"Disappointing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of condolence to Pauline, then forgot it as he became interested in his work. Two poems in particular came in for much revision: "The Lay of an Exiled Englishman," and "Friends on the Astrachan Ranch," pleased him with their lines here and there, yet the general and final effect seemed disappointing to his fine critical side; like many another he saw and felt better than he ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... formidable revolt of the year was that of Mehemet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, against his suzerain, Sultan Mahmoud of Turkey. The disappointing results of Egypt's participation in Turkey's war in Greece left Mehemet Ali dissatisfied. He considered the acquisition of Crete by Egypt but a poor recompense for the loss ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... is seldom attended with any but very moderate success. From the fact that we hear so little of the King's Round Table, and from the few times it ever met, one is led to conclude that the results were small and disappointing. But the brilliance of the first assembly cannot be doubted; and for the twins of Gascony it was a wonderful day, and marked an epoch in their lives; for on that occasion they saw for the first time the mighty King, whose ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... did not say one disparaging word of anyone, nor any hint of criticism at His Royal Highness; yet he knew, and I knew that he knew, and he knew that again, that our Catholic champion was a shade disappointing; and that, not in his vices only—of which my Lady Southesk could have given an account—but in that which I am forced to call his stupidity. But, after all, our Saviour uttered a judgment generally as to the children of light and the children of this world, that must ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... not willing to approve a measure presenting the objections to which this bill is subject, and which, moreover, will have the effect of disappointing the expectation of the people and their desire and hope for relief from war ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... dropped the examination at this point. The impression left by Alyosha's evidence on the public was most disappointing. There had been talk about Smerdyakov before the trial; some one had heard something, some one had pointed out something else, it was said that Alyosha had gathered together some extraordinary proofs of his brother's ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... their Latin and Greek to study, while Gerald was usually loitering in the drawing-room. That he should voluntarily touch Latin or Greek in the holidays was perhaps more than mortal could expect; but that he should not read anything was disappointing. The vicarage afforded no periodical novels, no slang tales of low life, no manuals of sporting. The Waverley novels he had read long ago, and nothing of a more solid description would he touch; so his mornings were chiefly ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... She bent forward with childish delight. "This is a part of the story we've been living that I really know nothing about. I hope it won't be disappointing!" ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... and the debates which followed are most disappointing. What was needed was a penetrating discussion of the means by which the House could establish its authority and perform its constitutional functions. But it is a remarkable circumstance that at no time ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... King Solomon's Mines seems to be behind those great mountains and this I may add is a bit of advance work for mother, an entering wedge to my disappearing from sight for years and years in the Congo. Which, seriously, I will not do; only it is disappointing to find the earth so small and so easily encompassed that you want to go on where it is older, and new. The worst of it is that it is hard leaving all the nice people you meet and then must say good-bye to. The ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the Count and Countess paid us a visit. He is a man of strong mind, weary of the disappointing pleasures of the world, and happily turned to seek comfort in the substantial truths of religion. The Countess was delighted to find that we were of the same Society as William Penn, whose name her father much revered. ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... the sleeve of the coat he wore. The cloth was of blue Cheviot which reminded him abruptly that he was Richard Frencham Altar masquerading in someone else's clothes, a circumstance which in no way admitted him to the use of short cuts to the affections of their real owner's admirers. It is disappointing to have to acknowledge that someone is violently in love with someone else that you happen to resemble and the reflection sobered him quickly. With an awkward laugh ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... hostility was now broken, and before the beginning of 1865 about seven thousand, later increased to 8491, were under military control within the new reservation. But the Bosque Redondo proved unhealthful and disappointing as a reservation, while its maintenance was costly to the Government. A treaty was therefore made with the Navaho in 1868, one of the provisions of which was the purchase of fifteen thousand sheep to replenish their exterminated flocks. In July 7304 Navaho, the remainder having died ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Warren and Miss Metoaca were conferring together, Colonel Baker, much dissatisfied in mind, was walking moodily along F Street. Things had not gone to suit him that day. The result of the autopsy had puzzled him; the search of Miss Metoaca's house had proved disappointing, for nothing had been found there that in any way touched on the supposed murder, or on the whereabouts of the missing and all-important despatch. As he crossed the street on his way to the Ebbitt House, he encountered Symonds hurrying out of the F ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... travelling M.P. treasures up and the Anglo-Indian hastens to throw away? A. Erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions. Before the eyes of the griffin, India steams up in poetical mists, illusive, fantastic, subjective, ideal, picturesque. The adult Qui Hai attains to prose, to stern and disappointing realities; he removes the gilt from the Empire and penetrates to the brown ginger-bread of Rajas and Baboos. One of the most serious duties attending a residence in India is the correcting of those misapprehensions which your travelling ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... are of "more value than many sparrows" to One whose power and wisdom are really infinite. Take both sides of this great truth, the spiritual and the material, and you will find it a glorious help in worry and disappointing failure. What a remedy it is when good medical treatment and true faith in God come together to give peace to the ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... It was rather disappointing to find that the duties of his position kept him closely confined to the office, and that therefore he had not yet had the pleasure of meeting Tish's nephew, but he said he had no doubt they would meet ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... trio, suggest the notion of a light and airy version, feminine gender, of the three Anabaptists in the Prophete. M. ISNARDON as Des Grieux, pere, a character that might be operatically nearly related to Germont, pere, in La Traviata, was impressively dramatic, but decidedly disappointing in his one great song, which ought to be a certain encore. It may be true that an opera intended for a small stage does not stand a fair chance of success on a large one, and vice versa, as no doubt the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... good world! What a handsome, merry, sweetly-colored world! Unsatisfying? disappointing?—not a bit of it! It must be people's own fault ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... been among the strongest forces which stood between New France and destruction. Other supports failed. The fur trade had been the corner-stone upon which Champlain built up Quebec, but the profits proved disappointing. At the best it was a very uncertain business. Sometimes the prices in Paris dwindled to nothing because the market was glutted. At other times the Indians brought no furs at all to the trading-posts. With its export trade dependent ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... disappointing to the two West India regiments to have been prevented from entering Coomassie, within some twenty-five miles from which their head-quarters were halted. West India regiments rarely have opportunities of seeing active service elsewhere than on the West Coast of Africa; and, although the duties ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... and full of movement, and a Madonna and Child, also in relief, with many marks of greatness upon it. In a recess in Room IV are some personal relics of the artist, which his great nephew, the poet, who was named after him, began to collect early in the seventeenth century. As a whole the house is disappointing. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... on the way to Jenne? Are you going to see the Saint? You will find many people there to-day." Many people! This was disappointing to Noemi, who feared she would not be able to speak quietly with Maironi. The Selvas were curious to know all about it. Why so many people? Because they want the Saint at Filettino, they want him at Vallepietra, they want ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... explain in the letter. Letters are such hard, unsatisfactory things. The best one you could write wouldn't make up to him a bit for what he's suffered and what he must go on suffering, for you couldn't help studying your words, and they'd be stiff and disappointing, no matter how hard you tried to say the things just right. Ask him to come here and let you explain in your own words why you seemed so harsh. Only, warn him that it isn't to change your mind about—about saying yes. It would be ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid over his cups—which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be shaken ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... full face—now that my confusion had passed away and I was capable of close observation—give the same vivid impression of beauty made by her profile. It was pretty, very pretty, but for some reasons disappointing. Then I smiled at my half-conscious criticism, and thought, "You have imagined a creature of unearthly perfection, and expect your impossible ideal to be realized. Were she all that you have dreamed, she would be much too fine for an ordinary mortal ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... degree of popular good will in Spain. Nothing was to be gained at such a supreme moment by the ordinary brutal abuse which the Emperor was accustomed to heap on his brother-in-law for commonplace offenses; moreover, in view of the disappointing revolution, Murat's course was perhaps as good as any other. He must, however, bear whatever responsibility attached to it, and that responsibility would have been his even without the supposititious letter which he never received. The contempt of the people for the boy-soldiers ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Hunter Street, and Matterson, of Pitt Street, make a highly creditable show, and in the southern capital, Jenkins, of Swanston Street, is well known for his excellent display. Otherwise the exhibition of fish for sale in either city is disappointing in the extreme, and is nothing less than an abject confession of our inability to ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... me beyond everything else in the world. He was a young man apprenticed to the law, but he cared more for me, I think, than for his calling, which I suspect he decidedly neglected for my sake. I know that in his family he was held a rather disappointing young man; but his family did not know the fervour of his heart, or the tenacity of purpose of which he was capable. He toiled over my up-bringing for two years, and often and often into the very small hours. I think I was never altogether absent from his thoughts, even ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... what she wished him to believe were the very ultimate depths of the velvety eyes when she said: "You shouldn't flatter, Mr. Raymer. For one thing, you don't do it easily; and for another, it's disappointing." ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Bourbons, still less could they have anticipated the extraordinary follies which were to be perpetrated. In 1815 there was less excuse for their helplessness, and, overawed as they were by the mass of foes which was pouring on them to complete the disaster of Waterloo, still it is disappointing to find that there was no one to seize the helm of power, and, confronting the Allies, to stipulate proper terms for France, and for the brave men who had fought for her. The Steady Davoust was there with his 100,000 men to add weight to their language, and the total helplessness ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... wants of their souls, reason cannot but say that they are 'vain and melancholy.' If we consult our own experience we cannot but confess that whatsoever we have had or enjoyed, apart from God, has either proved disappointing in the very moment of its possession, or has been followed by a bitter taste on the tongue; or in a little while has faded, and left us standing with the stalk in our hands from which the bloom has dropped. Generation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... tried his hand, and while possibly he managed to do a little better than the first the result was also disappointing. Evidently they were at too great a height to be able to strike a small mark like the hidden battery. At that early stage in the war which had been sprung so suddenly on France, her aviators had not as ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... section, which was mine, to Piquetberg Road. Nobody knew where these places were, but we vaguely gathered that they were somewhere on the line of communications, which, rightly or wrongly, we thought very disappointing. For two more days we stood in readiness to start, chafing under countermanding orders, and pitching and re-pitching of tents, so little did we know then of the common lot of a soldier ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... at the Foreign Office, and there he was closeted with the Secretary of State for a solid two hours, while I was kicking my heels in a waiting-room. His last words to me had been exceedingly disappointing. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... received from the letters he wrote concerning his mother's relatives in England were disappointing. As far as these letters went there was no estate in which Joe might share, though Bill Watson insisted that the late Mrs. Strong came of ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... keep my health wonderfully, thank God! in spite of heat, hard work and exposure; and the men bear up like Britons. We all feel that the Government ought to allow every officer and man before Delhi to count every month spent here as a year of service in India. There is much that is disappointing and disgusting to a man who feels that more might have been done, but I comfort myself with the thought that history will do justice to the constancy and fortitude of the handful of Englishmen who have for so many weeks—months, I may ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Froud and his fixed idea of never disappointing ship owners or ship-captains, it was not likely that I should fail him in his ambition—to satisfy at a few hours' notice the unusual demand for a French-speaking officer. He explained to me that the ship was chartered by ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... a disappointing person, Mr. Heard. First you inveigle me into a religious discussion and then, when I begin to wake up, you go ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... was disappointing. Most of my old friends were dead or had moved away. Strange children, who meant nothing to me, were playing in the Harlings' big yard when I passed; the mountain ash had been cut down, and only a sprouting stump was left of the tall Lombardy poplar that used to guard the gate. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... It was disappointing to hear that the Kaffir runner I sent with an account of the night attack on Surprise Hill had been captured by the Boers and robbed of his papers. I had hopes of that boy; he wore no trousers. But it is perhaps unsafe to judge character from dress alone. This ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... that shocking scene related in the first chapter of this book, all his long stifled wishes for revenge returned with greater force than ever; and thinking he could no way so fully gratify them, as by disappointing him of the estate he must enjoy at his decease, in case he died without issue, a divorce therefore would give him liberty to marry again; and as he was no more than three-and-forty years of age, had no reason to despair of ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... after a few generations unless a sexual generation is introduced. New varieties of potato, for example, are frequently put upon the market, and their excellent qualities give them a considerable vogue. Much is expected of them, but time after time they deteriorate in a disappointing way and are lost to sight. It is not improbable that we are here concerned with a case in which the plants lose their vigour after a few asexual generations of reproduction from tubers, and can only recover it with the stimulus that results from the interpolation ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... embellish a plain woman; that, on the contrary, after a minute or two, one ceases to gaze on the gewgaws and then the sight of the ugly face comes as something of a shock. Consider the jarring effect of a noble pearl necklace upon a scraggy neck, and, changing the figure, think how disappointing is a bad dinner served beautifully. There is a French phrase concerning a scanty meal on a flower-decked table that seems in point: Il m'a invite a brouter et je l'ai envoye paitre. Sydney Smith, after a mean dinner served in a gorgeous ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... do so much and get so tired," said Penelope wistfully. "We scarcely ever see her now; she hardly ever has any time to play, and—and it is disappointing when she acts like that." Penelope's voice quavered a little, in spite of herself, and she rose and looked out of window that Angela might not see her ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the reasons, but the fact is certain that Burns's tours are disappointing in their direct poetic fruits. But in another way Burns turned them to good account. He had by that time begun to devote himself almost entirely to the cultivation of Scottish song. This was greatly encouraged by the appearance of Johnson's Museum, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... She loved it to distraction. It died. Whatever could she do with it to make up for its loss of life? Well, she might have preserved it, stuffed it, jewelled its eyes, and painted its skin. But had she done so, these things would have been a disappointing substitute. So she buried it, and committed suicide in her grief, and ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... and almost before I knew it we had passed through Golden Gate and were in the quiet water of the bay. By the time mother and Sue were on deck, we were nearing the wharf. I thought then that San Francisco was rather disappointing in its looks, with its unpainted houses of all kinds of architecture, and the streets like washouts in the hills, but soon I learned to love it with a faithfulness which was felt by many of the pioneers and will ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... especially valuable, inasmuch as it seals the faith of our noble friend and sympathizer. "A few months ago," says Count de Gasparin, in his preface, "I believed in the uprising of a great people; now I am sure of it." Let not the issue shame us by disappointing ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... lashed to the mast, while you run about the country disporting yourself with insane people. And just as I was thinking that I had nicely cured you of this morbid predilection for psychopathic institutions! It's very disappointing. You had ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... which floods it, pitilessly reveals the mutilations which it has suffered in the course of ages; but the general effect, though less mysterious, is none the less overwhelming. It is the only monument in which the first coup d'oil surpasses the expectations of the spectator instead of disappointing him. The size is immense, and we realise its immensity the more fully as we search our memory in vain to find anything with which to compare it. Seti may have entertained the project of building a replica of this hall in Southern Thebes. Amenothes III. had left ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... closet, where the headless dolls and tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away. We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; but we did not find it. We believe in its existence none the less. Real as the coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which dear old Sinbad was wrecked, as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they are to be earnestly sought, but it will be vain to seek them, if we have no Christianity to apply. The tendency in our missions to put the main stress upon physical and social agencies, to the detriment of simple gospel preaching, is sure to be disappointing in its results. It is like trying to light a coal-fire by putting your kindlings on top. It is like beginning at the roof, and building down to the foundation; or like first purifying the stream, and afterwards the fountain. Society is made up of individuals, and regeneration ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... all have some," said Mr. Bunker. It seemed like disappointing the stand-owner to go away without buying some, after all that had gone on at his place ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... leaves are bigger, tougher, and the appendages on either side of the stalk (which botanists call the stipules) more developed. The blooms are greater, and endowed with a much richer perfume than the orange; the fruit is huge and fragrant, though somewhat disappointing to the individual who expects the sweetness of the mandarin; while, if the views of the learned in such attributes are trustworthy it possesses medicinal qualities which are foreign to its dainty, diminutive relative. It would ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... said Patsy, ignoring this time the literary editor, who was glad to be relieved of the responsibility of disappointing another budding author. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... near my intended route, and I accordingly found myself one morning in the village in question. The first inhabitants whom I encountered were unmistakably German, and they professed to know nothing about the existence of Scotsmen in the locality either at the present or in former times. This was disappointing, and I was about to turn away and drive off, when a young man, who proved to be the schoolmaster, came up, and on hearing what I desired, advised me to consult an old Circassian who lived at the end of the village and was well acquainted with local antiquities. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... interesting distraction, the little rifle-snaps in all that mighty thundering seeming only to accent the loneliness and helplessness of their position, and spun on down the transverse road, toward another trench. The progress of the motor seemed slow and disappointing. Not that the spot a quarter of a mile off was at all less likely to be hit, yet one felt conscious of a growing desire to be somewhere else. And, though I took off my hat to keep it from blowing off, I found that every time a shell went over I promptly put it on again, indicating, ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... hat between his fingers, "that Colonel Mohun was one of my best friends. For that reason, I went to see him at Warrenton, and had arranged a very good plan for his escape, when, unfortunately, he was all at once sent away, thereby disappointing all my schemes. I followed, however, saw that he was taken to Fort Delaware, and proceeded thither at once. You have probably not visited this place, general, or you, colonel. It is a fort, and outside is a pen, or stockade as it is ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... in kicking Lord Doraine, or Lord Valmond; but I just made my fingers as stiff as iron and left them alone. It is a surprise to me, Mamma, to find that gentlemen in England behave like this, I call it awfully disappointing, and I am sure they could not have done so when you were young, it seems they are just as bad as the French. I told Octavia about it when she came to tuck me up in bed; and she only went into a fit of laughter, ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... holding his tongue; but he felt a warmth stir in his heart at the knowledge that, no matter what was at stake, Lionel would not suffer the shadow of blame to attach itself to him. It had been one of Winn's calculations that Claire would be annoyed at his disappointing her and think the less of him because she was annoyed. He ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... on our way—at times large detachments of them—and we scarcely ever covered a mile of ground without being questioned respecting the state of affairs in Paris and the probable duration of its resistance, our replies invariably disappointing the questioners, so anxious were they to see the war come to an end. This was particularly the case with a young non-commissioned officer who jumped on the step of Mr. Wodehouse's break, and engaged us in conversation whilst ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no ears ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... of fact, the advertiser planned to make a spurious purchase of the tract in question, by means of forged deeds granted by an accomplice, thus making through fraud a neat profit of thirty thousand dollars. The issue was, however, disappointing to him in the extreme. No sooner was the sixty thousand dollars on deposit in the bank than Mary Turner drew out the whole amount, as she had a perfect right to do legally. When the advertiser learned of this, he was, naturally enough, full to overflowing ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... "Fate has been too strong for you, and I think—I mean—I hope, it has been kind. Bless you, Burt, I could never get up any such feeling as sways you. I should always be disappointing, and you would have found out, sooner or later, that your best chance would be to discover some one more responsive. Since you have been so frank, I'll be so too. I was scarcely more ready for your words ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... any needless decrease in the value of an estate is punished by breaking the offender's legs. Expenditures for luxuries and high living are, of course, approved, for it is universally known among us, and attested by many popular proverbs, that the pleasures of the rich are vain and disappointing. So they are considered a part of the punishment, and not only allowed but required. A man sentenced to wealth who lives frugally, indulging in only rational and inexpensive delights, has his ears cut off for the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... which he had a right to count was the despatch of a respectable force of Austrians from the Milanese by way of Genoa. The Austrian Governor of Milan promised to send 5,000 men; but not a man ever stirred.[251] Hood did not hear this disappointing news till 24th November.[252] He at once sent off to London an urgent request for succour; and orders were given on 23rd December (the day after the arrival of the news) for three regiments to sail from Cork for his relief. Thus it came about ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... rhetorical Latin pamphlet, entitled, "The History of the Britons;" but these objections have, perhaps, been set at rest for many minds by Dr. Guest and Mr. Green. Nevertheless, what little Gildas has to tell us is of slight historical importance. His book is a disappointing Jeremiad, couched in the florid and inflated Latin rhetoric so common during the decadence of the Roman empire, intermingled with a strong flavour of hyperbolical Celtic imagination; and it teaches us practically nothing as ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... argument proves successful, when it forces a verdict from an unwilling judge, how often has the result been disappointing; because in tearing up the rotten stem on which the tree rested, its tenderest fibres have been injured, its roots ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... three years elapsed since they first met had greatly changed her personal appearance. She had become stout; her twenty-eight years (one year more than his) had somewhat hardened the lines of her face. Both in figure and feature she presented a disappointing contrast to the slim and not yet totally ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... she began, "only there isn't any end to it; it's all unfinished and disappointing. It's about this little Philip here, whose name you have—my brother. He died when he was five, as I said, but even then he had a bit of dramatic history in his life. He was born just before war-time in 1859, and he was a beautiful and wonderful ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... because I think that it would produce a destructive revolution. I support this plan, because I am sure that it is our best security against a revolution. The noble Paymaster of the Forces hinted, delicately indeed and remotely, at this subject. He spoke of the danger of disappointing the expectations of the nation; and for this he was charged with threatening the House. Sir, in the year 1817, the late Lord Londonderry proposed a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. On that occasion he told the House ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... somebody is playing that instrument. No bird is to be seen, however closely the surrounding trees and bushes may be scanned, and yet the voice seems to come from the thicket close to one's ears. The ending of the song is rather disappointing. It begins with a few very slow and mellow notes, following each other like the commencement of an air; one listens expecting to hear a complete strain, but an abrupt pause occurs, and then the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... of the Shah Dura. Arrived at Lahore two hours and forty minutes late. Drove to Shah Dura in camel-carriage, over Ravee River by bridge of boats. Stream nearly dry. Inlaid marble tomb very beautiful, but surroundings disappointing and much damaged. Saw the elephants being washed in the river. It was most amusing to see how wonderfully they were managed by quite tiny boys. After lunch we went to the Museum, which has only recently been opened. Thence to the bazaar and the Lawrence ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... Realpolitik. All politics must be based on concrete historical facts—i.e., circumscribed in time and space. Indeed, strictly considered, political philosophy is only applied history. That is why political treatises are so disappointing. The philosopher is content to generalize, and does not know the facts. On the other hand, the historian who knows the facts has not the capacity of generalization. Politics must be mainly empirical. The ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... the regions up these creeks are extremely beautiful. For once there was nothing disappointing even in comparison—although comparisons, as we have seen, are odious—with Venetian waterways. For once we have something that can surpass in beauty anything that Venice can show. Basra can boast no architecture, but Nature, coming to her assistance, ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... him. While the troops were disembarking Sir Arthur had gone over to the Portuguese head-quarters, two miles distant, to confer with Bernardin Friere, the Portuguese commander-in-chief. The visit was a disappointing one. He found that the Portuguese troops were almost unarmed, and that their commander was full of inflated ideas. He proposed that the forces should unite, that they should relinquish the coast, and march into the interior and commence an offensive campaign, ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... Children* as a human document. Lamb was nearing fifty when he wrote it. You can see, especially from the last line, that the death of his elder brother, John Lamb, was fresh and heavy on his mind. You will recollect that in youth he had had a disappointing love-affair with a girl named Ann Simmons, who afterwards married a man named Bartrum. You will know that one of the influences of his childhood was his grandmother Field, housekeeper of Blakesware House, in Hertfordshire, ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... with Charles—if we may believe Commines. "The Duke of Burgundy has said the truth," declared the Duke of Gloucester, and many agreed with him." Having given vent to his sentiments, Charles hurried away from his disappointing ally and reached Namur on the 22d, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... from Baltimore. During the week, I had entered into an engagement with a number of young friends to start from Baltimore to the camp ground early Saturday evening; and being detained by my employer, I was unable to get down to Master Hugh's without disappointing the company. I knew that Master Hugh was in no special need of the money that night. I therefore decided to go to camp meeting, and upon my return pay him the three dollars. I staid at the camp meeting one day longer than ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... Grant, for from the moment of our arrival in the Yazoo we were in expectation of either hearing his guns in the rear, or of having communication with him. This encouraged the men greatly, but the long waiting was disappointing, as the enemy was evidently in large force in the plenty of works, and a very strong position. Careful estimates and available information placed their force at fifteen to twenty thousand men. I returned to headquarters about the middle of the afternoon, and made ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to have gained her hand or, having gained it, to have held it against any real male in or out of khaki. The fact is that "BERTHA RUCK" can achieve something better than these meandering methods and this spinelessness of characterisation; and it is distinctly disappointing to see her content with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... appetite satisfied, the first pilgrimage would have been, not to the Tower, or to Lambeth Palace, or the British Museum, but to Pall Mall, in the hopes of catching a glimpse, in a club window or on the pavement, of the "good grey head" of Thackeray. The first impression might have been disappointing. There was in the spectacles and high-carried chin something pompous and supercilious. The great man, had he noticed them at all, would probably have been quite contemptuous of my admiring glances, his mind occupied with the idea of winning a nod from a passing duke; but I would have ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... now come to the front as the chief official in the Chinese service) at Tientsin and with the Tsungli Yamen at Pekin. It was not till the end of the year that the commission to ascertain the fate of Mr. Margary began its active work on the spot. The result was unexpectedly disappointing. The mandarins supported one another. The responsibility was thrown on several minor officials, and on the border-tribes or savages. Several of the latter were seized, and their lives were offered as atonement for ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... knew the Cheyennes to be following, and had fired upon them as they passed below, killing two and wounding a number of others. You can see how treacherous these Indians are, and how very far from noble is their method of warfare! They are so disappointing, too—so wholly ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... episodes, but logic is lacking, not only the logic of life, but the logic of the theatre. No living playwright knows better how to arouse suspense than Sudermann, and he can't make us believe in his false theme, consequently his motivation in the last two acts is false and disappointing. But there is the old Sudermann pyrotechnical virtuosity, the fireworks dazzle with their brilliancy, and you think of Paris, and also that some drama may be divorced from life and literature and yet be interesting. Insincere as is the denouement, the note of ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... a single forlorn hope, and I took it. Filling my lungs with air, I dived beneath the surface and swam through the inky, icy blackness on and on along the submerged gallery. Time and time again I rose with upstretched hand, only to feel the disappointing rocks close above me. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to threaten to do so, by possessing abnormal peculiarities, these are soon corrected, often in the next generation. Even Professor H. H. Newman says, "On the whole, the contributions of biometry to our understanding of the causes of evolution are rather disappointing." A science that upsets evolution is certainly ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... improbable defeats. He passed a restless, ineffective afternoon, asking himself if his genius were a horrid delusion, looking out of his window for something that didn't happen, something that seemed now to be the advent of a persuasive Mr. Locket and now the return, from an absence more disappointing even than Mrs. Bundy's, of his interesting neighbour of the parlours. He was so nervous and so depressed that he was unable even to fix his mind on the composition of the note with which, on its next peregrination, it was necessary that his manuscript should be accompanied. He was ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... is all this to the purpose?—I will keep close to my text; and that is, to thank you, good Madam, for all the favours I have received in your house; to thank you for disappointing mee, and for convincing mee, in so kinde, yet so shameing a manner, how wrong I was in the matter of that there Polley; and for not exposing my folly to any boddy but myselfe (for I should have been ready ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... unanimous in adverse criticism of the note. THE NEW YORK TIMES said that Germany's request was "to suspend the law of nations, the laws of war and of humanity for her benefit." The Chicago Herald declared that the German answer "is disappointing to all who had hoped that it would clearly open the way to a continuance of friendly relations." While the San Francisco Chronicle discerned in the note "an entire absence of the belligerent spirit," it found that "Germany is asking us to abridge ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... up two days later and Peter and his wife returned at once to town. The former found the reports which were awaiting his arrival disappointing. Bernadine and his guest were not in London, or if they were they had carefully avoided all the usual haunts. Peter read his reports over again, smoked a very long cigar alone in his study, and finally drove down to the city and called upon ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... from the land of mysteries," he declared. "I really am ashamed to be so disappointing, but I only met him once ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as its predecessor, it was favourably received, and much danced in the best circles. Still it failed to achieve the decided success which might have been reasonably expected from its elegance and beauty. Perhaps one reason of this disappointing result was that many inefficient performers attempted to dance it before they had mastered its somewhat difficult step, and brought it into disrepute by their ungraceful exhibitions. But the grand secret of its partial failure lay in ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... midst of his disappointing canvas for funds he received a letter from his son, Jason, that a Deputy United States Marshal had passed through Cleveland on the way East with a warrant for his ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... instrument—and a quite astonishly disappointing instrument it is—for obtaining legislation; that is, for directing that the agents of the State shall in certain defined circumstances bring into application the weapon of ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... is a place of overwhelming interest, but at first sight sadly disappointing. Little is seen of the ancient City of Zion and Moriah, the far-famed capital of the Jewish Empire, in the narrow, crooked and ill-paved streets of the modern town. The combination of wild superstitions, ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp
... which had arisen in his path, of the unexplainable difficulties and tribulations which had come upon him, one trailing the other, ever since he had read the letter left for him by his father. And it was a stock-taking of disappointing proportions. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... life as a Bishop, first of Worcester, then of Birmingham, and finally of Oxford, was disappointing to many of his admirers, and perhaps to himself. He did well to retire. But unfortunately this retirement was not consecrated to those exercises which made him so impressive and so powerful an influence in the early years of his ministry. He set himself to be, not an exponent ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... soften our landlord. This was the moment we had chosen to excite his sympathies, also to gain counsel from him concerning the tragedy we had witnessed the day before. He listened to our tale with evident interest, but there was a disappointing coolness in his eye. As the narrative proceeded, the brutality of the situation failed to sting him to even a mild form of indignation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his ardor expending itself in choice snippings of the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... birthday, it was a disappointing morning. He discovered for the first time that Wimbledon Common occupied an interminable expanse of country; and really there was nothing unusual this morning about its appearance, or about the looks of the people ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... query, Comrade Jackson. What, indeed? We find a town very like London. A quiet, self-respecting town, admirable to the apostle of social reform, but disappointing to one who, like myself, arrives with a brush and a little bucket of red paint, all eager for a treat. I have been here a week, and I have not seen a single citizen clubbed by a policeman. No negroes dance cake-walks in ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the struggle was no doubt disappointing to Artaxerxes; but if, on the one hand, it dispelled some illusions and proved to him that the Roman State, though verging to its decline, nevertheless still possessed a vigor and a life which he had been far from anticipating, on the other hand it left him free to concentrate his efforts ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... accept the English weather.... Never in all your life have you loved, wholly, fully, steadfastly—as people deserve to be loved—not your mother nor your father, not your wife nor your children, nor me, nor our child, nor any living thing. Pleasant to all of us at times—at times bitterly disappointing. You do not even love this work of yours steadfastly, this work to which you sacrifice us all in turn. You do not love enough. That is why you have these moods and changes, that is why you have these lassitudes. So it is you ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... moment be doubted. For many of those who sought to have intercourse with him were men of no less nobility of sentiment and striving than himself. Chopin offended even Ary Scheffer, the great painter, who admired him and loved him, by promising to spend an evening with him and again and again disappointing him. Musicians, with a few exceptions. Chopin seems always to have been careful to keep at a distance, at least after the first years of his arrival in Paris. This is regrettable especially in the case of the young men who looked ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... moment, in the deep security of a kiss such as the richest millionaire could never buy—and then they fell to comparing notes of their day's work. The poet had had one of his rare good days. He had made no money, his post had been even more disappointing than usual,—but he had written a poem, the best he had ever written, he said, as he always said of his last new thing. He had been burning to read it to somebody all afternoon—had with difficulty refrained from reading ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... look about him was disappointing. Nothing but the bare walls met his eyes. Then, in the farthest corner, he observed something that in the dancing torch-light was darker than the logs themselves, and he moved toward it. It was a tiny shelf, not more than a foot long, and upon ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... vessel sailed the Trustees had followed up their request to Spangenberg by requiring the forty Swiss emigrants to promise submission to his authority, and consequently numerous efforts were made to be of service to them. It was disappointing work, in a way, for attempts to give them religious instruction were met with utter indifference, but their material needs were many. There was a great deal of sickness among them, and four died, being buried hastily, and without ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... married to an elderly man, whose fatherly kindness wins her grateful esteem. With her knowledge and sanction he leaves the bulk of his property to charitable objects, thereby disappointing her rapacious relatives. She is quite willing, as a widow, to marry the man her mother dismissed in order to wed her to a millionaire, but James Merion, the cured suitor, prefers a fresh love.—Ellen Olney Kirk, A Daughter ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... thing. We will receive him with true kindness, because we feel it towards the good old man. But we must not cease to do what we know to be right, thus disappointing and marring the pleasure of many, out of deference to a mere prejudice of education in a single person. When we go to see him, we do not expect that any change will be made out of deference to our prejudices or peculiar opinions; and when he comes ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... Leipzig. It is translated from Ramusio, with copious notes, chiefly derived from Marsden and Ritter. There are some notes at the end added by the late Karl Friedrich Neumann, but as a whole these are disappointing. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... voice, became a human shape leaning its chin imprudently on the muzzle of a gun and rolling an uneasy eye over the reappearing world. The day came rapidly, dismal and oppressed by the fog of the river and by the heavy vapours of the sky—a day without colour and without sunshine: incomplete, disappointing, and sad. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... which attacks the ankle-joint only has any reasonable chance of success. It may look well for a time, but sinuses remain, the irritation of the operation only hastens the progress of the disease of the bone, and the result will almost certainly be disappointing, amputation being almost the ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... excitedly. "It would be dreadfully disappointing to go away and not climb right to the crater now I have been so near, and ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... Press from all these causes may be compared to the cumulative effect of one of the great offensives of the present war. Each individual blow is neither dramatic nor extensive in effect; there is little movement or none. The map is disappointing. But each blow tells, and when the end comes every one will see suddenly what the cumulative ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... disposed to take the most genial views of life that circumstances permitted. There was a humor about his present situation which he relished exceedingly. He was buoyant over the interrupted wedding, and bent upon disappointing Mr. Baron in all his grewsome expectations in regard to the Yankees. There should be discipline, order, quiet, and an utter absence of all high-tragedy. He cautioned his men against the slightest tendency to excess, even forbidding the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... high near the trap, in spite of heavy daily catches. Although the use of one trap to the acre on a block 10 miles square would probably get results, the use of a few traps on a small nut planting is likely to be disappointing. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... begin some lucrative employment, it was inevitable that his thoughts should be exercised on the same question, and it required rare decision to refuse all the accustomed paths, and keep his solitary freedom at the cost of disappointing the natural expectations of his family and friends: all the more difficult that he had a perfect probity, was exact in securing his own independence, and in holding every man to the like duty. But Thoreau ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... strange, long, sad day of waiting and watching for the telegram, and the children even fancied it might come in the middle of the night; but Miss Fosbrook thought this unlikely, and looked for the morrow's post. There was no letter. It was very disappointing, but Miss Fosbrook thought it a good sign, since at least the danger could not be more pressing, and delay always left room ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be gathered from the fact that its skull is six inches long. These and the bones of a few small finches were all that rewarded her pains. The bones of fossil goats (of living species) are found in caves at Gibraltar and in Spain; so at first the result seemed disappointing. But on carefully clearing out the specimens and examining them in London, Miss Bate found that the supposed goat bones obtained by her in Majorca were really those of a new and most extraordinary animal, to which (in a paper published in the "Geological Magazine" in ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... Marseilles is rather disappointing, as there are intervening islands of bare rocks; but later the heights appear, the Church of Notre Dame de la Garde being a ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... unsolved, but rather that the solution has proved so disappointing and unexpected. He baffles me with a trait which I recognize, but can't understand, and only admit in wonder and angry protest. Indeed, from the beginning of our acquaintance he has reversed my usual experiences. His first approaches incensed me beyond measure,—all the more, I suppose, because ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... true," Mrs. Forsyth owned. "But it's very disappointing. I've always felt as if they ought to know it was your undecidedness ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... Then he shut it again. He told himself that it would, of course, have been very disappointing for Donnington to have plunged into that icy water all for ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... disappointing message had been delivered, Lawyer Ed rushed down Main Street and spied Afternoon Tea Willie driving the Baldwin girls down town to buy some almond cream to take to the picnic, in case of sunburn. And in his usual high-handed way, he had hailed them, ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... but in spite of its elaboration it can only be said to excel the latter in pageantry and spectacular effect, while its musical text is more declamatory than melodious, as compared with "The Huguenots." In this sense it was disappointing when first produced. ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... I had talked with them, as I did, without knowing who they were, I should have recalled them with quite as much interest as I now do, and see them again in dreams. And here I may add, that the common-place saying that literary men are rarely good talkers, and generally disappointing, is not at all ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... On the one hand, syphilis is one of the most curable of diseases, and on the other, it is one of the most incurable. At the one extreme we have the situation in our own hands, at our own terms—at the other, we have a record of disappointing failure. As matters stand now, we do not cure syphilis. We simply cloak it, gloss it over, keep it under the surface. Nobody knows how much syphilis is cured, partly because nobody knows how much syphilis ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... mid-career at sight of Aaron's disappointing face. "Are you done?" the warper inquired. "When you and me are alane in this house there's no room for the both o' us, and as I'll never hae it said that I made Jean Myles's bairn munt, I'll go ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Jeffrey is inimitable. One was getting tired of Jeffrey, and prepared to give him the go-by, when Carlyle creates him afresh, and, for the first time, we see the bright little man bewitching us by what he is, disappointing us by what he is not. The spiteful remarks the sketch contains may be considered, along with those of the same nature to be found only too plentifully in the ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... matters not whether we mount in a whirlwind or descend in rain. And should they compassionately invigorate his sight, and show him the thorny path which led to eminence, that like a quicksand sinks as he ascends, disappointing his hopes when almost within his grasp, would he not leave to others the honour of amusing them, and labour to secure the present moment, though from the constitution of his nature he would not find it very easy ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... together, I believe. But, assuming to speak as Mr. Saffren's friend," I added, rising with the others upon Miss Ward's example, "I'm sure if he could come to know of your interest, he would much rather play Hamlet for you than let you find him disappointing." ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... cut and levels driven in many directions with disappointing results. It was soon all too plain that the ores were practically valueless, though the commencement of ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... out of an apparently humorous face in which there was no real fun, and added that we could have salmon mayonnaise at once. Salmon mayonnaise was therefore what we had, and except that it was not whitebait, it was not very disappointing; we had not expected much of it. After we had eaten it, we were put in relations with the landlord, regarding a fly which we wished to take for a drive, in the absence of whitebait. But a fly required, in Greenwich, an interview ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... "It was disappointing that Lady ABERDEEN was at the last moment forbidden by her Doctor to undertake the long journey from Scotland." So it was, most disappointing; and "at ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... on our parlor floor, very snug and secluded, and in this room I received him. Seldom have I dreaded a meeting more and seldom have I been met with greater kindness and consideration. He was so kind that I feared he had only disappointing news to communicate, but his first ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... by his fine expressive eyes." His voice was strong and soft, with a well-marked Edinburgh accent. His appearance surprised the people who had expected to see an older and sterner-looking man. His first remarks were disappointing; as was usual with him he stammered and hesitated until he warmed to his subject, when he spoke with such an array of facts and figures, such earnestness and enthusiasm, that he easily held ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... hour, when it cleared up sufficiently to proceed. Our landlord at Dulcigno had packed us up a meal with a bottle or two of wine at our orders, and we, now being hungry, inspected the basket. It was, to put it mildly, distinctly disappointing, and not fit to eat or drink. Added to this, my hunting knife was stolen, and we were very ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... night I was so sick about the whole thing that I was ready to give it all up, but now I wonder if it isn't our duty to give it one more trial." Her words were disappointing, but the dispirited tone in which she said them was cheering, and Tom made so bold as to sing the lately revived "Duty, duty must be done, the rule applies to everyone, and painful though the duty be, to shirk the task were fiddle-dee-dee..."; a happy impulse, ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... "How disappointing this is to be kept in the house by the rain," exclaimed a discontented tourist while watching the rain drops ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... March 27.—The Lowther Arcade not getting on so well as thought when projected. The Master Builder been diligently at work, but result disappointing. On Friday he got terribly snubbed by SPEAKER. Comes up to-day to make personal explanation. That a bait at which House usually jumps; always ready to be amused, or interested with scandal about Queen ELIZABETH and other persons. These things usually promised by personal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... question of dancing or no dancing was put to the vote on the spot. The President, the rector and myself, the three handsomest and highest-bred men in the assembly, led the way on the liberal side, waggishly warning all gallant gentlemen present to beware of disappointing the young ladies. This decided the waverers, and the waverers decided the majority. My first business, as Secretary, was the drawing out of a model card ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... and Miss Monro. There was a place arranged for her father, and she seized upon him as he was coming from the stable-yard, by the shrubbery path, to his study, and with merry playfulness made him a prisoner, accusing him of disappointing them of their ride, and drawing him more than half unwilling, to his chair by the table. But he was silent, and almost sad: his presence damped them all; they could hardly tell why, for he did not object to anything, ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... light wigs; but the prevailing absurdity has been the use of strong alkalies for the purpose of turning dark hair light. This is the purpose of the ausicomus fluid, which may be procured of any hairdresser; but we warn our fair readers that the use of these products is apt to be disappointing. They certainly will turn black to a brick-dust hue, but the color is often disagreeable. It is apt to present itself in patches in different hues, and the effect on the hair is terrible—it often rots and crumbles ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... not greet him with any great warmth. She was angry with herself because her heart had started suddenly to pounding at the instant when she had imagined this man to be the other. She was angry, too, with Jerry for disappointing her. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... same kind of consolation to poor Jones, which Job formerly received from his friends. Besides disappointing all the hopes which he promised to himself from seeing Sophia, he was reduced to an unhappy dilemma, with regard to Lady Bellaston; for there are some certain engagements, which, as he well knew, do very difficultly admit of any excuse ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... to say, except, that what is generally the experience of your countrymen will probably be yours in Merleville. You have some disappointing discoveries to make among us, you who are an earnest man ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... the sofa and looking at him.] How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... endeavors to reach a practicable solution, I felt it my duty to remit the whole question to the Congress. In the message of April 11, 1898, I announced that with this last overture in the direction of immediate peace in Cuba and its disappointing reception by Spain the effort of the Executive was brought to an end. I again reviewed the alternative courses of action which had been proposed, concluding that the only one consonant with international policy and compatible with our firm-set historical ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... descended upon the Netherlands—more disappointing because succeeding a period of comparative prosperity and triumph—was the winter of 1587-8, when Leicester had terminated his career by his abrupt departure for England, after his second brief attempt at administration. For ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that unvarying monumental service. Unhappily, Touchwood's great powers have been only so far manifested as to be believed in, not demonstrated. Everybody rates them highly, and thinks that whatever he chose to do would be done in a first-rate manner. Is it his love of disappointing complacent expectancy which has gone so far as to keep up this lamentable negation, and made him resolve not to write the comprehensive work which he would have written if nobody had expected ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... society is to visit and relieve the sick and the poor. The brothers are excellent auxiliaries of the clergy; and, further, do the work of the mendicity societies, like those now being established in London, by examing applications for relief, and so disappointing impostors. The conference of St. Vincent attached to St. Walburge's Church numbers 16 active members, who collected and distributed in food and clothing during last year 112 pounds. The brothers are deserving of all praise for spending their evenings ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... time, a point where "only once did we see the North Star, which was so low that it seemed almost to touch the sea." We know that he must have been to within eleven degrees of the Equator, and it is disappointing to find the promising young Italian disappearing from the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... much regret disappointing the old woman," she admitted, "and I should rather like an hour or two of stolen freedom. I don't mind owning that I've generally found you, as men go, a moderately interesting man to talk with. But the deuce of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various |
