"Uncouth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clothes. Through the window I could see a trim fellow laughing with a girl, and I said to myself, "If I can catch you out somewhere I will maul you." I was not acquainted with him, but I hated him, for I knew that he was my enemy. To an overgrown young fellow, ashamed of his uncouth, steer-like strength, all graceful youths are hateful; and he feels, too, that a handsome girl is his foe, for girls with pretty mouths are nearly always laughing, and why should they laugh if they are not laughing at him? Long I stood there, stretching the seams of my clothes, angry, wishing ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... spoke there sounded once more the ripping crack of a rifle, the singing of a bullet past them, and with it the flatter, louder noise of the shot-gun was repeated. Her eye in the act of turning to her task, caught the silhouette of old Gideon Himes's uncouth figure relieved against the noonday sky, as he sprang high, both arms flung up, the hands empty and clutching, and pitched headlong to his face. But her mind scarcely registered the impression, for a rifle ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... And leant upon his flail in thoughtful mood: His full round cheek where deeper flushes glow, The dewy drops which glisten on his brow; His dark cropt pate that erst at church or fair, So smooth and silky, shew'd his morning's care, Which all uncouth in matted locks combin'd, Now, ends erect, defies the ruffling wind; His neck-band loose, and hosen rumpled low, A careful lad, nor slack at labour shew. Nor scraping chickens chirping 'mongst the straw, Nor croaking rook o'er-head, nor chatt'ring daw; Loud-breathing ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... that Bernard was struggling to turn over on his side, flapping about with his slow uncouth gestures like a bird with a broken wing. "Let me—!" Laura's "No, Lawrence!" came too late. Hyde had taken the cripple in his arms, lifting him like a child: "You're light for your height," he said softly. He was as strong as ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... boy of sixteen, with uncouth ways; but there was something in his face which drew Eloise to him, and when he said, "Shall I carry you?" she answered gladly, "Oh, yes, please. I don't think I have ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... mind more independent in voluntary submission to an inexorable logic. Rene Descartes, who was born at La Haye, near Tours, in 1596, and died at Stockholm in 1650, escaped the influence of Richelieu by the isolation to which he condemned himself, as well as by the proud and somewhat uncouth independence of his character. Engaging as a volunteer, at one and twenty, in the Dutch army, he marched over Germany in the service of several princes, returned to France, where he sold his property, travelled ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... raiment clad Hid deep its spectral form uncouth, And virgin glances, beauty-glad, Sped frankly to the ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... but "is in the objective of number." He is, doubtless, right in preferring to parse this word as an objective case, rather than as a nominative, in the construction to which he alludes; but to call it an "objective of number," is an uncouth error, a very strange mistake for so great a grammarian to utter: there being in grammar no such thing as "the objective of number:" nothing of the sort, even under his own "Special Rule," to which he refers us for it! And, if ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... are to be found scattered up and down our country churchyards—'uncouth rhymes,' as Gray calls them, yet full of the sombre philosophy of life. They are fast becoming illegible, worn out by the rain that raineth every day, and our prim, present-day parsons do not look with favour upon them, besides which—to use a clumsy phrase—besides ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... he isn't worth wasting breath on," spoke up a big, uncouth fellow named Porter, when Frank had politely announced to Banbury that Dean Ritchie was a friend of some old friends of his at Tipton. "Ta, ta, Bob- up!" rallied Porter maliciously to Frank's chum. "Keep ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... performers on instruments adapted to that character of dance. These made the comic part of the procession, and the persons representing Satirs, took care to divert the people by leaps, by a display of agility, and by odd uncouth attitudes, such as were in the character they had assumed. There were also in another part of the procession twelve Salii, or priests of Mars, so called from their making sacred dances in honor of that God, the most considerable part of their worship; these were headed ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... for veto or approval. This was the settlement in Carolina of Albemarle, back country to Virginia, gatherer thence of many that were hardy and sound, many that were unfortunate, and many that were shiftless and untamed. An uncouth nurse of a turbulent democracy ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... solitary specimen of a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub Street hacks; the last of that generation of authors whose abject misery and whose dissolute manners had furnished inexhaustible matter to the satirical genius of Pope. From nature he had received an uncouth figure, a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper. The manner in which the earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling to the civilised beings who were the companions of his old age. The ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... characters in it, and they're all Old. There are two Oldfields and two Oldworthys. Mr. WENMAN as Oldfield Senior, or the Old Obadiah, is a trifle too blusterous, but on the other hand, I am not prepared to say that a country attorney of that period wouldn't be uncouth and blusterous. His son Alexander, the Young Obadiah, is prettily played by Mr. GORDON CRAIG, who is a trifle too windmilly with his hands and arms; but in the whole play nothing becomes him so well as the pathos of his broken-hearted exit. He was touching and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... and some the coursers rein; Some bend the stubborn bow for victory, And some with darts their active sinews try. A posting messenger, dispatch'd from hence, Of this fair troop advis'd their aged prince, That foreign men of mighty stature came; Uncouth their habit, and unknown their name. The king ordains their entrance, and ascends His regal ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... marriage was quite a mystery to Rose. That any one could love such an uncouth fellow as Jules, that a girl could leave the comfortable home and pretty garden, for now the fruit trees had grown and were full of fragrant bloom in the early season, and the ripening fruit later on, and go to that dismal little place ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... e'en these bones from insult to protect Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... that of a hypocrite. Girt with a poignard, he seeks the place where his perfidious arm can, with assurance, aim the blow with which he wishes to pierce the heart of his neighbour, his friend, and often his brother. By his uncouth sounds, he calls his people to come and range themselves under his banner, to hear the praises of the Prophet. They all run up to him with a holy respect; but before the priest begins his prayer, they throw off a little coat, which they wear fastened ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... is uglier than the other, till you come to the Tower Bridge, which is the ugliest of all. They have a strange fascination, and quickly endear themselves to the stranger who lounges on their parapets and looks down upon the grimy little steamers scuttling under them, or the uncouth barges pushed and pulled over the opacity of the swift puddle. They form also an admirable point for viewing the clumsy craft of all types which the falling tide leaves wallowing in the iridescent slime of the shoals, showing their huge flanks, and resting their ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... long queues, and clad in the comfortable, but certainly not elegant, flowing garments which we meet only occasionally in our Eastern cities, on the person of some laundryman. Then the houses, too, with the curious names on the signs, speak of a far-off land. On every side, also, is heard the uncouth jargon of the ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... representing the bloated countenance of Dai-Cok, god of wealth; and Sikou replies by a long crystal trumpet, by means of which are produced the most extraordinary sounds, like a turkey gobbling. Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess, grotesquely lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by incomprehensible conceptions, which seem the work ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... delight in his oddities. But above all he reflects honour on his creator by the inflexible integrity of his goodness. A hundred tricks are played on him by shallow knaves, and the result is but to convince us of the folly of knavery. His ill-clad and uncouth figure moves among the vicious and prosperous, and we perceive the ugliness of vice, and the poverty of wealth. With his nightcap drawn over his wig, a short grey coat half covering a torn cassock, the crabstick so formidable to ruffians in his hand, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... as sharp and cold. He did not at all stamp himself upon me as a man of much intellectual or characteristic vigor. I found no such matter in his conversation, nor did I feel it in the indefinable way by which strength always makes itself acknowledged. B———, though, somehow, plain and uncouth, yet vindicates himself as a large man of the world, able, experienced, fit to handle difficult circumstances of life; dignified, too, and able to hold his own in any society. Mr. ——— has a kind of venerable dignity; but ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Birkbeck colony, each back-settler established in his own nook, amid the contents of his travelling waggon. A little farther, on the summit of a bare rocky ridge to the left, stands a castle of a more Gothic character, but equally uncouth and comfortless. It was demolished, as we understood, at the time of the Revolution; but in its best days must have been but a wretched residence, as no trace remains within many hundred yards of it, of any soil where tree or garden could have stood. To the genuine admirers ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... a howl from the firelight, and the chanting stopped, and voices cried in the uncouth tongue angrily, and there came a pattering of unshod feet round us in the thickness, with a word or two that seemed as if of command, and then silence, but for stealthy footfalls drawing nearer to us. And I liked ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... by a kind of hood, which just permitted me to see coarse red hair, a broad face, grey eyes, a snubbed nose, blubber lips and great white teeth—the eyes were staring intently at me. I stopped and stared too, and at last thought I recognised the features of the uncouth girl I had seen on the green near Chester with the Irish tinker Tourlough and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Urania Upton was Uncouth, Ungraceful, Unfashionable, Unladylike, Uninteresting, Unpresentable, and Ugly. She was Unpoetical, Unmusical, Unlearned, Uncultured, Unimproved, Uninformed, Unknowing, Unthinking, Unwitty and Unwise. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... was not always an honest opponent, it must be confessed; and many an attack was made upon the gigantic enemy, which was cowardly, false, and malignant. But to see the monster writhing under the effects of the arrow—to see his uncouth fury in return, and the blind blows that he dealt at his diminutive opponent!—not one of these told in a hundred; when they DID tell, it may be imagined that they were fierce enough in all conscience, and served almost to annihilate ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two boys knelt at the foot of the tree, while the old sailor in simple, uncouth speech, offered up a little prayer of humble thanks for the deliverance of the two lads he loved ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... venture to say that so uncouth a slip as mythe, when set in our soil, was unlikely to thrive. Still m[)y]th is objectionable, though we at Cambridge might quote g[)y]p However I may seem to be a breaker of my own laws, I suggest, if we must have an English form of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... Claverhouse and Dalzell. These failing, new instruments of torture were invented for their "conversion." But the people, in both cases, continued alike stubborn in their adherence to their own simple and, as some thought, uncouth form of faith. ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... master the uncouth sounds of the still more uncouth savages of that distant region. The fellow who carried us in had a name of his own, doubtless, but it was not to be pronounced by a Christian tongue, and he got the sobriquet of the Dipper from us, owing to the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... a word was comprehensible to Dick; nor could he think of a word to say in reply. He made an uncouth, half-irritated, half-despairing gesture towards the wood he had quitted, as if to indicate his helpless horse, but he knew it was meaningless to the frightened yet exalted girl before him. Her little hand crept to her breast and clutched a rosary within the folds of her dress, as her soft ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... and here my younger brother said he would go after the hart, for he was better knight than I: and for this cause we fell at debate, and so we thought to prove which of us both was better knight. This is a simple cause, said Sir Gawaine; uncouth men ye should debate withal, and not brother with brother; therefore but if you will do by my counsel I will have ado with you, that is ye shall yield you unto me, and that ye go unto King Arthur and yield you unto his grace. Sir ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Arms. As no one either at the station or in the village seemed willing to vouchsafe me definite information as to whether the owner of Dacrepool was at home or abroad, parrying my inquiries with such scant courtesy and in so uncouth and unintelligible a dialect as to be scarce understood, I resolved to chance it, and with some difficulty hiring a farmer's gig, I started out on a six-mile drive over the bleak moorlands, which seemed to stretch as far as the eye could reach in a dim vista of brown heath and distant snow-clad ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... white, bordered the face; the rest, a very luxuriant head, was jet black and dressed into a perfectly regular and smooth roundish form, projecting everywhere beyond the white inner border. He had an uncouth necklace, made of what it was impossible to say, except that part of it looked like shells and part like some animal's teeth; rings of one or two colours were on his fingers; he carried no weapon. But in his huge, powerful black ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... dilettante mind. My cousin Eileen, a smiling lady of plump unimportance, to whom I afterwards told my fancy, could not understand it. Speaking entirely of physical attributes, she saw nothing more in Jaffery than an uncouth red bear, and considered Liosha far too ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... them in small groups as they passed through Calumet in the autumn and spring, on their way to and from the camps, meeting them now for the first time in such large numbers, could not help some inward shrinking of soul as he noted their uncouth ways and listened to their oath-besprinkled talk. They were "all sorts and conditions of men"—habitants who could not speak a word of English, and Irishmen who could not speak a word of French; shrewd Scotchmen, chary of tongue and reserved of manner, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... to claim the credit of your friendship? No! Before, on the steamer, we had mistaken him to be—to be what he appears to strangers—rough, almost uncouth. Yet even that frightful morning—it was among the swamps, ten miles or more up the coast. He carried us safe out of them, me nearly all the way—out of the bog and water, safe to the palms; and he as much tortured ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... people of England is the career of Jack Sheppard, as brutal a ruffian as ever disgraced his country, but who has claims upon the popular admiration which are very generally acknowledged. He did not, like Robin Hood, plunder the rich to relieve the poor, nor rob with an uncouth sort of courtesy, like Turpin; but he escaped from Newgate with the fetters on his limbs. This achievement, more than once repeated, has encircled his felon brow with the wreath of immortality, and made him quite a pattern thief among the populace. He was no more than twenty-three ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... gathered her writing-materials together. Aunt Beatrice's tall figure, its stalwart handsomeness disguised in uncouth garments, passed with its usual vigorous gait across the burning sunlight on the lawn and broad gravel walk, to disappear under the awning of a French window. Milly, very pale, had closed her eyes and her hands were ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... fought, And with fierce ensigns pierced the deep array Of Moloch, furious king; who him defied, And at his chariot-wheels to drag him bound Threatened, nor from the Holy One of Heaven Refrained his tongue blasphemous; but anon Down cloven to the waist, with shattered arms And uncouth pain fled bellowing. On each wing Uriel, and Raphael, his vaunting foe, Though huge, and in a rock of diamond armed, Vanquished Adramelech, and Asmadai, Two potent Thrones, that to be less than Gods Disdained, but meaner thoughts ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... over till he came to the bottom. We may believe, as Mrs. Thrale remarks upon his jumping over a stool to show that he was not tired by his hunting, that his performances in this kind were so strange and uncouth that a fear for the safety of his bones quenched ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... get along very well by simply making the best of it," continued Lydia. "And to tell the truth, I have learned to respect these rugged fellows. They are uncouth; they have no manners, but their hearts are honest and true, and that is of much greater importance in frontiersmen than the little attentions and courtesies upon which women are apt to lay too ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... there are three classes of people. First, there are the Turcomans; these are worshippers of Mahommet, a rude people with an uncouth language of their own.[NOTE 1] They dwell among mountains and downs where they find good pasture, for their occupation is cattle-keeping. Excellent horses, known as Turquans, are reared in their country, and also very valuable mules. The other two classes ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... style for himself, from the circumstance of not attending to style at all, but to feeling, so Anthony Wood's has all the peculiarity of the writer. Critics of short views have attempted to screen it from ridicule, attributing his uncouth style to the age he lived in. But not one in his own time nor since, has composed in the same style. The austerity and the quickness of his feelings vigorously stamped all their roughness and vivacity on every sentence. He describes his own style as "an honest, plain ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... The youth's uncouth clothes were carefully brushed, and his fat face, which wore an incongruous expression of anxiety and dejection, shone with washing. David studied him a moment in silence, then he ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and held up her hands to stay the feet of Smain, who was quite content to wait. Never before had she heard any music that seemed to mean and suggest so much to her as this African tune played by an enamoured gardener. Queer and uncouth as it was, distorted with ornaments and tricked out with abrupt runs, exquisitely unnecessary grace notes, and sudden twitterings prolonged till a strange and frivolous Eternity tripped in to banish Time, it grasped Domini's fancy and laid a spell upon her imagination. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... last stairway. Beyond the twentieth century portieres of a thirteenth century doorway lay the goal we sought. I hesitated briefly before drawing them apart and taking the final plunge. As a matter of fact, I was beginning to feel ashamed of myself. Suppose that she really had a headache! What an uncouth, pusillanimous ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... reply took the form of uncouth and disagreeable growlings. After that phase had passed he sat for some time with his hand placed protectingly in his trouser-pocket. Finally, in a fierce voice, he inquired ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Jackson as he first saw him in his seat in the House: "A tall, lank, uncouth looking individual, with long locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, while a queue hung down his back tied in an eelskin. The dress of this individual was singular, his manners and deportment that of a ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... the name of Denman Thompson a household word. His genius has embodied in a drama the finer yet homlier characteristics of New England life, its simplicity, its rugged honesty, its simple piety, its benevolence, partially hid beneath a rough and uncouth exterior. His drama is an epic—a prose poem—arousing a loyal and patriotic love for the land of the Pilgrims in the hearts of her sons, whether at home, on the rolling prairies of the West, in the sunny ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... swear, from earliest infancy—seemed to repel the ruins of a nondescript hat. Whether he was really uglier than his fellows I cannot remember—I was so absorbed in contemplating and realizing his surpassing squalor—but the expression of the uncouth face (if it had any whatsoever) was, I think, neither ferocious nor sullen. There is generally a "colored car" attached to every train; for you will find the tender-hearted Abolitionist, in despite of his African sympathies, when it is a question of personal ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... better than had ever been seen before. Noble legends were painted on its wainscoting and in the roof, and this was so well done that the hall was thought even more beautiful when the hangings were not up. Giermund did not meddle with every-day matters, but was uncouth to most people. He was usually dressed in this way—he wore a scarlet kirtle below and a grey cloak outside, and a bearskin cap on his head, and a sword in his hand. This was a great weapon and good, with a hilt of walrus tooth, with no silver on it; the brand was sharp, and no rust would ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... he was sure to thrust forth at least ten huge digits, and if he chanced to get it in his grasp, wo to the coffee! and wo to the snow-white damask table-cloth! or worse, wo to one's "best Sunday-go-to-meetin'" silk dress. Nature uses strange materials in concocting some of her children—most uncouth was the fabric of which she constructed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... In uncouth phrases and illiterate language, and yet with a certain pathos, Mrs. Maverick told the story of the death, years before, while their home was east, in Ohio, of her own little girl between two and three years of age, and her inconsolable ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... you, Daisy," and Bill flashed her a grateful look. "But I know the difference myself; I'm uncouth and awkward where those chaps are correct and elegant. I'm going back to Arizona ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... liberality that inspired the new impressionism of "Woodland Sketches" (op. 51) and "Sea Pieces" (op. 55), in which he gives a legitimate musical presentation of a faintly perfumed "Wild Rose" or "Water Lily," but goes farther, and paints, with wonderful tone, the moods inspired by reverie upon the uncouth dignity and stoic savagery of "An Indian Lodge," the lonely New England twilight of "A Deserted Farm," and all the changing humors of the sea, majesty of sunset or star-rise, and even the lucent emerald ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... West Riding, or heavy woollen district, said was, what a most extraordinary thing it was that the son and daughter of that brute Clay should be so refined when their father was such a rough, uncouth man! The Clay family was one of the many instances in Yorkshire of the mill-hand who rose from being a labourer to be the owner of a large mill and enormous wealth, and who gave to his children the education he had never received himself. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... the firm of Fish, Grinnell & Co., which subsequently became the prominent business house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co. Sustained by the apparel peculiar to infants, he was found floating in the water by some New Bedford fishermen who, unable to discover his identity, bestowed upon him the uncouth name which, willingly or unwillingly, he bore until the day of his death. He and the other members of his firm were originally from New Bedford, one of the chief centers of the whale fisheries of New England, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... large, loafing dignity about Claude's father. He liked to provoke others to uncouth laughter, but he never laughed immoderately himself. In telling stories about him, people often tried to imitate his smooth, senatorial voice, robust but never loud. Even when he was hilariously delighted by anything,—as when poor Mahailey, undressing ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... first struck with the singularity of Caleb's appearance, and later by the expression of his eyes. A very tall, big-boned, lean, round-shouldered man, he was uncouth almost to the verge of grotesqueness, and walked painfully with the aid of a stick, dragging his shrunken and shortened bad leg. His head was long and narrow, and his high forehead, long nose, long chin, and long, coarse, grey whiskers, worn like a beard on his ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... chaplain [John Henkel] of Queen Maria informed us that they had five times changed their Confutation, casting and recasting, minting and reminting it, and still there finally was produced nothing but an uncouth and confused conglomeration and a hodgepodge, as when a cook pours different soups into one pot. At first they patched together an enormous volume, as Faber is known to be a verbose compiler; the book grew by reason of the multitude ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... uncouth of speech, that possessed Miletos and the mountain of Phthires, of leafage numberless, and the streams of Maiandros and the steep crest of Mykale. These were led of Amphimachos and Nastes: Nastes and Amphimachos the glorious children of Nomion. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... could barely read and write. He was rude of speech and uncouth in manners, but his heart was brave, and ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... the hunted man caught a glimpse of uncouth shapes wriggling along a fence ridge several rods away. No more than the barest glimpse, it served: with a mighty heave and wriggle he breasted the lower platform, shifted a hand to the top of its railing, heaved himself up to a foothold, and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... opposing currents of speech, she utters a strange, deep guttural sound which those who know her best interpret as the language of a joy too deep for articulate expression. Gaze at them as they pass you in the quiet road, and acknowledge that, in spite of their rough and even uncouth exteriors, a happier four could hardly be met with in this favourite haunt of pleasure-seekers ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... cost of harder work than even she had anticipated. If it had not been for her music she would never have pulled through with the boys of Wissan Bridge. By her music she tamed them. The young Marsyas himself never piped to a wilder set of creatures than the uncouth lads and young men that sat in wide-eyed, wide-mouthed astonishment listening to the first song their pretty young schoolmistress sang for them. To have singing exercises part of the regular school routine was a new thing at Wissan ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... soles were curved like rockers. An old pipe clamored at his nostrils, though it was on the table near the window, the full length of the room from him. Papers and books were strewn about everywhere. It was difficult to believe these unkempt and uncouth surroundings, and the personality that had created them, were actually being harbored behind the walls ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... to instruct the people, troublesome; to interpret the Scripture, pedantic; to pray, a sign one has little else to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor, base; to be vanquished, dishonorable and little becoming him that scarce admits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and to be stretched ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... immediately dispatched to enter into a treaty with them, and, approaching the shore, hailed them through a trumpet in the most friendly terms; but so horribly confounded were these poor savages at the tremendous and uncouth sound of the Low Dutch language that they one and all took to their heels, and scampered over the Bergen hills; nor did they stop until they had buried themselves, head and ears, in the marshes on the other side, where ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he exclaimed, in a loud voice, 'Masasoyt, the great king? Am I not lord of all the people of the Lowsons; and of such and such places? And he enumerated nearly thirty uncouth Indian names of places over which he claimed sovereignty, his wild subjects uttering a yell of joy and exultation in answer to each word he uttered. The savage monarch then proceeded to ratify and augment ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... in love when a girl might be allowed to call such a man her own. She could not but make comparisons between him and Mr. Saul, though she knew that she was making them on points that were hardly worthy of her thoughts. Mr. Saul was plain, uncouth, with little that was bright about him except the brightness of his piety. Harry was like the morning star. He looked and walked and spoke as though he were something more godlike than common men. His very voice created joy, and the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made; So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age; wait death nor ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... exactly that it is as soft as our own," I proceeded to say, for the benefit of Miss Spight, who appeared to be listening to our conversation.—"But, a good many people, who call the Teuton tongue uncouth, seem to forget its close resemblance both in style and expression, to English. Either language can be rendered in the vernacular of the other, without losing its force or even sound; and that is more than can be said for French or ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... black eyes, and snowy white hair and whiskers, made him look every inch the Commodore. These public appearances lent a pleasanter and more sentimental aspect to Vanderbilt's life than his intimates always perceived. For his manners were harsh and uncouth; he was totally without education and could write hardly half a dozen lines without outraging the spelling-book. Though he loved his race-horses, had a fondness for music, and could sit through long winter evenings while his young wife sang old Southern ballads, Vanderbilt's ungovernable temper ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... way in which that wide-spread superstition arose, which sees in the phantoms of the clouds the shapes of the Wild Huntsman and his accursed crew, and hears, in spring and autumn nights, when sea-fowl take the wing to fly either south or north, the strange accents and uncouth yells with which the chase is pressed on in upper air. Thus, in Sweden it is still Odin who passes by; in Denmark it is King Waldemar's Hunt; in Norway it is Aaskereida, that is Asgard's Car; in Germany, it is Wode, Woden, or Hackelberend, ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... proceeded to atone for the mistake by a rough and discomposing embrace, and such a familiar and frolicksome greeting as none but a camp follower would have felt flattered with. Then, seating himself before her, he commenced his conversation in a rude and uncouth tone, and with rather a forced affectation of military bluntness; from which, however, as his eye dwelt upon the richness of her apparel and his mind began to succumb to the charm of her native refinement, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Arenas. The place is unhealthy, having at certain seasons a very bad name;—and here on their outward journey her husband had been taken ill. She had never ceased to think of the fortnight she had spent there among uncouth strangers, during a portion of which his life had trembled in the balance. Early, therefore, in those four months she begged that she might not be taken round by Punt' Arenas. There was another route. "Harry, if you love me, let me go by the Serapiqui." ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... the life here I looked upon as only an incident. The gay tawdry had faded; I realized how much more enduring were the rough, uncouth but genuine products like my friend Mr. Jenks and those of that ilk, who spoke me well instead of merely fair. Health of mind and body should be for ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the large extent of the Vanderbilt's possessions or those of other ruling families are found warlike garrisons as evidence of ownership. Those uncouth barbarian methods are grossly antiquated; the part once played by armed battalions is now performed by bits of paper. A wondrously convenient change has it been; the owners of the resources of nations can disport themselves ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... she lived. Invention and fable have kindly come to the aid of the most famous of the world's heroines, but neither fable nor invention has touched the character or the deeds of this heroine of the Revolution. She stands out on the pages of history rough, uncouth, hot-tempered, unmanageable, uneducated, impolite, ugly, and sharp-tongued; but, as her friends said of her, "What a honey of a patriot she was!" She loved the Liberty Boys as well as she loved her own children. It has been said that she was cruel; but this charge may as well be put out of sight. ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... distinction of getting fellowship from old Zelig. That person was the Gentile watchman or janitor of the shop, a little blond Pole with an open mouth and frightened eyes. And many were the witticisms aimed at this uncouth pair. "The big one looks like an elephant," the joker of the shop would say; "only he likes to be fed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... made a succession of weird, uncouth gestures that suggested a lunatic or a traveling hypnotist. Evidently the good Pachacamac approved whatever suggestions the royal priest communicated, for he rose to his feet with a solemn grin and strutted majestically to the rear, ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... Unseen, uncouth John Thorne, furious at the scant courtesy shown to the lady of his dreams, had brought his whip down heftily, just above the mangy tail of the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... beautiful. I have such a feeling, but not now so strongly as formerly. Such an idea should be kept for use in Europe, and never brought over to America with other traveling gear. The lakes in America are cold, cumbrous, uncouth, and uninteresting—intended by nature for the conveyance of cereal produce, but not for the comfort of traveling men and women. So we gave up our plan of traversing the lake, and, passing back into Canada by the suspension bridge at Niagara, we reached the Detroit River at Windsor by the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... was a single row of egregious dwellings, squat, uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and "gambling hell" which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... the top of the mountain a flood of light colder than the ice poured from behind. The moon had risen, transforming the world into a crystal miracle.... Far below them was the Greenstream valley, the village. They struggled forward, an uncouth, slipping bulk, under the soaring, dead planet. Gleams of light shot like quick-silver about their feet, quivered in the clear gloom like trails of pale fire igniting lakes of argent flame. It was magnificent and cruel, a superb fantasy rippling ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... temperament. He is recorded as speaking in the House only twice and in the Senate not at all, and he seems to have made no considerable impression upon his colleagues. Gallatin later described him as "a tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with long locks of hair hanging over his face, and a queue down his back tied in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners and deportment those of a rough backwoodsman." And Jefferson is represented ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... own ideas and judgments; believing loyally in his country's institutions, and upholding them fearlessly before the world; fundamentally serious and self-reliant, yet with a practicality tempered by humane kindliness, warmth of heart, and a strain of persistent idealism; rude, boisterous, even uncouth, yet withal softened by sympathy for the under-dog, a boundless love for the weak, the friendless, the oppressed; lacking in profound intellectuality, yet supreme in the possession of the simple and homely virtues—an upright and honourable character, a ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... many devils that walk this world, Devils so meagre and devils so stout, Devils that go with their tails uncurl'd, Devils with horns and devils without. Serious devils, laughing devils, Devils black and devils white, Devils uncouth, and devils polite. Devils for churches, devils for revels, Devils with feathers, devils with scales, Devils with blue and warty skins, Devils with claws like iron nails, Devils with fishes' gills and fins; Devils foolish, devils wise, Devils great, ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... teeming with interest. There was hardly a mile without a ruin—broken pillars, inscribed slabs, monoliths, tombs. A little later he travelled as far northward as Hamah [232] in order to copy the uncouth characters on the famous stones, and Drake discovered an altar adorned with figures of Astarte and Baal. [233] Everywhere throughout Palestine he had to deplore the absence of trees. "Oh that Brigham Young were here!" he ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... hovel; of what real parentage we know not, reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair surrounding; a young manhood vexed by weird dreams and visions; with scarcely a natural grace; singularly awkward, ungainly even among the uncouth about him: it was reserved for this remarkable character, late in life, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme command at a supreme moment, and intrusted with the destiny of a nation. The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside; the most experienced ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... woman he had sought so long, whose face he had not found in the cities and dwellings of the living, neither her grave in the silent communities of the dead. There, before the uncouth monument of dark red marble beneath which Tycho Brahe rests in peace, there she stood; not as he had seen her last on that day when his senses had left him in the delirium of his sickness, not in the freshness of ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... feels the damp breath from their nostrils; their tails switch violently, and the heat of their bodies, and the odor of the stable, is almost stifling. Two boys and two dogs are in charge of these animals; the dogs bark, and the uncouth peasants yell, until the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... writes. "Nothing was a greater impediment to him than his ignorance of the Japanese tongues; for, ever and anon, when some uncouth expression offended their fastidious and delicate ears, the awkward speech of Francis was a cause of laughter." But Father Bouhours, a century later, writing of Xavier at the same period, says, "He preached in the afternoon ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, 25 We shall do better, see what next year brings! I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear More destitute than you perhaps next year! Bluph—something! I had caught the uncouth name But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 30 Above us—bound to spoil such idle chatter As ours; it were indeed a serious matter If silly talk like ours should put to shame The pious man, the man devoid of ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... and trusted this man, entertained for him, notwithstanding his harsh speech and uncouth exterior, something akin to affection. Yet remembering the part he had played in the fate of the father, it was very dreadful to her that he should touch the child. And Dr. Knott read her thought. He did not resent it. It was all natural ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Captain Shmaleff, and in the afternoon, in order to vary our amusements, he treated us with an exhibition of the Russian and Kamtschadale dancing. No description can convey an adequate idea of this rude and uncouth entertainment. The figure of the Russian dance was much like those of our hornpipes, and was danced either single, or by two or four persons at a time. Their steps were, short and quick, with the feet scarce raised from the ground; the arms were fixed close to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Raphael, not by art only but by goodness also. And of a truth, since the greater number of artists had up to that period derived from nature a certain rudeness and eccentricity, which not only rendered them uncouth and fantastic, but often caused the shadows and darkness of vice to be more conspicuous in their lives than the light and splendor of those virtues by which man is rendered immortal—so was there good ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... till the applause of some friends whose judgement I valued induced me to resume the poem; so on I wrote, knowing no more than the man in the moon how I was to end. At length the story appeared so uncouth, that I was fain to put it into the mouth of my old minstrel—lest the nature of it should be misunderstood, and I should be suspected of setting up a new school of poetry, instead of a feeble attempt to imitate the old. In the process of romance the page, intended to be a principal ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... o'er flower-empurpled meads; Who often, but without success, have pray'd For apt Alliteration's artful aid; Who would, but cannot, with a master's skill, Coin fine new epithets, which mean no ill: Me, thus uncouth, thus every way unfit For pacing poesy, and ambling wit, 90 Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place Amongst the lowest of her favour'd race. Thou, Nature, art my goddess—to thy law Myself I dedicate! Hence, slavish awe! Which bends to fashion, and obeys ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... to?" asked Carew, looking at the uncouth figure with intense interest. "Do you know what people ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... mantles o'er the bison's horns; Pennons and flags defaced and stained, That blackening streaks of blood retained, 555 And deer-skins, dappled, dun, and white, With otter's fur and seal's unite, In rude and uncouth tapestry all, To garnish forth ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott |
