"Hard to please" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deal of good to have a little amusement just then, for this part of the voyage was a trial of patience more than anything else. Possibly we were rather hard to please, but the south-east trade, which we were expecting to meet every day, was, in our opinion, far too late in coming, and when at length it arrived, it did not behave at all as becomes a wind that has the reputation of being the steadiest in the world. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... now in England. The public was, as it always is during the cold fits which follow its hot fits, sullen, hard to please, dissatisfied with itself, dissatisfied with those who had lately been its favourites. The truce between the two great parties was at an end. Separated by the memory of all that had been done and suffered during a conflict of half a century, they had been, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said Nell; "and what trouble you have taken with it! She will be hard to please if she does not ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... in his comfortable porch chair in the cool of the evening, at peace with all the world. His frame of mind was enviable; indeed, that person would be hard to please who could look down the vista of pleasant probabilities which stretched before his mental vision and not feel ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... are peculiar as in body. They are a people of most susceptible character, and withal uncommonly hard to please. They dislike the Arabs, fear and abhor the Turks, have a horror of Franks, and despise all other Asiatics who with them come under the general name of Hindi (Indians). The latter are abused on all occasions for cowardice, and a want of generosity, which has given rise ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the stony abyss in which they are buried, would find something to admire in the flats of La Beauce. However, as the poetic shades of Aulnay, the hillsides of Antony, and the valley of the Bieve are peopled with artists who have traveled far, by foreigners who are very hard to please, and by a great many pretty women not devoid of taste, it is to be supposed that the Parisians are right. But Sceaux possesses another attraction not less powerful to the Parisian. In the midst of a garden whence there are delightful views, stands a large rotunda open on all sides, ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... advice to Americans or to attend to intricate diplomatic duties that crop up here at every turn. Our Ambassador also has on his shoulders the affairs of all the Germans and Austrians who remain in France. Some of our countrymen are very hard to please. Everything possible is being done for those who wish to return home, and money, when necessary, is advanced to them for the purpose. But they strongly object to waiting in line for their turn, whether at the Embassy, the Consulate, or at the Transatlantic Company, ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... purchase, and proportionately effective when, as to- day, a really considerable sum was to be spent. She regretfully would decline a dozen varieties in handkerchiefs or ribbons, saying with pleasant plaintiveness to the saleswoman: "Perhaps I am hard to please. My mother is an old Southern lady—the Ralstons, you know?— and her linen is, of course, like nothing one can get nowadays! No; I wouldn't care to show my ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... testimony; yet I would fain expect, that what is here recorded of them might be somewhat equivalent to whatever blemishes they otherwise had, seeing their different sentiments are also recorded: Otherwise I presume it were hard to please all parties. For Mr Wodrow has been charged by some (and that not without some reason) that, in favours of some of his indulged quondam brethren, in the last volume of his history, he has not only smothered some matters of fact ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... "I may," he said, lapsing into the poetry that came welling from his memory and marked him for a drunken fool, "I may," opening his ardent eyes and glancing affectionately about, "have been toying with 'lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon' and my feet may be 'uncertain, coy and hard to please,'" he grinned with wide amiability, "but my head is clear as a bell." His eyes flashed nervously about the shop, resting upon nothing, seeing everything. He spied Grant, "Hello, Red," exclaimed Mr. Fenn, "glad to see you back again. 'M back again ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... vessel that lay in the Giudecca waiting for a cargo, but ballasted to do her best, and well stocked with provisions and water. The crew knew nothing, when other sailors asked when they were to sail; the men could only say that their captain was the owner of the vessel and was very hard to please in the matter ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... with church; old lot near old church-stand dissatisfied; some folk hard to please; rather vexing; they want us to keep up service ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... to me to-night one must be hard to please to want a better home than this, especially with an occasional change to city life. I cannot understand why I have so much more to make life ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... and initiative and a philosophical way of handling questions, and she could be bored by regular work like a man. She was entirely unfitted for her sex's sphere. She was neither uncertain, coy nor hard to please, and altogether too stimulating and aggressive for any gentleman's hours of ease. Her cookery would have been about as sketchy as her handwriting, which was generally quite illegible, and she would have made, I feel sure, a shocking bad nurse. Yet ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... hard to please," began Miss Mathilda, with a twinge of mischief, and then she sobered herself to her task, "but you must remember, Molly, she means it for your good and she is really ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,"— "But seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... be set on record that this admiration of theirs was not misplaced. He would have been hard to please who had not been attracted by Sally. She was a small, trim, wisp of a girl with the tiniest hands and feet, the friendliest of smiles, and a dimple that came and went in the curve of her rounded chin. Her eyes, which disappeared when she laughed, which was often, were ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... were a number of drawbacks in the way of his becoming established as the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and fortune. In the first place, Cousin Elsie was, unquestionably, very piquant, very handsome, game as a hawk, and hard to please, which made her worth trying for. But then there was something about Cousin Elsie,—(the small, white scars began stinging, as he said this to himself, and he pushed his sleeve up to look at them)—there was ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "How do you feel after the concert? You must be hard to please indeed if you were not satisfied with the ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I, 'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the boa-constrictor is a wonderful picture. A boy must be hard to please if he wishes for anything more ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... here was this same Dolly Varden, so whimsical and hard to please that she was Dolly Varden still, all smiles and dimples and pleasant looks, and caring no more for the fifty or sixty young fellows who at that very moment were breaking their hearts to marry her, than if so many oysters had been crossed in love and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... was not negligent at any rate in seeking to please the Queen, but she was singularly hard to please. She had never been so uncertain in her humours as at this important crisis. She knew, and had publicly stated as much, that she was "embarking in a war with the greatest potentate in Europe;" yet now that the voyage had fairly commenced, and the waves were rolling around her, she seemed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Occasionally in the midst of this display of fantasticality there is a work of promise or even of positive interest. The observer who has not a weak side for the graceful conceits, invariably daintily presented and beautifully modelled, of M. Moreau-Vauthier for example, must be hard to please; they are of the very essence of the article de Paris, and only abnormal primness can refuse to recognize the truth that the article de Paris has its art side. M. Moreau-Vauthier is not perhaps a modern Cellini; he has certainly never produced anything ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... its shimmering heat, its cold, star-studded nights. It seems paradoxical, but it is probably true, that a society composed altogether of agreeable people would become a terrible bore. We are a "kittle" lot, and hard to please for long. We know how it is in the matter of climate. Why is it that the masses of the human race live in the most disagreeable climates to be found on the globe, subject to extremes of heat and cold, sudden and unprovoked changes, frosts, fogs, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the "Golden Hope": A Seventeenth-century Story of Adventure. "The boy who is not satisfied with this crowded story must be peculiarly hard to please."—Liverpool Courier. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... ivy-framed window one morning, looking out at Mr. Warne and his son-in-law as they slowly paced up and down beneath a row of copper beeches between house and garden, "I never saw my brother so happy in his life. Jeff always was hard to please as a boy. I used to think it was merely a critical disposition, but later I discovered that it was his extreme distaste for all artifice, acting, intrigue—all absence of genuineness. Only those boys and men interested him whom he had absolute ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... pleasing scene, To London straight return again; Where, you have told us from experience, Are swarms of bugs and presbyterians. I thought my very spleen would burst, When fortune hither drove me first; Was full as hard to please as you, Nor persons' names nor places knew: But now I act as other folk, Like prisoners when their gaol is broke. If you have London still at heart, We'll make a small one here by art; The difference is not much between St. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... nod. "Now, you just tell me all about it. It'll do you good to talk it over with somebody. Here, I'll pretend I'm looking at shirtwaists, so that floor walker won't be coming down on you, and I'll be as hard to please as that other woman was, so's you can take your time. Who's sick—and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... known a place in which it is so easy to be good. I have not said a word, nor scarcely harboured a thought, that was not lovely and virtuous since I entered these gates, and yet there are those who think me fantastic, difficult, hard to please, unreasonable! ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... passing beyond the limits of patience. "Oh, oh," she sobbed, "I fear we are going to drift apart! If he can't endure to talk with me about such things, what chance have I at all? I hoped that the hour, the beauty of the evening, and the evidence that I had been trying so hard to please him would make him more like what he used to be before he seemed to take a dislike. There's only one way to account for it all—he sees how I feel and he doesn't like it. My very love sets him against me. My heart was overflowing tonight. How could ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... to all his slaves when he was sober, but he was awful crabbed and cross when he was drunk, and he was drunk most of de time. He was hard to please and sometimes he would whip de slaves. I remember seeing Master Wash whup two men once. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... man, too, was chary of his praise, though Nick tried hard to please him, and it was only by little things he told his satisfaction. He touzed the ears of the other boys, and sometimes smartly thumped their crowns; but with Nick he only nipped his ruddy cheek between his thumb and finger, or laid his hand ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is nothing, intellect is nothing—it's all a question of whether we're good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so hard to please." ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Street, Number 53. First-class place, and plenty of privileges. Margaret McKay," she continued, to another, "you're too hard to please. Here's one more place"—handing her a card with address—"and if you don't take that, I won't do nothing more for you, if you air Scotch and a Protestant! Mary McGinnis, it's no use your talking to that lady ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... women found her frugality of speech piquant; it laid down for her the lines of a reputation for experienced gallantry—the sort which asks a little wearily, Is this worth my while? It seemed to them that in matters of love Roy might be hard to please. This caused a stir in one or two bosoms. A certain Melot, a black-eyed girl, plump, and an easy giggler, avowed in strict confidence to her room-fellow that night, that her fate had been told her by a Bohemian—a slight and dark-eyed youth was to be her undoing. You will readily ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... each three hundred and fifty pounds on their wedding day,—three hundred pounds to go to their husbands, and fifty pounds for wedding expenses,—on condition that they marry with my approval. I shall not be so hard to please for ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... gentleman is easy to serve and hard to please. If we go from the Way to please him, he is not pleased; but his commands are measured to the man. A small man is hard to serve and easy to please. Though we go from the Way to please him, he is pleased; but he expects ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... Moycullen. I was then as wild a blade as any in Connaught, and the 'tops' were in the prime of their beauty. In fact, I am not guilty of flattery or egotism in saying, that the girl who could then turn up her nose at the boots, or their master, must have been devilish hard to please. But though the hey-day of our youth had passed, I consoled myself with the reflection that with the help of the saints, and a pair of new soles, we might yet hold out to marry and bury ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... one's nose at &c (disdain) 930; look a gift horse in the mouth, see spots on the sun. Adj. fastidious, nice, delicate, delicat^, finical, finicky, demanding, meticulous, exacting, strict, anal [Vulg.], difficult, dainty, lickerish^, squeamish, thin-skinned; squeasy^, queasy; hard to please, difficult to please; querulous, particular, straitlaced, scrupulous; censorious &c 932; hypercritical; overcritical. Phr. noli me ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... indifferently, and was uncertain what to do with her hands. All these things might have been forgiven her, but she supplemented them by the crime known in stage circles as 'throwing her weight about'. That is to say, she was hard to please, and, when not pleased, apt to say so in no uncertain voice. To his personal friends Walter Jelliffe had frequently confided that, though not a rich man, he was in the market with a substantial reward for anyone who was man enough to drop a ton ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... have tried the experiment two or three times of having a person in our family who should be on the footing of a friend, yet do the duties of a servant, and that we never could make it work well. These half-and-half people are so sensitive, so exacting in their demands, so hard to please, that we have come to the firm determination that we will have no sliding-scale in our family, and that whoever we are to depend on must come with bona fide willingness to take the position of a servant, such as that ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... difficult to convict them of an unkindly act as it is easy to prove them more generous and liberal than many of the professed followers of Jesus. Often they are charitable, giving of their substance to the poor; not hard to please, considerate of their inferiors, patient with one another; in a very high sense they have true charity. And after long periods of struggle, and lofty and faithful effort, they may be able to claim that they have developed a fine character; that by self-cultivation, ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... see the result—and you criticize! I said I would make him permanently happy, and I have done it. I have made him happy by the only means possible to his race—and you are not satisfied!" He heaved a discouraged sigh, and said, "It seems to me that this race is hard to please." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... as at home. Also I have been brought up a good Presbyterian, and a parish minister and his session clerk—well, where in foreign parts will you find the like of Mr. Duff and honest James Fraser? The Good Intent, indeed! I think you are hard to please if you are not content with ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... have it. Any one who refuses to accept the explanation must be very hard to please. I am one of these difficult persons. If it were a dinner-table jest, made over the walnuts and the wine, I would willingly sing ditto; but alas and alack, it is uttered without a smile, in a solemn and magisterial manner, as the last word in science! ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... that I had no more to say, except that I should instruct my friends to abide by the weapons I had mentioned. On this he lost his temper and exclaimed that it was murder. I said that was my desire; that they were hard to please; and that bowie-knives exhausted the list of weapons ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... passengers he performed all kinds of tricks; he balanced knives on his nose; he built up a pyramid of glasses and bottles with wonderful ingenuity; he sang new songs; he imitated the cries of various animals. In fact, Croustillac knew so well how to amuse the captain of the Unicorn, who was not very hard to please, that when supper was concluded the latter clapped the Gascon ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... monarchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... "Try hard to please him, James. He is very cold and stern, but I am sure that, deep down in his heart, ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... was played by a black actor from the West Indies (Ira Aldridge?), who spoke in English, while all the other characters delivered their speeches in Russian. The result was a curious cacophony. She thought the Othello good, nay, very good, for, she observes, "On returning from China one is not very hard to please." ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... whatever he wants, show great glee in anticipating, great eagerness in seeking, and a high degree of satisfaction when his desire is gratified. And another will be lackadaisical in his appetite, whimsical, "hard to please" and much more difficult to keep pleased. Fatigue will strip the second child of the capacity to eat and sleep, to say nothing of his desires for social pleasures, whereas it will only dampen the zeal and eagerness of the first ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... you to marry my mother. Mothers of only sons are hard to please, but you know as well as I can tell you that the mater is fond of you at heart, and that she will grow fonder still. She had her own ideas, and she fought for them, but she won't fight any more. You mustn't be hard on the mater, Claire. ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... shall get along nicely together," continued John. "If you are chumps enough to turn out of your comfortable beds at this time of the morning simply to see me, you can't be very hard to please. We shall hit it ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... fraction of a company he lined us up and made up squads afresh, a corporal to each, then instructed us in our parade work, and drilled us for two hours. Having my two blisters, I did not enjoy it, and the men were groaning all around me. He was as hard to please as the captain; once, looking back along the line as we marched company front, he said, "The ancestors of this bunch certainly must have been a lot of snakes!" But I'll venture to say that none of us, after this, will forget how to oblique ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... come honestly by its reputation. You may be disappointed in Venice, but you will be hard to please if you are not caught by the spell of an English lane. Of course, you must not expect to feel that spell if you tear through it in a motor-car. It was made for the loiterer, as its whimsical twists and turns plainly ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... not lived in the open air as I have," said Perrine, her beautiful eyes fixed on her grandfather's face. "I assure you I am not hard to please. We were so poor that we endured great misery. But I could not stay in that room. I should have died, and I don't think it was wrong of me to try to escape death. I could not live if I ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... so hard to please, I fear there will be nothing for you but old bachelorhood," laughed Elsie. "I have picked her out for you, and I believe you could win her if you tried, Harold; but I shall not try to become ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... are full of languor and distress Not having it; which when they do possess, They straightway are burnt up with fume and care, And spend their lives in posting here and there Where this plague drives them; and have little ease, Are furious with themselves, and hard to please. Like that bold Caesar, the famed Roman wight, Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight Who made a name at younger years than he; Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry, Prince Alexander, Philip's peerless son, Who carried the great war from Macedon ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... my mistress, who was hard to please, fell out with one of the house-servants, and sent for Mr. Brown to come and whip her. When he came, the girl refused to be whipped, which angered Brown, and he beat her so badly that she was nearly killed before she gave up. When Master David came home, and saw the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Lodge were just as real, so they at least helped him to bear his trials more patiently than he could otherwise have done. She was far more comfortable than she had expected to be, she told him. Her duties were light, and Miss MacDowlas not hard to please, and altogether she was ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reaches that age, people want to know why she has been so long on hand. We are a good deal talked about in our set. We have come to the end of all the ordinary excuses—'She is so young.—She is so fond of her father and mother that she doesn't like to leave them.—She is so happy at home.—She is hard to please, she would like a good name—' We are beginning to look silly; I feel that distinctly. And besides, Cecile is tired of ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... hard to please," he said, "who would not be enticed to eat by such a display of good victuals. Tea for me, before everything!—How am I to pretend to swallow the stuff?" he murmured, rather than muttered, to himself.—"But," he went on aloud, "didn't ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Angels," ye Who yet are mobile as the breeze, Have you alone the right to be "Uncertain, coy and hard to please?" Our Ministerial Angels (GEORGE and kind)— Aren't they allowed, poor males, to change ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... prejudiced boy," Mrs. Wingfield said, laughing. "First of all the man is too strict, and you were furious about it; now you think he's too lenient, and you at once suspect he has what you call a game of some sort or other on. You are hard to please indeed." ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... her son would fall in love with a girl named Betty Jones, but, as Swift told a friend, he had had experience enough "not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I am sure will not be in some years; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world." Soon afterwards an opening for Swift presented itself. Sir William Temple, now living in retirement at Moor Park, near Farnham, had been, like his father, Master of the Irish Rolls, and had thus become acquainted ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... said my guide, pointing carelessly with his staff to the straw hat in question. "But, indeed, you are hard to please. Here are the seven-league boots. Will you ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... observes Koshchei the Deathless, "but some of us are certainly hard to please." And now Jurgen was already intent to shrug off his display of emotion. "In selecting a wife, sir," submitted Jurgen, "there are all sorts ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... There were so many things to learn, and she was so awkward at work of all kinds! Her hands seemed so small and inadequate when she tried to wring clothes or scrub a dirty step. Then, too, her young charge, Elise Hathaway, was spoiled and hard to please, and she was daily tried by the necessity of inventing ways of discipline for the poor little neglected girl which yet would not bring down a protest from her even more undisciplined mother. If she had been independent she would not have remained with Mrs. Hathaway, for ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... spent all my money on my dress for the party to-morrow night, I'd give each of them a half-dollar. As I can not, I'll hunt up the other things they wanted, for it's a shame they shouldn't have a bit of Christmas, when they tried so hard to please the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... turquoises and silver bracelets from the wandering Indian herdsmen, and rode twenty miles to Flagstaff upon the slightest pretext. Thea had never felt this pleasant excitement about any man before, and she found herself trying very hard to please young Ottenburg. She was never tired, never dull. There was a zest about waking up in the morning and dressing, about walking, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... would have had eggs, and she understood him not. And then at last another said, that he would have "eyren"; then the goodwife said that she understood him well. Lo, what should a man in these days now write, eggs or eyren? Certainly it is hard to please every man because of diversity and change of language. For in these days every man that is in any reputation in his country will utter his communication and matters in such manners and terms that few men shall understand them. And some honest and ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... slender and dark and promised to be tall. He was quick in movement, quick in temper, resourceful, aye, even shifty, I should say; stubborn, cold in heart, hard to please." ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... rest dropped away. Hour after hour she sat in the dusky room, with one ray of light on her book, reading to the boy, who lay with shaded eyes silently enjoying the only pleasure that lightened the weary days. Sometimes he was peevish and hard to please, sometimes he growled because his reader could not manage the dry books he wished to hear, and sometimes he was so despondent that her heart ached to see him. Through all these trials Rose persevered, using all her little arts to please him. When he fretted, she was patient; ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... hour in his private office, closeted with his chief clerk, who had been busy over night preparing a speech which his honor was to deliver before some distinguished city guest the next day. In these matters the chief magistrate proved rather hard to please, as he was fond of high-sounding words and poetical ideas, but found them very difficult to ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... in our hours of ease uncertain, coy, and hard to please,'" he murmured. "Come, sit down, stranger; 'Sit down an' share a soldier's couch, a soldier's fare.' Not as I'm a sojer," he hastened to explain, "but thet's how it is in ther book. Say, old woman, kint ye kinder sker up some coffee fer we uns—leastwise ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... me quite happy that morning by saying "I was a right smart handy boy, and could help along amazingly" if I would stay from school. I would have done much more than this for the few words of commendation bestowed upon me by my aunt, who was usually so hard to please. Neat as was her daily household arrangements, on this day every corner of the old house passed under a most searching review; and dust before unnoticed was brought to light in a most alarming manner, and as my aunt passed through the house on her tour of ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... Chateaubriand was charming! He talked a great deal to you. You don't know him: he passes four or five hours sometimes without saying a word. If you are not satisfied, you are hard to please." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... language there were troubles also in reference to trade, for Kafirs, although savage, are fastidious. The men were as particular about their necklaces as any beau could be about the cut of his coat and the women were at times very hard to please in the matter of turban-covers and kaross back-stripes. But after much haggling the contending parties came to terms, to their mutual benefit ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... shall I say then?" demanded poor Bill, in despair; "you are as hard to please as ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... could change or add to Luigi's story. It was quite evident that he was telling just what he saw, and had no interest in coloring it to make it appear different in any way. He admired Miss Van Allen, he said she was a pleasant lady and not hard to please if her orders were faithfully carried out. He expressed no personal interest in the question of her guilt or innocence, he simply told what he had seen. I didn't altogether like his stolid indifference, it seemed ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... and purchased by the poorer classes. The Canton market is, nevertheless, remarkably well supplied with the good things of this life; and the European who cannot live and be contented with the provisions procurable in it, must be hard to please. By nine o'clock at night, this huge city is perfectly quiet, and nine-tenths of its inhabitants are wrapped in sleep. At either end of each street is a gate, which is shut at that hour, and ingress or egress put a stop to for the night. This regulation, as may be supposed, is an excellent ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... mine; for I think she was made on purpose for me. If there's anyone else that understands that turn of her head as I do, I'll give her up without scruple. I have made up my mind to this, never to dream of another woman, while she even thinks it worth her while to REFUSE TO HAVE ME. You see I am not hard to please, after all. Did M—— know of the intimacy that had subsisted between us? Or did you hint at it? I think it would be a CLENCHER, if he did. How ought I to behave when I go back? Advise a fool, who ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... thought she could be happy in his palace, and Beauty answered that everything was so beautiful that she would be very hard to please if she could not be happy. And after about an hour's talk Beauty began to think that the beast was not nearly so terrible as she had supposed at first. Then he got up to leave her and said in ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... said the doctor, with his excellent temper in perfect working order again. "So delightfully impulsive! so charmingly reckless of what they say or how they say it! 'Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please!' There! there! there! Good-morning!" ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... way the Chancellor of the Exchequer of those days was so hard to please over Suffrage measures that none brought forward was democratic enough, far-reaching and overwhelming enough to secure his adhesion. He was therefore forced to torpedo the Conciliation Bill, to snatch away the half-loaf that was better than no ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Bible was placed upon a British flag at the head of one of the tables where the speaker stood, but he read from the American Revised Version of the Scriptures. The sermon was commenced by some remarks to the effect that man is hard to please. Nothing earthly satisfies him, but Thomas expressed the correct idea when he said: "Show us the Father and it sufficeth us." The minister then went on to speak of God as "the God of patience," "the ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... "You are hard to please," he said, but his heart was full of joy at the thought of trying to please her. If he could ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... being selfish. You will dine here when you have no other engagements; and if it rains you had better put up at the hotel." As long as the good lady could order every body round about her, she was not hard to please; and all the slaves and subjects of her little dowager court trembled before her, but ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't like the business, Miss Lee." He added dryly: "But then you always were hard to please. You weren't satisfied when ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... said, dropping my hands again. "I have tried so hard to please you in everything! Touch my face with your hand—only that, and I will go to Riolama with you, and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... forged another sword and said: "Surely thou wilt be content with this, though thou be hard to please in ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... buoyancy of spirits in Newton when he once more found himself clear of the frigate. He acknowledged that he had been well treated, and that he had not been unhappy; but still it was emancipation from forced servitude. It is hard to please where there are so many masters; and petty tyranny will exist, and cause much discontent before it is discovered, even where the best discipline prevails. The imperious behaviour of the young midshipmen, who assume the same despotic sway which is exercised ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Aunt Becky, interrupting, with a little toss of her head, 'young ladies weren't quite so hard to please in my time, and I can't see or hear that he's so much worse ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... then I noticed that he wore a sailor's jacket), "are a scurvy crew, as you will presently discover. The captain already repents that he has taken us. The old nurse is hard to please." Here he sighed. "The serving man is a fool. And ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... rule!" said the impatient Simon. "Don't you see daddy's right down upon us, with an armful of hickories? I tell you, I helt nothin' but trumps, and could 'a' beat the horns off a billy-goat. Don't that satisfy you? Somehow or another, you're d—d hard to please!" About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low tone—for by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand—he continued, "But may be daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie—'twon't hurt, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... met her in the summer, when one's heart lies round at ease, As it were in tennis costume, and a man's not hard to please, Yet I think that any season to have met her was to love, While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... and I hope she will keep hers. Tell her I need the money very much, and have worked very hard to please her. I'll come again ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... avail themselves of its accommodation, for two reasons—they did not know what to ask for, and they had no Russian money in their pockets; they therefore shook their heads, and signed to the driver to go on. The man evidently thought them very unreasonable and hard to please, but obeyed. It was soon clear to them that they were getting to the outskirts of the city, and they were about trying to make the man turn back when they saw three figures approaching, whom by their rolling walk and dress they recognised even at a distance as English seamen. When the men drew ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... she said to her father, "I never could fall in love; you made me too hard to please. I always knew beforehand that no one could ever love me as you did. I saw so many things come into your face when I was there, such happiness! And when we went anywhere together, weren't you proud of me! Oh! weren't you just proud ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... "but I do wish it. I wouldn't, only she is so hard to please. Mamma wishes us to be nice to every one, but, Nancy, you do know that when we try the hardest to please Arabella, we don't please ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... she said, "but what would you have? I am poor, and I am hard to please. I feel that it would not suit me at all to carry the soup out into the fields, nor to push a hand-cart; to feel the misery of those whom I should love, and have no power to put an end to it; to carry my children in my arms all ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... the start: with every rise, always holding on for five points higher. Always when I think we are going to have some weddings, you see a bigger thing ahead, and I undergo another disappointment. I think you are too hard to please. Some day we'll get left. First, we turned down the dentist and the lawyer. That was all right—it was sound. Next, we turned down the banker's son and the pork-butcher's heir—right again, and sound. Next, we turned down the Congressman's son and ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... a poplar tree, "for sure, my old Caparthe, certainly. Tiens, there"—and unbending his elbow he makes an indicative gesture like a flag-signaler—"'Villa von Hindenburg.' and there, 'Villa Glucks auf.' If that doesn't satisfy you, you gentlemen are hard to please. P'raps there's a few lodgers in the basement, but not noisy lodgers, and you can talk out aloud in ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the gentlemen who were absent had always been wrong. And, oh, dear, when they came to politics, how they bragged about what they would have done if they had only been at the head of the Government; and how cruelly hard to please they were in the matter of wine! Do you remember recommending me to spend ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... Cheetham know? To be sure the gentleman is a good deal with her, and I hear he has courted her this two years; and she likes his company, that's certain. But she is used to be admired, and she is very hard to please." ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... encircled by eternal snows reflected a sheen of glorious splendor; when, conscious of her immense wealth in coal, minerals, and fisheries, her delightful climate and geographical position, she bid for commercial supremacy. It is said of States, as of women, they are "fickle, coy and hard to please." For, changed and governed from England's Downing Street, "with all its red tape circumlocution," "Tile Barncal," incapacity, and "how-not-to-do-it" ability that attached to that venerable institution, its people were ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... master is hard to please, and threatens and punishes more than he ought, what is the servant to do?—A. 'Do his best to ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown |
