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More "Surly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possession of by the children, who will fondle and tease it, ride on its back, or slide off over its head or tail. Soon they gain confidence, and find similar amusements with the full grown animals. These huge beasts are often surly or vicious, especially around white men, but they recognize their masters in the little brown folk, and submit meekly to their antics. In fact, the greater part of the care of these animals ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... had expected. He confided to me immediately that he had been a durn fool to give himself away to my friend, but talk was cheap, and people never believed him, anyway. Then gloom descended, and my professions of confidence received only the most surly responses. He unbent again for a moment with, 'Painter feller, you knowed the pesky ways of paint, didn't yer?' but when I followed up this promising lead and claimed him as an associate, he repulsed me with, 'Stuck up, ain't yer? Parley French like your friend? S'pose you've showed in the ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... illusions, she did not dare ask him to hand it over. They looked at each other in silence. He nodded significantly: "Where is she now?" and she whispered "Gone into the drawing-room. Want to see her again?" with an archly black look which he acknowledged by a muttered, surly: "I am damned if I do. Well, as you want to bolt like this, why ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... smoke," said Mr. Weintraub, with a smile which somehow did not seem to fit his surly face. "I must have steady nerves in my profession. Apothecaries who smoke make ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... as Claus returned from his night ride with Glossie and Flossie brought to him a new trouble. Will Knook, the chief guardian of the deer, came to him, surly and ill-tempered, to complain that he had kept Glossie and Flossie beyond daybreak, in opposition ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... about wit. In me, who am of the first sect of these, All merit, that transcends the humble rules Of my own dazzled scanty sense, Begets a kinder folly and impertinence Of admiration and of praise. And our good brethren of the surly sect, Must e'en all herd us with their kindred fools: For though possess'd of present vogue, they've made Railing a rule of wit, and obloquy a trade; Yet the same want of brains produces each effect. And you, whom Pluto's helm does wisely shroud From us, the blind and thoughtless ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... bull-dog's beauties, he becomes extraordinarily eloquent. Hatiz, the Persian, could not more warmly, or with choicer figure, describe his mistress' charms, than he does Lion's, or Fowler's, or whatever the brute's Christian name may be; and yet the surly, cynical, dogged expression of the bepraised beast, would almost make one imagine he understood the meaning of his master's words, and that his honest nature despised the flattering encomiums he passes upon his pink belly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... who swore fretfully into his moustache whenever the whimpering of the boy threatened to develop into honest bawls: a strange creature, with pockets full of candy and a way with little boys in public surly and domineering, in private timid and propitiatory. It was raining monotonously, with that melancholy persistence which is the genius of Parisian winters; and the paving of the interminable strange streets was as black glass shot with coloured lights. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... seem to be some truth in her objection. Lydgate said, "Very well," with a surly obedience, and thus the discussion ended with his promising Rosamond, and not ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... after promises and delays from the vacillating King, who one day orders his own troops out of the capital and his brother, later William I, to England to appease the anger of the mob, and parades the streets with the colors of the citizens in revolt wrapped about him; and the next day, surly, obstinate, but ever orating, holds back from his pledges, finally accepts a constitution which is probably as little democratic as ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... about this there came another rattle of fire, and we scuttled back to our shelter, among the horses. Every now and then a surly soldier with two huge revolvers came and looked over the ledge at us, and growled out: Was machen Sie denn hier? followed by some doubting remarks as to our right to be on the premises. As he was evidently very drunk and bad-tempered I was not at all sure that ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... a surly clang, And through the dark arch a charger sprang, Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... due course the fellow had carried out these wishes with the surly good-nature characteristic of him, Jack set ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of wars o'er the world wide, Castles a-fire, men on their march, {60} The toppling tower, the crashing arch; And up he looked, and a while he eyed The row of crests and shields and banners Of all achievements after all manners, And "Ay", said the Duke with a surly pride. The more was his comfort when he died At next year's end, in a velvet suit, With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot In a silken shoe for a leather boot, Petticoated like a herald, {70} In a chamber next to an ante-room, Where he breathed the breath ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... surly-looking backwoodsman, who sat with one hand thrust into the bosom of a hunting frock, and the other playing with the richly ornamented hilt of a dagger, while a round hat, surmounted by a huge cockade, was perched ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... apt to catch the spirit and temper of their masters. A surly man will be very likely to have a cross dog and a biting horse. A passionate man will keep all his animals in moral fear of him, making them, snappish, and liable to hurt those of whom they are ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hut with two doors opposite us, and sitting on mats in front was a fat man with little bones stuck at angles in his grizzled hair. He wore a pink shirt with studs and a pair of carpet slippers, and around his neck a lot of glass pendants from a chandelier, and he looked surly and sleepy. ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... the surly mutineers were riding slowly towards the coach. Every man had his pistol on the high pommel of the saddle. Their faces wore an ugly look. As they passed the officer, one of them, pointing ahead of him with his sword, shouted ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... been directed to the apiary by the beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner where Father Ferapont's cell stood. "Maybe he will speak as you are a stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him," the beekeeper had warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... first, they went to Bartlett's Hill, where the boys and girls were coasting, and coasted with them for a full hour,—and then it was discovered by the younger portion of his flock that the parson was not an old, stiff, solemn, surly poke, as they had thought, but a pleasant, good-natured, kindly soul, who could take and give a joke, and steer a sled as well as the smartest boy in the crowd; and when it came to snow-balling, he could send ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Groom-Porters—I had a strong Inclination to go ten Guineas with a sort of a, sort of a—kind of a Milk Sop, as I thought: A Pox of the Dice he flung out, and my Pockets being empty as Charles knows they sometimes are, he prov'd a surly North-Britain, and broke my Face ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... who, throwing off her tom-boy ways, suddenly wants her skirts let down and her hair done up. We laugh at the boy who suddenly leaves off being a rowdy, and turns into a would-be dandy. We scold because this same boy and girl who have always been so "sweet and tractable" become, almost overnight, surly and cantankerous, restive under authority and impatient of family restraint. We should neither laugh nor scold, if we understood. Nature is succeeding in her purpose. She has led the young life on from self to parents, from parents to gang or chum, and now she is trying to lead it ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... house, which he nearly filled; but although presenting a John Bull's exterior, there was a great deficiency of the national character within. After introducing ourselves we asked for a little milk, but were refused on the plea that there was none at the station. Our surly informant added, that we should find a comfortable inn eight miles farther on. First looking at the number of fine milch cows that were grazing near, and then at the speaker, we turned and left him ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Martinsburg we were forced by the state of our horses to insist upon receiving the unwilling hospitality of a very surly native, who was evidently Unionist in his proclivities. We were obliged to turn our horses into a field to graze during the night. This was most dangerous, for the Confederate soldier, in spite of his many virtues, is, as a rule, the ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... very defective in money matters. He cannot read or write, he cannot carry a message or receive one; he is no use as a guide, for, although information and ideas may be bulging from his noble brow, he lacks the power to communicate them, and, worse than all, he is surly, lazy and a constitutional kicker. He was always hanging around when we didn't want him, and when we did want him he was never to ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... stole after her, in his little flannel drawers, back to the kitchen. By the window again, as he had feared, the woollen sock which she was knitting for Tom in her hand, the yarn all tangled and broken. Ready was by her knees, winking sleepily. The old dog was growing surly with his years, as we said: Jem remembered when he used to romp and tussle with him, but that was long ago: he lay in the chimney-corner always now, growling at Martha herself even, if her singing or laugh disturbed his nap. But when these strange moods came on her, Jem noticed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... bashful, Virgin, I can please At first encounter, hug thee in mine arm, And give thee many Kisses, soft and warm As those the Sun prints on the smiling Cheek Of Plums, or mellow Peaches; I am sleek And smooth as Neptune, when stern Eolus Locks up his surly Winds, and nimbly thus Can shew my active Youth; why dost thou flye? Remember Amaryllis, it was I That kill'd Alexis for thy sake, and set An everlasting hate 'twixt Amoret And her beloved Perigot: 'twas I That drown'd her in the Well, ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... all the occupants might have been supposed to have been in a state of enchantment. Jacob, however, the dwarfish, deformed serving-man, did cross the moat at intervals, and came back laden with food; but he was so surly and short, that it was impossible to get a word of information from him, respecting that which was going on within the moat. Whilst Dymock scribbled, his aunt darned, Shanty hammered, and Tamar formed the delight and comfort of all the three last mentioned elders. But some settlement ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... by the most surly feelings on both sides, threatened the very existence of the young government. Washington and Hamilton were thoroughly alarmed. Hearing of the extremity to which the contest had been carried and acting on the appeal from the Secretary of the Treasury, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... really remember what happened after that. I swallowed some breakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, who was a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enter into conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back upon that morning I think I must have been ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... with a surly "What the darnation?" the other whispered: "Be on your way, Buck. Get out of town, and get out of trouble. My boy hears you been talkin' about him, and he allows as how he'll get you. He's out for ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... assure you there was no more loud talk in the cabin that day; only the long, low wash and pound and break of the seas abeam, with the surly wail that portends storm. I do not believe any of us ever realized what a frail chip was between life and eternity till we heard the wrenching and groaning of the timbers in the silence that followed M. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... of the young bank clerk did appear to have a salutary effect on the surly farmer. His manner changed at once and ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... The turnkeys were surly and forbidding, and the hours dragged wearily to this active-minded prisoner. Robinson was driven to appeal to the governor to put him on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... brave, and would have cared very little for a highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, this petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in circulation, strange stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler about the streets of Paris, and they recurred confusedly to his memory. He remained for several minutes in stupefaction, and finally broke the silence with a ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... left no name at all. I tried to get the doorkeeper to tell me about him, but he's such a surly old fellow, and he's so used to that sort of thing, that he ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there till they saw a surly, slovenly troop coming towards them, nine times nine of the messengers of the Fomor, that were coming to ask rent and taxes from the men of Ireland; and the names of the four that were the hardest and the most ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... quietly here, rather glad to rest, for I am much exhausted. When I am suffering much from my spine Ito always gets into a fright and thinks I am going to die, as he tells me when I am better, but shows his anxiety by a short, surly manner, which is most disagreeable. He thinks we shall never get through the interior! Mr. Brunton's excellent map fails in this region, so it is only by fixing on the well-known city of Yamagata and devising routes to it that we get ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... in place of the lord of the manor who owned a more interesting house in another shire of the country. Like the rest of mankind he earned a reputation for generosity by being liberal with those things by which he set little store. He was neither avaricious nor surly, and, being in full health and vigour himself, was able to spare a rough chivalry to women which made allowance for their weaker bodies and greater difficulty in coping with existence. It was probably ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... to live there, and from a gate at the top of the hill a glimpse could be caught of the river, where, too, a lovely pair of swans might be seen. Jim took a great interest in these swans, and longed to get down to the water so as to be close to them. But the gamekeeper was a surly fellow, and if he saw the children lingering near he would tell them that his master "couldn't abear boys nor girls either," and always was most severe if any people were caught trespassing on his land. Thus Jim had never dared to climb the gate. But Jumbo this morning ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... his cousin was making her petition on his behalf to the surly Englishman on deck, he was seated in the saloon with three or four men older than himself, playing and losing, playing and losing, with almost unvarying monotony, yet with a feverish relish that had in ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... saloon, near the junction of Broadway and Park Row, Bog simplified his method of operations. Before making any inquiry of the servant who answered his triple rap, he thrust a half dollar at him, and then put his question. This plan saved surly looks and explanations. Mr. Van Quintem was a well-known patron of the establishment, but had not been there for a week: which was rather strange, the man ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... "these member fellows of the League couldn't be in greater fear of them than they are. They say nothing, and do just as they please. That Kinsella, when Mr. John Dillon was down here, just told him before a lot of people that he 'wanted no words and no advice from him,' and he's just in that surly way with all the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... political news of the previous night, or rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, more excited discussion, in which one of the contestants—a red-bearded miner—had subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with a certain ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... little longer gazing seaward, but nothing was to be seen but black, turbulent, surly waters and swirling snow, and at length he turned reluctantly back to ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... move about a very little, crawled to the door and managed to attract Fenwick's attention. The man—a rough, black-bearded sailor—came up to him with a less surly look ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... uninhabited; it retained the dignity of a concierge. A man with a large grizzled beard cut square, and holding a journal in his hand, emerged from the lodge, and moved his cap with a certain bluff and surly reverence on ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... entered the cabin no one was to be seen save the surly steward who visited them the night previous, and in reply to ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... Into the very heart of the Pit it fell, and then were the Wise One's words fulfilled. Like surly slaves, obeying unwillingly, the yellow mists sank back into the Pit, lower and lower, till they were seen no more, and with them went their noisome breath, leaving the air pure and clean. As they vanished, ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... He was still inclined to be surly. But the new influence was not so easy to resist as he had imagined. The woman before him attracted him strongly, despite the fact that he now knew her loveliness to be but mortal; despite the constant ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Americans. A great number of the workmen's anecdotes are directed against the aristocratical bearing of Englishmen: nothing gives greater delight to the rustics than to hear of the Honourable D.S. or Lord John P. having been the last served, or badly served, at an inn for being surly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... home-life already begun on the grave of his. Stealthily creeping under the window from which the light shone, he listened. He heard children's voices; a woman's voice; at intervals the voice of a man, gruff and surly; various household sounds also. It was evidently the supper-hour. Cautiously raising himself till his eyes were on a level with the lowest panes in the window, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... one!" Li Wan retorted, "but our hussey Feng too is lucky in having you! Had I not also once, just remember, two girls, when your senior master Chu was alive? Am I not, you've seen for yourselves, a person to bear with people? But in such a surly frame of mind did I find them both day after day that, as soon as your senior master departed this life, I availed myself of their youth (to give them in marriage) and to pack both of them out of my place. But had either of them been good for anything ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Winter, rough old surly beggar, Practised every vice, Pelted her with hail and snow storms, Clogged her feet ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... it's been the best part of the day. I wish I had any assurance that the German would be half as pleasant. I beg your pardon, I don't mean your surly Teuton, but the dance that we propose to-night; I wish it had another name. Confound it! there he is ahead of us. (I don't mean the dance this time, you see.) I wish he'd turn back and open the gate for ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... turned short, and, whistling, followed the groom into the stable, as if he had been at an inn, only, instead of taking off his hat, pulling its broad brim over his eyes, for a compliment. In she went in a pet, as she says, saying to the countess, "A surly brute he always was! My uncle! He's more of an ostler than a gentleman; I'm resolved I'll not stir to meet him again. And yet the wretch loves respect from others, though he never practises common ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... once asked, and when he gave a surly answer she said, carelessly, "You better get something from the doctor," and began to sing immediately afterwards. But she knew how he looked even when her back was turned, and she often stared at Mary in a meditative way as though the child were the doubtful ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Lembke frowned grimly and stood still at the table without welcoming him. Till that moment he had been pacing up and down the study and had been discussing something tete-a-tete with his clerk Blum, a very clumsy and surly German whom he had brought with him from Petersburg, in spite of the violent opposition of Yulia Mihailovna. On Pyotr Stepanovitch's entrance the clerk had moved to the door, but had not gone out. Pyotr Stepanovitch ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... away; and shortly afterwards, as he turned up and down the deck with the master, he hinted to him, that he should not speak so sharply to a lad who had committed such a trifling error through ignorance. Now Mr Smallsole, the master, who was a surly sort of a personage, and did not like even a hint of disapprobation of his conduct, although very regardless of the feeling of others, determined to pay this off on Jack, the very first convenient opportunity. Jack dined in the cabin, and was very much pleased ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... you, Mr. Burns? will some surly critic say. At what university have you been educated? what languages do you understand? what authors have you particularly studied? whether has Aristotle or Horace directed your taste? who has praised your poems, and under whose patronage are they published? In short, what qualifications ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... Behold Him and admire! Behold Him and pity! Behold Him and be content!" But the priests were obdurate. There is no hate so virulent as religious hate, and they raised again the cry, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Pilate was not only annoyed, but provoked. "Take ye Him," he said, in surly tones, "crucify Him as best ye can, my soldiers and I will have nothing to ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... a man was at work opening a grave, and to him Mat applied for help; describing his sister as a stranger who had been buried somewhere in the churchyard better than twenty years ago. The man was both stupid and surly, and would give no advice, except that it was useless to look near where he was digging, for they were all respectable townspeople ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... never see them kill any of their Goats or Hogs for themselves, yet they would beg the Panches of the Goats that they themselves did sell to us: And if any of our surly Seamen did heave them into the Sea, they would take them up again, and the Skins of the Goats also. They would not meddle with Hog-guts, if our Men threw away any beside what they made Chitterlings and Sausages of. The Goat-skins these People ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... but "no," but without the surly abruptness which had been peculiar to him. His tone was no longer ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... this the Four Quarter Days involuntarily looked at each other, & smiled; April Fool whistled to an old tune of "New Brooms" & a surly old rebel at the further end of the table {who was discovered to be no other than the Fifth-of-November} muttered out distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company, words to this effect, that, "when the old one is gone, he is a fool that looks for ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane
... stirless water. The only cheery influence of this scene of antiquity, solitude, and neglect was that the house and landscape were warmed with the ruddy western beams. I knocked, and my summons resounded hollow and ungenial in my ear; and the bell, from far away, returned a deep-mouthed and surly ring, as if it resented being roused from ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... eyes from the glances which fell to her for explanation of Lydia, and hurried away with her as soon as the services ended. In the hall on the water-floor of the palace, where they were kept waiting for their gondola a while, she seemed to shrink even from the small, surly greetings with which people whose thoughts are on higher things permit themselves to recognize fellow-beings of their acquaintance in coming out of church. But an old lady, who supported herself with a cane, pushed through the crowd ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... angry with the Little Doctor for coming, but it was nothing to the rage he felt when she turned back! He did not own to himself that he wanted her beside him to taunt and to hurt with his rudeness, but it was a fact, for all that. And it was a very surly young man who rode into the Denson corral and threw a loop over the ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... his various pamphlets. At this period he was still looked up to with reverence as a great intellectual giant; but that love for him which had been felt by those who were aroused to honest thinking by his earlier writings had passed away. A new generation looked upon him as an embittered and surly old man. His services were not forgotten, but he was no longer a favorite,—no longer an inspiring guide. His writings continued to stimulate thought, but were no longer regarded as sound. Commonplace people never did like him, probably because they never understood him. His ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... were in progress. Ollivier took his dejeuner at the palace, where the household staff greeted him very coldly, and the empress, by whom he sat, turned her back on him. In the Chamber Duvernois asked in a surly tone when the debate on his interpellation would come on, and July 15 was fixed for it. Everything now depended on the issue of Benedetti's interview with the king at Ems, which took place early on the morning of the 13th, when they met as the king was returning by the public promenade ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... such an old sorciere! Nevertheless, I crossed the street, and accosted the hag with a smile. "Good-day, Maman Paquet. Can you tell me anything of your lodger, Noemi Bergeron?" "Hein?" She was deaf and surly. I repeated my question in a louder key. "I know nothing of her," she answered, in a voice that sounded like the croak of a frog. "She couldn't pay me her rent, and I told her to be off. Maybe she's drowned by this." "You ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... there certainly is not, nor ever was, any treason in taking a morning's walk. But, as ill luck would have it, just as Mr. Goethe was passing the comte's door, out came the comte in person, purely by accident, as we are told; but we suspect that the surly old German, either under his morning hopes or his evening disappointments, had talked with more frankness than prudence. "Good evening to you, Herr Goethe," said the comte; "you are come, I see, to pay your ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... heads to look at them in a surly, uncompromising fashion, and went on feeding again, but as soon as they were passed and the lads approached the ponies, Chris raised his voice, uttering a kind of bird-call, when the effect upon the little ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... a single thing; I'm well enough." Mrs. Field's tone was almost surly. She held out her hand for the photograph. "I must be goin'," she continued; "I ain't got my dustin' done. I jest come across this, an' I thought I'd show it to you, an' see ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Then on Sunday, you are harsh and cruel—for no visible reason. You frighten her; you raise up horrible fears and dangers in her young, nervous spirit. She is in a condition prone to terrors and doubts, and upon this condition you came in a surly mood and imply that you yourself are changed. What wonder she lost her head? Yet I do not think that it was to lose her head to come to me. She had often heard you speak of me. She knew that I loved you well and faithfully. She felt ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... him they realized where they were, and glanced around uneasily. The guards raised their crossbows again, and the prisoners stepped back to the wall and looked surly. ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... they rested one night at another village belonging to him, and then made for the territory of the Wa Ussi. Here they met with a surly welcome, and were told they must pass on. No doubt the intelligence that they were carrying their master's body had a great deal to do with it, for the news seemed to spread with the greatest rapidity in all directions. Three times they camped in the forest, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... was afraid of her, and he, she says, “hated me.” She could not endure his mannerisms, but mimicked his gestures and curious demeanours; calling him “a despot,” “the old literary Colossus,” an “envious calumniator,” “surly Samuel Johnson,” “the massive Being,” “the old elephant,” and ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... butter—Allow me to recommend a squeeze of this orange; or the lemon, perhaps, may have more zest." "Sir, sir, I am obliged to you, sir," cried Johnson, bowing, and turning his head to him with a look for some time of "surly virtue," but in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... they suddenly spied, Come clumping along with his pedagogue stride, As usual, with manner quite preoccupied; With his hat on one side, And his shoe-lace untied— A surly old fellow, it can't be denied; And each wicked boy Thought that he would enjoy An occasion the thoughtful old man to annoy, And all of his wise calculations destroy. So they thought they'd employ A means known to each boy. And across the wide pavement ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... Skien and his father's house dropped from him like an old suit of clothes. He left his parents, whom he scarcely knew, the town which he hated, the schoolmates and schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly dunce. We find him next, with an apron round his middle and a pestle in his hand, pounding drugs in a little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What Blackwood's so basely insinuated of Keats—"Back to the shop, Mr. John, stick to plasters, pills and ointment-boxes," ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... a few pretty hot moments on the platform when Bucks, among a group of five camp malefactors on their way to Medicine Bend, confronted the two men who had tried to kill him, and unhesitatingly pointed them out. Seagrue, tall and surly, denied vehemently ever having been at Point of Rocks and ever having seen Bucks. He declared the whole affair was "framed up" to send him to the penitentiary. He threatened if he were "sent up" to come back and kill Bucks if ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... said As you were fore-advised, had touched his spirit, And tried his inclination; from him plucked, Either his gracious promise, which you might, As cause had called you up, have HELD HIM TO; Or else it would have galled his surly nature, Which easily endures, not article Tying him to aught;—so putting him to rage, You should have ta'en advantage of his choler, And ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... earth," answered Hagen in surly tones. "But if, indeed, this should be Balder, we shall, without doubt, find another blind archer, who, with another sprig of mistletoe, will send him ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... conventional terms there was a surly burr to his tone that belied the courtesy. Adelle was surprised at the hardness of his mood. She felt quite friendly, almost intimate with him, after all their talks, and now he was as gruff as he had been the first day. She looked at his face for an explanation. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... attempts to terrify. He is never rude or discourteous. But the equivocating witness soon discovers that his falsehood is hunted out of its recesses with an unsparing determination. If he is dogged and surly, he is met by a spirit as resolute as his own. If he is smooth and plausible, the veil is lifted from him by a firm but graceful hand. If he is pompous and vain, no ridicule was ever more perfect than that to which he listens with ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... around uneasily, fidgeting and twisting with an occasional groan until "Red" unbent sufficiently from his surly indifference to ask him "what ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... "life is rather worth while after all, isn't it? Spider, I like you better and better; come, don't be a surly ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... it suited me, in journey dark O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch; To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark, Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch; The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match, The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill, And ear still busy on its nightly watch, Were not for me, brought up in nothing ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... sick,' said Abas in a surly tone, and at the word a tremor of excitement ran through Penghulu Mat ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... did you come a plainsman?" scoffed the malcontent, for once forgetting his policy of favor-currying with Wingate in his own surly discontent. He had not been able to speak to Molly ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... necessary supplies and assist us in the arduous undertaking. His words elicited no hear! hear!—there was an evident unwillingness on the part of the wild men to let us, or rather our cloth and tobacco, depart. One remarked, with surly emphasis, that he had "seen no good and eaten no Bori [34] from that caravan, why should he aid it?" When we asked the applauding hearers what they had done for us, they rejoined by inquiring whose the land ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... said very little, though I had expected he would; in fact he seemed to have turned rather surly and distant to me. As for the other men, they did their work in their regular independent style, and I had come to the conclusion that my best way was to treat all alike, and not make special friends, especially after the melancholy mistake I had made in putting most faith in one who was ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... sharp run of it, apparently," said Power, coolly, and without any curiosity as to the cause; "and now, let us on board; there goes the trumpet again. The skipper is a surly old fellow, and we must not lose his tide for him." So saying, he proceeded to collect his cloaks, cane, etc., and get ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Walter: he stood for a few moments in silence, then suddenly exclaimed, "The surly rascal! I verily believe it was ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot: There the river eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls, Pass ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... various observations which he made in the village. One was incontrovertible proof that these people were man-eaters; the other, the presence in the village of various articles of native German uniforms and equipment. At great risk and in the face of surly objection on the part of the chief, the ape-man made a careful inspection of every hut in the village from which at least a little ray of hope resulted from the fact that he found no article that might have belonged ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... clown bestows his blessing, Thy mouth is worn with old wives' kissing: E'en lighter looks the gloomy eye Of surly sense, when thou art by; And yet I think whoe'er they be, They love thee ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... in such haste that he didn't stop and give a good trouncing to the dog that had rushed out at him earlier in the day. Spot sent the surly fellow yelping into his master's yard. Then he rushed down the road to ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... playing and compositions had gained, and in 1825 he took his son to Paris to obtain Cherubini's opinion as to his musical abilities, with a view to the choice of a profession; for he had by no means made up his mind that Felix should spend his whole life as a musician. However, the surly old Florentine, who was not always civil or appreciative of budding genius (teste Berlioz), gave a decidedly favorable judgment on the compositions submitted to him, and urged the father to devote his son to a musical ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... lesser form anger becomes irritability, a reaction common to the neurotic and the weak. When anger is not frank, but manifests itself by a lowered brow and sidelong look, we speak of sullenness or surliness. The sullen or surly person, chronically ill-tempered and hostile, is regarded as unsocial and dangerous, whereas the most lovable persons are quick to anger and quick ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... been a little troubled with the idea that, perhaps, I might not be able to manage the matter, after all; but, almost to my joy, I found old Barry complaining of his rheumatism, hobbling about, and looking wrathfully up the winding stairs, in surly deprecation of his approaching ascent. Upon which I seized the favorable opportunity, and, while relieving him, forwarded ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... cross, gouty, phthisicy, fidgety old husband lay sick for three whole months, she nursed him so patiently that people wondered if it could be she loved the SURLY DOG, and one woman, bolder than the others, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... after walking a few rods, to look behind him. He had heard nothing, but knowing the surly mood of the couple, he thought it ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... again at that; and here, lest I should draw my loyal Richard as he was not, let me say, once for all, that his oaths were but the outgushings of a warm and impulsive heart, rarely bitter, and never, as I believe, backed by surly rancor or ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.—The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... refused either to hunt or cut wood, spoke in a very surly manner, and threatened to leave us. Under these circumstances, Mr. Hood and I deemed it better to promise if he would hunt diligently for four days, that then we would give Hepburn a letter for Mr. Franklin, a compass, inform him what course to pursue, and let ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... man was ill-natured, and when he heard his brother's request he looked very surly. But as Christmas is a time when even the worst people give gifts, he took a fine ham down from the chimney, where it was hanging to smoke, threw it at his brother, and bade him begone and never to let ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Medicean court was divided. Even Epernon tried to say a gracious word to the retiring envoy, assuring him that he would do as much for the cause as a good Frenchman and lover of his fatherland could do. He added, in rather a surly way, that he knew very well how foully he had been described to the States, but that the devil was not as black as he was painted. It was necessary, he said, to take care of one's own house first of all, and he knew very well that the States and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... physician. "We have fed him well, and his food has done him good. He is a hundred per cent better than when he came; but he is still surly and tongue-tied. He says nothing. He is not known in the neighbourhood. I have directed hand-bills to be circulated, and placards to be posted in the villages. If he is not owned within a week, he must be given to the parish-officers. I can't help thinking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... landed his victim into the scalding homony, tripped his toe and brought his length upon the floor beneath the pig's hind legs. 'It's all gone!' exclaimed the General; and in another minute nothing was seen save the soles of his boots protruding above the boil-surface. The surly brute, having generously moistened Grandpapa Marcy's head, stood, his fore-feet on the rim of the cauldron, gazed after his struggling victim, and held his head high aloft in triumph. This brought Uncle Dib to the rescue. After ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... thee, Stumpy!" she cried, selecting him because after Milo his eyes were keenest of them all. "Keep thy eyes open for Milo's flares, and mark well the direction. Hanglip, thou surly dog! Take ten men and lay me out a good anchor astern, with a stout hawser. Be brisk! Come aboard in ten minutes, or thy back ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... unaptly named the Bastile, the sensations I felt may be more easily felt than described. Besides that this was the first prison I had ever entered, every thing around me had an air of unspeakable horror. After being viewed and reviewed by the surly Cerberuses of this earthly Hell, I was conducted up some stairs to a long gallery, or passage, six feet wide, having on either side a number of dismal cells, each about six feet by nine, formed entirely of stone, but having a small grated window near the roof, at ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... stairs, and "interview" the fighting pair. "His plan was to appeal to the manliness of the offender, and make him ashamed of himself; often such a visit ended in a loan, whereby the 'barrer' was replenished and the surly husband set to work; but if all efforts at peacemaking were useless, this new apostle had methods beyond the reach of the ordinary missionary—he would (the case deserving it) drop his mild, insinuating, persuasive tones, and not only threaten ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the proper sort, for three kinds are established now—so the sea has a flit of bloom in the early morning (neither a colour, nor a sparkle, nor a vapour) which indicates peace and content for the day. But now there was no such fair token upon it, but a heavy and surly and treacherous look, with lumps here and there; as a man who intends to abuse us thrusts his tongue to get ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... attractive specimen of mankind. Beneath the peaked cap, crammed well down on to his head, gleamed a pair of surly, watchful eyes, and, beneath these again, the unshaven, brutal, out-thrust jaw offered ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... with what she called her "boys's" and her "men folk," and their needs had partly unsexed her. She was a fair type of a class not uncommon on the Southwestern frontier; women who were ruder helpmeets of their rude husbands and brothers, who had shared their privations and sufferings with surly, masculine endurance, rather than feminine patience; women who had sent their loved ones to hopeless adventure or terrible vendetta as a matter of course, or with partisan fury; who had devotedly nursed the wounded to keep alive the feud, or had received back their ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... going to be put off by any of your talk," answered Bill, in a surly tone, filling ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... forced to marry you, as Elizabeth of France did upon Philip II. of Spain, when he received her on his frontiers as her husband, who was to have been but her father-in-law: that is, with fear and terror, rather than with complaisance and love: and you will perhaps be as surly to her, as that old monarch was ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... paper; he wasn't doing anything but gaze straight in front of him. I concluded that he was "sore" at me; I concluded that he was a surly bear, anyway. And so an hour or so ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... their faces and hands, the girls returned to the office and after an interminable wait the proprietor appeared, red-faced and surly. "Grub's on, an' yer room'll be ready agin you've et," he growled, and waddled to ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock; Dark rolled the sympathetic waves of Forth, 470 Low groaned the startled whirlwinds of the north; TWEED ruffled half his waves to form a tear, The other half pursued his calm career; [63] ARTHUR'S steep summit nodded to its base, The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place. The Tolbooth felt—for marble sometimes can, On such occasions, feel as much as man— The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms, If JEFFREY died, except within her arms: [64] Nay last, not least, on that portentous morn, 480 The ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... Taurus, or the Bull—he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins—that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path—he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales—happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... so woe-begone; she pitied his sad state; she brought a suit of her husband's clothes; she told him to dress himself and be cleaned. He did as she bade. He sat by the side of the wigwam, and looked surly and sad, but kept quiet. It was all a ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... in a minute!" I cried, with all my might: "Get out, while I'm a-talkin'!"—Tom's eyes showed a bit of fight; But he rose up, stiff and surly, and made me a civil bow, And mogged along to the door-way, with never a ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... was needed to demonstrate that everybody in the place had gotten out on the happy side of his couch. Even the deaf-and-dumb gardener had untwisted his surly temper, and as Abraham entered the dining-room, looked in at the east window with a conciliatory grin and nod which said as plainly ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... less surly than it appeared to be down in the Corral, and the benediction of autumn was in the view from its crest. They sat down on the stone ledge crowning it, and Elinor threw aside her jaunty scarlet outing cap. The breezes played in her dark ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the clouds that shade St. Kilda's shore, Wild as the winds that round her mountains roar, At every post some surly vagrant stands, Culled from the English, or the Scottish bands. Dispensing death triumphantly they stand, Their musquets ready to obey command; Wounds are their sport, and ruin is their aim; On their dark souls compassion ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... 'twas the unseemly kilt that was the better part; for I have met a blustering red-faced Scot as thou sayest; and he was boisterous and surly, giving vent to a choleric temper by coarse oaths; and 'twas his plaid denoted a gentleman of high rank withal. The long hair that swept his shoulders was as florid as his face, as was also his flowing whiskers and mustachio, ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... order of the Queen," replied Ashton, with his accustomed surly manner, "and need enough in ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to your own company for the night, and surly weather imprisons you by the fire. You may remember how Burns, numbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when he has been "happy thinking." It is a phrase that may well perplex a poor modern, girt about on every side by clocks and chimes, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... few pretty hot moments on the platform when Bucks, among a group of five camp malefactors on their way to Medicine Bend, confronted the two men who had tried to kill him, and unhesitatingly pointed them out. Seagrue, tall and surly, denied vehemently ever having been at Point of Rocks and ever having seen Bucks. He declared the whole affair was "framed up" to send him to the penitentiary. He threatened if he were "sent up" to come back and ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... "What a surly look this old woman has! I don't like her face," whispered Rigolette to Fleur-de-Marie. Then she added, aloud, "When you come to Paris, my good Goualeuse, do not forget me; your visit will give me so much pleasure. I shall be so happy to pass a day with you, to show you my housekeeping, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... likes, but never hurly, Seldom cross, and never surly, The jowial Waiter gos to his work, And enwys no Hethun nor yet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... naturally want to be on good terms with our fellow men, and when our pursuit of happiness takes the unexpectedly genial form of plotting for their happiness, the disposition of our favorite writers becomes a matter of great importance to us. A surly, sour-tempered person, taking advantage of our confidence, can turn us against our best friends. If he has an acrid wit he may make us ashamed of our highest enthusiasms. He may so picture human ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... was made upon two or three of the obnoxious councillors who had inflamed the discussions of the Fronde—for that civil war was fairly on foot ere Anne of Austria and Mazarin knew of its existence. Two of the intended prisoners escaped, but a surly, burly demagogue, named Broussel, was tracked to his house in the mechanics' quarter of Paris, and arrested by an armed force. Thereupon the populace rose and armed against the Court. They made an extraordinary stand in the streets, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... resented his frowning looks and his surly ways that work was provided for him at a distance. He was sent to Florence again to build a facade. While there, the city was conquered, and Angelo was one who fought for its freedom, but even so, he fled just at the crisis. Thus he ever did the wrong ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... he would say. "Observe the low, retreating brow, the flat face, the surly mouth, the broad base of the head, and the huge bull-like neck. Would not anyone say Ivan was as destructive as a panther, as tenacious as a bull-dog, as brutal as a bull? Yet he is the gentlest of sluggish creatures, and as tender-hearted as a girl! That thick-set muscular frame shrouds a hare's ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... standing one morning at the window of his study, observed a decent old woman offer a paper to one of his servants, which the fellow at first refused in an insolent and surly manner. The woman however pressed her suit with all the energy of distress, and in the end prevailed. The dean, whose very soul was compassion, saw, felt, and was determined to alleviate her misery. He waited most anxiously ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... in a surly tone. "It's a harder thing for her to marry a pauper, I should think, and to bring a regiment of children into the world, always wanting shoes and stockings. But you're a bachelor, you see, Mr. Fenton, and can't be expected to know what shoes and stockings are. Now there happens to be ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... opened out to let him pass, and there was much less swearing and drinking when his black coat and clerical collar came into view. Mosk saw that the appearance of the chaplain was detrimental to business, and resenting his presence gave him but a surly greeting. As to Bell, she tossed her head, shot a withering glance of defiance at the bland new-comer, and withdrew to the far end ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... wadna hae said that. But when it was biggit, Lord kens, for I dinna. It was just as you see it, lang afore your honour was born, an' aiblins, as the by-word says, may be sae after ye're hanged. But that's neither here nor there. The Cummins o' Buchan were a dour and surly race; and, for a fearfu' time, nane near han' nor far awa could ding them, an' yet mony a ane tried it. The fouk on their ain lan' likit them weel enough; but the Crawfords, an' the Grahames, an' the Mars, an' the Lovats, were aye trying to comb them against the hair, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a fifty or forty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Bohmen;" said this and that;—much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not:—a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ill ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... toward them, frowning, they observed that he had buckled a pistol round him as if to resist any intrusion in case it should be attempted without instructions. Dick handed him Presby's order, and the man read it through in surly silence; then his entire attitude underwent a swift change. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... at the last of these up-town apartments as it was falling dusk, and it was long before the janitor appeared. Then the man was very surly, and said if he looked at the flat now he would say it was too dark, like all the rest. His reluctance irritated March in proportion to his insincerity in proposing to look at it at all. He knew he did not mean to take it under any circumstances; that he was going to use his inspection ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Gypsy seemed like a very pretty, piquant mistake; as if a mischievous boy had somehow stolen the plaid dresses, red cheeks, quick wit, and little indescribable graces of a girl, and was playing off a continual joke on the world. Old Mrs. Surly, who lived opposite, and wore green spectacles, used to roll up her eyes, and say What would become of that child? A whit cared Gypsy for Mrs. Surly! As long as her mother thought the sport and ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... stile in the lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There he would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching his master out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant, sturdy and surly, down the very centre of the road through the village—no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that man or dog who tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past Mother Ross's shop, past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by Kirby's smithy, over the Wastrel by the Haughs, to await ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... barking of dogs sounded clear in different parts of the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below me. From a wooded slope, on the opposite side of the valley, the crack of a gun came, waking the echoes for a minute; and then all seemed to sink into a deeper ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... guest at Wanhope, where Chilmark said—though with a covert smile—that Captain Hyde had done his cousin a great deal of good. Bernard was better behaved with Lawrence than with any one else, less surly, less unsociable, less violently coarse: since June there had been fewer quarrels with Val and Barry and the servants, and less open incivility to Laura. He had even let Laura give a few mild entertainments, arrears of hospitality which she ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... coarse-featured, heavy-bearded man, with gray eyes, generally bleary, and one front tooth gone, leaving a gap in the upper jaw next the canine, which was fang-like, yellow, and prominent; a man with harsh voice and surly ways; a man known as Sackett among seamen and certain civilians who probably had made their way to Manila in the hope of picking up an easy living; a man wanted as Murray among soldiers for a ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... tone was surly, his words were evidently well meant. Ere he had scarce finished his little speech he had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the very apparent intention of forestalling ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in opposition to internal improvements by the federal government, the people applauded out of sheer joy at the pleasure of hearing him. He was one of the few men in Illinois whom the epithet of "Yankee" never hurt. He might be a Yankee, but when he sat down on the knee of some surly lawyer, and confidentially told him his plans; or, at a political meeting, took off his coat, and rolled up his sleeves, and "pitched into" his opponent, the sons of Illinois forgot his origin in love ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So when the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, "Worse and worse": he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriage to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... cried the doctor sharply. "What's better than for a son to feel that he is bound to obey his father? If I had been a married man instead of a surly bachelor, and I had had a son, I should have expected him to obey me and do what I thought was for his ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... trode the unplanted forest floor, whereon The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone, Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. . . . . Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; There the red morning touched him with its light. . . . . Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth,—his hall the azure dome; Where ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... boots it?—who can hide, When the malicious Fates are bent On working out an ill intent? Can destiny be turned aside? 705 No—sad progress of my story! Benjamin, this outward glory Cannot shield [62] thee from thy Master, Who from Keswick has pricked forth, Sour and surly as the north; 710 And, in fear of some disaster, Comes to give what help he may, And [63] to hear what thou canst say; If, as needs he must forebode, [64] Thou hast been loitering [65] on the road! 715 His fears, his doubts, [66] may now take flight— The wished-for object is in sight; Yet, trust ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... place where a white volunteer appears to so much disadvantage. His mind craves occupation, his body is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, and impatient even of sanitary rules. The Southern black soldier, on the other hand, is seldom sea-sick (at least, such is my experience), and, if properly managed, is equally contented, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... this manner, argued for them, and often blamed him; yet do what she would, he never was convinced. The same battle on some other ground was sure to recur, often the next day, and Marian, right as she knew she was, never felt as if she had the victory; for five times out of six, it was in a surly, impatient manner that he turned away from her, as they dismounted. She often wondered whether she ought to let him go on thus, whether it was right in her, if it did him harm, by confirming all his unpleasant ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... leaving my Job's comforter; but a surly watchdog got upon my track, and I had much difficulty in keeping it from biting me. Its attacks, renewed upon me again and again, had one good effect,—they stirred up my spirits and made me ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... for Mr. Tulkinghorn's money Krook told him all he knew about his lodger. Nemo, it seemed, was surly and dissipated and did what legal copying he could get to do in order to buy opium with which he drugged himself daily. So far as was known, he had but one friend—Joe, a wretched crossing sweeper, to whom, when he had it, he often ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... likely," our friend said, in acceptance of our irony, because he liked irony so much. "But, all the same, I thought it a pity, as I think it a pity when I meet a surly Italian here, who at home would be so sweet and gentle. It is somehow our own fault. We have spoiled them by our rudeness; they think it is American to be as rude as the Americans. They mistake ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... arrived; the music continued. Several times people passing caught Brandes' eye, and bowed and smiled. He either acknowledged such salutes with a slight and almost surly nod, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... honour and praise to be called and reputed a Frolic Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow; for under this name am I welcome in all choice companies of Pantagruelists. It was upbraided to Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his Orations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy oil-vessel. For this cause interpret you all my deeds and sayings in the perfectest sense; reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with these fair billevezees and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... nor precise," snapped Judge Halloran. "You mean we must be moving." He linked arms with Tom and fell into step with him; he clung to that rigid arm, moreover, despite Tom's surly displeasure. Not until a friend stopped them for a word or two was the distracted parent enabled to escape from that spidery embrace; then, indeed, he slipped it as a filibustering schooner slips its moorings, and made off as rapidly ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... and when its author, by the death of Lord Melville, narrowly escaped getting a civil appointment in India,—three men, evidently lawyers, might have been seen escaping like school-boys from the Parliament House, and speeding arm in arm down Bank Street and the Mound, in the teeth of a surly blast of sleet. ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... then understand, nor can I now understand, why none of the numerous passengers out of the boat should have entered those cabins except myself, and why the inmates of the cabins should not have come out to speak to any one. Had they been surly, morose people, made silent by the specialties of their life, it would have been explicable; but they were delighted to talk and to listen. The fact, I take it, is that the people are all harsh to each other. They do not care to go out of their way to speak to any one ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... tricks upon you, only tricks of the most dainty and brilliant kind. Juste Olivier has the passion we might imagine a fairy to have for delicate mystification. He hides his gifts. He promises nothing and gives a great deal. His generosity, which is prodigal, has a surly air; his simplicity is really subtlety; his malice pure tenderness; and his whole talent is, as it were, the fine flower of the Vaudois mind in ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you see mother walking five miles to a train?" But if Dick was unsettled, this was not his surly mood of the night before. "If I drove her away"—he began, and then ended with an appealingness to be remembered of the Dick who had not been nettled by life, "Jack, I ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... creature," and so forth. Immediately the poor monkey ceased its wailing, and soon after came over to where the man sat. The disposition of the Coaita is mild in the extreme— it has none of the painful, restless vivacity of its kindred, the Cebi, and no trace of the surly, untameable temper of its still nearer relatives, the Mycetes, or howling monkeys. It is, however, an arrant thief, and shows considerable cunning in pilfering small articles of clothing, which it ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Herbert!"—"Don't make a racket, Master Herbert!"—"Do hold your tongue and sit still where I bid you, Master Herbert!" operated so powerfully upon this young gentleman, that, at eight years old, he partly fulfilled his tormentor's prophecies, for he became a little surly rebel, who took pleasure in doing exactly the contrary to every thing that he was desired to do, and who took pride in opposing his powers of endurance to the force of punishment. His situation was scarcely more agreeable in the drawing-room than in ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... though slow to learn The manners and the arts of civil life. His wants, indeed, are many; but supply Is obvious; placed within the easy reach Of temperate wishes and industrious hands. Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil; Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns, And terrible to sight, as when she springs (If e'er she spring spontaneous) in remote And barbarous climes, where violence prevails, And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind, By culture tamed, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... worshipped, instead of detested and suppressed. A truly alarming predicament; and not the less so if we find it a quite pleasant one for the time being, and welcome the advent of asphyxia, as we would that of comfortable natural sleep;—as, in so many senses, we are doing! Surly judges there have been who did not much admire the "Bible of Modern Literature," or anything you could distil from it, in contrast with the ancient Bibles; and found that in the matter of speaking, our far best excellence, where that could be obtained, was excellent silence, which means ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... be. They looked sulky and tired. But as Reuben's eye rested on Jacob Priestley, whom he had at once recognized among the jury, the smith gave him an encouraging wink. At least, so Reuben thought; but as the next moment he was looking as surly as the rest, he thought that he must have ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... save that it was sultry hot, that I took off my coat and waistcoat to be cooler, carrying them, like the tramp I was, across my arm, and thus dishevelled passed some time in the afternoon an encampment of forest folk, wherefrom almost all the men were gone, and the women shy and surly. ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... was dark, and it required some effort to awaken the owner. When Tad at last appeared, clad in undershirt and trousers, he greeted the Ranger with a leveled Winchester; but when Dave had made known his identity he invited him in, though with surly reluctance. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... cat and teasing her until she flew at his face like a demon, was certainly eccentric. I never could understand why he kept the creature, nor what pleasure he found in shutting himself up in his room with this surly, vicious beast. I remember once, glancing up from the manuscript I was studying by the light of some tallow dips, and seeing Mr. Wilde squatting motionless on his high chair, his eyes fairly blazing with excitement, while the cat, which had risen from her place ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... grandfather was seized with a fever, and for a while was totally unconscious. When he regained his reason he found himself, near his journey's end, divested of his free papers and all others. On his arrival at St. Charles he was seized by a huge, surly looking slaveholder who claimed him as his property. The contract had previously been concluded by his Judas-like friend, who had received the bounty. Oh, what a sad disappointment. After serving for thirty years to be thrust again into bondage where a ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... played every number on that wheel except the thirteen—judgin' it to be onlucky." The forlorn one grinned his understanding, and clutching the piece of silver, elbowed into the group that crowded the roulette wheel. The cowpuncher turned once more to the surly proprietor: ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... tell me anything about that, sir, when he came on board this morning; for I met him at the gangway," growled out the crusty lieutenant in his usual surly way. "He was full of some Miss Thingamy's dancing and made me sick by telling me at least twenty times over what a 'chawming ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... shoulder at Andy Byers. He could not guess how much of the facts had been developed. In sheer perversity he was tempted to deny that he had the grant. But Byers was a heavy man of scant patience, and he wore a surly air that ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... the water wagon for awhile," Terabon smiled, and the waiter nodded, sympathetically. A tip of a quarter mollified his air of surly expectancy completely, and as he put the glasses ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... was as ungracious and surly of manner as he knew how to be, but Furneaux continued to chat with careless affability; soon the two walked off in the direction of the lake. That was Sylvia's chance. She ran downstairs and was at the door when ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... of a shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers upheld by no visible support, and a pair of old slippers. Apparently satisfied from his prolonged inspection of the two visitors that they were not in search of lodgings, he replied in a surly tone: ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... and twisting with an occasional groan until "Red" unbent sufficiently from his surly indifference to ask him "what was eatin' ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... talkative, and though I hated them for the indignity they had thus put upon me in chaining me as a criminal, yet I knew it would be unavailing to indulge a surly and vindictive disposition, and therefore talked as fast and ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... they had landed. The old seaman paused an instant on the verge of the precipice, and cast his experienced eyes along the wide expanse of water that lay before him. The sea was no longer sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood, scattering their white crests high in foam. The cockswain, after bending his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... upon his sarsaparilla. He frowned savagely into its pale brown foam when he realized that I purposed to force him to speak first. His voice was ominously surly as he shifted his cigar to say: "Well, young fellow, what ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... his band had protected Nabal's fields from other rovers, and had been, so to speak, a wall of fire between the churl's estate and the hand of depredation. But at the time of the sheep-shearing the surly ingrate refuses food and drink to the band of David, though the favor is most courteously asked. When the rough answer is brought back, one sees the quick temper of the soldier, in the flashing repartee, and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... self-contained, with its door undefended and open upon the street, while the normal Parisian house is a populous, high-piled tenement around a central court, with high porte cochere closed by massive oaken doors and guarded by an always vigilant and often surly concierge. ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... him with hypocrisy. His emotions lay close to the surface and wrote themselves on his unprepossessing exterior with an impartial touch. He had felt no pleasure when Murrell rode into the yard, and he had welcomed him according to the dictates of his mood, which was one of surly reticence. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... One of them suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new "cold storage" building, and as this suited the condition of a "new-fangled ware'us," I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam. He was sent for on my suggestion that I was willing to pay his days wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... was in good spirits naturally, as any one would be who, after being forced for ten years to wear a frightful and hideous disguise, and to behave like a rough and surly bull, instead of like a well-born gentleman, should suddenly find himself in ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... Despite his surly protests, she bathed and soothed his swollen features until he dropped asleep, after which she stole out and down to her room on the floor below. There, however, she paused, staring back up the empty stairway, a look of deepest loathing upon her face. Slowly, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... him, but at some words he addressed to Castro, the latter, in the bows and looking at the coast, growled with a surly impatience. He was perfectly sure of the entrance. Had been in and out several times. Yes. At night, too. Sebright then turned to me. After all, it was not so difficult. The inlet bore due south from us, and the wind would come true from the north. Always did in ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the oncoming figure. Great men kept their word. Had not Mr. Jefferson said that he would overtake them?—and there he was! He was coming down to the camp-fire, he was going to stop and talk to the surly giant, like Giant Despair, who sat and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the smoke of the tobacco had so pleased Nanahboozhoo that he asked the giant to give him some. The giant refused in a very surly fashion, saying that he only gave portions of it away to his friends the Munedoos, who came once a year ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... a big-boned surly lad, new to his heritage; then as a middle-aged man, living in a morose isolation save for Annie and the children. Little half-forgotten incidents drifted past him, and always, with the strange detachment of the dying, he saw ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... appearance, his hair was coarse, black and thin, which, say the biographers of his time, made him take early to the skull-cap. A look of severity, or harshness even, a sort of stiffness, which, with inferiors, was pride, with superiors an affectation of superior virtue; a surly cast of countenance upon all occasions, even when looking at himself in a glass alone—such is the exterior of this personage. As to the moral part of his character, the depth of his talent for accounts, and his ingenuity in making sterility itself productive, were much boasted of. Colbert ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?" was Grassette's surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. "Let us speak in French," he said in patois. "This rope-twister will not understan'. He is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the two officers, their surly senior looked fiercely at the new-comer, and pointing to the opposite side of ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... our surly Abraham last night? would he let you stay?" asked Aaron, when I joined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... page!" So cried the watchers surly, Stern to his pretty rage And golden hair so curly— "Methinks your satin cloak Masks something bulky under; I take this as no joke— ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Cupples answered; and they set off at once in the ever-growing warmth of the morning. The roof of White Gables, a surly patch of dull red against the dark trees, seemed to harmonize with Trent's mood; he felt heavy, sinister, and troubled. If a blow must fall that might strike down that creature radiant of beauty and life whom he had ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... marine stores, such as were kept by old Nanny. But, as I observed, this was the ostensible mode of livelihood; they had other resources, to which I shall presently refer. An old man of the name of Jones, who resided at Greenwich, was one of these mudlarkers by profession. He was a surly old fellow, his sharp nose and chin nearly meeting, and he usually went by the name of Old Grumble. I had occasionally assisted him with his boat, but without receiving money, or indeed thanks, for my pains, but for this I cared little. He was a very ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... my shoulders and turned toward Glenarm. My grandfather had left me a cheerful legacy of distrust among my neighbors, the result, probably, of importing foreign labor to work on his house. The surly Morgan had intimated as much; but it did not greatly matter. I had not come to Glenarm to cultivate the rustics, but to fulfil certain obligations laid down in my grandfather’s will. I was, so to speak, on duty, and I much preferred that the villagers should let me alone. Comforting myself with ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... the view, to make the water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen, to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden, demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a sullen and surly spectator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason. But it must be at least confessed that to embellish the form of Nature is an innocent amusement, and some ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... prosperity, accomplished in all literatures, and himself a literary artist of consummate elegance, he was the fine flower of the Puritan stock under its changed modern conditions. Out of strength had come forth sweetness. The grim iconoclast, "humming a surly hymn", had issued in the Christian gentleman. Captain Miles Standish had risen into Sir Philip Sidney. The austere morality that relentlessly ruled the elder New England reappeared in the genius of this singer in the most gracious and captivating form. The grave nature of Bryant in ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Fortune when she comes or goes, But with thy equal thoughts prepared dost stand, To take her by the either hand; Nor car'st which comes the first, the foul or fair: A wise man ev'ry way lies square, And, like a surly oak with storms perplex'd, Grows still the stronger, strongly vex'd. Be so, bold spirit; stand centre-like, unmov'd; And be not only thought, but prov'd To be what I report thee; and inure Thyself, if want comes to endure: And so thou dost, for thy desires are Confin'd to live with private ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... and the timber was still coming in. The men were growing tired and surly from the merciless strain of carrying the long, heavy sticks. The night was raw and chill. Bannon felt it as he stood directing the work, and he kept his hands in his pockets, and wished he had worn his ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... their huts, where shortly after Wissale arrived, but with a very scanty following, only ten or twelve horses, and himself and family very hungry; but though ready to eat whatever Captain Gardiner would give him, his whole manner was changed by his disasters. He was surly and quarrelsome, and evidently under the influence of the deserter Cruz, who was resolved to set him against the new-comers, and so worked upon him that he once threatened the Captain with his dirk. Moreover, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... loud laugh of derision, in which all joined except surly Markbrunnen, whose lips protruded an extra inch beyond their usual length when he found that all were laughing at his friend. The Grand Duke ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... with Engineer Serko, however, that the owner of the Ebba converses more readily than with anybody else, and the latter appears to be very intimate with him. The engineer is a good deal more free, more loquacious and less surly than his companions, and I wonder what position he occupies on the schooner. Is he a personal friend of the Count d'Artigas? Does he scour the seas with him, sharing the enviable life enjoyed by the rich yachtsman? He is the only ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... he continued, fixing a surly eye upon her. 'What do you mean by complaining about me to people? Just mind your own business. When was that girl ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... "Still it proues a bondage worse. "And doubled subiection "See we shall, and feele, and knowe "Subiect to a stranger growne. From hence forward for a King, whose first being from this place Should his brest by nature bring Care of Countrie to embrace, We at surly face must quake Of some Romaine madly bent: Who, our terrour to augment, His Proconsuls axe will shake. Driuing with our Kings from hence Our establish'd gouerment, Iustice sworde, and Lawes defence. Nothing ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... seen him? He left us hours ago. Not come home, eh? Well, he's welcome to stay away. I don't want to see more of him." Tom's brow was dark and his voice surly. "I gave him to understand as much." Whatever had happened, Tom was evidently too disgusted to ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... to his coachman, who told him I had an irritable temper! that I had not been well broken to the check-rein, but I should soon get used to it; but he was not the man to do it, for when I was in the stable, miserable and angry, instead of being smoothed and quieted by kindness, I got only a surly word or a blow. If he had been civil I would have tried to bear it. I was willing to work, and ready to work hard too; but to be tormented for nothing but their fancies angered me. What right had they to make me suffer like that? Besides the soreness in my mouth, and ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... brought them sketches, I suppose,' he remarked in a surly tone as he came in. 'You know, there was no need for you to wait: you could 'ave left 'em 'ere and gone on ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... was a dark, misty night, and cars waiting for club members stand in a narrow side turning. Mareno is a surly brute, and he might have waited an hour without speaking to a soul. Unless another chauffeur happened to notice and recognize the car nobody would ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... meaning to paintings that Margaret had passed thoughtlessly by. There was the portrait of a statuary by Bronzino in the Long Gallery of the Louvre. The features were rather large, the face rather broad. The expression was sombre, almost surly in the repose of the painted canvas, and the eyes were brown, almond-shaped like those of an Oriental; the red lips were exquisitely modelled, and the sensuality was curiously disturbing; the dark, chestnut hair, cut short, curled over the head with an infinite ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... only means of communication with those who dwelt beyond was the surly gardener, who was deaf and set there to spy on them, little news ever reached them. They were almost dead to the world, which, had they known it, was busy enough just then with matters that concerned them and all other ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... his surly head, and a bit of broken chain hanging from his collar.] Chantecler told me everything Blackbird, as he went by. In a towering rage I broke my chain, and am here to keep an eye on the wicked ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... The surly old sergeant of the Twenty-first Precinct station-house had read the evening papers through for the third time and was dozing in the fierce lights of the gas-jet over the high desk when a young man with a white, haggard face came in from ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... days of power and success, days of a glamour that lingered long in his mind. Beyond a doubt he was destroying MacDougall's plan and realizing his own. Sometimes he met a surly Mexican who would not listen to him, but nearly always he won the man over in the end. He was amazed at his own resourcefulness and eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition in him had been broken down, some magical elixir poured into his imagination. ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... translation of a passage. After expressing astonishment at Michelangelo's habit of avoiding his society, he proceeds: "And now, this morning, not thinking that I should annoy you, I came up and spoke to you, and you received me with a very surly countenance. That evening, too, when I met you on the threshold with Granacci, and you left me by the shop of Pietro Osaio, and the other forenoon at S. Spirito, and to-day, it struck me as extremely strange, especially in the presence ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... "Oh, Surly Sim! I never heard him called such a fancy name before, Puss. How did you suppose I would ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... reproaches with surly deference; but he refused to be degraded in this fashion—before Karl, too, whose ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... they are ordered to do by some functionary. Let one wheel in an administration get out of order, and everything goes wrong. After my visit to the post-office I went to the central telegraph office, and sent you a telegram. The clerk was very surly at first, but he said that he thought a press telegram would pass the wires. When I paid him he became friendly. My own impression is that my twelve francs, whoever they may benefit, will not benefit ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... grew narrower and narrower until, as we saw by the tracks, our predecessors had been compelled to walk in single file. Fullarton was leading us with the dog, Mordaunt behind him, while I brought up the rear. The peasant had been sulky and surly for a little time back, hardly answering when spoken to, but he now stopped short and positively refused to ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly, sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... to the window. Rain had begun to fall; the streets looked wild and draughty. The cabmen were putting on their coats. Two women scurried by, huddled under one umbrella, and a thin-clothed, dogged-looking scarecrow lounged past with a surly, desperate step. Shelton, returning to his chair, threaded his way amongst his fellow-members. A procession of old school and college friends came up before his eyes. After all, what had there been in his own education, or theirs, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... an old acquaintance, and, heretofore, constant attendant upon all the gay varieties of life; of this be assured, that, although retired from the fascinating scene, where gay Delight her portal open throws to Folly's throng, he is no surly misanthrope, or gloomy seceder, whose jaundiced mind, or clouded imagination, is a prey to disappointment, envy, or to care. In retracing the brighter moments of life, the festive scenes of past times, the never to ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
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