"Hard to please" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decency and common sense—he would have them read what they would read in no one but himself, or he would not give a rush for their applause. He is to be "a chartered libertine," from whom insults are favours, whose contempt is to be a new incentive to admiration. His Lordship is hard to please: he is equally averse to notice or neglect, enraged at censure and scorning praise. He tries the patience of the town to the very utmost, and when they shew signs of weariness or disgust, threatens to discard them. He says he will write on, whether he is read or not. He would never ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... sat in his comfortable porch chair in the cool of the evening, at peace with all the world. His frame of mind was enviable; indeed, that person would be hard to please who could look down the vista of pleasant probabilities which stretched before his mental vision ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... hand. We are a good deal talked about in our set. We have come to the end of all the ordinary excuses—'She is so young.—She is so fond of her father and mother that she doesn't like to leave them.—She is so happy at home.—She is hard to please, she would like a good name—' We are beginning to look silly; I feel that distinctly. And besides, Cecile is tired of waiting, poor child, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... of yourself. How come you to be so masterful a smith? Why do you live as a black Lad all the week and turn only into a white Woman on Saturdays? Have you really got a Great-Aunt, and where does she live? How old are you? Why were you so hard to please about the shoeing of Pepper? And why, the better my shoes the worse your temper? Why did you run away from me a week ago? Why did you never tell me who you were? Why have you tormented me for a whole month? What is ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Bassett, who felt all this in the very air she breathed, the girl's innocence of the condition of affairs was even a little touching. With all her splendor, she was not at all hard to please, and had quite awakened to an interest in the impending social event. She seemed in good spirits, and talked more than was her custom, giving Miss Belinda graphic descriptions of various festal gatherings she had attended in New York, when she seemed to have been very gay indeed, and ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... attended together. It was not strange that Frank Van Buren should admire a girl as bright and piquant and pretty as his cousin Ethelyn, but it was strange that she should idolize him, bearing patiently with all his criticisms, trying hard to please him, and feeling more than repaid for her exertions by a word of praise or commendation from her exacting teacher, who, viewing her at first as a poor relation, was inclined to be exacting, if not overbearing, in his demands. But as time passed on all this was changed, and the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... hour in his private office, closeted with his chief clerk, who had been busy over night preparing a speech which his honor was to deliver before some distinguished city guest the next day. In these matters the chief magistrate proved rather hard to please, as he was fond of high-sounding words and poetical ideas, but found them very ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... in the paper? "Victor Hugo and Rochefort, the greatest writers of the age." If Badinguet now is not avenged, it is because he is hard to please in the matter ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... training they are kind and generous; so much so that it is as difficult to convict them of an unkindly act as it is easy to prove them more generous and liberal than many of the professed followers of Jesus. Often they are charitable, giving of their substance to the poor; not hard to please, considerate of their inferiors, patient with one another; in a very high sense they have true charity. And after long periods of struggle, and lofty and faithful effort, they may be able to claim that they have developed a fine character; that by self-cultivation, and perhaps by a ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... trial, it was found that the lady of the house was fretful, or exacting, and hard to please; or, that her children were so ungoverned, as to be perpetual vexations; or, that the work was so heavy, that no time was allowed for relaxation and the care of a wardrobe;—and another place offers, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... Lodge were just as real, so they at least helped him to bear his trials more patiently than he could otherwise have done. She was far more comfortable than she had expected to be, she told him. Her duties were light, and Miss MacDowlas not hard to please, and altogether she ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... in love with you! He thinks you an angel from heaven and so I am sure you are, miss, in your heart. I do assure you that my Fan gets quite put out because she thinks he draws comparisons to her disadvantage. I don't think you can be so hard to please ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... over reflectively. "There ought to be someone for me," he said. "I am not hard to please. Any good, steady old lady who will give me a bite to eat, not swear at me or wear my clothes or drink while on duty will answer ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... afternoon in that "cruise," visiting department stores, jewelers, and art shops innumerable. Captain Elisha was hard to please, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it will all be ours," rejoined Tommy promptly. "Who wants a big room, anyway? I don't. Bobby, I'd be hard to please if I ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... you are hard to please, madam: to find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task. But, faith and troth, you speak very discreetly; for I hate both a wit ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... and escort. These latter-day Voltaires and Joseph de Maistres, beneath their boldness in speech and writing, concealed a dread uncertainty, feeling the ground, being fearful of compromising themselves with the young men, and striving hard to please them and to be younger than the young. They were revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries merely as a matter of literature, and in the end they resigned themselves to following the literary fashion which they themselves ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... me. If there's anyone else that understands that turn of her head as I do, I'll give her up without scruple. I have made up my mind to this, never to dream of another woman, while she even thinks it worth her while to REFUSE TO HAVE ME. You see I am not hard to please, after all. Did M—— know of the intimacy that had subsisted between us? Or did you hint at it? I think it would be a CLENCHER, if he did. How ought I to behave when I go back? Advise a fool, who had nearly lost a Goddess ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... of the blood. Also, when a girl, she had been betrothed to Archelaus at the time he was ethnarch of Jerusalem. She had a goodly fortune in her own right, so that marriage had not been compulsory. To boot, she had a will of her own, and was doubtless hard to please in so important a matter ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... asking you to marry my mother. Mothers of only sons are hard to please, but you know as well as I can tell you that the mater is fond of you at heart, and that she will grow fonder still. She had her own ideas, and she fought for them, but she won't fight any more. You mustn't be hard on the mater, Claire. She has done her ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... bright and pretty—always sweet with the perfume of flowers, always gay with the music of birds. But more, the children wanted to see the lame little girl who "tended store," who seemed to try so hard to please her customers and who was so affectionate and respectful with the old, old lady whom ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... fish for dinner, and by the hotel were furnished with a well-broiled chicken and a good glass of champagne, with ice worthy of being dissolved in such liquor. I fell premeditatedly in love with the place; and D——, who was on the look-out for a location, and something hard to please withal, had already selected a site for building: but, alas! even Paradise, before the mission of St. Patrick, had serpents; and the delightful copses and rich meadows of Fresh-pond are, it appears, the haunts especially favoured ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Rudyard, in our hours of ease (Before the war) you were not hard to please: You loved a regiment whether fore or aft, You loved a subaltern, however daft, You loved the very dregs of barrack life, The amorous colonel and the sergeant's wife. You sang the land where dawn across the Bay Comes up to waken queens in Mandalay, The ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... set on record that this admiration of theirs was not misplaced. He would have been hard to please who had not been attracted by Sally. She was a small, trim, wisp of a girl with the tiniest hands and feet, the friendliest of smiles, and a dimple that came and went in the curve of her rounded chin. Her eyes, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... came faster, until by noon they had ten hobbled in the open pasture. Two of these were Pan's. He had been hard to please. ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... "We should be very hard to please, madam," returned Albert, "did we not think him delightful. A friend of ten years' standing could not have done more for us, or with a ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... each three hundred and fifty pounds on their wedding day,—three hundred pounds to go to their husbands, and fifty pounds for wedding expenses,—on condition that they marry with my approval. I shall not be so hard to please for them ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... English painter who went to Rome, and when he got into the Sistine Chapel, turning to his companion, said, "Egad, George, we're bit!" Our own tendency is, because of our ignorance, to be sceptical and suspicious as to foreign works of art, especially of a kind that are novel and daring. No one is so hard to please as a simpleton. We are so afraid of being taken in, that we are reluctant to commit ourselves in favor of any new thing until we have heard from headquarters; but it appears to be considered a sign of knowledge to vituperate pictures and statues which do not conform to ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... thought you complained, dearest. Nothing can be better than you are at all times and in every way. A man would be very hard to please ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... "How do you feel after the concert? You must be hard to please indeed if you were not satisfied ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... two reasons—they did not know what to ask for, and they had no Russian money in their pockets; they therefore shook their heads, and signed to the driver to go on. The man evidently thought them very unreasonable and hard to please, but obeyed. It was soon clear to them that they were getting to the outskirts of the city, and they were about trying to make the man turn back when they saw three figures approaching, whom by their rolling walk and dress they recognised even at a distance as English seamen. When the men ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... men were rather hard to please, and to get rid of; but John had a visitor on the afternoon of the second day who almost caused his wits to desert him. He looked up from his desk as the door opened, and was astonished to see the smiling face of Edith Longworth, while behind her came the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... said, toward the end of a discussion. "By thirty you'll be too set in your habits, too hard to please." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in the summer, when one's heart lies round at ease, As it were in tennis costume, and a man's not hard to please, Yet I think that any season to have met her was to love, While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Mr. Cheetham know? To be sure the gentleman is a good deal with her, and I hear he has courted her this two years; and she likes his company, that's certain. But she is used to be admired, and she is very hard to please." ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Carmina was fretful, and hard to please: patient persuasion was needed to induce her to take her medicine. Even when she was thirsty, she had an irritable objection to being disturbed, if the lemonade was offered to her which she had relished at other times. Once or twice, when ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... drawbacks in the way of his becoming established as the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and fortune. In the first place, Cousin Elsie was, unquestionably, very piquant, very handsome, game as a hawk, and hard to please, which made her worth trying for. But then there was something about Cousin Elsie,—(the small, white scars began stinging, as he said this to himself, and he pushed his sleeve up to look at them,)—there was something about Cousin Elsie he couldn't make out. What ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... it hard to please an English Music Hall audience is its widely different classes. Admission to the gallery is from four to six cents while the orchestra seats are ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... during this trip, if we may trust report, which, while neither as learned as the college professors, nor perhaps as critical as the factory-men, was quite as hard to please, and the winning of whose approval shows another side of this great and many-sided man. A teacher in a Sunday-school in the Five Points district of New York, at that time one of the worst parts ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... Oakford knows how to cap the climax of human perfection, if we may judge from the various styles and fashions of Hats, Caps, &c., presented in his card on the cover of our "Magazine." His establishment is a favorite place of resort for all who desire to be well fitted; and they must, indeed, be hard to please, who cannot find something there to suit ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... us a great deal of good to have a little amusement just then, for this part of the voyage was a trial of patience more than anything else. Possibly we were rather hard to please, but the south-east trade, which we were expecting to meet every day, was, in our opinion, far too late in coming, and when at length it arrived, it did not behave at all as becomes a wind that has the reputation of being the steadiest ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Mrs. Swift feared that her son would fall in love with a girl named Betty Jones, but, as Swift told a friend, he had had experience enough "not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I am sure will not be in some years; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world." Soon afterwards an opening for Swift presented itself. Sir William Temple, now living in retirement at Moor Park, near Farnham, had been, like his father, Master ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... elongated passer-by, leaning on Marthereau like a poplar tree, "for sure, my old Caparthe, certainly. Tiens, there"—and unbending his elbow he makes an indicative gesture like a flag-signaler—"'Villa von Hindenburg.' and there, 'Villa Glucks auf.' If that doesn't satisfy you, you gentlemen are hard to please. P'raps there's a few lodgers in the basement, but not noisy lodgers, and you can talk out aloud in front of them, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... and Oh, hard to please some noblemen seem! GIU. At first, if anything, too unbending; Off we go to the other ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Hope": A Seventeenth-century Story of Adventure. "The boy who is not satisfied with this crowded story must be peculiarly hard to please."—Liverpool Courier. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... now in England. The public was, as it always is during the cold fits which follow its hot fits, sullen, hard to please, dissatisfied with itself, dissatisfied with those who had lately been its favourites. The truce between the two great parties was at an end. Separated by the memory of all that had been done and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... She was the smallest lady alive, 135 Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That overfilled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe, merry bees: 140 In truth, she was not hard to please! Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, Straight at the castle, that's best indeed To look at from outside the walls; As for us, styled the "serfs and thralls," 145 She as much thanked me as if ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... "it would be hard to please everybody, and foolish to try it. Remember the old man and his ass." Perhaps so, but the Lord should have thought of that before he made us; and if he cannot give us all we want, he might show us a little consideration now and then. But instead of occasionally accommodating the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... said Dorothy, "but I do wish it. I wouldn't, only she is so hard to please. Mamma wishes us to be nice to every one, but, Nancy, you do know that when we try the hardest to please Arabella, we don't ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... when he asked an unusually difficult question. Could it be entirely for the sake of the half-crown that she made these extraordinary exertions? Susan began to feel jealous of her companion's progress and a little ill-used; for although she tried hard to please Monsieur, it was quite evident that the pupil he was most proud of was Sophia Jane. "If he knew," thought Susan to herself, "why she does it, perhaps he wouldn't be so pleased. And I don't suppose she'll take so much trouble when once ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... crew's quarters on the "Pilgrim," built on the deck in the form of a "roufle," would be too small to hold them. An arrangement was then made to lodge them under the forecastle. Besides, these honest men, accustomed to rude labors, could not be hard to please, and with fine weather, warm and salubrious, this sleeping-place ought to suffice for the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... been preserved, which in the time of Romulus began with March, the "seventh" month, "September," is our ninth month; October (the eighth) is the tenth; November (the ninth) has become the eleventh; and December (the tenth) has taken the place of the twelfth. Verily, we are not hard to please! ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... I suppose in time we will get accustomed to our new surroundin's and environment. The Prince of Wales, they say, is hard to please, but I have no doubt that he will be glad to meet Lady ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... skill that would doubtless cause the despair of many a modern housewife who has attempted the same thing. It must not be supposed, however, that the course of this domestic life was without annoyance, as even here at this early day servants were inclined to be exacting and hard to please. At least, that is the inference which may be drawn from a letter by an old notary of Florence, Lapo Mazzei, wherein he takes occasion to say, in inviting a friend to supper, that it will be entirely convenient to ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... often hard to please," began Miss Mathilda, with a twinge of mischief, and then she sobered herself to her task, "but you must remember, Molly, she means it for your good and she is really very kind ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... was a cheering time, and the man or woman would have been hard to please who found nothing to delight or to amuse at Messer Folco's festival. To speak for myself, I had never known better diversion. There was a whole world of pretty women assembled within Messer Folco's walls, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... is lovely," said Nell; "and what trouble you have taken with it! She will be hard to please if she ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I, 'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I fled ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was somewhat hard to please, but she was not thinking of herself as she sat by her front window in the chilly November twilight. Instead, she was musing on the degeneration of hired men, and reflecting that it was high time the wheat ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Maisie was hard to please at that hour. First, the heat of the past few weeks had worn her down; secondly, her work, and particularly the study of a female head intended to represent the Melancolia and not finished in time for the Salon, was unsatisfactory; ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... shall get along nicely together," continued John. "If you are chumps enough to turn out of your comfortable beds at this time of the morning simply to see me, you can't be very hard to please. We shall hit it ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... and lunch; but rarely had the young lady of the domain been so hard to please in the matter of her dress. For words do leave their footsteps, drive them out as we will; and this Prim's words had done. Not quite according to Prim's intent, however; for the one clear idea in Wych Hazel's mind, was that Mr. Rollo was (or would be when he noticed it at all) dissatisfied with ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... Zena's father. Heaven knows Pupkin tried hard to please the judge. He agreed with every theory that Judge Pepperleigh advanced, and that took a pretty pliable intellect in itself. They denounced female suffrage one day and they favoured it the next. One day the judge would claim that the labour movement ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... most prejudiced boy," Mrs. Wingfield said, laughing. "First of all the man is too strict, and you were furious about it; now you think he's too lenient, and you at once suspect he has what you call a game of some sort or other on. You are hard to please indeed." ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... and kind to all his slaves when he was sober, but he was awful crabbed and cross when he was drunk, and he was drunk most of de time. He was hard to please and sometimes he would whip de slaves. I remember seeing Master Wash whup two men once. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... said Meldon, "'in our hours of ease'—that's now, Major, so far as we're concerned—'uncertain, coy, and hard to please.' That's what Miss King ought to have been, but wasn't. Nobody can say she was coy about the lobsters. 'When pain and anguish wring the brow.' That's the position in which Simpkins finds himself. 'A ministering ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... she said to her father, "I never could fall in love; you made me too hard to please. I always knew beforehand that no one could ever love me as you did. I saw so many things come into your face when I was there, such happiness! And when we went anywhere together, weren't you proud of me! Oh! weren't you just proud to have me leaning on your arm! It ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... a fidget the landlord was in about his wines, for he doubted not but such a guest would be extremely critical and hard to please; but, to his great relief, the baron declined taking any wine, merely washing down his repast with a tumbler of cool water; and then, although the hour was very early, he retired at once ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... had her friends; it was all much better than it used to be. Amongst the three, she perhaps looked forward the least to seeing Philippa, who never came without an offering of some kind—a picture-book, or something nice to eat. Philippa tried hard to please, but there was always a little condescension in her manner, from which her cousins were ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... she had no regrets. She was content. She was in love, she was loved. Doubtless she had not felt the intoxication she had expected, but does one ever feel it? She was the friend of the good and honest fellow, much liked by women who passed for disdainful and hard to please, and he had a true affection for her. The pleasure she gave him and the joy of being beautiful for him attached her to this friend. He made life for her not continually delightful, but easy to ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... there. She was dressed in a bright pink costume, with a large hat all smothered in pink feathers. I thought of the Queen of Sheba, and felt alarmed. Mrs. Polter told me afterwards she was 'just a lady,' rolling in recently acquired wealth, and 'as hard to please as if she had never washed her own doorstep.' It was then I learnt the difference between 'a lady' ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... can play together beautifully, but when a third one comes she is sure to want to do something that one of the others doesn't like and either breaks up the play or gets mad and goes off making you feel sort of hurt and queer inside. You know it is hard to please everybody and the more people you have to ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... Majesty. The king was despotic, hard, and even cruel, ever ready to sign the sentence of the condemned, and in almost all cases, if what is said at Stuttgart be true, increased the penalty inflicted by the judges. Hard to please, and brutal, he often struck the people of his household; and it is even said that he did not spare her Majesty the queen, his wife, who was a sister of the present King of England. Notwithstanding all this, he was a prince whose knowledge and brilliant ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... must say you're hard to please, whoever you are," remarked Archie, stopping the horse. "Hold the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... information is not yet come, Mr. Newton having intermitted a week more than usual since his last writing. When I receive it, favourable or not, it shall be communicated to you; but I am not very sanguine in my expectations from that quarter. Very learned and very critical heads are hard to please. He may perhaps treat me with levity for the sake of my subject and design, but the composition, I think, will hardly escape his censure. Though all doctors may not be of the same mind, there is one ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... the coils of the boa-constrictor is a wonderful picture. A boy must be hard to please if he wishes for anything ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... spent all my money on my dress for the party to-morrow night, I'd give each of them a half-dollar. As I can not, I'll hunt up the other things they wanted, for it's a shame they shouldn't have a bit of Christmas, when they tried so hard to please the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... very hard to please. If I were you, I should take a course of ventriloquism. Then you can ask yourself questions and give yourself any perishing answers you like. At times ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... her more vexation than any thing else; the expense of it pinched her, the ill success of her officers wearied her, and in that service she grew hard to please." She also arrived at a settled persuasion that the extreme of severity was safer than that of indulgence; an opinion which, being communicated to her officers and ministers, was the occasion, especially in Ireland, of many a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... again, They raced and chased over valley and plain, Catching up, in their mischievous whirls, The hats of boys and the bonnets of girls,— Tossing up feathers, and leaves, and sticks, Knocking down chimneys, and scattering bricks, Levelling fences and pulling up trees, Till Eolus—oftentimes hard to please— Clapped his hands as his wine he quaffed, And laughed as he ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... "Krag, you see, is hard to please. You must neither enjoy, nor renounce. What are you ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... you don't like the business, Miss Lee." He added dryly: "But then you always were hard to please. You weren't satisfied when I ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Taste influences us in every department of life, as our tastes are, so are we. The whole quality of our inner and outer life takes its tone from the things in which we find pleasure, from our standard of taste. If we are severe in our requirements, hard to please, and at least honest with ourselves, it will mean that a spur of continual dissatisfaction pricks us, in all we do, into habitual striving for an excellence which remains beyond our reach. But on the other hand we shall have to guard against that peevish fastidiousness which narrows itself ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... temper or you would wonder no more. I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah." ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... certain old Owl who had become very cross and hard to please as she grew older, especially if anything disturbed her daily slumbers. One warm summer afternoon as she dozed away in her den in the old oak tree, a Grasshopper nearby began a joyous but very raspy song. Out popped the old Owl's head from the opening in the tree that ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... down-stairs to have it cleaned and cooked. About one o'clock he came back up-stairs after I had had my lunch, and there he had it on a plate, fried up into a crisp. I couldn't have swallowed any of it, to save me, but I couldn't disappoint the little fellow when he had tried so hard to please me, so I had to ask him to leave it, and told him maybe I would feel more like eating after I had slept awhile. So he went out perfectly satisfied, and I lay there, growing sicker every minute from the smell of that fried fish. At last I gathered ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to have this capacity. In the letter which his guardian wrote to him after his flight from home, he was reproached with his "natural indolence." His good friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, accused him of being hard to please, and disposed to ennui; and again, as late as 1787, repeats to him, in a tone of sorrow, the reports brought to her of his "continuance in his old habit of indolence," his indifference to society, his neglect of his dress, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... with your rule!" said the impatient Simon. "Don't you see daddy's right down upon us, with an armful of hickories? I tell you, I helt nothin' but trumps, and could 'a' beat the horns off a billy-goat. Don't that satisfy you? Somehow or another, you're d—d hard to please!" About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low tone—for by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand—he continued, "But may be daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... number of lives they could be all found alike precise in point of public testimony; yet I would fain expect, that what is here recorded of them might be somewhat equivalent to whatever blemishes they otherwise had, seeing their different sentiments are also recorded: Otherwise I presume it were hard to please all parties. For Mr Wodrow has been charged by some (and that not without some reason) that, in favours of some of his indulged quondam brethren, in the last volume of his history, he has not only smothered some matters of fact relative to the more honest part of our sufferers, but even ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... possible?" I said, much touched by the little story. "And the ladies of Bonneroi, are they hard to please?" ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... answered, "If I actually dislike her, I need not marry her; but, of course, the choice is limited, so I must try not to be too hard to please." ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made: When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... He's—well, he's rather big. And sometimes I think, if you just tried, he wouldn't be so hard to please. He probably wants peace ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made, When pain and anguish wring the brow, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... coat miles too big for him. His soul was earnest, his courage great, his training good, his intelligence none too brilliant. Timothy, our cook, was pure Swahili. He was a thin, elderly individual, with a wrinkled brow of care. This represented a conscientious soul. He tried hard to please, but he never could quite forget that he had cooked for the Governor's safari. His air was always one of silent disapproval of our modest outfit. So well did he do, however, often under trying circumstances, that at the close of the expedition ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... Sir, you are hard to please; You never look but half content: Nor like a gentleman at ease With moral breadth ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... screen, all pagodas and parrots; two portraits of patched and powdered beauties in the Watteau style; and a queer old clock surmounted by a gilt Cupid in a chariot drawn by doves. If these failed to make him happy, thought I, he must indeed be hard to please. ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... occupations with the infallible accuracy of mechanism. But, as they said in their idiom, they had eaten their white bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all persons nervously agitated by a fixed idea, became hard to please, and nagging, less by nature than from the need of employing her activity. Having no husband or children to occupy her, she fell back on petty details. She talked for hours about mere nothings, on a dozen napkins marked "Z," placed in ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... hemp for their own halters; for, though he is not of the height of our Harold, he is a true Saxon, and we liked him well enow when he ruled us. And how is our Earl's brother Tostig esteemed by the Northmen? It must be hard to please those who had Siward of the strong arm for ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hard to please, I do!" Elizabeth answered. "I think Miss Margaret is as sweet a young lady as walks the earth; so thoughtful, and afraid of giving trouble, and neat and tidy as a pin. I tell you, Mr. Montfort's well off, and so's you and me, Frances. Why, ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... "You are rather hard to please, perhaps. I remember you used to say that a husband should be just as tender and respectful after marriage as before it. You seem to have broken poor Ned into this; and now ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... GOD is not hard to please, nor is true human love, for it is a dim reflection of His own. We do not estimate our love-gifts by their intrinsic value, but rather by the love they express. Well do we remember a little incident which occurred some twenty-four years ago, ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... be hard to please, Bungay, who can't eat a good dinner in this house," Doolan said, and he winked and stroked his lean chops with his large gloves; and made appeals of friendship to Mrs. Bungay, which that honest woman refused with scorn from the timid man. "She couldn't abide that Doolan," ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a year or two," said Nick. "I haven't talked it over with my wife yet. There's no knowing. She may object. Wives are sometimes hard to please, you know." He flung a humorous glance at Max, and turned to leave them. "You will excuse me, I am sure, with the utmost pleasure. I am going to play spelicans ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux, Quatremere on the one hand,—on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer, Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please." ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... "Then you're hard to please." Neil turned at the foot of the steps to say, trying to smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do like the look ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... of my work that helped me over the ugly details—the pity and beauty that disinfected the physical horror; but now that feeling is lost, and only the mortal disgust remains. Oh, Effie, I don't want to be a ministering angel any more—I want to be uncertain, coy and hard to please. I want something dazzling and unaccountable to happen to me—something ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... a hat store and asked to see the latest styles in derbies. He was evidently hard to please, for soon the counter was covered with hats that he had tried on and found wanting. At last the salesman picked up a brown derby, brushed it off on his sleeve, and extended ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... am passed by or not admitted to the stream of their sacrifices. For the rest of the gods are so curious in this point that such an omission may chance to spoil a man's business; and therefore one has as good even let them alone as worship them: just like some men, who are so hard to please, and withall so ready to do mischief, that 'tis better be a stranger than have ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus |
