"Unpleasing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the low, spreading buildings in the rough clearing among gigantic pines were not unpleasing. Rough as they were, they fulfilled the first aim of all architecture; they ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... had just seen. I then went to look at the musicians and their instruments, the latter consisting chiefly of coffee canes struck by a sort of gong-sticks. The sound at a distance was bell-like and not unpleasing. I was informed that the Regent had paid L500 for his set of instruments. After this I returned to my inn in my carriage. How I got to this place I shall tell later. I must now go to bed, as we start at 5 A.M. on an expedition to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... object, say red, and then transferring the gaze to a white or gray expanse. The image of the object appears thereon in the complementary green. Per contra, the most complete lack of contrast makes the most unpleasing combination, because instead of a refreshing alternation of processes in the retina, a fatiguing repetition results. Red and orange (red-yellow), or red and purple (red-blue), successively stimulate the red- process with most ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... countenance, though handsome, was deeply marked, and evinced the tokens of dissipation—seemed more numerous than they really were; and though not actually past middle age, Lord Mauleverer might fairly have received the unpleasing epithet of elderly. However, his step was firm, his gait upright, and his figure was considerably more youthful than his physiognomy. The first compliments of the day having passed, and Lord Mauleverer having expressed ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the events of the preceding day, was, to Isabella, a very unpleasing retrospect. She owed her life, and that of her father, to the very person by whom, of all others, she wished least to be obliged, because she could hardly even express common gratitude towards him without ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... little yellow-haired girl in Philadelphia. He talked of her occasionally, but less and less. Out on the golf links near Passaic he met another girl, one of a group that flourished there. I met her. She was not unpleasing, a bit sensuous, rather attractive in dress and manners, not very well informed, but gay, clever, up-to-date; such a girl as would pass among other women as ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... sedge-bird, be pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately set it a-singing; or, in other words, though it slumbers sometimes, yet ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... take an example at random) has for him "something of the colour of absinthe." In fine, though he can and does get into his pages much of the exhilaration of a tramp over heathery cliffs "smelling of honey and sea wind," one retains throughout a not unpleasing consciousness of Paddington. I have left myself too little space to deal adequately with other papers, among which I was delighted to find again that called "Dieppe 1895," long remembered from The Savoy (though here, of course, lacking the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... set to dress this garden, How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee To make a second fall of cursed man? Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed? Darest thou, thou little better thing ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... thing, foreseeing dire disaster for himself, for he knew little and cared less about matters political, though he was ready enough at a pinch to place his ignorance at his friend's disposal. So he had been set to the dreary work of committee-rooms; and then, since his manners were not unpleasing, dispatched as aide-de-camp to any chance orator who enlivened the county. But at last a crisis arrived in which other use was made of him. A speaker of some pretensions had been announced for a ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... while mountains stabbed skyward and the pass they followed wound this way and that and he knew that it was a very roundabout way indeed. And he had unpleasing prospects to make it seem less satisfying, even, than ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Street and Grand," said Steingall indifferently. He was about to add the unpleasing fact—unpleasing to Lord Valletort, that is—that the man on duty at the Detective Bureau would certainly refer an inquirer to him, ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... standing with self-conscious and self-satisfied expressions beside the grim gallows on which their victims hang. From the great number of these pictures we have found, it is quite clear that not only are such executions very common, but that they are also not unpleasing to the sense of the German population; otherwise they would not bequeath to posterity their own smiling faces alongside the unhappy dead. With us it is so different. When we have to administer the capital penalty we do it, of course, openly, and after full judicial ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... the manufacturing districts, which seem unpleasing to those who do not really know them, are described with a faithful yet kindly pen, and we see that each life has its ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... the trust. Those things that we need—imagination, independence, courage of conviction—every quality bespeaking her one great requirement in the characters of her chosen ones—originality—are to be fostered in a hundred ways not unpleasing to her. But this first quality, which may not be bought either by labor or by gold, has been made the mark whereby she knows and claims her own. Once self-ordained, a man finds himself subject gloriously to her: ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... years he had changed but little in appearance, though his slim figure had shot up rapidly in height. His chestnut hair grew in high peaks from his temples and swept in a single lock above his small, sparkling eyes, which held an expression of intelligent animation. On the whole, it was not an unpleasing face, despite the tremulous droop of the mouth, already darkened by the faint beginning of ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... a singular and not unpleasing effect, so far as my own mind was concerned, by imagining a train of incidents in which the spirit and mechanism of the faery legend should be combined with the characters and manners of familiar life. In the little tale which follows a subdued tinge of the wild ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... swiftly away, and the widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to propagate their animadversions ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... not believe it a reality revealed itself to Bettina, as by a flash, which was also a revelation of many things. There would be unpleasing truths to be learned, and she had not made her pilgrimage for nothing. But—in any event—there were advantages without doubt in the circumstance which subjected one to being perpetually pointed out as a daughter of a multi-millionaire. As this argued ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unintelligible to those devoid of it, as its absence is marvellous to those possessed by it. Its presence is its justification, its being its sole explanation, itself its highest reason. Surely on those who cherish it, the shadow of the love-creative God must rest more than on some other women! Unpleasing as was the infant, to know him her own would have made the world a paradise to Jane. Her heart burned with divine indignation at the wrongs already heaped upon him. Hardly born, he was persecuted! Ugly! he was not ugly! Was he not come straight from the fountain of life, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... provided with dried meat, the prospect of fresh buffalo steak was not unpleasing, and a hunt ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... soon roasts the lamb, and imparts a particular fragrance to the flesh. After supper we went out in the mild dark evening to a mount, where a bonfire blazed and glared on the high square tower of the convent, and cushions were laid for chibouques and coffee. The not unpleasing drone of bagpipes resounded through the woods, and a number of Bulgarians executed their national dance in a circle, taking hold of each other's girdle, and keeping ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... gratification? Marian gained a first glimpse of the selfishness of refined exclusiveness, and doubted whether it had not been getting a hold of herself, when she had learnt of Selina to despise and neglect all that was unpleasing. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the rhymes and regular versification, in the mouths of the inferior actors, who have not the art to conceal them, is, to an English ear at least, very unpleasing, and indeed almost destructive of theatrical illusion; and as a number of such actors must necessarily appear in every tragedy, it may be doubted whether a tragedy is ever acted throughout on the French stage in so pleasing a manner, at least to ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... goldsmith, "never has maiden pleased me as thou dost. Hence, as I saw thee at the moment when I was firmly resolved to take a helpmate, I think I see a special providence in our meeting, and if I am not unpleasing in thine eyes, I pray thee to accept me ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... mentioned Grotius, the short account of so great a man, which is inserted in Langbaine, will not be unpleasing to the reader. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... measuring six inches and a half, by three and three quarters. It is, however, somewhat choked in the binding, (in blue morocco) as too many of Bozerian's performances usually are.[83] Close to this book is the Giunta reprint of 1515—ALSO UPON VELLUM: but of a foxy and unpleasing tint. Now for a few LARGE PAPER ALDUSES—of a variety of forms and of characters. But I must premise that the ensuing list of those upon vellum, is very far indeed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife to-morrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that there is nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-morrow I shall ardently wish for ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... holiday-making portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... of a pistol would certainly have startled King James more, but could (setting apart the fright) hardly have been more unpleasing ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... lodging by the great hall and domestic chapel. A narrow vaulted passage on either side led to the upper quadrangle, the facade of which was magnificent, and far superior in uniformity of design and style to the rest of the structure, the irregularity of which, however, was not unpleasing. The whole frontage of the upper court was richly moulded and filleted, with ranges of mullion and transom windows, capitals, and carved parapets crowned with stone balls. Marble pillars, in the Italian style, had ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sketch is in the "Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to Catalogue, 1886) Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint." The costume—long coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings—is not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a leer and a sneer. Walpole (Letters, 1858, vii. 274) describes another portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking—no, squinting tenderly at ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... linen-duster, or that the bantering remarks of his brother-drivers were borne with smiling equanimity, not to say pride; for Sam was well aware that Mrs. Dolly Page's brunette beauty, and his blonde-bearded style, together furnished a not unpleasing tableau of personal charms. Besides, Sam's motto was, "Let those laugh who win;" and he seemed to himself to be on the road to heights of happiness beyond the ken of ordinary ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the Hours should be valid; for, in the reading the priest acts principally in the name of the Church, as her minister, and offers up prayers to God in her name, and they say that the irreverence of the servant does not render the prayer of the Church unpleasing to Him, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... mannerist is so universally acknowledged in France, that the peculiar term of marivaudage has been invented for his mannerism. But this is at least his own, and at first sight by no means unpleasing. Delicacy of mind cannot be denied to Marivaux, only it is coupled with a certain littleness. We have stated it to be the most refined species of the comic of observation, when a peculiarity or property shows itself most ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... beautiful Corinthian capitals, and the architrave and part of the frieze resting on these twelve capitals. Everything is of granite except the capitals and bases which are of white marble; but instead of the orthodox twenty-four flutes each column has only twelve, with a distinctly unpleasing result. The temple seems to have been hexastyle peripteral, but all trace of the cella has disappeared. Nothing is known of the temple or who it was that built it, but in Roman times Evora was one of the chief ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... a curious yet not unpleasing smile. "I am the more unfortunate," he said, at last. "Nay, 'twas to Lady Allonby ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... hour now for my bath, my exercise, my bed, if you please. I fear I must bid you good night, one way or the other. You will be welcome here none the less, if you care to remain. I trust you did not find our little repast to-night unpleasing? Believe me, our breakfast shall be as good. Threlka is expert in omelets, and our coffee is such as perhaps you may not ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... our Government at reviews and public ceremonials, and to our diplomatic officials upon the termination of their missions, or upon occasions of rejoicing, jubilees of sovereigns, etc. While the practice of exchanging such graceful souvenirs is not unpleasing among the nations which recognize and reciprocate the courtesy, it is entirely inappropriate that officials of this Government should accept, or desire to accept, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... about this time that an incident took place, which, although it rests only on tradition in families of the name of Bruce, is rendered probable by the manners of the times. After receiving the last unpleasing intelligence from Scotland, Bruce was lying one morning on his wretched bed, and deliberating with himself whether he had not better resign all thoughts of again attempting to make good his right to the Scottish crown, and, dismissing his followers, transport ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... pretty young lady who seemed much pleased with his attention. It did not strike me at first that this was the terrible direktor of whom I had been hearing. He was young, had a slender, graceful figure, and an exceedingly handsome, though (I thought at first) an unpleasing face. There was something in his attitude and manner which at first I did not quite like. Anna walked up the room, and pausing ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... pleased with their daughters or not, this worship which they offered was never unpleasing. I used to regard it as my proper due, because I was so good. We are told that when the gods withhold their boons from mortals they still expect their worshippers to pay them fervent honour, and are angry ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... had arrived at Bengal, and she had now been married nearly a twelvemonth—splendidly, yet unhappily married. United to a man of double her own age, whose disposition was not amiable, and whose manners were unpleasing, though his ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... included, and from which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized nations, is, That no man shall give any preference to himself.' In the same paper, he says that 'unnecessarily to obtrude unpleasing ideas ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals, That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this,—that there is not a single image from nature in the whole body of his works; and in ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the surer with a country girl, he thought. But there was that in his tone, besides the freedom of sounding her praises in her own ears, which was unpleasing to Annie's ladyhood, and ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... our hero to be, like all public men, without fear and without reproach. He drank not, abstained from fleshly intercourse, and habitually spoke the truth. His face was thin, high cheek-boned, and not unpleasing, with one loose eyebrow over which he had no control; his eyes, bright and of hazel hue, looked his fellows in the face without seeing what was in it. Though his moustache was still dark, his thick waving hair was permanently ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which floated a light tunic studded with pearls wherein sombre lights scintillated. She went nearer, curious to know her face of that day. The mirror returned her look with tranquillity, as if this amiable woman whom she examined, and who was not unpleasing to her, lived without either acute ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... one naturally productive of harmonious relations. He was of the many who unknowingly came in out of the cold and stood in the glow of Tembarom's warm fire, or took refuge from the heat in his cool breeze. He did not know of the private, arduous study of journalistic style, and it was not unpleasing to see that the nice young cub was gradually improving. Through pure modest fear or ridicule, Tembarom kept to himself his vaulting ambition. He practised reports of fires, weddings, and ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dreaming, being aware of the unreliability of the images which present themselves before his mind. He may even make a voluntary and successful effort to prolong them if agreeable, or to dissipate them if unpleasing; thus evincing a certain degree of that directing power, the entire want of which is characteristic of the true ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... pleasing by any display of genius" (European Magazine); "The story of Parisina includes adultery not to be named" (Literary Panorama); while the Eclectic, on grounds of taste rather than of morals, gave judgment that "the subject of the tale was purely unpleasing"—"the impression ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... kitchen really was fairly big. I had a look at it no more than a dozen years ago. The house, too, was and is a not unpleasing one, situated within a stone's throw of Russell Square, Bloomsbury. Its spaces are ample, its fittings solidly good, and its area less subterranean than many. Near by is a select livery stable and mews of sub-rural aspect, with Virginia creeper climbing ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... when he saw that she was going wrong. A more general discussion on the subject of true religion then followed, and Shanty assured Tamar, that all high notions of self, whether of birth, talents, or riches, were unpleasing in the sight of God, and utterly inconsistent with that view of salvation by Christ, which is independent of all human merit. Such was the nature of the lessons given by the old man to Tamar. His language was, however, broad, and full of north-country phrases, so much ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... a former occasion, in reference to some of his scientific discoveries, had heard rumors of papal persecution, and as a cautious friend whispered to him the unpleasing tidings, he had exclaimed, "Never will I barter the freedom of my intellect to one as liable to err ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... reverence, he kissed the sweet trembling lips, the wet eyes, the tear-stained cheeks—"Hush, my little girl! You are all my joy in this world—can you not feel that you are?" And he kissed her again and yet again. "And I am so unworthy of you!—so old and worn and altogether unpleasing to a woman—I am nothing! Yet you love me! How strange that seems!—how wonderful!—for I have done nothing to deserve your love. And had you been spared your health and strength, I should never have spoken—never! I would not have clouded your sunny ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... awkward Welsh serving lass, with a fore-arm about as shapely as the hind leg of an elephant, and a most unpleasing habit of snorting audibly as she moved, shuffled in with the tea-tray. In her wake came the slim Elizabeth, to ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... little cares and details which the well-being of a house really requires, nor that I have memory for these things; more especially is the daily caring for dinner irksome to me. I myself have but little appetite; and it is so unpleasing to me to go to sleep at night, and to get up in the morning with my head full of schemes for cooking. By this means, it happens that sometimes my husband's domestic comforts are not such as he has ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Burr, famous for the duel in which he killed Alexander Hamilton, and now framing wild schemes for an empire in Mexico. Unscrupulous, restlessly active and cynical, he was a singular contrast to the placid philosopher, upon whom his confidences seem to have made an impression of not unpleasing horror. Burr's conversation suggested to Bentham a singular scheme for emigrating to Mexico. He applied seriously for introductions to Lord Holland, who had passed some time in Spain, and to Holland's ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... went up to the lords, and then to the other tables to bid wellcome; and so all to dinner. I sat near Proby, Baron, and Creed at the Merchant Strangers' table; where ten good dishes to a messe, with plenty of wine of all sorts, of which I drunk none; but it was very unpleasing that we had no napkins nor change of trenchers, and drunk out of earthen pitchers and wooden dishes.—[The City plate was probably melted during the Civil War.-M.B.]—It happened that after the lords had half dined, came the French Embassador, up to the lords' table, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... was born in London and educated at Harrow and Caius College, Cambridge. His relations with Pope give him a more prominent position among men of letters than he would otherwise deserve, and mark with unpleasing distinctness the coarse methods of literary warfare adopted in Pope's day. The poet began the attack in his Essay on Criticism. Dennis had written a tragedy called Appius and Virginia, and Pope, who had a grudge against him for not admiring his Pastorals, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... the Latin manus, the hand, and literally means the mode in which a thing is handled—behavior, deportment. Manners may be defined as the pleasing or unpleasing expression of our thoughts and intentions, whether in word or action. We may say or do a thing in an agreeable or a disagreeable way. According as we choose the one or the other, our manners may be said to be good ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... when I come to codify, their rules I mean to modify, Or Mrs. Grundy, p'r'aps, may have a word or two to say: For they hadn't macintoshes or umbrellas or goloshes - And a shower with their dresses must have played the very deuce, And it must have been unpleasing when they caught a fit of sneezing, For, it seems, of pocket-handkerchiefs they didn't know the use. They wore little underclothing - scarcely anything - or no-thing - And their dress of Coan silk was quite transparent in design - Well, in fact, in summer weather, something like ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... youthful in appearance. The face was long and oval, the hair brown, and brushed straight off an exceptionally high forehead. His complexion was very pale or bloodless. He was clean shaven, and his finely cut mouth, with compressed lips, wore something of a sneering smile. His general expression was unpleasing, and from the first my brother felt as by intuition that there was present some malign and wicked influence. His eyes were not visible, as he kept them cast down, resting his head on his hand in the attitude ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... Padre Lluc, meanwhile followed with sweet, quiet eyes, whose silent looks had more persuasion in them than all the innocent cajoleries of the elder man. Padre Doyaguez was a man eminently qualified to deal with the sex in general,—a coaxing voice, a pair of vivacious eyes, whose cunning was not unpleasing, tireless good-humor and perseverance, and a savor of sincerity. Padre Lluc was the sort of man that one recalls in quiet moments with a throb of sympathy,—the earnest eyes, the clear brow, the sonorous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... unpleasing. (Refers to Catalogue.) Oh, I see it says—"It is simply a disagreeable presentment of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... she exclaimed, when she saw the plain, wooden, four-story hotel, the long, unpleasing business street, with its motley collection of frame and brick stores, the gaping stretches of houses, facing in most directions unpaved streets. Aileen in her tailored spick-and-spanness, her self-conscious ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... and girls, or very young men and women, and though their dress was much scantier and less decent than what our ideas of delicacy require, it must be admitted that the general aspect of the procession was far from unpleasing. The clothes and wraps which the men and women wore were of various gay colours, and were, in most cases, embroidered quite skilfully with representations of flowers, fruits, wild beasts, and individuals of grotesque ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... I tell you that I think you have done a very evil work this day, one that is unpleasing to those Powers which rule the world, whoever and whatsoever they may be, one too that will bring upon Egypt sorrows countless as the sand. I believe that these Hebrews whom you unjustly seek to slay worship a god as great or greater than our own, and that they and ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... see what it was. It was being fanned vigorously by several men and was no doubt very holy. A large number of men (Mahometans) followed, shouting loudly when the bells were rung, and some of them chanted a slow but not unpleasing melody. They were praying for rain which is rare in this country, and which is now required for the crops. My boy returned bringing with him to my joy a fore quarter of mutton. Stopped at Shukuroodeen for the evening, the wind being ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... poems on which much praise has been bestowed, is "Lycidas"; of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seek in the sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as the effusion of real passion; for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arthur and Mincius, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... stiff, black satin skull-cap, without which he is never seen. His face is very yellow, his long dark eyes and eyebrows slope upwards towards his temples, he has not the vestige of a beard, and his skin is shiny. He looks thoroughly "well-to-do." He is not unpleasing-looking, but you feel that as a Celestial he looks down upon you. If you ask a question in a merchant's office, or change your gold into satsu, or take your railroad or steamer ticket, or get change in a shop, the inevitable Chinaman ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... unpleasing opinion some people might conceive of Mr. Walpole, on account of those halfpence; I dare boldly affirm, it was entirely owing to Mr. Wood. Many persons of credit, come from England, have affirmed to me, and others, that they have seen ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... ending in a windowless closet and an open cistern. But the Agency gloried in its irregularities, and defied criticism. The original idea of its architect—if there was any—had vanished; but his work remained a not unpleasing variety to summer visitors accustomed to city houses, all built with a definite purpose, ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... either purging, or warming, or adding flesh to the system, is the primary object, and the sweet smell is only a secondary consideration. Again painters mix gay colours and dyes: there are also some drugs which are gay in appearance and not unpleasing in colour. What then is the difference between these? Manifestly we distinguish by the end each aims at. So too the social life of friends employs mirth to add a charm to some good and useful end,[385] and sometimes makes joking and a good table and wine, aye, and even ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... nothing less for the last half-hour. If looking could make a village, I should begin to see one. There, to be sure, is the mission-house, conspicuous enough, quaint and by no means unpleasing. It is a spacious, substantial, two-story edifice, painted in two shades of a peculiar red, and looking for all the world as if a principal house, taken from one of those little German toy-villages ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... religious subjects were treated in contrapuntal fashion. The madrigal differed from this only in dealing with secular subjects. That these old madrigals, with their flowing parts and melodic imitations, are not unpleasing to modern ears, has been often proven. Their progressions are at times strange to us, but on repeated hearing often become imbued ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... extraction. A shock of vivid red hair was the first thing about him that caught the eye. A poet would have described it as Titian. Its proprietor's friends and acquaintances probably called it "carrots." Looking up at Jimmy from under this wealth of crimson was a not unpleasing face. It was not handsome, certainly; but there were suggestions of a latent good-humor. The nose had been broken at one period of its career, and one of the ears was undeniably of the cauliflower type; but these are little ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... that she was easily influenced and guided by those who touched her affections, he saw. But that kind of weakness in a woman—when that woman also possesses the mysterious something, half physical, half spiritual, which gives delight—is never unpleasing to such men as Marsworth, nor indeed to other women. It was Marsworth's odd misfortune that he should have happened to fall in love with a young woman who had practically none of the qualities that he naturally and ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hadn't she envied the girl at his lodgings? "But I," she said, "wanted only to serve you in meekness. The idea of ever being pert to you didn't enter into my head. You show a side of your character as unpleasing as ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of love, past, present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devil cares half so much for the services of a sinner as he does for those of one of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a way to make them unpleasing.—That young girl wants a tender nature to cherish her and give her a chance to put out her leaves,—sunshine, and not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... phrases as arch enemy, arch heretic, arch hypocrite, arch rogue, it acquired a depreciatory sense, which has now become so weakened that archness is not altogether an unpleasing attribute. We may compare the cognate German prefix Erz. Ludwig has, as successive entries, Ertz-dieb, "an arch-thief, an arrant thief," and Ertz-engel, "an arch-angel." The meaning of arrant is almost ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... curiosities, both dressed in masculine habits, and both frightfully ugly. These portraits, it seems, were taken by an amateur, by stealth, as neither of 'The Ladies of Llangollen' would consent to sit, and a lamentable record is it which creates most unpleasing sensations to the lover of the graceful, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... less, scattered through the class last mentioned; yet even from the small number of the latter, they would have deemed them but an inconsiderable subtraction from the merit of the whole work; or, what is sometimes not unpleasing in the publication of a new writer, as serving to ascertain the natural tendency, and consequently the proper direction of the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the world. The fortune of her child, however, had been long a subject of anxiety to her; and though she had determined to do so, the thought of him had affected her mind still more keenly. She had hitherto rarely visited the Court, where he was residing; for her visits might be unpleasing to the feelings of her rival, the other ex-Empress, and prejudicial ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... pronounced.[171]—The two windows by the side of the altar in this chapel have been painted of a crimson color, to add to the effect produced upon entering the church; and, seen as they are, through the long perspective of the nave and the distant arches of the choir, the glowing tint is by no means unpleasing.—The central tower is open within the church to a considerable height: it is supported by four arches of unusual boldness, above which runs a row of small arches, of the same character as the rest of the building; ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... the mocking-bird only as a captive in our houses he has few attractions: a mere loud-voiced echo of the inharmonious sounds man gathers about his home,—car-bells, street cries, and other unpleasing noises,—and choosing for his performances the hours one wants to sleep. Unfortunate is the neighborhood in which one is kept. Such was my feeling about the bird before I knew him in freedom, where he has a song of his own. But in my search for native ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... small pleasure by the lady, heartily glad that the riot of the day was over without the occurrence of any unpleasing accident. The rejoicing was not, however, entirely ended; for the elevated Cavaliers, finding some of the villagers still on foot around a bonfire on the street, struck merrily in with them—sent to Roger Raine of the Peveril Arms, the loyal publican whom we have already ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... carried high on the stronger tones of the elder Sisters, while the three old nuns droned on in a sort of patient, nasal, half-mannish counter-tenor, scarcely pronouncing the words they sang, but making an accompaniment that was not wholly unpleasing. ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... for this foreword with the fear of one who knows that he cannot do justice to his subject, and the trembling of one who would not, for a good deal, set down words unpleasing to the eye of him who wrote Green Mansions, The Purple Land, and all those other books which have meant so much to me. For of all living authors—now that Tolstoi has gone I could least dispense with W. H. Hudson. Why do I love his writing so? I think ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... which proved on examination to be innumerable particles of greenish flames each no larger than a pin's head. Seated in front of the Baphomet, Miss Vaughan apostrophised Lucifer sympathetically on the subject of the unpleasing form in which he was represented by his worshippers, and as she did so the little flames intensified, while floor and ceiling caught fire after the same ghostly incandescent fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast apartment, and, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... steadfastly at Leocadia, and recognising her rather by the tone of her voice than by her face, said with a feeble voice, like one in pain, "Say on, senor, what you please, for I am not so far gone but that I can listen to you; nor is that voice of yours so harsh and unpleasing that I should ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... for the ceremony of dubbing—he had no armour of his own to wake; but, on the very threshold of chivalry, which is the perfection of justice, had unjustly purloined the arms of another knight. That this was a mere mockery of a religious institution, and therefore unpleasing in the sight of Heaven; witness the demons and hobgoblins that were permitted to disturb and ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... beings ... who seem to sleep out their existence ... are now the tenants of THAT MANSION, where once scarcely fewer than one hundred noblemen with their attendants, found comfortable accommodations. A powerful, and yet not unpleasing melancholy, touches the heart ... as one moves leisurely along these speaking proofs of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... on the strange tastes of those who desired for some reason the temporary company of these unfortunate females, so unpleasing to the eye, to the ear, to the mind, to the smell; desired it so much that they would pay money for it. Why? Against that riddle the non-comprehension of her sex beat itself, baffled. She might ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... burned, and the Papists to cut our throats Disorder in the pit by its raining in, from the cupola Down to the Whey house and drank some and eat some curds Eat some butter and radishes Little company there, which made it very unpleasing So time do alter, and do doubtless the like in myself There setting a poor man to keep my place Whom I find in bed, and pretended a little ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... completed her toilet she entered the sitting-room. Mrs. Warren, in her morning deshabille, looked a more unpleasing object than ever. Her hair was in tight curl-papers, and she wore a very loose and very dirty dressing-gown, which was made of a sort of pattern chintz, and gave her the effect of being a huge pyramid ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... interstellar medium of sympathy to convey the idea of those exterior populations to Hyacinth's mind. She knew of the populace, French or English, as of something which was occasionally given to become dangerous and revolutionary, which sometimes starved and sometimes died of the plague, and was always unpleasing to the educated eye. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... ride, and as this leaves to night, I must not write more now; but I intend teasing you with letters every week till you write to me, if you are not well, in the sincere wish to arouse you and draw your thoughts from what may be unpleasing subjects: and if you are idle, to spur you to your ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Le Guast, finding himself foiled in this quarter, applied to the King, who was well inclined to listen to the tale, on account of his dislike to my brother and me, whose friendship for each other was unpleasing to him. ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... tightly over face, after covering eyes with iron goggles and protecting mouth with respirator. Wind woollen muffler round neck and case hands in thick dogskin gloves with gauntlets. Look like Nansen going to discover North Pole. Or Tweedledum about to join battle with Tweedledee. Effect on the whole unpleasing. ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... in general. They by no means shared Knox's ideas of religion, rather regarding him as a penniless unfrocked "Scot runagate," whose alliance was discreditable and distasteful, and might be dangerous. "Maist unpleasing words" passed, and it is no marvel that Knox, being persecuted in one city, fled to another, leaving England for Dieppe early in March ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... he has gravitated is a very unpleasing one. There is paralysis and insensibility of the right side, and, as is often the case in right hemiplegia, the speech is indistinct and difficult. Nevertheless he is constantly haranguing any one who will listen to him, abusing his physicians, or preaching—with a monkey-like ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... or, all at once, roused by some strong impression, or in obedience to some unexplained movement of the vital forces, take up her bed and walk. For her bed had become her home, where she lived as if it belonged to her organism. There she lay, a not unpleasing invalid to contemplate, always looking resigned, patient, serene, except when the one deeper grief was stirred, always arrayed with simple neatness, and surrounded with little tokens that showed the constant presence with her of tasteful and thoughtful affection. She did ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... interesting to notice that in the intermediate field of furniture-design some of the best French productions recall the style of Louis XV., modified by Japanese ideas and spirit. This singular but not unpleasing combination is less surprising when we reflect that the style of Louis XV. was itself a protest against the formalism of the heavy classic architecture of preceding reigns, and achieved its highest successes in the domain of furniture and ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... remaining knee-deep in the kingdom of the nebulous. It must be confessed modern composers have retaliated. Musical impressionism is having its vogue, while poets are desperately pictorial. Soul landscapes and etched sonnets are not unpleasing to the ear. What if they do not mean much? There was a time when to say a "sweet voice" would arouse a smile. What has sugar to do with sound? It may be erratic symbolism, this confusing of terminologies; yet, once in a while, it strikes sparks. There is a deeply rooted feeling in us that ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... of those more important mythical legends which appropriately belong to the Master's degree, it will not, I think, be unpleasing or uninstructive to consider the only one which is attached to the Fellow Craft's degree—that, namely, which refers to the allegorical ascent of the Winding Stairs to the Middle Chamber, and the symbolic payment of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... novel age, defended himself with the haughty truism, then just ceasing to be true, that he had a right to do as he liked with his own. This clear-cut enunciation of a vanishing principle became a sort of landmark, and gave to his name an unpleasing immortality in our political history. In the high tide of agitation for reform the whigs gave the duke a beating, and brought their man to the top of the poll, a tory being his colleague. Handley, the tory, on our present occasion seemed safe, and the fight lay between Mr. Gladstone and Sergeant ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Parmenidis exinde gymnasium, atque Atticam demeasse. And Johannes Sarisburiensis seems to intimate that Parmenides obtained his knowledge from the same quarter, when he mentions [58]"in Rupe vitam egisse. In this short detail we have no unpleasing account of the birth of science in Egypt, and of its progress thence to Attica. It is plain that this Rupes AEgyptiaca could be nothing else but a seminary, either the same, or at least similar to that, which I have before been describing. As the Cunocephali are said to have been ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... gained without sacrifice of lustre: there is a self-restraint in his colouring which corresponds to the reserve of his emotion; and though a regret sometimes rises in our mind that he should have modelled the light and shade upon his faces with a brusque, unpleasing hardness, their pallor dwells within our memory as something delicately sought if not consummately attained. In a word, Borgognone was a true Lombard of the best time. The very imperfection of his flesh-painting ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... far as ever from looking handsome or pretty, but it must have been a dullard who proclaimed her face unpleasing. She had eyes of remarkable intelligence, something like Marcella's but milder, more benevolent. Her lips were softly firm; they would not readily part in laughter; their frequent smile meant more than that of the woman who ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... history, that he was a man of undaunted bravery. In his person he was tall, and rather slight in figure. His features were regular, but there was a sternness in his countenance, and lines of deep thought on his brow, which rendered the expression unpleasing. It was only when he smiled that you would have pronounced him handsome; then he was more than handsome, he ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the foregoing description that Miss Tyler was a young and ardent damsel in her teens; whereas she was considerably nearer forty than thirty, and possessed an uncomely aspect unpleasing to male eyes. Her own were of a cold grey, her lips were thin, her waist pinched in, and—as the natural consequence of tight lacing—her nose was red. Her scanty hair was drawn off her high forehead very tightly, and screwed into a cast-iron knob at the nape ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... it becomes necessary to make a statement about a person that may be unpleasing to him, the writer should give the name of the one making the charge or assertion, or else avoid making a specific charge by inserting it is alleged, it is rumored, it is charged, or some such limiting phrase. Note the following story of the arrest of two shop-girls and how skilfully ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... military force in Italy. He was as little desirous of employing him in public affairs at home, and suffered the remainder of his days to pass away in distant seclusion; a seclusion, however, not unpleasing to himself, nor unprofitable to others. [37] The world called it disgrace; and the old count of Urena exclaimed, "The good ship is stranded at last, as I predicted!" "Not so," said Gonsalvo, to whom the observation was reported; "she is still in excellent trim, and waits ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... not answer me about H.'s book; I want to write to him, and not to say anything unpleasing. If you direct to Post Office, Portsmouth, till called for, I will send and receive your letter. You never told me of the forthcoming critique on 'Columbus' [1] which is not too fair; and I do not think justice quite done ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of that awful year 1348, which saw Europe, and Italy especially, desolated by the direst pestilence which history has recorded, accursed alike by the numbers and the celebrity of its victims, and yet strangely connected with some not unpleasing images by the grace of Boccaccio and the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... is not unpleasing. Blue-stockings, beginners in every walk of life, actresses at the outset or the close of a career, publishers and authors, all make much of these writers of the ready pen. Lousteau, a thorough man about town, lived at scarcely any expense beyond paying his ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing, when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad, smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged gentleman and young lady, on the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... we must take his work in detail. The purely humorous prints commence as early as 1781 ("The Village Doctor," published in June of that year by Humphrey), and are followed up (November 27, same year and publisher) by "Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins," and that unpleasing subject (published by Fores, 1783) of "The Amputation"; but it is in his political cartoons of 1784—such as "Britannia roused, or the Coalition Monster destroyed"—that we begin to recognise the distinctive touch of Thomas ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... into contact. Though not quarrelsome, he had a steady courage that, backed by his great strength, inspired respect and insured good treatment from them. Growing up amid these influences, his features were softened into a civilized expression, and his tawny face was not unpleasing. The heavy under-jaw and square forehead gave him an appearance of hardness which was greatly relieved by the honest look out of his eyes, and the smile which now and then would slowly creep over his face, like the movement of the shadow of a thin cloud on a calm day ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... comedy. Charles, probably, was secretly pleased with a system, which cramped the effusions of the tragic muse, and forbade, as indecorous, those bursts of rapturous enthusiasm, which might sometimes contain matter unpleasing to a royal ear.[5] But the merry monarch saw no good reason why the muse of comedy should be compelled to "dwell in decencies for ever," and did not feel at all degraded when enjoying a gross pleasantry, or profane witticism, in company with the mixed mass of a popular audience. ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... production of his. The hint was taken from Mr. Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, but as it is more general, so it is more pleasing. The Dunciad is so universally read, that we reckon it superfluous to give any further account of it here; and it would be an unpleasing task to trace all the provocations and resentments, which were mutually discovered upon this occasion. Mr. Pope was of opinion, that next to praising good writers, there was a merit in exposing bad ones, though it does not hold infallibly ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... proverbs is equally vulgar in conversation; and puns, unless they rise to the rank of witticisms, are to be scrupulously avoided. A lady-punster is a most unpleasing phenomenon, and we would advise no young woman, however witty she may be, to cultivate this kind of ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... in this world's unpleasing youth Our god-like race began, The longest arm, the sharpest tooth, ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... man, on the footpath, was a young girl of about fifteen years of age, fashionably dressed, with crinoline, mantle, and gloves, and a straw hat trimmed with gaudy feathers, but all old and terribly worn out, who, in a loud and cracked though not altogether unpleasing voice, was singing before a shop in expectation of a couple of kopecks. Raskolnikoff stopped and joined one or two listeners, took out a five-kopeck piece, and gave it to the girl. The latter at once stopped on a very high note which she had just reached, and cried to the man, "Come along," and ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... consciousness that for him death was scores of years away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was all drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, made these speculations not at all unpleasing. He looked at his hand, blanched by the moonlight, lying beside him upon the grass, and thought how like a dead hand it seemed, and what if he could not move it, nor his body, nor could ever rise from the grass, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... preface to Solomon he proposes some improvements, by extending the sense from one couplet to another, with variety of pauses. This he has attempted, but without success; his interrupted lines are unpleasing, and his sense, as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... not unpleasing studies, I caught a momentary glimpse of something, ten yards away to the left, which seemed to be moving slowly against the wind. The volume of flying dust was, of course, far from uniform in density; ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... present himself, to rebuild the old house of "The Three Kings" throughout, according to the plan which they had agreed upon in Bologna. The side of the house that faced the street would not, be hoped, prove unpleasing, as for the arrangement of the interior, that was to be made in accordance with his own taste and needs, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... may come out at last really charming and amiable; the selfishness may soften and eager restless activity find a definite direction for itself. And therefore, as a mother, Charlotte was able to endure the appearance of symptoms which for others might perhaps have been unpleasing, from a sense that where strangers only desire to enjoy, or at least not to have their taste offended, the business of parents is rather ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... there being something unpleasing about him soon left me. He rose, and, with graciousness and the ease and manner of one used to the best society, moved around the table and ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... share in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse involved her opinions of her neighbors, friends, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... of a stranger procured him that general and careless sort of attention which is usually paid on such occasions, from which the following results were deduced:—The guest was one of those who, with a well-made person, and features not in themselves unpleasing, are nevertheless so far from handsome that, whether from the expression of their features, or the tone of their voice, or from their gait and manner, there arises, on the whole, a disinclination to their society. The stranger's address was bold, without ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Stylish; this Suit Complete, only thirty-seven and sixpence!" The landlady glanced out at him with a friendly nod. He turned and smiled at her, but did not see me; for I stood in the shade behind the half-open door. He had a short black moustache and a not unpleasing, careless face. His features, I thought, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Highlands, it unhappily was used as a single belting in exposed places near farm houses and steadings. The consequence, as every one who travels through the Highlands must be painfully conscious of, has been trees shapeless and crooked, giving no shelter, and unpleasing in view. A ludicrous illustration of this may be seen from the Highland Railway between Forres and Dunphail, the larches having grown up zig-zag, according as the several winds happened to prevail. It is well known ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... not just to punish any man without examination, or to censure his conduct merely because it has been unpleasing or unsuccessful; though it is not reasonable that any man should forfeit what he possesses in his own right, without a crime, yet it is just to withdraw favours only to confer them on another more deserving; it is just in any man to withhold his own, only to preserve his right, or obviate an injurious ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... redoubling their efforts, and working almost day and night to effect that object. I lent a hand, and in sailor fashion erected a pulpit, which, as there was no time to carve, I covered with matting and native cloth, which had a novel, though not unpleasing, appearance. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Hardlines at the new office of the Civil Service Examination Board. Alaric had been invited to wait upon the great man, in terms which made him perfectly understand that the communication to be made was one which would not be unpleasing or uncomplimentary to himself. Indeed, he pretty well guessed what was to be said to him. Since his promotion at the Weights and Measures he had gone on rising in estimation as a man of value to the Civil Service at ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... pretty place. "The soil is in general a moist and retentive clay, with a subsoil or pan of an adhesive silicious brick formation; adapted to the growth of wheat, beans, and clover—requiring, however, a summer fallow (as is generally stipulated in the lease) every fourth year, etc." This is not an unpleasing style on agricultural ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... hands gloveless, and high boots spattered with mud and soaked with half-molten snow. There was more of the brigand in his aspect than of the honest man, and yet his drawn, agitated face was well featured and not unpleasing, besides which his wandering eyes suggested fear suffered, and not a likelihood of inspiring fear; unless it should be, as the doctor surmised, that he was mad, and the pursuit he evidently feared were that ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... charms of feature, Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature Which they hit off at once in the beginning, Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... once, that, however wrong I may or may not be in other things, at least I am right in this, that Jesus must be obeyed, and at once obeyed, in the things he did say: it will not long imagine to obey him in things he did not say. If a man do what is unpleasing to Christ, believing it his will, he shall yet gain thereby, for it gives the Lord a hold of him, which he will use; but before he can reach liberty, he must be delivered from that falsehood. For him who does not choose to see that Christ must be obeyed, he must be ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... the man he had really come to see, Carroll was conscious of an instinctive dislike. Lawrence was of medium height, slightly stooped and not unpleasing to the eye. But his brows were inclined to lower and the eyes themselves were set too closely together. He was dressed plainly—almost harshly, and he stared at Carroll in a manner bordering ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... remorse she feels, the vile treatment which she receives from Aegisthus, and the awful perplexity in which she lives ... will be considered sufficiently punished by the spectator. Aegisthus is never able to elevate his soul; ... he will always be an unpleasing, vile, and difficult personage to manage well; a character that brings small praise to the author when made sufferable, and much blame if not made so.... I believe the fourth and fifth acts would produce the highest effect on the stage if well represented. In the fifth, there is a movement, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... might have been a man of high respectability and usefulness; and had his education been suited to his genius, he might have been an ornament and an honor to human nature. It may perhaps, not be unpleasing to see the efforts of a great mind wholly uncultivated, enfeebled and depressed by slavery, and struggling under every disadvantage. The reader may here see a Franklin and a Washington, in a state of nature, or rather, in a state of slavery. Destitute ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith
... curtained for purposes of concealment. Looking out of this peep-hole, the Satanic badger could see a short, thick nose, and by leaning forward a little he could get a glimpse of a broad chin of several stories. Another unpleasing feature was a full set of false teeth, which grinned in a ravenous fashion that was truly disquieting, as if they were capable of devouring the whole internal revenue. Finally, this continent of physiognomy was diversified by ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... who feeds his thoughts upon the segment of the world which surrounds him cannot avoid being an egotist; but then his egotism is not unpleasing. If he be without taint of boastfulness, of self-sufficiency, of hungry vanity, the world will not press the charge home. If a man discourses continually of his wines, his plate, his titled acquaintances, the ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... chapel are very bright and gaudy, contrasting unfavourably with the older tiles elsewhere in the building. The arrangement of the tiles on the risers of the steps is very monotonous and unpleasing. Plain stone steps would have been far ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... possesses all the solemnity of feeling attached to a burial-ground, without exciting those of a more unpleasing description. Having been very little used for many years, the few hillocks which rise above the level plain are covered with the same short velvet turf. The monuments, of which there are not above seven or eight, are half sunk in the ground, and overgrown ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... two great harvests of herring and mackerel held out, he was at other times indolent, lazy and careless of the fact that his numerous progeny burdened the rates. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 580—Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 31 Dec. 1804.] These unpleasing circumstances having been duly reported to the Admiralty, their Lordships decided that what the Brighton fisherman required to correct his lax principles and stiffen his backbone was a good hot press. They accordingly issued orders for an early raid ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Helpston Heath, called Lea Close Oak—now ruthlessly cut down by 'enclosure' progress—where he had formed himself a seat with something like a table in front. Few human beings ever came near this place, except now and then some wandering gypsies, the sight of whom was not unpleasing to the poet. Inside this old oak Clare used to sit in silent meditation, for many hours together, forgetting everything about him, and unmindful even of the waning day and the mantle of darkness falling over the earth. Having prepared his ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... complexioned wife, who smiled all over her face and indulged in a merry laugh so easily. And John (Orvis) was there—surnamed "the Almighty"— for certain eyes projected their glances on him, which was not unpleasing to his senses. And Chiswell, the man who desired to be chief of the Amusement Group, was there, of course; and Miss Ripley, "her perpendicular Majesty," came to look on because she enjoyed doing so; and the "Mistress of the Revels" (Miss Russell) ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... anxious, not without reason, to have some additional support in the family. Her influence, from this time, appears to have remained unshaken; though her extravagance and incurable habit of contracting debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between her and the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... his wand. Some sixty of these were performing on a variety of wind and string instruments more or less remotely suggestive of those known to civilised nations, while the remainder chanted to their accompaniment a quaint but by no means unpleasing melody, the air of which was quite distinctly suggestive of rejoicing. The words of the song—or hymn, rather—were Quichua, and Escombe was therefore unable to gather the sense of them. In the midst of the priests ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the place grew more and more unpleasing to Philip. But he went on. It seemed more reasonable than ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... your advice, and cut down this tree. Daily experience convinces us, that the same thing happens frequently in the commerce of this world, which has in this instance misled you. When we see a child badly clothed, and of an unpleasing external appearance, we are too apt to despise him, and grow conceited on comparing ourselves with him; and sometimes even go so far as cruelly to address him in haughty and insulting language. But beware, ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... of obtaining these, however, seemed each day to diminish. The favour with which the Count regarded him had lasted but during the first days of their acquaintance, and had since been materially impaired by the discovery of various unpleasing traits in Don Baltasar's character, and particularly by his endeavours to urge the death of Herrera in opposition to the wishes of his kinsman. Moreover, there could be little sympathy or durable friendship between men of such opposite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... there was one of you ladies in the room that did not think so too; but yet the matter was all passed over with smiles, and with not a single insinuation that he had said any thing unpleasing ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... painters cannot catch like faces sinning Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature Which they hit off at once in the beginning, Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, And pleasing, or unpleasing, still ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... cylinders a roundish appearance. They form a pretty, rather picturesque feature in the otherwise barren undergrowth of shrubbery and small trees. Accompanied by a few flowering cocoa palms, the view is not unpleasing. The fiber of these plants is utilized in some coarse manufactures. The maguey, or Agave, is used in the manufacture of fine roping. Manila hemp is made from a species. The species whose dried stalks are used ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... of the people; most of his earlier compositions were political, extolling the greatness of the fallen empire or bewailing the low state of France under the restored dynasty. They were received with enthusiasm and sung from one end of the country to the other. His later songs exhibit a not unpleasing change from the audacious and too often licentious tone of his earlier days. In the hands of Lamartine the language, softened and harmonized, loses that clear epigrammatic expression which, before him, had appeared ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... men were asleep, but though our eyes ached with the long vigil we could not have copied them. About three hours after daylight we breakfasted off slices of hot boiled hippo tongue and cold lake water, without salt or condiments of any kind, and with discontent increased by that unpleasing feast we aroused the boys and drove them ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... current rumour of the neighbourhood, Else I should ne'er have dar'd to wound your ear; But friendship urges the unpleasing task— You tell me, you sleep ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... reason. I must acknowledge, that, as the hour approached for punishment, I was apt to be troubled in mind, similarly to a patient about to undergo a disagreeable operation; but no sooner had I opened Lempriere's classical dictionary, than every unpleasing anticipation was dissolved, and I became totally unconscious of vulgar realities, and absorbed in its ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... discourse on the Inequality of Mankind, which I had procured to be printed in Holland, by the bookseller Rey, with whom I had just become acquainted at Geneva. This work was dedicated to the republic; but as the publication might be unpleasing to the council, I wished to wait until it had taken its effect at Geneva before I returned thither. This effect was not favorable to me; and the dedication, which the most pure patriotism had dictated, created me enemies ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... his attire, and a certain not unpleasing rusticity of air, Sir Francis comprehended at once that he was fresh from the country; but he also felt satisfied, from his bearing and deportment, that he was a gentleman: a term not quite so vaguely applied then, as it is now-a-days. The youth had a fine frank countenance, remarkable ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... which added not a little to the brilliancy of their appearance; while the gay tinkle of the leader's bell, mingling with those shrill and peculiar exclamations with which Spanish muleteers are in the habit of urging on their animals, made a not unpleasing medley of sounds. But the creamiest part of the whole affair was—I must confess it, unromantic as it may seem—when the twenty-five or thirty pretty creatures were collected into the small space between our cabin and the Humboldt. Such a gathering together of ham-and-mackerel-fed ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... city go off with all the precious things they can snatch up, huddled into clothes-bags and pillow-cases. I am reminded, too, of Mr. Galton's composite portraits; a thousand glimpses, as one passes through the long halls lined with paintings, all blending in one not unpleasing general effect, out of which emerges from time to time ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... may easily happen that if the wife of the spring captures any prey, her former mate will struggle fiercely for its possession, and the screaming clamor of the fight will rival a conjugal quarrel in the Bowery. In this respect they form an unpleasing contrast with the red-shouldered hawks, among whom marriage is permanent, and maintained with lover-like attentions. Thus it would appear that there are contrasts of character even in the hawk world; and when you remember ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe |
