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Sour   Listen
verb
Sour  v. i.  (past & past part. soured; pres. part. souring)  To become sour; to turn from sweet to sour; as, milk soon sours in hot weather; a kind temper sometimes sours in adversity. "They keep out melancholy from the virtuous, and hinder the hatred of vice from souring into severity."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sour" Quotes from Famous Books



... father used to keep 'em in barrels down in the basement. He used to say to me, 'Andrew,' he'd say, 'don't never put a sour apple in one of these barrels. 'Cause just one sour apple can spoil the whole derned lot.'" The boss looked at Colihan and ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar

... be observant of the merits and defects of his own acquisitions and losses and of his own dominions. He should feed those that have not been fed, and enquire after those that have been fed. Possessed of sweet speech, he could speak with a smiling (and not with a sour) countenance. He should always wait upon those that are old in years and repress procrastination. He should never covet what belongs to others. He should firmly follow the behaviour of the righteous and, therefore, observe that behaviour carefully. He should never take wealth from those ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... himself suddenly without an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and he said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and he wandered away a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... looked toward a basin of the Elbe, where stately white swans were sailing; and on the other to the new Rathhaus, over the trees that deeply shaded the perennial mud of a cold, dim public garden, where water-proof old women and impervious nurses sat, and children played in the long twilight of the sour, rain-soaked summer of the fatherland. It was all picturesque, and within-doors there was the novelty of the meagre carpets and stalwart furniture of the Germans, and their beds, which after so many ages of Anglo-Saxon satire remain immutably preposterous. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of corn-meal to the bushel, a quart of oak or hickory ashes, a handful of salt, and a good proportion of turnips or green food of any kind, even clover or peas; the whole thoroughly—mind you, thoroughly cooked—then thrown into a large trough, and there allowed to become sour ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... for a moment stands in the light at the door of a playhouse, One who is dignified, masterly, hard in the pride of his station; Here too, the stateliest of matrons, sour in the pride of her station; With them their daughter, sad-faced and listless, half-crushed ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... aunt Susan. It's the whole concern. It's the commerce of your country. And we want you badly. I tell you straight, I know my limitations. You could take this place, you could make it go! I can see you at it—looking rather sour. Woosh ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... hitherto unknown; a thin, sour beverage like verjuice had been their only drink, but now wineshops were established to supply a natural demand. The oldest tavern was enlarged and transformed into an inn, which furnished mules to pilgrims to the Grand Chartreuse who began to come our way, and after two years there was ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... "A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew," said Mrs. Jellison, grudgingly. "I don't have nothink to say to him, nor he to me. He thinks hissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they gi'en him his uniform, and made him full keeper. A nassty, domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allus makin' ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... opened and through it came three people. First was a very tall lady all wrapped up in furs,—tails and heads of the poor animals that had been slain to make them hanging from her shoulders and down her back. Even the children could see that her face was sour in spite of all its smiling. Then came a young man in a stiff, funny hat, carrying a cane, beating up the snow flowers with it as he passed the flower beds. And behind them walked—Helma, with her gaze on the ground. That is why they did not know her at first, that and her very strange ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... opium. This fact was strikingly manifest in the case of Mr. Brush, for his natural disposition, from childhood up, had been usually kind, cheerful, and good; nor had he any dyspeptic or bilious tendencies to worry and sour him. Few men have ever been physically so well organized, or socially and religiously so well situated for the enjoyment of a prosperous ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... delightful. Besides Malcolm and the girl there were present a faded Russian lady, whom he guessed was her official chaperon, and a sour-visaged Russian priest who ceremoniously blessed the food and was apparently the Grand Duke's household chaplain. He did not speak throughout the meal, and seemed to be in ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... be prolonged and so strengthened that the average height, weight, and endurance will be increased, admits of no doubt. The same rule of cultivation runs through all nature. The original or natural apple was a small, sour, bitter crab. The difference between that and the finest products of western orchards, is altogether a matter of cultivation, selection, and proper treatment. In 1710 the average weight of dressed cattle did not exceed three hundred and seventy pounds. Now it is not far from one thousand pounds. ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... was immediately supplied by a Parisian lacquey engaged at London for that purpose. Pipes did not seem to relish this disposition of things; and though he made no verbal objections to it, looked remarkably sour at his successor upon his first arrival; but this sullen fit seemed gradually to wear off; and long before his master's departure, he had recovered his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... can the odor and appearance of the contents should be noted. The odor should be clean and fresh, and the slightest trace of any sour, musty, or disagreeable smell should cause the rejection of the food. The appearance should be clean, with no mold; the consistency and color of the fruit or vegetables should be uniform throughout. If the color is brighter than that of a similar article when canned at home, the presence of artificial ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... muslin blouse, to say nothing of wounds on wrists and ankles. There was quite a clearing in the middle, with soft, mossy grass and clumps of hemp agrimony, and actually a small apple-tree with nine apples upon it. They were green and very sour, but the girls each sampled one, with a kind of feeling that by so doing they were taking formal possession of the territory, though, with Paradise for an analogy, it should ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... Jim's; but she made no sign of having received them except that Norah found on her table at night a twisted note in a masculine hand that said "Thank you.—C. de L." As for Mrs. Atkins, she made her silent way about the house, sour and watchful, her green eyes rather resembling those of a cat, and her step as stealthy. Norah tried hard to talk to her on other matters than housekeeping, but found her so stolidly unresponsive that at last she ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... people eat sour milk prepared in the following manner. After the milk is turned, and the curd taken out, the whey is put into a vessel, where it remains till it becomes sour. Immediately after the making of cheese, fresh whey is poured lukewarm on the former sour whey. This is repeated several times, care ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... part of the acids, in addition, is neutralised by the mineral salts which are absorbed by the roots. These acids, however, are not so thoroughly neutralised in a cooler climate, and as a result the wine has often a sour, crude taste. The warmer the climate the more alcohol the wine will contain; indeed, it may become too strong. On the contrary, the cooler the climate the more of acid there will be, and it may possess in consequence a crude, ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... power of grace they were True priests of God's own making, Who offered up themselves e'en there, Christ's holy orders taking; Dead to the world, they cast aside Hypocrisy's sour leaven, That penitent and justified They might go clean to heaven, And leave ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... belonging to one of the party, and their sole cooking-utensil,—for the prison authorities furnish none. His rations—a day's rations, remember—were eight ounces of Indian meal, cob and kernel ground together, (as with us for pigs,) and sour, (a common occurrence,) and two ounces of condemned pork (not to appear again in our pages, as it proved too strong even for poor Drake's hunger). He brought water in the cup from a ditch that traversed the inclosure, and filtered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... her youthful prime is past. Some women never seem able to solve it. They either hang on to the burlesque semblance of twenty-five, or else go all to pieces, and take unto themselves "views" as violent as they are sour. When they cannot command the uncritical admiration of the gaping crowd, they descend from their thrones to shy brickbats at everyone who doesn't look at them twice. A wise woman realises that although at forty she cannot be the centre of attraction for her youthfulness alone, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... two it is; the form and shoulders are those of Mr. Morgridge, but the face at least is borrowed from Santa Klaus; Mr. Morgridge never in his life looked so jolly. Not to confound this person with the sour-faced man who sat glumpy, upon the bench taking snuff, the night before, let us call ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... the other side of the Atlantic if I am any judge. But you can hand these people any sort of pill and they'll swallow it without making a face. We have no indigestible pleasures here, but the food. I am suffering from gastric nostalgia. I was so hungry for something sharp and sour last night that I bought a bottle of horse-radish and ate it in cold blood. Today my digestive apparatus is slumped and I feel like the ragged edge of a ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... baffled in all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour; and did at length become so acid, and did so pinch and slap and tweak the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, that she was by one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to bless some other spot of earth, in preference. It chanced at that moment, that ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... nicely situated little town called Rushott at five. Only two passengers, therefore able to sleep pretty well. Arrived at Zanesville half past six, the last stage beautifully macadamised. Sour bread and poor coffee. Got them to allow my name to be entered for Wheeling as paid for. Arrived at Cambridge at twelve. The driver managed the drag chain by treading upon an iron lever. The last 20 miles very hilly. A large waggon drawn by horses with ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... "salt risings," and a heavy indigestible mass generally resulted. White flour was little used and was of a poor quality. Baking powder was unknown and all forms of cakes and warm bread were made with sour milk and soda, easily ruined by too much or too little of the latter. In no particular did the table compare favorably with ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... filled the room Till Gorham's flashing orbs dispelled the gloom. The patrons of the place, by fear dismayed, Sprang to the street and left their scores unpaid. So, when Jove thunders and his lightnings gleam To sour the milk and curdle, too, the cream, And storm-clouds gather on the shadowed hill, The ass forsakes his hay, the pig his swill. Hotly the heroes now engaged—their breath Came short and hard, as in the throes of death. They clenched their hands, their weapons ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... boy could ask her meaning they heard the rumble of wheels outside; and Tilda, catching him by the arm, hurried him back to the doors just as a two-horse wagon rolled down to the wharf, in charge of an elderly driver—a sour-visaged man in a smock-frock, with a weather-stained top hat on the back of his head, and in his hand a whip adorned ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... men of de neighborhood, 'round 'bout us, march off to de war in 1861. One day I see them ridin' down de big road on many hosses and they wavin' deir hats and singin': 'We gwine to hang Abe Lincoln on a sour apple tree!' and they in fine spirits. My young master, Butler, who they call Junior at de time, he am too young to go with them so we stay home and farm. I go with him to de fields and he tell de slaves what to do. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... and breakfasted. The landlord was remarkably attentive and obliging, but his bread was stale, his milk sour, and his cheese the greenest imaginable. I disdained to animadvert on these defects, naturally supposing that his house could ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... one of the apple-trees and began to eat an apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was hard and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries," said she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some ripe currants; ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... Spencer. "You may put a large spoonful into every yard. It is better to give them a little at a time; then the food does not stay on the ground and get dirty and sour." ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... knew would delight them. The coach was bespoke, and the young ladies, completely armed for conquest, were ready to take their seats. But, behold! their father had changed his mind. This, indeed, was a disappointment; but as it appeared to proceed from whim, or caprice, it might sour their temper, instead ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband. Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care; there is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we know, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl; and with him, one of our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her always under our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children, grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... be kept, Bud opined that they needed an extra hand or two. Bud was peevish, these days. Gila Bend had exasperated him because it was not the town it called itself, but a huddle of adobe huts. He had come away in the sour mood of a thirsty man who finds an alkali spring sparkling deceptively under a rock. Furthermore, the nights had been hot and the mosquitoes a humming torment. And as a last affliction he was called upon to keep ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... the Maid, 'the men-at-arms will fight, and God will give the victory.' Then came the learned Seguin; 'a right sour man was he,' ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... a good husband, sir," said she, with mild dignity, and pointed to a thin, sour personage opposite, with his nose in a newspaper. Deep in some public question, he ignored this ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... national dish, taking the place of porridge to a Scotchman, and is nothing less than curded sheep's milk, like German 'dicke-milch,' eaten with sugar, to which cream is added as a luxury. As it was rather sour, we fought shy of it at first, fearing future consequences, but this was unnecessary. It is really excellent, and the natives eat it in large quantities. Huge barrels of this skyr are made during the time the sheep are in full milk, and stored away for ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... he was in, and had been for the last two weeks; also that she was sick of him, and she'd thank M. Vandeloup to clear him out—all of which amused Vandeloup mightily, though he still continued to smile coolly on the sour-faced damsel ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... unfolding their beauties. By ten, A.M., we were in harbor and pulling shorewards to subject ourselves to the scrutiny of custom-house and police. Our passports duly conned over, the functionary, with a sour glance at our valanced faces, inquired if we had letters for any one in the island. Never before had such a question been asked me, nor ever before could I have given other than an humble negative. But the kindness of a friend had luckily provided me with a formidable shield, and a reply, given ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... sap which should produce that wonderful growth is poured into this cup. The pulque gatherer, with his long gourd collecting-tube, and skin carrying-bottle, goes from plant to plant and gathers the agua miel—honey-water. Fermented, it becomes the whitish, dirty, ropy, sour-tasting, bad-smelling stuff so dear to the indians. And the Otomi are fond of pulque. We were compelled to do our work in the mornings; in the afternoons everyone was drunk and limp and useless in ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... the picture of a woman of thirty-five, "who had the fortune left to her, which has come down to me. I want you to like her. Next to you I think more of her than I do of any of the rest. It was she who cut loose from the old life at Hilton which had become so sour and sad, and built this new Hilton here, where life has been so much calmer, and, on the whole, happier, than it had got to be at home. It was she who had the portrait of you painted ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... than the sour cider of which grandmother gives me a sup. Aunt Lou says it is as sour as grandmother, who brews it. Aunt Lucy is having sweet drinks now, and pasties, and all manner of nice things. Why can't we go to London, mother, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... but orthodox parties persuaded his Majesty; wicked Maurepas (the same who lasted till the Revolution time) set his face against it; Maurepas, and ANC. de Mirepoix (whom they wittily call "ANE" or Ass of Mirepoix, that sour opaque creature, lately monk), were industrious exceedingly; and put veto on Voltaire. A stupid Bishop was preferred to him for filling up the Forty. Two Bishops magnanimously refused; but one was found with ambitious stupidity ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... social reformer tells the Bishop who thinks democracy has rejected religion that "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed." The roots of the old sustenance are nibbled level to the ground, and the ground itself is sour. If socialism is wrong, let the Bishop tell us where lies a ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... fed from ten to fourteen days in the coops. I give no feed whatever to the chicken the first day he is in the coop, but I keep a supply of sour milk in the trough for him. I feed my ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... comes. Why, take me even now when the' wouldn't nothin' but a grizzly bear have the nerve to coddle me, an' yet week before last I felt so blue an' solitary 'at I couldn't 'a' told to save me whether I was homesick or whether it was only 'cause the beans was a little sour. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... apples, or chew the commonest pears; but they form a slight minority, which will gradually altogether disappear. The votaries of Pine-apple pretend to observe the characteristic effect which such food produces upon the feeders. They denounce them as stupid, sour, ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... when your Ma should have made you pure clean taffy at home from our maple syrup or as good sugar as we could buy? Often I've spent money that now should be on interest, for fruit that looked fine to you there, and proved to be grainy, too mellow, sour or not half so good as what you had ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... boasted. Our hero knew the man fairly well, having purchased a number of things at his place from time to time, and so he nodded pleasantly. Mr. Asa Dickley nodded in return, but with a rather sour expression on his face. Then he glanced at Ben, and at the handsome sleigh and still more stylish team of horses, and passed ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... considered as a peculiar class of burnt bodies, which during their combustion, or combination with oxygen, have acquired very characteristic properties. They are chiefly discernible by their sour taste, and by turning red most of the blue vegetable colours. These two properties are common to the whole class of acids; but each of them is distinguished by other peculiar qualities. Every acid consists of some particular substance, (which constitutes its basis, ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... around his bastions, the thin cries of the sea-birds that sailed about the precipice, or that lit on their airy perches. Everywhere was a brisk sharp scent of the sea, and the fresh breeze, most unlike the close sour smell of the little houses. He felt himself free and strong and clean, and he thought of all the things he would say to God in the pleasant solitude, and how he would hear the low and far-off voice of the Father speaking gently ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a sour, spiteful creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody, this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a christening. She looked very odd, ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... converted into a puree which might well earn the adjective "eternal." Even the asparagus is spoilt by the native cook, being cut into inch cubes and set afloat in melted butter. Compotes sweet and sour, are served at strange times during the repast, and lastly, as a sort of "old guard," the much-beloved but deadly Sauerkraut, made from both red and white cabbage, is always brought up to complete the cook's victory. The potatoes in Germany are ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard

... antique traditions between the nations of the two worlds? Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of America.) This kind of vine, peculiar to America, has given rise to the general error that the true Vitis vinifera is common to the two continents. The Parras monteses which yields the somewhat sour wine of the island of Cuba, was probably gathered on the Vitis tiliaefolia which Mr. Willdenouw has described from our herbals. In no part of the northern hemisphere has the vine hitherto been cultivated with the view of producing ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... she's been furious—given me the funniest looks. She's sensitive enough to know she's not getting away with much, but I'll bet she consoles herself by thinking that she's very virtuous and that I'm too gay and fickle and will come to a bad end. All unpopular girls think that way. Sour grapes! Sarah Hopkins refers to Genevieve and Roberta and me as gardenia girls! I'll bet she'd give ten years of her life and her European education to be a gardenia girl and have three or four men in love with her and be cut in on every ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... of my own grapes, as I look at them when I use that argument for my own comfort. The worst of it is that when we know that the grapes are not sour,—that they are the sweetest grapes in the world,—the argument is of no use. I won't tell any lies about it, to myself or anybody else. I want my ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... treats of lunar superstitions, many of which yet live in the vagaries which sour and shade our modern ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... it is so dangerous to generalize about human nature. A loving father can be a sour boss, an earnest municipal reformer, and a rapacious jingo abroad. His family life, his business career, his politics, and his foreign policy rest on totally different versions of what others are like and of how he should act. These ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... women—-wherever and whenever an opportunity of doing so, in a galling manner, offered. Often were the Misses Boland asked, when mounted on their side-saddles, did they remember when their mother used to be driving her cart-load of tankards of sour milk to the market of Limerick, and sitting there for days retailing it at a penny a gallon, &c.; and as often were the young brothers asked when bursting over an old neighbor's fence, in scarlet and buckskin, if they remembered ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... everything round looked so cold and dreary. The long willow leaves were quite yellow. The damp mist fell off the trees like rain, one leaf dropped after another from the trees, and only the sloe-thorn still bore its fruit; but the sloes were sour and set one's teeth on edge. Oh, how grey and sad it looked, out in the ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... abroad, and so we went outdoors for a fresh breath. The other woman came out just then to ask after Molly. She invited us into her cabin, and, oh, the little Mormons were everywhere; poor, half-clad little things! Some sour-dough biscuit and a can of condensed milk was everything they had to eat. The mother explained to us that their "men" had gone to get things for them, but had not come back, so she guessed they had ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... up one morning, Maren found her tenants had gone, they had moved in the middle of the night. "The Devil has been and fetched them," she said cheerfully. She was not at all sorry that they had vanished; they were a sour and quarrelsome family! But the worst of it was that they owed her twelve weeks' rent—twelve crowns—which was all she had to meet ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... mighty manufacturer, mine-holder, merchant, gold-maker, ghost-seer, your all-powerful man of millions, your Balthasar. And perhaps you would make believe into the bargain that you don't know how he comes by all his unnatural riches. Ay, ay, friend, the pale old sour-faced growler has them all in leading-strings, the whole posse of spirits: he is often absent for weeks, and tarrying with them in their secret chambers: then they pay away to him; then they break their old crowns in bits, and pour out the diamonds into his skinny ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... she was in charming company when she heard her visitors' steps and voices coming up the stairs. Had those visitors seen the vexed expression of her face as she laid down the book they would have instantly 'bout ship and home again; but that sour look dissolved away as they came through the ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... for so many generations associated with our fortunes, especially as most of the old furniture is still there. My sedulous avoidance hitherto of all relating to our family vicissitudes has been, I own, stupid conduct for an intelligent being; but impossible grapes are always sour, and I have unconsciously adopted Radical notions to obliterate disappointed hereditary instincts. But these have a trick of re-establishing themselves as one gets older, and the castle and what it contains have a ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... during the five or six years I was most assiduous there. These expenses are inevitable to a man like me, who knows not how to provide anything for himself, and cannot support the sight of a lackey who grumbles and serves him with a sour look. With Madam Dupin, even where I was one of the family, and in whose house I rendered many services to the servants, I never received theirs but for my money. In course of time it was necessary to renounce these little liberalities, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... rest I'll bear, as should a man; 'twill do me good, And teach me what no better fortune could, Humility, and sympathy with others' ills. ———————Ye destinies, I love you much; ye flatter not my pride. Your mien, 'tis true, is wrinkled, hard, and sour; Your words are harsh and stern; and sterner still Your purposes to me. Yet I forgive Whatever you have done, or mean to do. Beneath some baleful planet born, I've found, In all this world, no friend with fostering hand To ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... masts had long since disappeared over the edge of the ice, but still I kept on. Presently, however, I began to feel faint and hungry, for in my hurry I had not even had my breakfast, and at last had to bite the sour apple and ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... instance. No reflection on you, of course, but take yourself. You're smart, you're hard, and you got a good mind. You're one of the best spacemen in the deep. Take all that and turn it bad. Real bad. Sour it with too many years on a prison asteroid and you've got a fire-eating rocket buster as tough and as rough as God ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... and fiddlesticks, Phyllis, don't let any old sour idea like that ball up your naturally sweet temper. You and Roxy are just women folks and had better keep out of men's business, like this wrangle between Doug and Mr. Forsythe. Trot along and do your stocking-darning and ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... level, pa needs work. These days when he's idle he mostly sticks home and tries out new ways to make prime old Kentucky sour mash in eight hours. If he don't quit he is going to find himself seeing some moving pictures that no one else can. And he's all worried up about his hair going off on top, and trying new hair restorers. You ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... O! what banquet wert thou to the taste, 445 Being nurse and feeder of the other four; Would they not wish the feast might ever last, And bid Suspicion double-lock the door, Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest, Should, by his stealing in, disturb ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... is a difference between things, and there is no use trying to make out they're all alike. Sour isn't sweet, and hard ain't soft. What's the use of talking as if it was? I always like to look at things just ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... speak to him. It seemed there was no living creature but must have been swift to recognise that imminent animosity; but the hide of the Justice-Clerk remained impenetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce could never have subsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours of sour silence; and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie nursed the enthusiasm of rebellion. It seemed to him, from the top of his nineteen years' experience, as if he were marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some signal ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thirst in the lower world. The primaeval serpent-worship is perpetuated in the reverence paid to traditional village-snakes. Of the local ghosts some are beneficent. Sometimes they are only mischievous, like Robin Goodfellow, and will milk the cows, and sour the milk, or pull your hair, if you wander about at night in certain well-known uncanny places. A more dangerous demon is heard in the crackling of the dry leaves of the date-tree in the night wind; and some trees are haunted by a vampire, who will drag you up and devour you, if you ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... words of Heddana's were to me what gall is to sweet milk. My blood clotted and my heart turned sour. It was not against her that I was angry, because that can never happen, but against Mauriti and against you. My Spirit whispered in my ear. It said, 'If Mauriti and Macumazahn were dead the lady Heddana would be left alone in ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... going to a gentleman's dinner. He thought that a man ought to be allowed to choose where he would go and where he would not go, and that questions such as these were very uncommon. Mr. Kennedy was sitting opposite to him, looking more grave and more sour than usual;—and now his own countenance also became a little solemn. It was impossible that he should use Lady Laura's name, and yet he must, in some way, let his persecuting friend know that no further invitation would be of any ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... much of what is good; good turns to evil, sweet to sour. After many days of quiet calm the sea was covered with Ogokpegeak, a scum which is caused by sickness among the fish, and which is thrown off by them, for they suffer in still water. Then the fisherman can no ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... sincere ones who were absorbed in contemplation, trying to understand the various works, and already in fancy distributing the medals. And the painters' families were also there. One charming young woman was accompanied by a coquettishly bedecked child; a sour-looking, skinny matron of middle-class birth was flanked by two ugly urchins in black; a fat mother had foundered on a bench amid quite a tribe of dirty brats; and a lady of mature charms, still very good-looking, stood beside her grown-up daughter, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... gentleman! he was absent, when this sad event took place: for you must know, my lord, that when after the departure of her parents he went to visit his betrothed at the convent-grate, the sour-faced old abbess would'nt suffer him to see the lady Josepha. Nay, what is the strangest circumstance of all, she produced a letter from the marchioness commanding positively, that during her absence no person whatever should ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in he rolled after his successful libation-cum-potation, introducing an atmosphere of drink into the soiree, boisterously trolling, like a veritable ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... seen 'most all kinds. Are you acquainted any with a woman name of Weazle, down the ro'd about four mile from here? Ain't? Well, she's a case, I tell you. Long skinny kind of woman, looks like she'd bleed sour milk—skim—if she scratched her finger. She made up her mind I was goin' to cheat her, and she warn't goin' to be cheated, not she. ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... lest he should mention Liza. But my good lieutenant was not a gossip, and, moreover, he despised all women, calling them, God knows why, salad." This is all the description Turgenef devotes to this lieutenant; but this making him despise women under the appellation of half-sour, half-sweet conglomerate of egg-and-vegetable salad, describes the lieutenant in two lines more faithfully than pages of scientific, realistic photography. (3) Before the ruin of poor Liza becomes known, and while the prince, her seducer, is still on the height of lionization, he is ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... frame building, newly shingled, was set back from the road in a straggling orchard of pear-trees, which bore a hard green fruit too sour to be used except in the form of preserves. Small shanties, including a woodhouse, a henhouse, and a smokehouse for drying bacon and hams, flanked the kitchen garden at the rear, while in front a short, gravelled path, bordered by portulaca, led to the paling gate at ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... thaw. Its hotel is likewise a dreary institution. But I have an impression that we must be in the wrong one, and buoy myself up with a devout belief in the other, over the way. The awakening to consciousness this morning on a lop-sided bedstead facing nowhere, in a room holding nothing but sour dust, was more terrible than the being afraid to go to bed last night. To keep ourselves up we played whist (double dummy) until neither of us could bear to speak to the other any more. We had previously supped on a tough old nightmare ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... family,—is never without a penny in his purse, and has something besides in the savings bank,—is a reader of books and a subscriber to a newspaper, besides taking in some literary journal for family reading; whilst the other man, with equal or even superior weekly wages, comes to work in the mornings sour and sad,—is always full of grumbling,—is badly clad and badly shod,—is never seen out of his house on Sundays till about midday, when he appears in his shirt-sleeves, his face unwashed, his hair unkempt, his eyes bleared and bloodshot,—his children left ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... Beethoven was of a sour temper, according to all accounts, but he wrote his symphonies in the midst of tribulations under which few men would have worked at all. When we have felt something of the spirit that makes work inevitable, ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall

... foods may perhaps be more liable to go sour, but I am far from considering sour milk an unwholesome food; whole nations have no other food and are none the worse, and all the array of absorbents seems to me mere humbug. There are constitutions which do not thrive on milk, others can take it without absorbents. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... French. "Why, man, he owns the whole place. You see how the other dogs kow-tow to him. He's sour, all right, and a fighter from way back; but the way he's built he somehow doesn't seem to make trouble with any dog that kow-tows to him. But God help the husky that don't kow-tow. Sourdough will have his salute as boss, or he'll have blood. ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... do you think it's going to be like out in space with Manning making sour cracks all ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... kneaded bread with the best, and was as pious as she was deft, never omitting to throw the Sabbath dough in the fire. Not that her prowess as a cook had much opportunity, for our principal fare was corn-bread, mixed with bran and sour cabbage and red beets, which lay stored on the floor in tubs. Here we all lived together—my grandfather, my parents, my brother and sister; not so unhappy, especially on Sabbaths and festivals, when we ate fish cooked with butter in the evening, and meat at dinnertime, washed ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... of that divine and adorable endowment. We invite Thought to share, and by sharing to enhance, the pleasures of the delicate senses; we distil, as it were, an elixir from our golden moments, keeping out of the shining crucible of consciousness everything that tastes sour. I do wish that we could have discussed at greater length, like two Alchemists, the theory and practice ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... frightened. But Mother stiffens her back and makes everything in the house go on just as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together tight. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept life at all, not to accept all of it—the sour with ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... formal, are very prepossessing in looks and behaviour. They are so perfectly docile and obedient, so ready to help their parents, so good to the little ones, and, in the many hours which I have spent in watching them at play, I have never heard an angry word or seen a sour look or act. But they are little men and women rather than children, and their old-fashioned appearance is greatly aided by their dress, which, as I have remarked before, is the same as that ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... the thing which was not when I assured him of my loss of appetite. In the evening I regaled myself with some strong coffee, and I entreated that it might be made by the little sioa, Zanze. {13} This was the jailer's daughter, who, if she could escape the lynx-eye of her sour mamma, was good enough to make it exceedingly good; so good, indeed, that, what with the emptiness of my stomach, it produced a kind of convulsion, which kept me awake ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... with paper, where big purple spots of paint concealed the old print of some story or newspaper. On the wall hung a few black profiles, and all was very fairly neat, whatever the room might be shut off by a wooden partition, whence came a peculiar sour smell. ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... themselves with the tall swings, the merry-go-rounds, and the scowlike boats, to eat dulces at the booths, and to drink inordinate quantities of pulque at the many stands at which it is dispensed at popular prices. The pungent liquor permeates the surrounding atmosphere with its sour and offensive odor. Here one sees numerous groups busy at that besetting sin of the Indians, gambling. It is practiced on all occasions and in all places, the prevailing means being "the wheel of fortune." ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... public coach in England, it is certainly very seldom that, in the course of the few hours you may remain in it, you meet with an entertaining companion. Chance, indeed, may now and then throw a pleasant man in your way; but these are but thinly sown amongst those sour and silent gentlemen, who are your general associates, and who, now and then eyeing each other askance, look as if they could curse themselves for being thrown ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison



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