"Graceless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... habitations; and many a house which looked so very picturesque at a distance was found, on a nearer inspection, to be a very dirty domicile. Still the views from them were beautiful. Nature has done everything; it is graceless man who is in fault that all is not in accordance with it. At the corner of one of the streets we saw a number of horses, and mules, and donkeys, standing together with ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... this occasion. With all her guests on a lovely spring day anxious to attend an entertainment not three miles off, what was there to be said? No possible pretext could be devised for preventing them. Why, oh, why had she persuaded that graceless dragoon to leave Aldershot and share the peace and tranquillity of home? She might have remembered how foreign peace and tranquillity were to Jim's mercurial disposition; and then, Lady Mary reflected ruefully, ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... at them, to right and left, as he walked through the long, barn-like building, and took in with other glances the inadequate decorations of the graceless interior. His roving eye caught the lettering over the lateral archways, and with a sort of contemptuous compassion he turned into the ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... now, bethink you!. . .The fond hope to be Beloved, e'en by some poor graceless lady, Is, by this nose of mine for aye bereft me; —This lengthy nose which, go where'er I will, Pokes yet a quarter-mile ahead of me; But I may love—and who? 'Tis Fate's decree I ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is King Cepheus, made of a few dim stars in the form of the letter K. Near by is his brilliant wife Cassiopeia, sitting on her throne of state. They were the graceless parents who chained their daughter to a rock for the sea-monster to devour; but Perseus, swift with the winged sandals of Mercury, terrible with his avenging sword, and invincible with the severed head of Medusa, whose ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... displayed on many an impromptu stage. And that especial pet horror of supersensitive godliness—the godless German cotillion—even forced itself into the gayeties of the winter. Great was the wrath of the elect against all amusements of the kind—but chiefest among outrages was this graceless German. But despite the denunciations, the ridicule, and even the active intervention of one or two ministers, the young soldiers and their chosen partners whirled away as though they had never heard a slander ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... school-boy and student Melchior had been one of the most gifted and most brilliant, and many a father, whose son took a wicked delight in wanton and graceless escapades, had with secret envy congratulated old Ueberhell on having such an exceptionally talented, industrious and obedient treasure of a son and heir. But later not one of these men would have exchanged his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself so long as abominably alone, and lo he wasn't alone a bit. He hadn't been, it appeared, for an hour—since those moments on the Sorrento boat. It was she who had been, he seemed to see as he looked at her—she who had been made so by the graceless fact of his lapse of fidelity. To tell her what he had told her—what had it been but to ask something of her? something that she had given, in her charity, without his having, by a remembrance, by a return of the spirit, failing another encounter, so much as thanked her. What he ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... she stopped further proviso with a grateful kiss, and immediately followed Jane up-stairs to break the good news to her. She and Jane then joined Elizabeth in the latter's room, and the trio immediately held what their graceless relative would have termed "a lodge of sorrow." Upon motion of Jane, seconded by Elizabeth, it was unanimously resolved that the honor of the family must be upheld. At all cost. They laid ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... poor, Let aged scandals have at length their bound: Give your graceless doings o'er, Ripe as you are for going underground. YOU the maidens' dance to lead, And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars! Daughter Pholoe may succeed, But mother Chloris what she touches mars. Young men's ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... in the Blackfriars' Theatre. In 1592 he had acquired sufficient reputation as a dramatist, or at least as a recaster of the plays of others, to excite the jealousy of the leading playwrights, whose crude dramas he condescended to rewrite or retouch. That graceless vagabond, Robert Greene, addressing from his penitent death-bed his old friends Lodge, Peele, and Marlowe, and trying to dissuade them from "spending their wits" any longer in "making plays," spitefully declares: "There is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... had a passing wonder about Shawn's having known that Susan's husband was gone to America—she had not associated the person who had saved Shawn from accident at Ashbridge Park with Susan's graceless husband. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... this incident I would make no account, had it not been the occasion for Bazzi's unmannerly trick. For that graceless fellow chancing to spy leaning against his easel, the rod upon which Raphael was wont to rest his hand while painting, he very slyly made fast to it a nosegay of orange blossoms which the Signor Chigi had presented to me on my entrance and which ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... but a fast-day, your Reverence," said he, accosting the Abbe Piquot, "but if you will come and say grace over my graceless table, I will take it kindly of you. You owe me a visit, you know, and I owe you thanks for the way in which you looked reproof, without speaking it, upon my dispute with the Chevalier La Corne. It was better than words, and showed that you know the world we live ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... clouds of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl, Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim, I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... upon learning where he had taken cover, paid him an unceremonious visit, to which Ned's indefensible delinquency gave the color of legitimate authority. Upon these occasions, Nancy, accompanied by two sturdy "servant-boys," would sally forth to the next market-town, for the purpose of bringing home "graceless Ned," as she called him. And then you might see Ned between the two servants, a few paces in advance of Nancy, having very much the appearance of a man performing a pilgrimage to the gallows, or of a deserter guarded back to his barrack, in order to become a target for the muskets ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... well, my lad,' he said kindly. 'I ask ye not to tarry in what ye must deem a graceless household;' and he looked sadly across at his two sons, boys in age, but seniors in excess. 'I would we had mair lads like you. I fear me a ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... further go. He loves his own dog partly because that thrifty creature, ever cadging when not maurauding, tickles his vanity by fawning upon him as the visible source of steaks and bones; and partly because the graceless beast insults everybody else, harming as many as he dares. The dog is an encampment of fleas, and a reservoir of sinful smells. He is prone to bad manners as the sparks fly upward. He has no discrimination; his loyalty is given ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... have long been cultivated as a source of profit; whence arose the saying that a graceless fellow is not worth a "kurse" or cress—in German, kers. Thus Chaucer speaks about a character in the Canterbury Tales, "Of paramours ne fraught he not a kers." But some writers have referred this saying rather to ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... romance. The hero, who begins as a falconer's son and ends as a rich enough colonel in the army and a Viscount by special grace of the Roi Soleil, is a sapeur, but far indeed from being one of those graceless comrades of his to whom nothing is sacred. At one time he does indeed succumb to the sorceries of a certain Genevieve de Chateaufort, a duchess aux narines fremissantes. But who could resist this combination? even if there were a marquise of the most beautiful and virtuous kind, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... myself, and the people have thrown me money—a silly life, good to no man or beast. Oh yes, that I know full well now; and I have killed Phoebus because you looked at me; and my mother, who has loved me all her life, is old before her time through my fault. I am a graceless fool, a mountebank. When I put off my spangles and stand thus, you see the rude peasant that I am. And yet in all the great, wide, crowded world I know there does not live another who could love you as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... and raged and wondered aloud what he had done that he should be saddled with such a graceless nephew. It was in vain that Mr. Rushton offered to make good ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... decadence, as also in a tetragonal aspect to Saturn, associated with Mercury. Thou wilt be soundly peppered, my good, honest fellow, I warrant thee. I will be? answered Panurge. A plague rot thee, thou old fool and doting sot, how graceless and unpleasant thou art! When all cuckolds shall be at a general rendezvous, thou shouldst be their standard-bearer. But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these two fingers? This Panurge said, putting the forefinger of his left hand betwixt the fore and mid finger of the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... graceless, gallant fellow, who at the war's end had fallen, dying, into his arms, had sent by him a last word of penitent love to his mother, an aged widow. She lived in Suez, and when Ravenel brought this message to her—from whom marriage had torn all her daughters and death her only ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the old folk know their children? Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... was left with the two queens, one of whom was making ruffles for the man she loved, and the other slopping tea for the good of her country. They renewed their generous endeavours to set me right, and I (graceless beast that I am) take up the smoked card which lay before me, and with the corner of ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... badge of distinction for their new king, they made a general subscription, and bought him a fine cap ornamented with a white feather, and round it was engraved in letters of gold, "Peter Pippin, King of the Good Boys." A few days after Peter was chosen King, as George Graceless, Neddy Neverpray, and two or three other boys, as naughty as themselves, were playing at marbles in the church-yard, George Graceless's brother Jack, who was a very good-natured little boy, happened to stop his brother George's marble by accident, upon which he flew into a violent passion, took ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... in no smiling humor, and yet, in spite of himself, he could almost have smiled at the very consistency of the fellow. It was egotism still: aesthetic disgust at the graceless contour of his conduct, but never a hint of simple sorrow for the pain he had given. Rowland let him go, and for some moments stood watching him. Suddenly Mallet became conscious of a singular and most illogical impulse—a desire to ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... have even been in these latter days some graceless ones who have asked whether the science of the nineteenth century after an equal interval will be of any more positive value—whether it will not have even less comparative interest than that which appertains to the ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... at last, full of years and honour; and I was summoned from school to attend her funeral. My uncle was much affected, for she had been an excellent mother. She might have been so; but I, graceless boy, could not perceive her merits as a grandmother, and showed a great deal of fortitude upon the occasion. I recollect a circumstance attendant upon her funeral which, connected as it was with a subsequent one, has since been the occasion ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better, and burial but the planting of a seed from which there will spring a new life. In the next place, behold me as I am—weak, weary, old, shrunken in body, and graceless; look at my wrinkled face, think of my failing senses, listen to my shrilled voice. Ah! what happiness to me in the promise that when the tomb opens, as soon it will, to receive the worn-out husk I ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the cause of the New Light controversialists, Burns was not unconsciously strengthening his hands for worthier toils: the applause which selfish divines bestowed on his witty, but graceless effusions, could not be enough for one who knew how fleeting the fame was which came from the heat of party disputes; nor was he insensible that songs of a beauty unknown for a century to national poesy, had been unregarded in the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... cases. I jumped from the wagon, and, tying my handkerchief to the ferule of my umbrella, advanced, waving it and shouting, "A flag of truce!" The General ordered a halt and despatched himself to the flag. As he approached I beheld a stout, middle-aged, good natured looking man, dressed in the graceless costume of Uncle Sam's army; but I must say that he wore it with more grace than most of the Regulars I have seen. Our soldiers look unbecomingly in their clothes,—there is no denying it,—a good deal like sups in a procession at the Bowery. A New-York ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... hot-headed, the very expression of that wish was but the signal for them to set themselves to thwart it, even before they had ever seen each other. Therefore acting upon that very contrariness, I wrote to my graceless nephew there, telling him that he need have no fear for his freedom—that we had changed our plans with regard to him—that our Pen was a thousand times too good and sweet for such as he—which she is, mark you!—that she was a beauty, and reigning toast of all the South ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... wonder that with her admirably dressed, abundant hair, thickly sprinkled with white threads and adding to her elegant aspect the piquant distinction of a powdered coiffure—no wonder, I say, that she clung desperately to her last infatuation for that graceless young scamp, even to the extent of hatching for him that amazing plot. He was not so far gone in degradation as to make him utterly hopeless for such an attempt. She hoped to keep him straight with that enormous bribe. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... proper text be read, An' touch it aff wi' vigour, How graceless Ham leugh at his dad, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... renderings of the Episcopal morning service, but when the clergyman who officiated at the Abbey began to twang out "Dearly beloved brethren," &c., in a nasal, drawling semi-chant, I was taken completely aback. It sounded as though some graceless Friar Tuck had wormed himself into the desk and was endeavoring, under the pretense of reading the service, to caricature as broadly as possible the alleged peculiarity of Methodistic pulpit enunciation superimposed upon the regular Yankee drawl. As the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... [once] in a city of the cities of China a man, a tailor and poor, and he had a son by name Alaeddin, who was perverse and graceless from his earliest childhood. When he came to ten years of age, his father would fain have taught him his own craft, for that, because he was poor, he could not spend money upon him to have him taught [another] trade ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... drowsily. Bees in the piebald petunias that grew straggling and sweet above the sill of the open window, dozed long in each sticky chalice. Alec was taking off his boots in the lobby, and in reply to the condescending invitation he muttered some graceless words concerning his grandmother, but he came into the room and sat with his elbows on the table. He had an idea of what might be said, and felt the awkwardness ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... and sat down, and, graceless hussy as she was, laughed as if she was mad. The truth was, that 'vying with Israel' was a byword with us. We were always teasing Sally about her vying with Israel, as she certainly did, while they sung out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... he said at last. "Tell your graceless gossip of a serving-woman that I will answer for Zorzi, and that the next time she hears any one taking the boat at night she had better come and call me, and open her eyes a little wider. Tell her also ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... during her frequent business tours in the country? He gave it as his conviction that Malka merely took the clothes-brush away to afford herself a handle for returning. But then Ephraim Phillips was a graceless young fellow, the death of whose first wife was probably a judgment on his levity, and everybody except his second mother-in-law knew that he had a book of tickets for the Oxbridge Music Hall, and went there on Friday ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... donjon, 130 feet high, and most of the outer wall, are of the fourteenth century. The inner wall encloses a sixteenth-century mansion, marked with none of the picturesqueness of the Renaissance period, but heavy and graceless. In the interior, however, are sculptured chimney-pieces and other interesting details. This residence was built by the sister-in-law of Pierre de Bourdeilles. The burg itself, which lies close to the castle and is much embowered with trees, has something of the open, spacious, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the old man was surveying his work, his graceless son Maui contemptuously asked him what he was doing there. Ru replied: 'Who told youngsters to talk? Take care of yourself, or I will hurl you out ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... and Clive were friends—and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad. Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives—egad, England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak— "Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades—" with a tongue thrust in your cheek! Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world's eyes, Clive was man, I was, am and ever ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... a year before the catastrophe of the hunting party, the uncle who had cared for him during his college career, died. Percy inherited his wealth, the old man, after all, making his will in favor of his graceless nephew." Olive paused for a moment, then added, "I believe that is all I can tell you of this man. I have not seen or heard of him since poor ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... misfortunes crowd upon me. That graceless wife has fled from me in company with a ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... set down in a street where the sand was over the instep, before a stiff, graceless brick building, standing close up in one corner of an acre lot. On one side, in view from the front gate, was a dilapidated hen-house—on the other, a more unsightly stable with a pig-sty attached. All the space between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... sailor's right to have "a sweetheart in every port" is still cited in these days of boasted advancement in culture, religion, morals; and it is the same old world to-day as that which lauded and bowed down to him whom it called "his Grace" (despite what we consider his graceless actions); the same world, alas! ignoring the open and evident fact when he steps aside from the narrow path of honor and rectitude; while, should she swerve in the least, pouring out mercilessly its harshest taunts, or overwhelming her with pitiless scorn. This, because ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... looks, and true obedience; Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the Subject owes the Prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending Rebel And graceless traitor to her loving Lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple To offer war, where ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... live a beauty by thy matchless skill; Gale from the bog shall yield Arabian balm, And the gray willow give a golden palm. "I see thee smiling in the pictured room, Now breathing beauty, now reviving bloom; There, each immortal name 'tis thine to give, To graceless forms, and bid the lumber live. Should'st thou coarse boors or gloomy martyrs see, These shall thy Guidos, these thy Teniers be; There shalt thou Raphael's saints and angels trace, There make for Rubens and for Reynolds ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... life?' said she. 'Why you miserable, onsarcumsised, onjustified, graceless boy. Why do you wish ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Topmates! has not this Tubbs here been but a misuser of good oak planks, and a vile desecrator of the thrice holy sea? turning his ship, my hearties! into a fat-kettle, and the ocean into a whale-pen? Begone! you graceless, godless knave! pitch him over ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... essential among lynchers as among thieves, and all I could do was to brace myself for the encounter, of the nature of which I had but an imperfect conception. About 12 o'clock we reached the place, and I was ushered into the presence of fifty or sixty as graceless scoundrels as even Arkansas can present, who greeted me with hisses, groans, and cries of, "Hang him!" "Burn him!" &c. Two-thirds of the mob were maddened by the vile liquor which abounds in such ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... Britling, disfigured by heedless misadventures, embarrassed by complications and concealments, to help this honest youngster out of his perplexities? He imagined possible forms of these perplexities. Graceless forms. Ugly forms. Such forms as only the nocturnal ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... How the graceless-graceful stride of the elephant was eyed, And the capers of the little horse that cantered at his side! How the shambling camels, tame to the plaudits of their fame, With listless eyes came silent, masticating ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "Why, his graceless nephew even considered a scheme to entice him on board of our boat, under pretence of finding a passage to England for him," interposed Mr. Gilfleur, laughing heartily at the suggestion of ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... gathered that graceless group around him. Kneeling in their midst, he prayed for help to make them see that he wanted to be their friend, that he was acting for their interests, that he knew as well as they ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... so prosperous, nor his end so happy. You will learn, a little further on, what scurvy tricks Fortune played him, and how at last his poor little brains succumbed to the rough toasting of that graceless jade. I had always thought him Mad, and Mad, indeed, as a March hare he proved to be ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... fall, this graceless jackanapes in nowise ceased his ribaldry; for while pretending to flap with his arms as if they were wings, he imitated with his mouth, mockingly, the wish! wish! of the wide wings of the Culloo. Yet ere he touched the earth he uttered one ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the justice. All the parish are in tears, and say they will certainly be hanged; for nobody knows what it is for"—"I suppose they deserve it," says the lady. "What! dost thou mention such wretches to me?"—"O dear madam," answered Slipslop, "is it not a pity such a graceless young man should die a virulent death? I hope the judge will take commensuration on his youth. As for Fanny, I don't think it signifies much what becomes of her; and if poor Joseph hath done anything, I ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... associations on the other side, will "bring her round again," says that observant "avuncular" hopefully. He is compelled to be at his office in the city much of the time, but comes up this day as a matter of course, and has a brief chat with his graceless nephew at the guard-house. Billy's utter lack of spirits sets Uncle Jack to thinking. The boy says he can "tell him nothing just now," and Uncle Jack feels well assured that he has a good deal to tell. He goes in search of Lieutenant Lee, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... all these qualities, should Rickie feel that there was something wrong with him—nay, that he was wrong as a whole, and that if the Spirit of Humanity should ever hold a judgment he would assuredly be classed among the goats? The answer at first sight appeared a graceless one—it was that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the ordinary sense—he had a business-like brain, and acquired knowledge easily—but stupid in the important sense: his whole life was coloured by a contempt ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... I have seen of Luke Walton," thought Warner Powell, "I should decidedly prefer him to this nephew of mine. He seems conceited and disagreeable. Of course, it won't do to tell Louisa that, for she evidently admires her graceless cub, because he ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... and with a dogged indifference was ready to die. He could not, he would not walk back; his feet were lacerated, swollen, and almost in a state of putrefaction. The savages saw this, and took him back by water, but only to experience new torments. The young ones imitated their elders, and these graceless little rascals pulled out his beard and whiskers, and eyebrows and eyelashes. In order to save himself some part of the pain of this wretched process of their amusement, he was permitted to perform a part of ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... not far from it, a sort of canopied shed, decorated with carving, cut paper, and tinsel, and supported by four pillars, like a bedstead. Below lay the body of a priest, embalmed and gilt. I intended to have brought this home, but before I arrived there, I found one of my marines, a graceless dog without religion or any other good quality, very busy hammering the mummy to pieces with the butt end of his musket. I was very angry, and ordered him to desist. In excuse, he replied that it was an abominable molten image, and it was his duty, as a good Christian, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Edith's marriage; and I ne'er saw a man mair taen down wi' true love in my days,—I might say man or woman, only I mind how ill Miss Edith was when she first gat word that him and you (ye muckle graceless loon) were coming against Tillietudlem wi' the rebels.—But what's the matter wi' ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... trembled for my son's abandon'd life. I look'd about, but found myself alone, Deserted at my need! My friends were gone. Some spent with toil, some with despair oppress'd, Leap'd headlong from the heights; the flames consum'd the rest. Thus, wand'ring in my way, without a guide, The graceless Helen in the porch I spied Of Vesta's temple; there she lurk'd alone; Muffled she sate, and, what she could, unknown: But, by the flames that cast their blaze around, That common bane of Greece and Troy I found. For Ilium burnt, she dreads the Trojan sword; More dreads the ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... three ships in sight; read before breakfast one of Cobbett's sermons "On hypocrisy." In the forenoon two sermons from Chalmers's "Discourses on Commercial Integrity." One of the steerage passengers read from the Scriptures and commented sensibly, but he was laughed at by some graceless Irishmen. In the afternoon Mr. Hopkins proposed to address the passengers. After reading about the talents he proceeded to speak of the Bible as the oldest and best Book. Paine, he said, had denounced it as a forgery, but various authors had mentioned the N.T. Burnett had quoted Lord ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... of their deliverance. Those who are at heart image-makers and beast-worshipers will oppose this truth, and when they witness the departure of the faithful followers of the Lord, leaving to Babylon nothing but the godless, graceless professors, they will "weep and mourn over her" (chap. 18:16) and cry, "Alas, alas that great city" (verse 16). But the voice of heaven calls on the saints for a song of thanksgiving, saying, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... glances of a few pairs of graceless eyes, twinkling through their cunning waters, to reflect so evil a light on a whole community? Verily the sad benighted orbs of that noble relict—the Lady Rachel Russell—blinded through unserene drops for her dead ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... days at a time in many of the charming resorts among the mountains or along the Pacific seaboard, Miss Allison eagerly accepted their invitation to be one of the party. Mrs. Lawrence was to remain in charge at home, and was permitted to send for and receive under her wing her own graceless duckling, with the distinct understanding that he was in no wise to be allowed to interfere with Cary's studies or duties. Allison "had no use," as he expressed it, for his nephew Lawrence. He had helped pull the cub through many a scrape, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... graceless Phoebe has left you," said the old lady; "to board the minister, indeed! I will see that minister, and give him a text for a sermon. But you cannot keep up this sort of thing, my young friends; not even with Dora's help." And she stroked the soft hair of Miss Bannister, ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... Richard Hunter,) not one has ever done for us a week's honest labor. I have taken them into my service, have fed and clothed them, year after year, on their arrival from the States, and in return I have generally found them rogues and thieves, and a graceless, worthless, thriftless, lying set of vagabonds. That is my very plain and very simple description of the darkies as a body, and it would be indorsed by all the western white men with very ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... dollars on this account, which the State treasurer figured up with agonies of terror, and which the opposition roared at as if the administration could have helped it. The State-Houses were two mere deformities of patched plaster and leprous whitewash; they were such shapeless, graceless, dilapidated wigwams, that no sensitive patriot could look at them without wanting to fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; and yet it was not possible to build new ones, and hardly possible to obtain appropriations enough ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... ancestors outsung us: Can personate an awkward scorn For those who are not poets born; And all their brother dunces lash, Who crowd the press with hourly trash. O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, Whose graceless children scorn to own thee! Their filial piety forgot, Deny their country, like a Scot; Though by their idiom and grimace, They soon betray their native place: Yet thou hast greater cause to be Ashamed of them, than they of thee, Degenerate from their ancient brood Since first the court allow'd ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... like of which has never been seen before. Progress ate up romance, and hundreds of acres of wretched, cheaply built, hideous, unsafe buildings sprang up like the unhealthy growth of a foul disease, between the Lateran gate and the old inhabited districts. They are destined to a graceless and ignoble ruin. Ugly cracks in the miserable stucco show where the masonry is already parting, as the hollow foundations subside, and walls on which the paint is still almost fresh are shored up with dusty beams lest they should fall and crush the few ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... "'Twas a graceless trick—such a handsome girl, too. You ought to see her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little more to show for your years than most ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the kind! A mob at midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not, or neglected to—erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had pronounced her law—"sic volo, sic jubeo"—and we rode through, by virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict—cost free. It was really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I never was transported—never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Philadelphia Quaker said to his son, who, as he was once coming out of a house of ill-fame, spied old Broadbrim heaving in sight, and immediately wore ship. The old chap, however, who always kept his weather-eye open, had had a squint of young graceless, and so up helm and hard after he cracked, and following him in, hailed him with, "Ah, Obadiah, Obadiah, thee should never be ashamed of coming out—thee should always be ashamed of going in." No, no, Jack, I side with friend Broadbrim: I won't ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... the Hallel. Go now and prepare savory meat for thy father, that he may bless thee before his death.[83] Do as I bid thee, obey me as thou art wont, for thou art my son whose children, every one, will be good and God-fearing—not one shall be graceless." ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Whether good or graceless wight: Abstain from all reproaching, * An he joy or vex thy sprite: Seest not that what thou lovest * And what hatest go unite? That joys of longer life-tide * Ever fade with hair turned white? That thorns on branches growing * For the plucks ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... entered into my support of the Whig candidate, I simply regarded him as a poor man, whose home was a log cabin, and who would in some way help the people through their scuffle with poverty and the "hard times"; while I was fully persuaded that Van Buren was not only a graceless aristocrat and a dandy, but a cunning conspirator, seeking the overthrow of his country's liberties by uniting the sword and the purse in his own clutches, as he was often painted on the party banners. In these impressions I was by no means singular. They filled the air, and seemed to be wafted ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... in the same place six years before; only that he wrote a sharp reprimand to Shujaa-ud-daulah for his conduct towards the Emperor. But this, however well deserved, would not produce much effect on that graceless politician, when once the Afghan had returned to his own country. This he soon after did, and appeared no more on the troubled scene ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... glad that he hadn't heard my satirical description of "donation-parties" at Weston, nor the account I gave of our two boys, our salary of five hundred dollars, and the various comical shifts we had to make to live comfortably on that sum and support aged parents and graceless relations. Little touches told Mr. Lewis the whole story. I knew very well that Mr. Remington would be entirely abroad about such a social existence as ours in Weston, travel he ever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... investment. I am a business man and I have invested it and doubled it. That graceless brother of yours who has gone away with his five thousand now will be back in a year's time to borrow. He will still have five thousand to draw upon, but I hold his discharge in full, and I shall cheat him for his own good and button him down tightly to a weekly allowance. Money ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... thy ways," said Billings, starting up in a passion: "go thy ways for a graceless reprobate; and if this gentleman will take you, he ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of to-night's party, the people, the dresses, the supper. And then Dick made a sensation by saying right out, that he had just met Mr. Upjohn on Main Street with Mrs. Bruce, holding a parasol gallantly over her head. And everybody looked at once at Mrs. Upjohn, and then back at the graceless Dick, and an awful silence succeeded, broken by Mrs. Upjohn's reaching out her hand and saying in the tone of a Miss Cushman on the stage: "Dick, dear, I'll take another cookie." If Mr. Upjohn chose ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... true mother of that graceless scamp, young Love, who is ashamed of his real pedigree, and swears to this day that he is the child ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... large house in a long wide street of houses, all exactly alike. When she arrived with Miss Bey, they were shown into a deliciously cool shady drawing-room, charmingly furnished, and the effect upon Beth, after the graceless bareness of St. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... but only leave All things to our Father! Would we only cease to grieve, Wait His mercy rather! Meek resigning childish choice, Graceless, thankless pressing— Listen for His gentle voice, 'Child, receive this blessing!' Faithless, foolish hearts! see you Seeds' earth-hidden growing? What our God for us will ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... have beard some erring infidel Speak of our faith as of a gloomy creed, Inspiring fear and boding wretchedness. Her figure has recurr'd; for she did love The sabbath-day, and many a time has cross'd These fields in rain and thro' the winter snows. When I, a graceless boy, wishing myself By the fire-side, have wondered why 'she' came Who might have sate at home. One only care Hung on her aged spirit. For herself, Her path was plain before her, and the close Of her long journey near. But then her child Soon to be left ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... the churches of Florence are singularly poor in those rich facades which give such scope to the sculptor and architect, conferring, as at Pisa, distinction on a whole town. The churches of the Carmine, Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo are without facades at all, presenting graceless and unfinished masonry in place of what was intended by their founders. Elsewhere there are late and florid facades alien to the spirit of the main building, while it has been left to our own generation to complete Santa Croce and the Cathedral. The latter, it is true, once had ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... well help it then. Tom Thornton was a villain, by his own confession. My uncle had declared that he had stained his soul with crime for his son's sake. Whichever was the greater villain, it was clear that the son was the more obdurate, graceless, and unrepentant of the two. I had no patience with him. I had no respect for him, and I certainly had no fear of him. Even policy would not permit me to treat him with a consideration I did ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... I went for,' she replied, and gravely thanked the assistant leaning on his thumbs across the counter; after which, dropping the graceless play of an enigma, she inquired whether I had forgotten ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 16. The graceless youth, in less than a quarter of an hour, pulled the old gentleman by the beard, and had like to have knocked his brains out; so that meeting the true father, who came toward him in a fit of the gripes, he begged him to take his son again, and give him back ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... unknowing youth." In the years before he left Stratford, and after he left school (1577-87?), I can easily suppose that he was not ALWAYS butchering calves, poaching, and making love; and that, if he could get books in no other way, this graceless fellow might be detected on a summer evening, knitting his brows over the stories and jests of the chained Ovid and Plautus on his old schoolroom desk. Moi qui parle, I am no genius; but stories, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... Geoffrey Plantagenet and Constance, Duchess of Brittany, was born at Nantes, on Easter-day, 1187, six months after the death of his father. He was the first grandson of Henry II., for the graceless young King Henry had died childless. Richard was still unmarried, and the elder child of Geoffrey was a daughter named Eleanor; his birth was, therefore, the subject of universal joy. There was a prophecy of Merlin, that King Arthur ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of her eye she saw him bowing like an Italian opera singer, as impudently insouciant, as gracefully graceless as any stage villain in her memory. Once again she saw him, when her machine swept round a curve and she could look back without seeming to do so, limping across through the sage brush toward a little hillock near the road. And as she looked the bare, curly head was inclined toward her in another ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... her, ready to throw her to the mercy of the herd of children, who would like to rend her as a weaker representative of authority. A great dread of her task possessed her. She saw Mr. Brunt, Miss Harby, Miss Schofield, all the school-teachers, drudging unwillingly at the graceless task of compelling many children into one disciplined, mechanical set, reducing the whole set to an automatic state of obedience and attention, and then of commanding their acceptance of various pieces of knowledge. The first great task was to reduce sixty children ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... of some influence, who used, for amusement, to potter about in various antiquarian enterprises of no moment, but who had now been dead for some fifteen years. I then also recollected that he had an only child, a graceless gallows-bird of a son, who broke his father's heart, then wasted his substance in riotous living, and, after being long a disgrace and nuisance at home, had sunk out of sight amid the lowest strata of vice and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... reception than the two-shilling piece which appeared in 1849. "This piece," says Miss G.B. Rawlings in Coins and How to Know Them, a book rich in information, "was unfavourably received, owing to the omission of 'Dei Gratia' after the Queen's name, and was stigmatised as the godless or graceless florin." The florin, however, so called after a Florentine coin, had come to stay, but since 1851 it has been as godly in inscription as any of the other money in one's pocket. The coin has survived, ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... said the man, "for all that I can see, you may as well bide a while with us; for, indeed, with leave of my graceless maid, I think we may even end our wild-goose chase here and get us back ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang |
