It must be that I have a disagreeable way about me, and repel friendship, though I am always trying to be agreeable, and always trying to make friends.
"The Mystery of the Locks"
Edgar Watson Howe
He goes from room to room, finding everywhere evidence of decent taste and sufficient, but moderate, expenditure: nothing to repel and nothing to attract him in what he sees.
"A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)"
Mrs. Sutherland Orr
As these faces seemed to rise before her out of the thick darkness, it was as though she were haunted, and it was in a wild, passionate way that she seemed in her dreamy state to be defying them, bidding them go-all but one, whose power was too great even for her angry words to repel.
"One Maid's Mischief"
George Manville Fenn