and wind and clamoring sea and solemn hills, the dour, ill-tempered world wherein we were, our days as grass (saith the psalmist). Ay, an' 'tis so. I remember the day: the wet moss underfoot; the cold wind, blowing as it listed; the petulant sea, wreaking an ancient enmity, old and to continue beyond our span of feeling; ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... country public house. The proprietor, William Driscoll, a man of about fifty with a very dour expression, sings as he sweeps ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... The dour face settled into grim determination. "The only sensible thing. Take care of these plants, conserve the air, and squeeze by until we can reseed. And, Dr. Pietro, with your permission, we'll turn about for Earth at once. We can't go on like this. To proceed ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... life, school themselves much more than they are schooled. Active, inquisitive, resolute, and possessing a fair share of the national perfervidum ingenium, not without some tincture of those elements of the Scottish character known as the "canny" and the "dour," our worker early developed that robust vigour of mind and body which has so long stood the wear and tear ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... these folk, one and all, look fat and prosperous, their mien is dour, and they speak reluctantly, and through their teeth. Possibly this is because they are over-weary with toil. However that may be, the full-fed country people of the region laugh but ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... time and of achievements, though he had more in him of Blake than of Nelson. He lacked, no doubt, the dazzling electric strain that ran through the war-like genius of Nelson. Hawke's fighting quality was of the grim, dour home-spun character; but it was a true genius for battle, and as long as Great Britain is a sea-power the memory of the great sailor who crushed Gentians off Quiberon deserves ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... o'clock. Tombstones are bright beacons of cheer as compared to the monumental regret one experiences on getting up to greet the alleged and vastly over-rated glories of a budding day. The sunrise is a pall! It is a deadly, dour thing. It may be pink and red and golden and full of all the splendours of the east, but it is a resurrection and you can't make anything else out of it. Staying up till four and then going to bed gives one an idea of the sunrise that is not supported ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... from him. They would be coming into his house to wish him well, to reestablish old relations with him. Why, it would be almost like holding a reception. He would be to those of his own age as a friend of their youth, returning after a long absence to his people, with the dour stranger who had lived in his house while he was away now driven out ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Dour-like he gaed, wi' doon-hingin heid, Quhill he cam, by the licht o' the mune, Quhaur michty stanes lay scattert like sheep, An' ance ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... little dear, and your old Nancy must try and make matters better for you. I love you, little Paulie. I'm fond of you all, but you are my special favorite. You were always considered something like me—dark and dour when you liked, but sunshiny when you liked also. Now, what is it, Paulie? Tell ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... successive days he had been noticed in their company, or laying a straight course for the little booth wherein the girl plied her mean trade; and then, all at once, to the stupefied astonishment of Chepstow,—where the captain was reckoned, with reason, a particularly hard, sour, dour sort of body, anything but friendly or hospitable,—the pair of them were discovered comfortably installed beneath the Pendarves' roof, as snug as if they had lived there all their lives and never meant to go away! ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and revealed a heavy-set, dour of countenance man seated at a desk. He looked into Joe Prantera's face, ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... but an uneasy feeling has prevailed for a year or more. It's this d—d Oliverian element among them. You see, ever since his Majesty's blessed restoration, gang after gang of rebels have been sent us—Independents, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch Whigamores—dangerous fanatics all! Many are Naseby or Worcester rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of that devil's lieutenant, Oliver. All have the gift of the gab. We disperse them as much ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... God's mercy I was born a Scotchman, for I do not see how I could ever have been contented to be anything else. The little dour deevil, set in her own ways, and getting them, too, level-headed and shrewd, with an eye to the main chance always and yet so lovingly weak, so fond, so led away by song or story, so easily touched to fine issues, so leal, so true. Ah! you suit me, Scotia, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... expressing it. Barbara Lynn does much to strengthen that impression. It is a mountain tale, the scene of which is laid in an upland farm, girt about by the mighty hills and the solitude of the fells. Here, in the dour old house of Graystones, is played the drama of Barbara and her sister Lucy; of Peter, who loved one and married the other; of the feckless Joel, and the old bed-ridden great-grandmother, who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... house-party—to wit: Mrs. Somerby-Miles, Lieutenant Forshay, and Mr. Robert Murdock—respectively, a silly, flirtatious, little gadfly of a widow; a callow, love-struck, lap-dog, young naval officer, with a budding moustache and a full-blown idea of his own importance; a dour Scotchman of middle age, with a passion for chess, a glowering scorn of frivolities, a deep abiding conviction that Scotland was the only country in the world for a self-respecting human being to dwell in, and that everything ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Mackay, the old trader, came to me after a sitting of the precious Legislative Council. We were very friendly, and I had done all I could to get the Government to listen to his views. He was a dour, ill-tempered Scotsman, very anxious for the safety of his property, but perfectly careless ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... as we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish—nay, his commands—that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to express his—"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... suddenly). Feyther! (A pause; she collects herself for her big effort.) Feyther, I'm one o' they dour silent girls to whom expression comes hardly, but (with veiled menace) when it does come it means fifteen minutes' unrelieved monologue. So tak' heed. We're not wanting these changes, and to be up-to-date, and all that. I'm happy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... entering the labyrinth of detached banks which obstruct the funnel-shaped cavity between the upper and middle prongs. This I knew from the chart. My unaided eye saw nothing but the open sea, growing dark green as the depths increased; a dour, threatening sea, showing its white fangs. The waves grew longer and steeper, for the channels, though still tortuous, now begin to be ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... was a Cornishman, and dour to beat. And, if he had incurred unreasonable dislike, he had also lighted on the virgin lode of Nance's love and trust, and that, he said to himself with a glow of gratitude, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... an' see what he can do for 's! Sic things aiven we can lea' to him! I houp there'll be nae mair bludeshed! He's a fine lad, Steenie Kennedy—come o' a fine stock! His father was a God-fearin' man—some dour by natur, but wi' an unco clearin' up throuw grace. I wud wullin'ly hae seen oor Eppy his wife; he's an honest lad! I'm sorry he gied place to wrath, but he may hae repentit by the noo, an' troth, I canna blame ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... heaven-born Egyptian princess or even a good Queen Bess, who could not move her face after it was dressed up for the morning. And Bess was the Virgin Queen. The American-Victorian is indeed the only era in history when cosmetics became a moral issue. Even in dour Cromwellian England, rouge registered the wrong politics but not immorality. We are merely getting back to normalcy in cosmetics—back behind the dun ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... dour Scottish comments upon the boy's school report for a more seemly occasion than the first day of his holidays; but Kerry had made no attempt to conceal his jubilation—almost immoral, his wife had declared it to be—respecting the lad's athletic record. His work ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Man, Saunders cam tae me a haflin, and hes been on Drumsheugh for twenty years, an' though he be a dour chiel, he's a faithfu' servant as ever lived. It's waesome tae see him lyin' there moanin' like some dumb animal frae mornin' tae nicht, an' no able tae answer his ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... him. He was devoted to her mother—and for his friends he'll do anything. But I don't want to make a saint of him. He can be a dour man when he likes—and he and I fight about a good many things. I don't think he has much faith in the new England we're all talking about—though he tries to go with it. Have you?" He turned upon ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... up to a dour-looking individual at a counter at the ramp's end. Clearing my throat, I said rather inanely, "Hello!"—but what does one ...
— Lost in the Future • John Victor Peterson
... this was a deliberate untruth. He bit his lip. "Well, I looked to find myself in an enemy's country at this Tergou; but maybe if ye knew all ye would not be so dour." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... King Edward's dour sister-successor Queen Mary and her sombre spouse Philip of Spain were scarcely the people to make the place bright on their occasional visits, and when they were here shortly after their marriage it was said "the hall door within the Court was continually shut, so that no man might enter ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... o' that. I didn't git home much afore darruk, and me owld horse wasn't more nor in the shtable an' I 'atin' me supper, quiet like, afore Belcher druv up to me house wid his purty man on the seat wid 'im. An' says he: 'Mike Conlin! Mike Conlin! Come to the dour wid ye!' So I wint to the dour, an' he says, says he: 'Hev ye seen a crazy old feller wid a b'y?' An' says I: 'There's no crazy owld feller wid a b'y been by me house in the daytime. If they wint by at all at all, it was when me family was aslape.' Then ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... often wondered, since, why I never shed a tear during all those terrible three days. I couldn't, in some way, though the nurse herself was crying, and poor old Whinnie and Struthers were sobbing together next to the window, and dour old Dinky-Dunk, on the other side of the bed, was racking his shoulders with smothered sobs as he held the little white hand in his and the warmth went forever out of the little fingers where his foolish big ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... of humor, had he ever possessed one, had long since been ruined in his battles with Father Dominic's automobile, raised a dour face. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... something else, too," went on Marsh, a cool voice speaking out of the darkness. "I saw that her black, dour husband is furiously in love with her and furiously jealous of that tall, ruddy fellow with an expressive face, who stood by the door in shirt-sleeves and never took ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... black, bullet-headed, and dour. He had held socialistic views in his fiery youth, but had changed his mind like the rest of us when he found himself rising in the world. In these days he received a percentage on the Works profits, and ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... eyebrows of the same dark hue, and his unusually black eyes; his nose was slightly aquiline, and his mouth well shaped, though wide; but the firm-set lips and broad nostrils, gave the whole face an expression of coldness and hardness. In fact he had a peculiarly dour and dark look, and it was no wonder that when he walked through his parish the little children left their games in the road, and hurried inside their garden ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... dour the climb with slip and slime, King Ted he doesn't care, Till, cracking peanuts on a rock, Behold, a Grizzly Bear! King Theodore he shows his teeth, But he never turns ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... little moved myself when I placed five gold sovereigns in the wizard's hand; but there was no sign of emotion in Terutak' as he returned them, pointed to the palace, and named Tembinok'. It was a changed scene when I had managed to explain. Terutak', long, dour Scots fisherman as he was, expressed his satisfaction within bounds; but the wife beamed; and there was an old gentleman present—her father, I suppose—who seemed nigh translated. His eyes stood out of his head; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... morning, at the front door and demanded the "Frau Graefin." By Carter's advice I had removed my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with my black felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance of rather dour respectability which one looks for in a ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... son returned to their wagon. Jed was vastly proud over a bullet crease he had got in a shoulder. After his mother's alarm had taken the form of first aid he was all for showing his battle scars to a certain damsel in Caleb Price's wagon. Wingate remained dour and silent as was now his wont, and cursing his luck that he had had no horse to carry him up in the late pursuit of the Sioux. He also was bitter over the delay in making ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Excellent, Grant." Such strategy pleased Cameron. "See here, mon, Cuthbert, we've the law on our side—we've the warrants to back the law! We'd better give yon dour fool a lesson. He's broken the peace. We haven't. Come out, an' I'll talk it ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Annis agreed that it was as good as a ballad, and ought to be sung in one, only Jean would have to figure as the 'dour lassie.' For she continued to aver, by turns, that Geordie need never have meddled, and that of course it was his bounden duty to stand by his King's sister, and that she owed him no thanks. If he were hanged for it he had run ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Naundorff found his last partisans. That is where enchantment is rampant, because in the suburb of La Guillotiere you can have a person bewitched for a louis. Add that it is likewise, in spite of its swarms of radicals and anarchists, an opulent market for a dour Protestant Catholicism; a Jansenist factory, richly productive ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... wild fightin' Irishman with no regard for the Sabbath," returned Jim Hutch, sternly. Now Greeley had a fear of what the dour old Scotchman might tell upon him. It would not pay to lose his ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... taken us for brothers. We were so different in temperament and appearance that we were almost the reverse of each other. He was the handsomest boy I have ever seen, frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour and none too well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish, and the idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found somewhere among the heather hills, always ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... of compliment and partial insincerity, against which the more downright natures of us Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met with an imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who are bent on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very reverse of that dour opposition which a Lowland Scot or a North English peasant offers to familiarity; but it is hardly less insurmountable. The treatment, again, which Venetians of the lower class have received through centuries ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Carnegie," was returned with a shrillness in the measured tones; "you would not; and ye'll learn yer own task, and say Yes to sour, dour Staneholme." ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... on the long journey with grandmamma?" I said to him. And then I remembered that it is ridiculous to be morbid and dramatic, and so I rang for my maid—a dour Scotchwoman whom I like—and told her to bring my out-door things here to the boudoir-fire. And soon Roy and I were ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... would be the more mistaken," said he. "What makes the differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But for auld, cauld, dour, deidly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here's you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether you'll no' stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No' me! ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mother to surrender her child to the blessings of civilisation; and how, by the intervention of a terrible old woman, the queen of the tribe, this momentary weakness was overcome. My other choice, the last tale in the collection (and the only one contributed by Miss MARY FINDLATER), is a dour little comedy of the regeneration, through poverty and hard work, of two underemployed and unpleasant elderly ladies. A restful book, such as will keep no one awake at nights, but will give pleasure to all who appreciate slight studies of ordinary life sketched with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... was startling. The tele-columnist was a tall, dour and bushy-browed man who took a perverse sort of pride in the impression he gave of shabbiness. He slouched wordlessly into the room, hands thrust deep in the pockets of a makeshift jacket. But there was nothing shabby about the man's perceptive ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... gone; gone where neither you nor that dour-faced deevil that befooled us all will find her soon, I promise you, Dickie Jennifer!" he snapped; and I gave them my back and stumbled blindly to the door, making sure his next word would tell my poor wronged lad all that he should have learned ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... meagre upbringing, was the grumbler of his billet. He found fault with the camp fare, accommodation and hours in particular, with the discipline in general. Yet, oddly enough, after a fortnight or so, he seemed to accept the physical drill at 7 a.m. with a sort of dour satisfaction, though he never had a good ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... "we are auld freens; it is weel that we shud staun' thegither. If ye will trade a' yir furs wi' me this day, I'll get the meenister o' the Presybyterian Kirk tae mairry yir gran'dochter. He'll be gled eneuch tae gi'e Father Jois a dour by mairryin' twa o' his fowk. Sell me yir furs, an' I'll warrant ye ye'll hae the laff ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... wing and red body, a grouse hackle, and the prismatic Heckham Peckham are among the favourites; but it is said that flies no bigger than Tweed flies are occasionally successful. In my own brief experience I have found the trout "dour," occasionally they would rise freely for an hour at noon, or in the evening; but often one passed hours with scarcely a rising fish. This may have been due to the bitterness of the weather, or to my own ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... without importing into the new creed the belief in any personal God. British administrators watched and fostered the moral and intellectual progress of India with increasing confidence in the results of Western education, and none with more conviction than Lord Dalhousie, a high-minded and dour Scotsman, who was the last Governor-General to serve out his time under the East India Company. Other aspects of his policy may have been less wise. The extension of British rule to the Punjab became inevitable after a Sikh rising compelled him to ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... "there canna weel be twa i' this warl' 'at ken ane anither better nor you an' me. We hae been bairns thegither; we hae been to the schuil thegither; we hae had the same maister; we hae come throu dour times thegither—I doobt we hae been hungry thegither, though ye saidna a word; we hae warstlet wi' poverty, an' maybe wi' unbelief; we loe the same fowk best; an' abune a' we set the wull o' God. It wad ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... conquered. But not the Scottish Whigs, the Auld Leaven of the Covenant,—they were still dour, and offered many criticisms. Thereon Scott, by way of disproving his authorship, offered to review the Tales in the "Quarterly." His true reason for this step was the wish to reply to Dr. Thomas McCrie, author of the "Life ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... them, and one lot had been married a week, and they each read a paper propped up against their cups, and did not speak much, and you would have thought they were quite indifferent; but from where I sat I could see their right and left hands clasped under the table! Another pair with a dour Scotch look ate an enormous meal in solemn silence, and then they went off and played tennis! Their wedding took place three days ago!! The third had been there a fortnight, and seemed very jaded and bored, while the last were mere children, and only married yesterday! She was too sweet, and ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... to him, you mean," said Shenac sharply. "I was sorry for that as soon as I said it. But, Hamish, if you think I'm going down on my knees to Angus Dhu to tell him so, you're mistaken. He may not be a thief and a robber, but he's a dour carle, though he is of our own kin, and as different from our father as the dark is different from the day. And I can say nothing else of him, ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... isn't to say for a single instant, however, that I didn't esteem her. We simply were not designed to fit into the same scheme. We were of different generations. We were of cross-grained stuff, if I may say so, dour and tough and ill to match with common deal, and our roots were sunk in ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... she looked up at him and was about to hold out her hand, but one glimpse of his dour, preoccupied face made her change her mind. Still, it was so incurably her habit to be trusting and friendly that on the doorstep she turned to shed on him her candid smile—only to find the door already closed. The rebuff was like a cold shower; it made ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... secluded spot their shrill voices rang out with extreme clearness. A rabbit or two scuttled away, and a pheasant flew off with a whirr. Presently another and heavier pair of boots might be heard tramping towards them, the bushes parted, and a dour-looking face, with lantern jaws and a stubbly chin, regarded them grimly. The gamekeeper glowered a ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... trust to that; you do not know the dour temper of the Scots, though you have dealt with them so often. I have a right to know them, my mother ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... to Dour, in Belgium, and for us a bad day's march it was. My job was to keep touch with the 14th Brigade, which was advancing along a parallel road to the west.[5] That meant riding four or five miles across rough country roads, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... it: Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were protesting too well and too much. Marie Louise hated herself for even the disloyalty of such a criticism of them, but she was repelled somehow by such rhetoric, and she liked far better the dour silence of old Mr. Verrinder. He looked a bishop who had got into a layman's evening dress by mistake. He was something very impressive and influential in the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... gay and winsome though she was, it was not long before Mary was at issue with her dour Protestant subjects and their spokesman, John Knox. It was hoped by her brother, James Stuart (Murray), and Secretary Lethington that a modus vivendi might be found by persuading Elizabeth to secure to Mary the English ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... friend, Private McPhee, stalking majestically up and down as if on sentry go, wearing a "fit of the blues" several sizes too large for him and an expression which would, I believe, be described by kailyard novelists as "dour." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... against Black McTee?" queried the engineer, deeply moved. "Well, lad, McTee's a dour man, but dour or not he shall not run the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... would her babe, warming and caressing our hearts. We did not know then that happiness was a thing to be sought. We only knew that peddling is a pleasure, that a bank account is a supreme joy, that a dish of mojadderah cooked by Im-Hanna is a royal delight, that our dour dark cellar is a palace of its kind, and that happiness, like a bride, issues from all these, and, touching the strings of Khalid's ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... among the solid burghers of Glasgow a large "following" of a very serious kind, douce, dour men, whose strongly-marked features looked as if they had been chiselled out of their native granite—men who settled themselves with a grave kind of enjoyment to listen to a full hour's sermon, and who watched every point their minister made with a critical acumen that seemed more fitting ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... morn I gaed up to the office and there I foond the factor and a lang, thin, dour man wi' grey hair and a face as brown and crinkled as a walnut. He looked hard at me wi' a pair o' een that glowed like twa spunks, and ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had they, but twa ounce a day o' meal was the maist they'd get. And men fight but tame on an empty wame, so they sent a flag o' truce, And blithe were the Privy Council then, when the Whigs had heard that news. Twa Lords they sent wi' a strang intent to be dour on each Cavalier, But wi' French cakes fine, and his last drap o' wine, did Middleton make them cheer, On the muzzles o' guns he put coats and caps, and he set them aboot the wa's, And the Whigs thocht then he had food and men to stand for the Rightfu' ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... loosened vest and collars and flowing hair beseen. 'What is thy name?' I asked her, and she replied, 'I'm she Who roasts the hearts of lovers on coals of love and teen. I am the pure white silver, ay, and the gold wherewith The bondsmen from strait prison and dour released been.' Quoth I, 'I'm all with rigours consumed;' but 'On a rock,' Said she, 'such as my heart is, thy plaints are wasted clean.' 'Even if thy heart,' I answered, 'be rock in very deed, Yet hath God caused fair water well from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... villainies by the dust of war, and to make him gape after you in need and necessity for war-pensions. If Demos can only get into the country in peace and taste the barley-cakes again, he will soon find out of what blessings you have rid him by your briberies; he will come back as a dour farmer and will hunt up a vote which ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... may be richt, Mirran," replied her spouse. "It's no sic a cheery subjec' 'at we sud hae muckle to say to ane anither anent it! He's a man noo, and weel luikit upo'; but it maks unco little differ to his parents! He's jist as dour as ever, and as far as man could weel be frae them he cam o'!—never a word to the ane or the ither o' 's! Gien we war twa dowgs, he couldna hae less to say til's, and micht weel hae mair! I s' warran' Frostie says mair in ae half-hoor to his tyke, nor Jeemie has said to you or ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... swung suddenly round a corner and they were almost staggered with the sight of the cathedral towering above them. To an eye used exclusively to the sight of the dour British edifice, there is something very fascinating about a foreign cathedral such as this. There is something more daring about the style of architecture, something more flamboyant, and yet more solid. The cathedral seemed vaguely indicative of the past grandeur of the Catholic Church. ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... of this ominous court proved to be appallingly short. The dour-faced elders merely put their heads together, muttered a few sentences, then straightened up almost immediately. The chief priest—he with the yellow face—thrust out his fist and made the immemorial signal of death by jerking his thumb at ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... eyes and brown, thin faces; Evans, who was supposed to be over-seer, and important enough to arrive late; younger fellows, like Fred Anderson and David Boone (the latter's hair suspiciously smooth and shiny); Hogg, the dour old man who ruled the flower garden and every one but Norah; and a sprinkling of odd rouseabouts and boys, very sleek and well brushed, in garments of varying make, low collars, and the tie the bushman loves "for best"—pale blue satin, with what Wally ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... intense feeling; his black eyes glittered wickedly, and it was plain that he sounded the note of revolt which was rising from the law-abiding Italian element. His appearance bore out his reputation for leadership, for he was big and black and dour, and he gave the impression of ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... man, one might best answer that he is the Englishman to the nth. degree. It is usual to find that the man of extraordinary merit is in some degree a contrast with and a criticism of the mere average mortal of his set. The dour urbanity of Kitchener, for instance, is Oriental rather than English, and contrasts strangely with the choleric tradition of the army officer. So the infinite alertness and constant good humour of Roberts has a quality of Latin esprit very foreign to the English ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... frolic when he goes out for a walk with a dog—that is the beginning of dancing: the end of it is the beginning of a world. A young dog is a piece of early morning disguised in an earthly fell, and the man who can resist his contagion is a sour, dour, miserable mistake, without bravery, without virtue, without music, with a cranky body and a shrivelled soul, and with eyes incapable ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... now an unhung and travelling basket, heavy, iron-ribbed, anciently mossy, oozy of slime, fell with neat exactitude upon the bald, bare cranium of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith, head gardener, and dour, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... an my leddy sat doon to brak their fast—no freely i' the same humour, the twa o' them, as ye may weel believe. Whan they war aboot half throu', wha sud come stridin' in, some dour an' ill pleased like, but the prence himsel'! Baith yerl an' leddy startit up: 'at they sud hae sitten doon till a meal ohn even adverteest their veesitor that sic was their purpose! They made muckle adu wi' apologies an' explanations, but the prence aye booed an' booed, an' said sae little, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... accepted, but it was obvious that this time their attitude towards the man who welcomed them was one of declared and pronounced hostility. Graveling was there, with sullen, evil face. He made no attempt to shake hands with Maraton, and he sat at the table provided for them with folded arms and dour, uncompromising aspect. Dale came late and he, too, greeted Maraton with bluff unfriendliness. Borden's attitude was non-committal. Weavel shook hands, but his frown and manner were portentous. Culvain, the diplomat ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... spirit, which makes life look good even to the man who feels the pinch of poverty and whose outlook is dreary. You can't keep down the boy who makes Carlyle his daily companion; he will rise by very force of fighting spirit of this dour old Scotchman. ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... for the first time on the Circuit as Advocate-depute, Armstrong of Sorbie inquired of Lord Minto in a whisper "What long black, dour-looking Chiel" that was that ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... whom the said master was serving with exemplary diligence to fear dire consequences to himself if he became the direct cause of a broken idyl. The position was even worse if he fell back on an artistic lie. The Earl was a dour person where servants were concerned, and Salome did not demand John the Baptist's head on a salver with greater gusto than the autocrat of Fairholme would insist on Dale's dismissal when he discovered the facts. Talk of the horned dilemma—here was an unfortunate asked to choose ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... so was the next morning; but about noon we were cheered by the sight of the glorious mountain-walls of well-remembered Midian, which stood out of the clear blue sky in passing grandeur of outline, in exceeding splendid dour of colouring, and in marvellous sharpness of detail. Once more the "power of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... the political side. I wronged him in this. He never played any part in politics: politics did not interest him. He was the only Irishman I have ever met who cared nothing for either the political or the religious issue. He had a prejudice against one Orange district, because the people in it were dour. He had a prejudice against one Roman Catholic district, because the people in it were rude. Otherwise his mind was untroubled. Life was what interested him. He would have watched a political or religious riot ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... the dour spring day. The tall man who led carried a rickety, ill-smelling lantern that sent its feeble rays no farther ahead than a dozen paces; it served best to reveal the face of the huge silver watch which frequently was drawn from ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... would smile. The Rector was conscious of her vivid face, framed in a fringe of black hair, of a mischievousness in her beauty, some careless abandon in the swing of her limbs. But something in the level dark brows of the Rector, something that was dour, forbade her smile. It died in a little flush of confusion. The peasants passed and the Rector gave them time to make some headway before he resumed his ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... mony a day has since rollit ower me, and I am now but a dour carle, whose auld pow the roll o' time hath blanched; my bonnie Janet is gone to her last hame, lang syne, my bairns hae a' fa'en kemping for their king and country, and I ainly am left like a withered auld trunk, waiting heaven's gude time ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... or Adurus, from Celtic dour, water), a river of south-west France, rising in the department of Hautes Pyrenees, and flowing in a wide curve to the Bay of Biscay. It is formed of several streams having their origin in the massif of the Pic d'Arbizon and the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, but during the first half of its course ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in the hospitals. Everywhere I went, where there were wounded men, I sang for those who were strong enough to be allowed to listen, and told them stories, and did all I could to cheer them up. It was heartrending work, oftentimes. There were dour sights, dreadful sights in those hospitals. There were wounds the memory of which robbed me of sleep. There were men doomed to blindness for the rest ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... endearing she had found her, and what a splendid nature she fully believed the girl to possess. But when Miss Symes, full of thoughts for Betty's comfort, entered the room, followed by a servant bringing a little tray of temptingly prepared tea, Betty's look was, to say the least of it, dour; she did not smile, she scarcely looked up, there was no brightness in her eyes, and there were certainly ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... eager face, with a great spirit looking out of it, and possibilities of passion both for good and evil in the keen, alert features. Just beside her was the dour, grim outline of her husband. Their life-histories were in those ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... herself more than ever before the actual daughter, as she heard with indignation of James's desertion of his mother's cause; but Mary, whatever she said herself, would not brook to hear her speak severely of him. "The poor laddie," she said, "he was no better than a prisoner among those dour Scots lords," and she described in graphic terms some of her own ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... where they would be in kilts. Like many another Scot, the first time he ever saw a kilt was on a Sassenach; indeed kilts were perhaps invented, like golf, to draw the English north. John is doing nothing, which again is not a Scotch accomplishment, and he looks rather miserable and dour. The Comtesse is already at her Patience cards, and occasionally she smiles on him as if not displeased with his long silence. At last ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... race; there is a Scotch spirit sensible in the whole place— in the rather narrow, rather gloomy streets, the solid, square, grey, aggressively prosperous buildings, the general greyness of the city, the air of dour prosperity. Even the Canadian habit of loading the streets with heavy telephone wires, supported by frequent black poles, seemed to increase the ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... the grand golf I'll play the day, and the life tingling in my finger-tips!" And great golf he did play, with his ripping passionate shots, but a thirty-foot putt on the home green beat him. All through the match his face had been dour, but now came the outstretched hand and the smile at the corner ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... artillery of both the first and the second divisions while the first division took up a supporting position in the neighborhood of Peissant. Under cover of this demonstration The Second Corps retired on the line of Dour, Quarouble and Frameries. The third division on the right of the corps suffered considerable loss in this operation from the enemy, who had ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... cracked shall be, Thy base-born bones be-thwacked shall be. I'll deal thee many a dour ding For that thou ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... Holloway brought him word that William Roper had come. Mr. Manley bade him bring him to him at a quarter-past. He felt that suspense would make William Roper malleable, and he intended to hammer him. At thirteen minutes past nine he composed his face into a dour truculence, an expression to which the heavy conformation of the ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... his eyne did the glamour of Faerie pass And the Rymour lay on Eildon grass. He lay in the heather on Eildon Hill; He gazed on the dour Scots sky his fill. His staff beside him was brash with rot; The weed grew rank in his unthatch'd cot: "Syne gloaming yestreen, my shepherd kind, What hath happ'd this cot we ruin'd find?" "Syne gloaming yestreen, and years twice three, Hath wind and rain therein ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... letter from the deputy treasurer to Yeardley and the Council. From Rolfe I learned its contents. It spoke of the stir that was made by the departure from the realm of the King's favorite. "None know where he hath gone. The King looks dour; 't is hinted that the privy council are as much at sea as the rest of the world; my Lord of Buckingham saith nothing, but his following—which of late hath somewhat decayed—is so increased that his antechambers cannot hold the throngs that come to wait upon him. Some will have it that ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... such a forbidding appearance that I was of two minds about addressing him. Dour he was indeed! Nor shall I ever forget how he looked when I spoke to him. He stopped short there in the road. On his big square nose he wore a pair of curious spring-bowed glasses with black rims. For a moment he looked at me through ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... are carefully described in the Durham Rites. At Durham "in the north syde of the cloister, from the corner over against the church dour to the corner over againste the Dortor dour, was all fynely glased, from the highs to the sole within a litle of the grownd into the cloister garth. And in every wyndowe iij pewes or carrells, where every one of the old Monks had his carrell, severall by himselfe, that, when ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... a dour and suspicious devil, Jock, and you've always been the same ever since I remember you. Captain MacKay is a whig and a Presbyterian, but he is a good soldier, and I wish I had been more civil to him last night. We are here to fight for the Prince of Orange and to beat the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... and the uncertainty of it all. Never was a girl so dazzled, so humbled, so worshiped, so neglected, so courted. He was a creature of a thousand moods to torture one. What guise would he wear to-day? Would he be gay, or dour, or sullen, or teasing or passionate, or cold, or tender or scintillating? I know that my hands were always cold, and my cheeks were always hot, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... save for her? And upon that thought he got to his feet, uttering an exclamation of bitter self-reproach, asking himself angrily what he was doing. He knew how much she gave him, what full measure of her affection! Was not that enough?—Out upon you, Louden! Are you to sulk in your tent, dour in the gloom, or to play a man's part, and if she be happy, turn a cheery face ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... the others to the door, was silent and dour. He had been cavalierly affronted by a man who, but a few short years before, he would have considered a mere underling. Here was Cowperwood bearding the lion in his den, dictating terms to the principal financial figures of the city, standing up trig ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... lowered by means of a couple of ammunition belts from a machine gun, and the three rounds cracked strangely in the rain-laden air, the water dripping from the rifles. After the firing, one of the party, a dour-looking Scot, void of all sentiment I should have thought (God forgive me!) stooped, and picking some objects out of the mud, thrust them into a handy pocket. They were his three empty cartridge cases. Then the Fifes sorrowfully marched away, leaving their beloved captain ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... Bordman heard a stirring behind him. Then Aletha climbed to the exit port and swung out. Bordman heard a dour muttering from the engineer. Then he saw her greeting her cousin. She had slipped out of the conventionalized Amerind outfit to which Bordman was accustomed. Now she was clad as Anglo-Saxon girls dressed for beaches on ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... intrusted to him. His tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional physical strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled out from behind his bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature and a hard ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... for a Saxon than a Celtic derivation in East Kent; but many localities, &c. there still retain British or Celtic names, and eminently so the stream that runs through River and Ewell, the Dour or Dwr, unde, no doubt, Dover, where it disembogues into the sea. May we not therefore likewise seek in the same language an interpretation of this (at least as far as I know) ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... was a man of few words, was LeFroy; dour and taciturn, but a man of brains and one who stood in wholesome ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... The sun gaed loon a' bluidy, an' belyve the morn rose unco mirk an' dreary, wi' bullers (rollers) frae the west like muckle sowthers (soldiers) wi' white plumes. I tauld the captain 'twas a' the faut o' Maxwell. I ne'er cad bide the blellum. Dour an' din he was, wi' ae girn like th' auld hornie. But the captain wadna hark to my rede when I tauld him naught but dool ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wisht ye'd see her," said Teressa. "She was neither to bind nor to stay. An' the tongue of her. Callin' us a lock a' papishes an' fenians! Sure, she was sittin' on Father Ryan's dour-step till past twelve o'clock wavin' an or'nge scarf, an' singin' ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick |
