"Sour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at Le Grand Soleil, where we stopped, was by no means exhilarating. Having passed through the black, dirty kitchen, and climbed the dingy staircase, we were shown several rooms, which we could not have, by a very sour-looking old woman, who tried to persuade us to content ourselves with apartments without fire-places. This we resisted determinedly, suggesting that ladies had a right to supersede male travellers, and, assisted by ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... horrible idea!" cried I. "All the rest of us, men, women, and livestock, save only these four porkers, are bedevilled with one grief or another; they alone are happy,—and you mean to cut their throats and eat them! It would be more for the general comfort to let them eat us; and bitter and sour morsels ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... imbibed no other philosophy than that which worldly deceits and disappointments bestow, his remarks, though shrewd, were bitterly sarcastic, and partook of all the ill-nature for which a very scanty knowledge of the world gives a sour and malevolent ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... All of us know that vinegar and lemon juice have a sour taste, and it is easy to show that most acids are characterized by a sour taste. If a clean glass rod is dipped into very dilute acid, such as acetic, sulphuric, or nitric acid, and then lightly touched to the tongue, it will taste sour. But the best test of an acid is ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... Boldheart," replied the towering mariner, "I've sailed man and boy for many a year, but I never yet know'd the milk served out for the ship's company's teas to be so sour as 'tis aboard ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... looked so cold and dreary. The long willow leaves were quite yellow. The damp mist fell off the trees like rain, one leaf dropped after another from the trees, and only the sloe-thorn still bore its fruit; but the sloes were sour and set one's teeth on edge. Oh, how grey and sad it looked, out ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Des Esseintes upon taking a seat in this room heavy with strong wines. He looked about him. Here, the tuns were placed in a straight line, exhibiting the whole series of ports, the sweet or sour wines the color of mahogany or amaranth, and distinguished by such laudatory epithets as old port, light delicate, Cockburn's very fine, magnificent old Regina. There, protruding formidable abdomens pressed closely against each other, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... antique traditions between the nations of the two worlds? Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of America.) This kind of vine, peculiar to America, has given rise to the general error that the true Vitis vinifera is common to the two continents. The Parras monteses which yields the somewhat sour wine of the island of Cuba, was probably gathered on the Vitis tiliaefolia which Mr. Willdenouw has described from our herbals. In no part of the northern hemisphere has the vine hitherto been cultivated ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... ye mournful croakers, Smoking is a dirty habit. Brainless are ye, sour non-smokers, As a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... show but half my pain. Dissembling friends, each early joy who gave, And fired my youth the storms of fate to brave, Swarm'd in the sunshine of my happier days, Pursued the fortune and partook the praise, Now pass my cell with smiles of sour disdain, Insult my woes and triumph ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Sour apples are there, no doubt, whose lot is to wait until the last day of autumn: and at the same time they become ripe, ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... shop. On the days when dessert is a name given to a handful of chocolates and a little preserved ginger, when macdoine de fruits is the title bestowed on two prunes and a piece of rhubarb, then the orange, however sour, comes nobly to the rescue; and on those other days of plenty when cherries and strawberries and raspberries and gooseberries riot together upon the table, the orange, sweeter than ever, is still there to hold its own. Bread and butter, beef and mutton, eggs and ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... had been in the past dry periods when even the hardiest vegetation all but perished. So it came about that the Marquesan was obliged to improvise a method of keeping breadfruit for a long time, and becoming habituated to sour food he learned to like it, as many Americans relish ill-smelling cheese and fish and meat, or drink with pleasure absinthe, bitters, and ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... apron and all, but on meddling with her, she proved a very dragon, the antipodes of her name. Tattered copies of the Universal Spelling-Book served her aristocracy, ragged Testaments the general herd, whence all appeared to be shouting aloud at once. She looked sour as verjuice when my mother and Emily entered, and gave them to understand that 'she wasn't used to no strangers in her school, and didn't want 'em.' We found that in Chapman's opinion she 'didn't larn 'em nothing.' She had succeeded her aunt, who had taught him to read 'right off,' but 'her ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I ordered a light and went below. There had been some fatal misunderstanding somewhere. The vessel was fitted out as for an arctic voyage. Everywhere hard-bread, flour, pork, beef, vinegar, sour-krout; but, clearly enough, not, at the very best, five ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... you must get acquainted with; this dark swarthy man with the black eyes, black curling hair, and cast-iron face, sour and austere. That is Ned Wade, Frank's younger brother, and one of the pleasantest and best-hearted men alive. He has more book than Frank, and quite as much talent, and will hammer ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... engage in drinking and gambling for his amusements. He did not adopt a priggish attitude on these matters,—he simply knew that there were other things which were better sport. He was a religious man, a member all his life of his father's church, but religion did not sour him, make him gloomy, or cause him to interfere with other people about their belief or ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... one that brought honest old Greeley down, on his strictures anent "country bread." And here is the recipe; take it for what it is worth and try it fairly before condemning it. It is for home use: One quart of sweet milk, one quart of sour, two quarts of Indian meal and one quart of flour and a cupful of dark, thin Porto Rico molasses. Use one teaspoon full of soda only. Bake in a steady, moderate oven, for four hours. Knead ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... your position afford preferences?" he inquired, tartly. Thus far the banker had fully lived up to his sour reputation. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the general store in Hillsboro, and ran the post office. It was easy to see that he was an honest man; he kept his shop tidy, and was sour to everybody. Through his square spectacles he saw his neighbors in the form of fruits, vegetables, stick pins, and pieces of calico. Of Mr. Jeminy he used to say: "Sweet apples, but small, ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... is supposed to be in their keeping. The different qualities and properties of bodies are in their keeping. Whether an object is hot or cold to our senses, depends upon the character of their vibrations; whether it be sweet or sour, poisonous or innocuous to us, depends upon how the atoms select their partners in the whirl and dance of their activities. The hardness and brilliancy of the diamond is supposed to depend upon how the atoms of carbon unite and ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, sour-visaged, and named Cortes; the other, large, ordinary, fleshy, and ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... Moraine Park and Winthrop glacier's old bed, the road would ascend to Grand Park and the Sour-Dough country—a region unsurpassed anywhere on the Mountain for the breadth and grandeur of its views. More descents, climbs and detours would bring it to the foot of White glacier, and thence through Summerland and Cowlitz ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... speak to him. It seemed there was no living creature but must have been swift to recognise that imminent animosity; but the hide of the Justice-Clerk remained impenetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce could never have subsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours of sour silence; and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie nursed the enthusiasm of rebellion. It seemed to him, from the top of his nineteen years' experience, as if he were marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some signal action, to set back fallen Mercy, to overthrow the usurping devil that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... You see, they think we whites and the occasional nigger are Injuns that have been bleached out or blackened by some leprous disease or other—for some peculiarly rascally SIN, mind you. It is a mighty sour pill for us all, my friend—even the modestest of us, let alone the other kind, that think they are going to be received like a long-lost government bond, and hug Abraham into the bargain. I haven't asked you any of the particulars, ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... Titianus, entering his wife's room. "Have some bread brought to me and a cup of mixed wine; why—really! here stands all I want ready as if I had ordered it. You are right, I was with Sabina a shorter time than usual; but she exerted herself in that short time to utter as many sour words as if we had been talking for half a day. And in five minutes I must quit you again, till when?—the gods alone know when I shall return. It is hard even to speak the words, but all our trouble and care, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... In another environment she might have been a big, strong woman. She's amazing, considering the sickly, sycophantic atmosphere she's been brought up in. Now, I want to see her married. She's thoroughly discontented and unhappy. She's becoming sour and cynical. WE must get her married. It's your duty ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... from Byrnesville. The roads were narrow and miry, and were not improved by a heavy rain which fell during the march, and by the passage of successive trains of wagons and batteries of artillery. The march was slow and toilsome. The infantry labored along with mud-clogged feet, casting sour looks and candid curses at the cavalry and couriers, who bespattered them. The artillery often stuck fast, and the struggling horses failed to move the pieces, until the cannoneers applied themselves and pushed and strained ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... change your mind, lady, and come with me to visit my friend, the Emperor Isaac? I swear that his court is gay, not packed full of sour Saracens or pilgrims thinking of their souls. In Cyprus they only make pilgrimages to Paphos yonder, where Venus was born from out the foam, and has reigned since the beginning of the world—ay, and ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... 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
... The hotel also is surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. We stood out for an hour in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely. Then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. We were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each other any longer. We had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for breakfast, and we are going to have I don't know what for dinner at six. In the public ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... on with a nod and smile, and I could almost have wept in my rage and despair. I could not have thought of anything more cruel than this, and there was a sour grin on Evan's face, as if he knew what was ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... that he would have supported such a burden with a different result? Mr. Quiverful was an honest, painstaking, drudging man, anxious indeed for bread and meat, anxious for means to quiet his butcher and cover with returning smiles the now sour countenance of the baker's wife; but anxious also to be right with his own conscience. He was not careful, as another might be who sat on an easier worldly seat, to stand well with those around him, to shun a breath which ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... feelings and desires were turned towards gold. Gold became his passion, his delight, the object of his being. Bank-notes filled his portfolios, piles of gold his coffers; but, like all avaricious men, he grew sour, selfish, inaccessible to every thing but money—cold-hearted and penurious. He was gradually sinking into an unhappy miser, when an event came to pass which gave his whole moral being a terrible and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... buy them a load of wood and a garment or two the next day; and they were all so bright, and so merry, and so thankful, and so good, that, when I got home that night, I was mightily amazed that, instead of going to bed sour at holidays, I was in a state of great contentment in regard to holidays. In fact, I was really merry. I whistled. I sang. I do believe I cut a caper. The poor wretches I had left had been so ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... back and forth from the best room to the beasts without leaving its cover. So, no matter how deep the snow was, the cattle never lacked for fodder, the hens for feed, or the hogs for their mash, a boiler of which, sour and fumy, cooked winter and summer upon the kitchen stove; and, when the fiercest of blizzards was blowing, the family were in no danger of getting lost between the house and ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... that the waves of passion were dashing over his sturdy figure, reared above the dead-level, as a lone oak upon a sandy beach, not one harsh word rankled in his heart to sour the milk of human kindness that, like a perennial spring from the gnarled roots of some majestic tree, flowed within him. He would smooth over a rough place in his official intercourse with a funny story fitting the case in ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... giant, greatly marvelling, turned back; and stooping to pick up a stone, Orlando, who had Cortana naked in his hand, cleft his skull; upon which, cursing Mahomet, the monster tumbled, dying and blaspheming, to the ground. Blaspheming fell the sour-hearted and cruel wretch; but Orlando, in the mean while, thanked the Father and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... night. If the yeast is fresh, a small quantity will do; if several weeks old, it will take more. If you use dry yeast, let it soak fifteen minutes, and put in a tea-spoonful of salaeratus to prevent it from getting sour. ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... may be just as big a fool at sour seventy as she was at sweet seventeen. In fact, you can say about 'em, that a woman's always a woman, so long as the breath bides in her body; and my sister, Mary, weren't any exception to the rule. You see, there was only us two, and when my parents died, I married, ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, but now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, and himself thrust his ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them, and as divine those who from the inferences of their own minds and apart from the authority of divine words, proclaim as true the uncertain events of the future. Likewise, those who do not understand the Scriptures according to the actual truth eat sour grapes. ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river, there it runs and flows;—draining off the sour festering water gradually from the root of the remotest glass-blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... chap saw th' state o' things, An' pitied ther distress, An' begg'd em not to be soa sour Abaht soa sweet ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... accounts of your success at Cambridge, so you leave with a good omen. Remember me to GREEN CORN if it is in season; if not, you had better hang yourself on a sour apple tree, for your voyage has ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... another way in which he differs from the Hare family. He cuts them when they are ready for cutting and spreads them out on the rocks to dry in the sun. He knows that if he should take them down into his barns while they are fresh and green they would sour and spoil; so he never stores them away until they are thoroughly dry. Then, of course, they are hay, for hay is nothing but sun-dried grass cut before it has begun to die. When his hay is just as dry as it should be, he takes it down and stores it away in his barns, ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... came on and the family put the sour milk and the steaming potatoes on the table, ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... righteousness of God would not permit future generations to be held responsible for ever for the sins of generations past and present. "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion to use this proverb any more in Israel! Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to understand this Brandenburg-Neuburg phenomenon and the then significance of the Cleve-Julich Controversy, we must take the following bits of Chronology along with us. For the German Empire, with Protestant complaints, and Papist usurpations and severities, was at this time all a continent of sour thick smoke, already breaking out into dull-red flashes here and there,—symptoms of the universal conflagration of a Thirty-Years War, which followed. SYMPTON FIRST is that of Donauworth, and dates above a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... an irregular habit to accompany him on these shepherdings; to join him in his simple midday meal of sour brown bread and goat-milk cheese; to talk with him desultorily, and study him the while, inasmuch as he wakened an interest in me that was full of speculation. For his was not an imbecility either hereditary or constitutional. From the first there ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... of silly litter, Tears a handful sour and bitter; All a fool the author hold, But ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... tent flies, oilcloths and clothing, the men being forced to free themselves of all surplus incumbrances in order to keep up with the moving mass. At one place we passed General Early, sitting on his horse by the roadside, viewing the motley crowd as it passed by. He looked sour and haggard. You could see by the expression of his face the great weight upon his mind, his deep disappointment, his unspoken disappointment. What was yesterday a proud, well-disciplined army that had accomplished during ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... no direct and open opposition was made, the spirit of insurrection was not subdued. A sour and malignant temper displayed itself, which indicated but too plainly that the disposition to resist had only sunk under the pressure of the great military force brought into the country, but would rise again should that force be withdrawn. It was, therefore, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... magpie; the tinker, who had come up many a summer night to drink a-glass with Antoine; the Cheap John, who cheated everybody else, but who had always given her a toy or a trinket at every Fete Dieu all the summers she had known; the little old woman, sour as a crab, who sold rosaries and pictures of saints, and little waxen Christs upon a tray; the big dogs who pulled the carts in, and lay panting all day under the rush-bottomed chairs on which the egg-wives and the fruit sellers sat, and knitted, and chaffered; nay, even the gorgeous ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... had imbibed his father's likings in his youth, which was a champion for the late Man,) and would rather have done a murder on a Thursday than have travelled on the Sabbath-day. "Better break heads," he was used to say, "than break the Sabbath." I did always find him, the father I mean, a sour hand at a bargain; and when he was used to drive me hard upon his tithes and agistments, I could fancy he took me for one of the Amalekites, or one of the Egyptians, whom he thought it a meritorious Christian deed to spoil. The Monday came at last, and Master George ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Bigot, passionately. "Why do you utter his name, Varin, to sour our wine? I hope one day to pull down the Dog, as well as the whole kennel of the insolent Bourgeois." Then, as was his wont, concealing his feelings under a mocking gibe, "Varin," said he, "they say that it is your marrow bone the Golden ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... During the process of bread making, a small portion of the acid is volatilized, but the larger part enters into chemical combination with the gliadin, forming an acid proteid. When the alcoholic fermentation of bread making becomes less active, acid fermentations begin, and sour dough results. It is not definitely known what specific organic acids are developed in bread making. Lactic and butyric acids are known to be formed, and for purposes of calculation, the total acidity is expressed in terms ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... sour about, you oakum trimmed lobster? She don't kiss you. You don't have to sit on her lap and listen to talk that would make the book of a musical comedy sound like the maxims of Epictetus. You ought to be thankful you're not a dog. Brace up, Benedick, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... throughout the journey the eight of us—since by now our little party had grown—lived rather simply and frugally and, I might say, sketchily on rations consisting of one loaf of soldiers' bread, one bottle of mineral water and a one-pound pot of sour and rancid honey which must have emanated in the first place from a lot ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... "Folks at home as just read the newspaper accounts of the war don't know anything of what us fellows have to put up with. All they think we do is to rush forward, kill the enemy, and cover ourselves with glory. I'll wager some of 'em would put on a mighty sour face if they had to tramp ten or twenty miles in the mud and wet, carry a gun and other luggage, and hardly knowing when the next meal was going to turn up and what it ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... quite simple with regard to seeing and hearing. At the same time, it is necessary when tests are made, to depend upon general, and rarely constant impressions, since very few people mean the same thing by, stinging, prickly, metallic, and burning tastes, even though the ordinary terms sweet, sour, bitter, and salty, may be accepted as approximately constant. The least that can be done when a taste is defined as good, bad, excellent, or disgusting, is to test it in every possible direction with regard to the age, habits, health, and intelligence of the taster, for ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... struggle between two worlds and two spirits, a third surviving silenced both. As the fading faith and the newborn reason were disputing together, somebody stepping between them caught hold of man. You ask who? A spirit unclean and raging, the spirit of sour ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... thrusts is not to me taste. Lave us be merry about it an' jovial an' affectionate. Lave us laugh an' sing th' octopus out iv existence. Betther blue but smilin' lips anny time thin a full coal scuttle an' a sour heart. As Hogan says, a happy peasanthry is th' hope iv th' state. So lave us warble ti-lire-a-lay—' Jus' thin Euclid Aristophanes Madden on th' quarther deck iv th' throlley car give a twisht to his brake an' th' chief ixicutive iv th' nation wint ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... a gamester," said Mr Monckton, "depends solely upon his luck; his disposition varies with every throw of the dice, and he is airy, gay and good humoured, or sour, morose and savage, neither from nature nor from principle, but wholly by the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... into the loft, reek up puffs of a rank, sour, penetrating odor. From time to time are heard sonorous growls and deep breathings, followed by a dull sound, as of great bodies stretching themselves ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... alone, and is down driving out with my girl under an alias?' he said, showing sour aversion at the prospect of a collision with the foreign species, as expressive as the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dish, taking the place of porridge to a Scotchman, and is nothing less than curded sheep's milk, like German 'dicke-milch,' eaten with sugar, to which cream is added as a luxury. As it was rather sour, we fought shy of it at first, fearing future consequences, but this was unnecessary. It is really excellent, and the natives eat it in large quantities. Huge barrels of this skyr are made during the time the sheep are in full milk, and stored away for ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... wouldst call to mind how Meleager Was wasted by the wasting of a brand, This would not," said he, "be to thee so sour; ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... and beer must be neither thin nor sour, but sweet and of good body. Surely, Master Beggs must have gone off his head, thus to furnish his ship! For never before had a vessel sailed out of Plymouth harbor, provided after this fashion. An ample store of ropes and cordage, and of all matters required for a ship's equipage, were ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... confidential letters Fisher Ames remarked that Hammond was a most "petulant, impudent" man, habitually railing against the conduct of our government "with a gabble that his feelings render doubly unintelligible." But Pinckney, our representative in England, was equally undiplomatic. He was "sour and also Gallican"; although calm in manner, "he had prejudices, and unless a man has a mind above them, he can do little ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... Apollo Aguieus,[97] who watchest at the door of my entrance hall, accept this fresh sacrifice; I offer it that you may deign to soften my father's excessive severity; he is as hard as iron, his heart is like sour wine; do thou pour into it a little honey. Let him become gentle like other men, let him take more interest in the accused than in the accusers, may he allow himself to be softened by entreaties; calm his acrid humour and deprive his ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... study it. You call your cousin sweet, And treat her as you would a crab. As sour 'Twould seem you think her, as you covet her! Why how the monster stares, and looks about! You construe Latin, and ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... the scorn and carelessness of a gentleman usher, laughing rudely and nervously, or obtruding himself into groups of gentlemen gathered round a wit or poet. Quarrelsome men pace about fretfully, fingering their sword-hilts and maintaining as sour a face as that Puritan moping in a corner, pent up by a group of young swaggerers, who are disputing over a card at gleek. Vain men, not caring whether it was Paul's, the Tennis Court, or the playhouse, published their clothes, and talked as loud as they could, in order ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... we have heard how rich he is, perhaps it is sour grapes, that is all. And now, since he is warned off the young bird, perhaps he is hunting the old one, that's all. Impossible why impossible? You know old ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... continually from their presence; Vernou was an actor by nature bound never to pardon the success of another, condemned to chronic discontent because he was never content with himself. Lucien began to understand the sour look which seemed to add to the bleak expression of envy on Vernou's face; the acerbity of the epigrams with which his conversation was sown, the journalist's pungent phrases, keen and elaborately wrought as a stiletto, were at ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... expected to see either of 'em. Well there!" after a very small sip from the glass, "there's another pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder that Erkskine man is ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is, my mind is just now preoccupied in wondering if the gas is leaking anywhere, and if anything is ever served over this bar except elegant conversation. When the gentleman who mixes drinks comes back, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell him to send a whisky sour to Mr. Jack Hamlin in the parlor. Meantime, you can turn off your soda fountain: I don't want any ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... planned and well sustained imposture in those who are not diseased at all. The latter is a much more difficult task in many cases than the former, as I will subsequently show, and it has a tendency to sour the temper and harden the heart, which the former does not. I do not imagine that the medical men in our convict establishments are naturally less warm-hearted, less nobly devoted to their profession than their brethren outside, but it will not be ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... of going when it answers his purposes. I do not hear of many rats running as yet, except the Duke of Queensbury, Lord Brudenell, and W. Gerrard, Hamilton, and Sir Robert Smyth, but probably some more dirty dogs will follow them. The Chancellor seems very sour and crusty, and certainly does not like Pitt, but I cannot believe he will do otherwise than ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... rumbled by today And dropped me off a sour one - are you on? I went and gave the boss a cooney con About the Car-Barn Kick - what did he say? "Back to your platform, Clarence light and gay, Jingle the jocund fares, nor think upon The larks of Harry Lehr or Bath ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... the washiest drink a nation was ever drenched with. the origin of bad beer dates from the repeal of the sugar duty in England; before that time beer was brewed from malt and hops, and that we had "jolly good ale and old," and sour pie. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... silly!" said Marjorie; "I don't know what to make of Delight. It isn't a bit Glad's fault. She was as sweet as pie; but Delight was as sour as buttermilk." ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... beast, half snake and half cat, crawled across a roof, spread leathery wings, and flapped to the ground. The sour pungent reek of incense from the open street-shrine made my nostrils twitch, and a hulked form inside, not human, cast me a surly green glare as ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... thee what, Edward," he said, "thou must let her have more freedom. You are too rash; you must be astute an you would succeed. Dorothy is drawn by affection, not driven by ill words or sour looks. It had been better for thee, I trow, an thou hadst not pressed for the marriage so soon; but ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... shoulders braced back, instead of bounding, as nature directs to complete her own design, in the various attitudes so conducive to health. The pure animal spirits, which make both mind and body shoot out, and unfold the tender blossoms of hope are turned sour, and vented in vain wishes, or pert repinings, that contract the faculties and spoil the temper; else they mount to the brain and sharpening the understanding before it gains proportionable strength, produce that pitiful cunning ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Lord contemplate a little fruit. A berry here and there! A thin bunch of sour, unripened grapes! Yet it is too true that many believers yield no more than this. He comes to us hungry for grapes, but behold a few mildewed bunches, not fit ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... a note to King Louis XVIII. requiring him in plain terms to put a stop to the machinations of his brother. [274] The interference of the foreigner provoked the Ultra-Royalists, and failed to excite energetic action on the part of King Louis, who dreaded the sour countenance of the Duchess of Angouleme more than he did Wellington's reproofs. In the end the question of a settlement of the unfunded debt was allowed to remain open. The Government was unable to carry the sale of the Church forests, the Chamber did ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... not always remain the same, but some of the same ones remained a good while, and were there from season to season, always welcomed and adored. They were commendable cats, with such names as Fraulein, Blatherskite, Sour Mash, Stray Kit, Sin, and Satan, and when, as happened now and then, a vacancy occurred in the cat census there followed deep sorrow and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... played over to him by his son James, that he might be sure he left him in full possession of it. After hearing it, he hummed it over himself, and corrected it in several of the notes. The air was that called Sour Plums in Galashiels. When barks and other tonics were given him during his last illness, he privately spat them into his handkerchief, saying, as he had lived all his life without taking doctor's drugs, he wished to die ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... A frequent headache over the eyes; A susceptibility to chills and fever; A bitter or oily taste in the mouth; A sour stomach; A complexion inclined to be yellow; A great depression of spirits; Specks before the eyes, and flushed face; A done-out, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... commanded the Prophet Ezekiel to refute it at large; the Substance of which I cannot avoid setting down, it being so full to my Purpose. The Prophet introduces it thus, Ezek, xviii. 2. What mean ye, that use this Proverb in Israel, The Fathers have eaten sour Grapes, and the Children Teeth are set on edge? Ver. 4. Behold all Souls are mine, as the Soul of the Father, so also the Soul of the Son is mine: the Soul that sinneth, it shall die. The Prophet then, from ver. 5. to 19. ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... "sour-dough." He had seen the pranks that Alaskan winters play with men and women, he had watched the alteration in minds and morals made by the Arctic isolation, and he had considered himself proof against the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... sat for a few minutes, her blue eyes opaque, her little pink lips a straight line; then suddenly her eyes lit, and she smiled. "Poor Diantha," said she, "I remember how Henry used to like Lily Jennings's mother before he married Diantha. Sour grapes hang high." But Grandmother Wheeler's beautiful old face was quite soft and gentle. From her heart she pitied the reacher after those high-hanging sour grapes, for Mrs. Diantha had been very good ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... like Bobadil, bragged of the number of packets of 'the most divine tobacco' they had smoked in a week, and told enormous lies of living for weeks in the Indies on the fumes alone. They affirmed it was an antidote to all poison; that it expelled rheums, sour humours, and obstructions of all kinds. Some doctors were of opinion that it would heal gout[43] and the ague, neutralise the effects of drunkenness, and remove weariness and hunger. The poor on the other hand, not disinclined to be envious and detracting ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Marshal Foch We Are With France Satan: 1920 Under Which King? Man, the Destroyer The Long Purposes of God Ballade to a Departing God Ballade of the Absent Guest Tobacco Next Ballade of the Paid Puritan The Overworked Ghost The Valiant Girls Not Sour Grapes Ballade of Reading Bad Books Ballade of the Making of Songs Ballade of Running Away with Life To ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... profound respect. My experienced eye detected in a moment that Lady Babbleton, in spite of her title and her stateliness, was exceedingly the reverse of good ton, and the daughters (who did not resemble the scrag of mutton, but its ghost) had an appearance of sour affability, which was as different from the manners of proper society, as it ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when young, the Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed beaute du diable which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood—that is what a foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. And kind words also produce their own image on men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings; and he has to become kind himself. There is such a rush of all other kinds of words in our days, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, idle words, ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... Bethune said tranquilly. "You had better put some of the gaseosa in the wine; it's sour Spanish tinto. Then if you like to pick up the book, I'll read you some Francois Villon. There was red blood in that fellow and it's a pity he's dead. You get into touch with him better beside the Spanish Main than ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... something to grow upon. No, no—don't talk in that way. It don't sound natural. It don't come from the heart. Now I was made to be by myself. I never saw the man I wanted to live one day with—much less all the days of my life. They may say this is sour grapes, and call me an old maid, but I don't care for that; I must have my own way, and I know it is a strange one; and there never was a man created that didn't want to have his. You laugh, child. I hope you will never find it out ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of people and places. He had left the village ignorant; he returned full of various knowledge; and so it was that in a certain despised field, all thistles and docks and every known weed, which field the tenant had condemned as a sour clay unfit for cultivation, William Hope found certain strata and other signs which, thanks to his mineralogical studies and practical knowledge, sent a sudden thrill all through his frame. "Here's luck at last!" said he. "My child! my child! our ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Mademoiselle de Montpensier to his colony of monks, he desired at any rate to induce her to withdraw from the world, and counselled her to enter a Carmelite convent. Mademoiselle's ardent passion for M. de Lauzun seemed to the Trappist Abbe a scandal; in fact, his sour spirit could brook no scandal of any sort. "I attended her father as he lay dying," said he, "and to me belongs the task of training, enlightening, and sanctifying his daughter. I would have her keep silence; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a question in which Mowgli concerned himself, for, as he said, he had eaten sour fruit, and he knew the tree it hung from; but when Phao, son of Phaona (his father was the Gray Tracker in the days of Akela's headship), fought his way to the leadership of the Pack, according to the Jungle Law, and the old calls and songs began to ring under the stars once ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... sensible and pleasant as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Viol. Dr. Johnson has truly said of Hudibras, "The manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and local, and therefore become every day less intelligible and less striking.... Much, therefore, of that humour which transported the century with merriment is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of the ancient Puritans, ... and cannot, but by recollection and study, understand the lines in which they are satirised. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge of the life ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... could avail for his rescue. A maiden must be found, his equal in birth and beauty, and loving him better than herself, so that she would expose herself to the same torment to deliver him. Two vessels were then to be provided, the one filled with sour wine, and the other with milk. Caradoc must enter the first, so that the wine should reach his neck, and the maiden must get into the other, and, exposing her bosom upon the edge of the vessel, invite the serpent to forsake ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in the English vulgar language is made to agree with every quality or thing; as, devilish bad, devilish good; devilish sick, devilish well; devilish sweet, devilish sour; devilish hot, devilish cold, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... though the place was, lie felt an irresistible desire to enter it. Seating himself, he ordered the regular dinner of the day. The light was dim; the tablecloth was dirty; the attendance was irregular and distracted. Littimer took one sip of the sour wine—which had a flavor resembling vinegar and carmine ink in equal parts—and left the further contents of his bottle untasted. The soup, the stew, and the faded roast that were set before him, he could scarcely swallow; ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... defend the tone of their letters to the Earl on the ground that he had written a piquant epistle to them. "But you can manifestly see their untruths in naming it a piquant letter," said Elizabeth, "for it has no sour or sharp word therein, nor any clause or reprehension, but is full of gravity and gentle admonition. It deserved a thankful answer, and so you may maintain it to them to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... require that they be purchased in large quantities. Cream of tartar is expensive, soda cheap. If one prefers to use baking powders there will be no need of cream of tartar, but the soda will still be required for gingerbread and brown bread, and to use with sour milk, etc. The advantage of baking powder is that it is prepared by chemists who know just the proportion of soda to use with the acid (which should be cream of tartar), and the result will be invariable if the cook is exact in measuring the other ingredients. When an inexperienced ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... English was rotten with French idiom; it was like an ill-built wall overpowered by huge masses of ivy; the weak foundations had given way beneath the weight of the parasite; and the ideas I sought to give expression to were green, sour, and immature as apples ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... shook every now and then when he laughed. You would have known right away, just as Little Girl knew, that he was a very happy little man, and you would have guessed right away, too, that the reason he was so roly-poly was because he laughed and chuckled and smiled all the time—for it's only sour, cross folks who are thin and skimpy. Quick as a wink, he pulled off his little peaked red cap, smiled the broadest kind of a smile, and said, "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... general, I fancy, look upon wild fruit of this kind as not exactly edible. I remember asking two colored men in Tallahassee whether the oranges still hanging conspicuously from a tree just over the wall (a sight not so very common in that part of the State) were sweet or sour. I have forgotten just what they said, but I remember how they looked. I meant the inquiry as a mild bit of humor, but to them it was a thousandfold better than that: it was wit ineffable. What Shakespeare said about the prosperity of a jest was never more strikingly exemplified. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... it is really easier to list those on which it should not be set than it is to enumerate those on which it may be planted. Of the soils not adapted to it, deep sandy lands, soils underlaid with quicksand close to the surface, soils with hardpan subsoil, wet, sour, poorly-drained lands, and stiff, pasty clays, ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... a light drizzle came on, and the streets became deserted. The hotel was a wretched one and the meal furnished us was in character with it. We were waited on by a sour, taciturn old man who bore a dirty towel on his arm, as a sort of badge of office, I presume. He nodded or shook his head as the case might demand, but not a word could I extract from him. At the close of our meal, which we dallied over, waiting for the ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... that;" and, looking at the two youths, he was delighted with them and affected them with a warm affection. Now he was a great connoisseur of bewitching glances, preferring the love of boys to that of girls and inclining to the sour rather than the sweet of love. So he said to himself, "This, indeed, is fine game. Glory be to Him who created and fashioned them out of vile water!"[FN16] and rising stood before them like a servant to do them honour. Then he went out and made ready for them a shop which was in the very ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stage in the evolution of a Don Quixote. I took a good look at him. There was something about his air that impressed me as both lugubrious and humorous; and in this I was right, for I learned later that he was one of those rare people who can sing a comic song with immense success while preserving a sour countenance, like a Puritan preacher's. His eyes were a little sunken, his fingers long and nervous; but I fancied he looked a good fellow at heart, for all that, though foolishly impulsive. He was a punctilious gentleman, I felt sure; his face ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Small was the tallest of the four sisters; her good, round old face had gone a little sour; an innumerable pout clung all over it, as if it had been encased in an iron wire mask up to that evening, which, being suddenly removed, left little rolls of mutinous flesh all over her countenance. Even her eyes were pouting. It was thus that she recorded her permanent ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to set me and my brother together by the ears, not content with abusing him, and calling him a hot stone, and a mass of fire. In the meantime, I am no stranger to what these men, who look so grave and sour all day, are doing o' nights; but I see and say nothing, not thinking it decent to lay open their vile and abominable lives to the public; for when I catch them thieving, or practising any of their nocturnal tricks, I wrap myself up ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... worth something, too. I'd do a good deal to win your approval, Clover. So it's all settled. Don't worry about me, or be afraid that I shall spoil your comfort with sour looks. If I find I can't stand it, I'll go away for a while; but I don't think it'll come to that. You'll make a real home out of the ranch house, and you'll let me have my share of your life, and be a brother to you and Geoff; and I'll try to be a ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... taken by French people on a journey, and the cool self-satisfaction with which they are appropriated as occasion demands, give a stranger the most vivid idea of sensual egotism. The pt, the long roll of bread, the sour wine, the lap-dog, the snuff, and the night-cap, which transform the car or carriage into a refectory and boudoir, with the chatter, snoring, and shifting of legs, make an interior scene for the novice, especially on a night-jaunt, compared to which the humblest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... at my chum, and ever giving him a chance kick or blow, should he be able to do so unobserved and without being directly taxed with it; though, of course, he would deny it if observed by any of the other boys, being an unmitigated liar, in addition to having a sour ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... being merely the contents of shallow mud holes, in the bottom of acacia swamps, over which the dryness of the season alone enabled us to travel. We have uniformly been obliged to strain our water before we drank it, and its taste, from the decayed vegetable matter it contained, was sour and unpleasant. ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley |
