"Unpromising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The marriage, unpromising as it appeared at the outset, proved an exceptionally happy one. Sir Charles was a straightforward, worthy, if somewhat dull gentleman, with no ambition, a nervous distaste for society, and a natural indolence of temperament. To his wife he gave the unstinted sympathy and admiration that her ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... the Village! It is something pathetic and yet triumphant, pitiful and also splendid. It is joyous life and growth hoping in the most unpromising surroundings: it is eager and gallant hope exulting in the very teeth of defeat. Do you ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... in smoke will end in some thousands of pounds and commencing business again on fresh capital. Come, I've not got time to waste with you. There's no escape for you, so you'd better say yes, else I'll go and have a talk with a legal friend of mine who is used to screwing gold out of most unpromising mines." ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the faculty of imitation, which is only talent." Substitute the word "artist" for the word "actor," and the remark will apply with equal felicity to the subject of our present chapter. It was this same gift of genius which, whilst it enabled the artist to lend a sentient expression to such unpromising subjects as a barrel, a wig-block, a jug of beer, a pair of bellows, or an oyster, imparted to his drawings a piquancy which has elevated these apparently insignificant designs into perfectly sterling works of art. The reader who is fortunate enough ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... puerperal uterus." He suggests the removal of the whole womb after the Cesarian section, in order that the smaller might take place of the larger and more formidable wound through the uterus—but says expressly, "No operation perhaps can be more unpromising, shall I say more unjustifiable, in the present state of our knowledge; but I thought it proper to mention it." ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... in prose, half in blank verse," will prove itself to be; but it is to be hoped with The Promise of May still fresh in the memory of many a playgoer, that the forthcoming effort may not, after all, turn out to merit the unpromising title of The Disappointment ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... her love of dangerous ground, her airy scorn of conventions, she had a knack of compelling some measure of uprightness, even from so unpromising a subject as James Garth. Thus, bone-bred gossip though he was, his silence in respect of her astounding revelation was assured. Her words, "I trust you, as a gentleman," had quickened that good grain in him, which is the saving grace of us all. Also the knowledge itself hurt him more ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... or humane receives the name of Christian; and the question which many are asking is how little it is necessary for one who claims the Christian name to believe and profess. Even this question may, indeed, in some cases indicate a state of mind far from unpromising, which requires the utmost pastoral sympathy and skill; but, if we wish to know what Christianity is in its power, we must not live in this unhealthy region, but find a Christianity in which the distinctively Christian element is not a minimum but a maximum. Such was St. Paul's Christianity. ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... Huguenot fashion. A close white cap, tied under her chin, set off to the worst advantage her sharp, yet kindly, features. Not an end of ribbon or edge of lace could be seen to point to one hair-breadth of indulgence in the vanities of the world by this strict old Puritan, who, under this unpromising exterior, possessed the kindliest heart in Christendom. Her dress, if of rigid severity, was of saintly purity, and almost pained the eye with its precision and neatness. So fond are we of some freedom from over-much care as from over-much righteousness, that a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... cowed and sullen, gliding past one furtively and swiftly, as if afraid; in language and life they were untruthful and filthy. The women, who wore no clothing save a small piece of native cloth made of palm fibre, were mere beasts of burden. All the young people went naked. Most unpromising material they seemed. Yet they never ceased to draw out the sympathy and hope of the White Mother of Okoyong; there was no people, she believed, who could not ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... to promote that element in the general culture of the student body which comes from literature, ancient and modern, gained especial strength from a source usually unpromising—the mathematical department. Two professors highly gifted in this field exercised a wide and ennobling influence outside it. First of these was Evan William Evans, who had been known to me at Yale as not only one of the best scholars in the class of 1851, but also one ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... was rather poor for other reasons, and Mr. Babcock, like my father, objected to paying board bills. His attitude was so unpromising that Burton and I cast about to see how we could lessen the expense of upkeep during ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... other than a little ugly negro man, who had often worked in our garden, and who was usually employed to do the roughest and dirtiest work in the neighborhood. His crooked figure, his bandy legs, and little ape-like head, had always led me to regard him as the most unpromising specimen of his race that I had ever beheld; but from that time forth I regarded him with respect. The poor crooked form, distorted by hard toil, contained a heart, and the little ape-like head a brain, to help his outcast brethren in the hour ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... men might have been deterred by the unpromising results of that exploration. Descending gingerly through the hole, which had been widened sufficiently to allow of the passage, Percy switched his torch around the cavity he found himself in. Above his head long rounded timbers, side by side and touching ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... their heads at the mention of strikes, regarding them as calculated rather to hinder than help the emancipation of labor. Bred as I was in these prejudices, it may not seem strange that I was taken aback at finding such unpromising subjects selected for the highest place in ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... time for the writing of another tragedy, the Death of SOCRATES would have been the story. And, however unpromising that subject may appear; it would be presumptuous to censure his choice, who was so famous for raising the noblest plants from the most barren soil. It serves to shew that he thought the whole labour of such a Performance unworthy to be thrown away upon those Intrigues and Adventures, to which ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... gentlemen held out their lights towards it, and each of them thought, "I am glad my brother does not know that the cask is nearly empty;" for it returned a most unpromising sound when it was struck, and the patch of moisture beneath it showed that it had evidently ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Avery Stone, President Davison, and others. They had all already heard rumors of disaster when he arrived. They were not sure what the morrow would bring forth. It looked very unpromising. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... flowers, redolent only of musk, neither disproved for Carl the validity of his ideal nor for our minds the vocation of Carl himself in these matters. In art, as in all other things of the mind, again, much depends on the receiver; and the higher informing capacity, if it exist within, will mould an unpromising matter to itself, will realise itself by selection, and the preference of the better in what is bad or indifferent, asserting its prerogative under the most unlikely conditions. People had in Carl, could they have understood it, the spectacle, under ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... Mask. The so-called tradition collected by Oldys, of the young Egertons, who acted in Comus, having lost themselves in Haywood Forest on their way to Ludlow, obviously grew out of Milton's poem. However casual the suggestion, or unpromising the occasion, Milton worked out of it a strain of poetry such as had never been heard in England before. If any reader wishes to realise the immense step upon what had gone before him, which was now made by a young man of twenty-seven, he should ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... job." And into the bag went the terrapin, and two plump fish, but slightly mutilated. Before he had gone many yards, back came the sailing wings, and the birds settled again before his eyes. The rest of the low wood was but thin, and he soon emerged upon the open country; but it was most unpromising; and fitter for geese than men. A vast sedgy swamp with water in the middle, thin fringes of great fern-trees, and here and there a disconsolate tree like a weeping-willow, and at the end of this lake and swamp, which all together formed ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... one of her suitors, who had brought her perhaps more glory than any other. She was impatient to be rid of him. Like her mother Earth, having occupied her time for lo! these several years in the building of an ideal from such unpromising materials as were then at hand, she was ready to sweep those tentative makings—confessed failures now that she found the type she really wanted—swiftly, ruthlessly to ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... made while Morton was taking a survey of the unpromising apartment. It had apparently been used as a barrack by the French when, not long ago, they occupied the village, and very little trouble had since been taken to clean it out. Morton asked the girl if his ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... notwithstanding the most evident marks of treachery in his conduct, and the positive testimony of our friends the priests, he should still be permitted to carry on the same farce, and to make us at least appear to be the dupes of his hypocrisy. Indeed our situation was become extremely awkward and unpromising; none of the purposes for which this pacific course of proceeding had been adopted, having hitherto been in the least forwarded by it. No satisfactory answer whatever had been given to our demands; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... roads which entered it were mere wood-ways, filled with bushes and carpeted with pine-tags; and, being travelled only by the inhabitants, appeared to outsiders "to jes' peter out," as the phrase went. This territory was known by the unpromising name of Holetown. ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... current which led it slowly toward the island, and Yulee was in ecstacies as they neared the shore. She sat in the bows of the boat looking eagerly toward the island and trying to make out a good place for a cave. But the land looked rather unpromising; it was low, rising but little above the water, and covered with grass, a few low bushes and one clump of trees. The boat did not seem able to get much nearer the island, after it was within a few yards of it, and even appeared to be ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... part was a sandstone of a reddish hue, and in a state of decomposition. A wiry grass and the never-failing eucalyptus were sparingly scattered over the face of the country, which round the entrance had a most unpromising and dreary appearance, showing at a glance ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... then, with the exception of two months at the village school, was the limit of young Edison's education—to use the conventional term. The world was now to take him in hand, and show what it could do with material so unpromising. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Though he had not so far to come for a short vacation as the McComas young men, he spent the short vacations at the school. He was at an awkward age, and Raymond, who could see him with eyes not unduly clouded by affection, felt him to be an unpromising cub. He was no adornment for any house, and no satisfying companion for his father. So he passed the ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... were a most unpromising little crowd. Waifs, snatched probably from some New York whirlpool of iniquity, and wearing the brute mark on their faces, which nothing in this school of their transplanting tended to erase—a sodden little party, ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... deep in my heart—deeper than words had ever sunk before into that somewhat unpromising soil; and although she had purposely left me in the dark with regard to many important matters, I now resolved to win her esteem, and bind her yet more closely to me by correcting those faults in my character she had pointed out with ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... their action, he became a determined advocate of its adoption. In the Virginia convention, which was called to act upon that question, the prospects of a favorable decision seemed at first to be most unpromising. Among those who opposed ratification we find the names of Henry, Mason, Grayson, and Monroe, names which sufficiently attest that the opposition was one, not of mere faction or obstruction, but of principle and patriotic feeling. Henry, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... States were regaled by an "Infant Drummer." This lad, Harry W. Stowman, at the age of seven or eight, was a proficient on the drum. He was seen by this editor, executing solos of great difficulty, and accompanying the orchestra with variations on his unpromising instrument, which musicians praised and in which he avoided monotony with precocious talent. Grown up, still a rare drummer, he was attached to the Germantown Hospital as post drummer. At the first inauguration he was with the band and noticed by the President. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... artillery. Shortly after this, having got into some scrape from his violent and turbulent disposition, he was put under arrest; and it was even proposed that he should be tried and executed (a necessary consequence of a trial at that period). His situation at this time was extremely unpromising; Robespierre and his accomplices, Daunton, St Juste, Barrere, &c. were all either put to death or forced to conceal themselves. Bonaparte now perceived, that for the accomplishment of his views, it was necessary ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... and mind. Things went on smoothly and satisfactorily until about Christmas, when he took a violent cold, on a wet day, which fell upon his lungs, and soon brought him to a very weak state. From this, his recovery was so slow, and his prospect of health so unpromising, that he found it a matter of necessity to decline his situation, which was retained for him as long as the office ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... was past, and at the end of an hour they were able to trek on over the blackened plain, till they reached the first pool, where, unpromising as everything was, they were glad to outspan and rest for a few hours before once more ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... their own interests to continue the war, whether we pay them or not for doing so. By subsidizing Austria, we acquire no greater force than that of the last campaign, and we put the justification of that enormous expense upon the unpromising chance of a vigour and energy on their part such as they appear to be altogether incapable of exerting, unless under the pressure of such a danger as would force them to act without hiring them to ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... looked in vain for the brigantine and the rich and populous country promised them. They were still in a dense forest region, as unpromising as that they had left. As for Orellana and his companions, it was naturally supposed that they had perished by famine or by the hands of the ferocious natives. But they learned differently at length, when a half-starved and half-naked white man emerged from the forest, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... e'er a fancy for it. Sure it's fitter for you than the likes of me, that 'ud look a quare old scarecrow if I offered to go about in such a thing." She had not at first intended this generosity, her worldly goods being so few that she could not lightly part with even a very unpromising possession. ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... as he sat behind the old desk in Chase Hall and watched us file in, year after year! Callow, juvenile, ignorant, and cocksure—grotesquely confident of our own manly fulness of worldly savoir—an absurd rabble of youths, miserable flint-heads indeed for such a steel! We were the most unpromising of all material for the scholar's eye; comfortable, untroubled middle-class lads most of us, to whom study was neither a privilege nor a passion, but only a sober and decent way of growing ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... A more unpromising place for a well could not have been selected in all his extensive grounds; but he was not a man to be patiently baffled even by Nature herself, and he stood looking with grim satisfaction at the hole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Mr Pearce, the master, is the next to be introduced to the reader: in external appearance, a rough, hard-headed north-countryman; but, with an unpromising exterior, he was a man with sense and feeling. He had every requisite for his situation: his nerves were like a chain-cable; he was correct and zealous in his duty; and a great favourite of the captain's, who was his countryman. He was about fifty years of age, a married ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the likeness, or in the neighbourhood through which I pass on my way to work, has suggested the necessary association, or has started the right train of recollections, and then the story appeared to begin of its own accord. Occasionally the most casual notice, on my part, of some very unpromising object has smoothed the way for the relation of a long and interesting narrative. I first heard one of the most dramatic stories merely through being carelessly inquisitive to know the history ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... drew out the address of her lover, and without hesitation I gave the address to the chauffeur. In a few minutes we were there. Leaving the young woman in the car with the poor woman, I got out and surveyed the house. It was unpromising. Evidently all the family but the young man were away for the summer, and the doors and windows were all boarded up. There was not a bell to ring. I pounded on the boards that covered the door, but it was unavailing. The young woman called to me that the young man lived in the ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... weakening after Lionel's return from St. Helen's with the only "slavey" attainable, in the shape of an untidy, middle-aged Irish woman, with red hair, and a hot little spark of temper glowing in either eye. Putting this unpromising female in possession of the fresh, clean kitchen of the cabin was a trial, but it had to be done; and the young mistress, with all the ardor of inexperience, bent herself to the task of reformation and improvement, and teaching Katty ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... direction but the right one. We saw its resemblance to this portwine-bottle-glass in an odd way at the Ojo de Agua, where the wall of the hacienda was armed at the top, after our English fashion, apparently with bits of old bottles, but which turned out to be chips of obsidian. Out of this rather unpromising stuff the Mexicans made knives, razors, arrow- and spear-heads, and other things, some of great beauty. I say nothing of the polished obsidian mirrors and ornaments, nor even of the curious masks of the ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... gracious promise of provision. "He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd." He knows the fields where my soul will be best nourished in holiness. I am sometimes amazed at His choice. He takes me into an apparent wilderness, but I find rich herbage on the unpromising plain. And so I would rest in His choice even when it seems adverse ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... experiments made through dire necessity by the savages of every land, with the results handed down by tradition, the nutritious, stimulating, and medicinal properties of the most unpromising plants were probably first discovered. It appears, for instance, at first an inexplicable fact that untutored man, in three distant quarters of the world, should have discovered amongst a host of native plants that ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... said, no portion of the American Continent so abundantly supplied with water communication as Nova Scotia. The whole interior is a continuous chain of lakes. The coast is rocky and most unpromising, but the interior is said to contain some of the best farming land east of Illinois. Hon. Albert Pillsbury, the American Consul, who is thoroughly conversant with the resources of the Province, declares it, in his opinion, the richest portion ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... last—the inn—with its bunch of holly for a sign. It looked a forlorn place, for travellers did not usually stop over night in this small, unimportant village; but the comedians were not in a mood to be fastidious, and would have been thankful for even a more unpromising house of entertainment than this one. It was all shut up for the night, with not a sign of life to be seen, so the tyrant applied himself diligently to pounding on the door with his big fists, until the sound of footsteps within, descending ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... scathing cold of the night. For the weather had in the meantime changed. Upon the cessation of the rain, a strict frost had succeeded. The moon, being young, was already near the zenith when we started, glittered everywhere on sheets of ice, and sparkled in ten thousand icicles. A more unpromising night for a journey it was hard to conceive. But in the course of the afternoon the horses had been well roughed; and King (for such was the name of the shock-headed lad) was very positive that he could drive us without misadventure. He was as good as his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long, that there was a heart beneath that dirty uniform, a soft kernel inside of the rude, unpromising husk. His family were on the car; and as he sat in a lounging attitude, conversing with his comrade (they had both been discharged, I heard them say, from the '6th New York'), a little girl came staggering along the passage way, holding ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... only dissipations he permitted himself to indulge. What a strange life of privation, thought I, alone and companionless as he must be! and while speculating on the sense of duty which impelled such a man to accept a post so humble and unpromising, I perceived that on the wall right opposite to me there hung a picture, covered by a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... vicinity appeared rather unpromising. The cliffs offered no ledge upon which they might have climbed out of reach of the rogue, the jungle might have afforded them a temporary shelter; but although it had concealed the elephant from their eyes, it ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... would starve. Still more in favor are goats Their coarse hair has a thousand uses. Their flesh and cheese are among the most staple articles in the Agora. Sure-footed and adventurous, they scale the side of the most unpromising crags in search of herbage and can sometimes be seen perching, almost like birds, in what seem utterly inaccessible eyries. Thanks to them the barren highlands of Attica are turned to good account,—and ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... assure his support, and leave him free to follow his fitful literary inclinations. Yet he seems to have been mainly intent upon society and the amusements of the passing hour, and, without the spur of necessity to his literary capacity, he yielded to the temptations of indolence, and settled into the unpromising position of a "man about town." Occasionally, the business of his firm and that of other importing merchants being imperiled by some threatened action of Congress, Irving was sent to Washington to look after their interests. The leisurely progress ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... obtain no better refreshment than a little bread and whisky. He felt the utmost anxiety regarding his men, among whom the pangs of hunger, upon bodies exhausted by fatigue, must have been working effects most unpromising to his success; and he gave orders, before seeking any repose, that the whole country should now be mercilessly ransacked for the means of refreshment. His orders were not without effect. Considerable supplies were procured, and subjected to the cook's art at Inverness; but the ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... as will be at once apparent, was sufficiently unpromising, but the French envoy was in a position of such responsibility that he dared not suffer himself to be discouraged; nor had he been long in England ere he became painfully convinced that the petulance and want of self-control ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... carried late at night to a mill in which the King had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful; but he owed his success to dispositions which others had made, and to the valor of men who had fought while he was flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of the greatest ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unpromising conditions, Jeremiah was filled with new hope for his land and people. He believed that now they would understand his position regarding them and the meaning of his ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... After this unpromising fashion did the conference begin. It was in progress at noon—and Hiram remained to dinner. Breaking bread with a friend has a consolatory effect—that cannot be denied. When they were smoking after dinner, the first ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... unpromising adjuncts of a ragged population of ingenious rascals who were out of employment eight months in the year because there was little for them to borrow and less to confiscate, and a waste of barren hills and weed-grown deserts, went begging for a good while. It was offered to one of Victoria's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mostly surrounded by very poor land, and water was scarce.[82] The governor, accordingly, went in person to examine the two neighbouring harbours of Port Jackson and Broken Bay, and upon drawing near to the entrance of the former the coast looked as unpromising as elsewhere, and the natives on shore continued shouting, "Warra, warra,"—Go away, go away. Captain Cooke, passing by the heads of Port Jackson, thought there might be found shelter within for a boat but Captain Phillip was agreeably surprised at finding ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... with the distinctive peculiarities of Spanish-American architecture, nothing, at first, is more surprising than the contrast between the gloomy and unpromising exterior of a Cuban residence and the luxury and architectural beauty which one often finds hidden behind its grated windows and thick stuccoed walls. It is more surprising and striking in Santiago, perhaps, than in most Spanish-American cities, on account ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... I seated myself on a low couch in the farther corner of the room. I felt quite cool, but I must admit that the situation was beginning to strike me as a little unpromising. Unless Latimer turned up precious soon it seemed highly probable that he would be too late. Considering the importance of getting me safely to Germany, neither von Bruenig nor McMurtrie was likely to stay a minute ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... generally is, the most disagreeable of creatures; but some ladies have the tact to make good servants out of most unpromising materials. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... achievement is measured by the uniqueness of the poet's invention. Thus, it is not merely the poet's choice of a sublime subject that is important, but also the excellence with which he treats an unpromising subject. Ogilvie's criteria demand not merely a celerity of imagining, or a facility for the sublime, but a degree of innovativeness ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... had any good reason for becoming a town, seems already at that time to have entered on the road to rapid decay. Offutt's speculations had failed, and he had disappeared. The brothers Herndon, who had opened a new store, found business dull and unpromising. Becoming tired of their undertaking, they offered to sell out to Lincoln and Berry on credit, and took their promissory notes in payment. The new partners, in that excess of hope which usually attends all new ventures, also bought two other ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... to the far West is constant and large. Almost every city, town or village suffers annually by the departure of some of its adventurous inhabitants. Companies have been formed to go and possess the Oregon territory—an enterprise hazardous and unpromising in the extreme. The old States are distributing their population over the whole continent, with unexampled fruitfulness and liberality. But why this restless, roving, unsatisfied disposition? Is it because those who ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... Moonna Jan was a boy of ungovernable temper, and the worst possible dispositions; and that he must soon have forfeited the crown by his cruelty, bigotry, and injustice, had he been placed upon it by the British Government. I saw him in January 1838, at Chunar, and a more unpromising boy I have ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... girls bloom fast! How old they make us feel! Who would have supposed the most unpromising of little buds would have transformed itself so soon into what he gazed upon? Marien, as an artist, had great pleasure in studying the delicate outline of that graceful head surmounted by thick tresses, with rebellious ringlets rippling over the brow before they ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... ripe expression of an experiment faithfully and successfully carried out by a man of resolute will and great practical ability for more than a quarter of a century in a field which, when he entered upon it, was certainly one of the most unpromising in ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... a self-starter in the motordrome of love. He needed cranking. He was that most unpromising of matrimonial material, a shy man with a cautious disposition. If he overcame his shyness, caution applied the foot-brake. If he succeeded in forgetting caution, shyness shut off the gas. At Reigelheimer's some ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... she's so sweet and self-denying, if you've known her such a short time?" asked Aunt Izzie, in an unpromising tone. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... at Rome during this period were very unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At the head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and separated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of immeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... have been unpromising material from the military point of view. That was evidently the opinion of my own platoon sergeant. I remember, word for word, his address of welcome, one of soldier-like brevity and pointedness, delivered while we stood awkwardly at attention on ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... broken up this unpromising tete-a-tete and settled Reginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers, I wandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at the point where they had been interrupted. ...
— Reginald • Saki
... unpromising shell, Mr. Zeb Meader was a human being, and no mean judge of men and motives. As his convalescence progressed, Austen Vane fell into the habit of dropping in from time to time to chat with him, and gradually was rewarded by many vivid character sketches of Mr. Meader's neighbours ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... desolate homes, their sorrowing parents, their unpromising future were forgotten in the excitement of the scenes about them, and it required at times the rough command and brutal push of the soldier behind them to recall them to the misery of the moment. This soldier, a fine-looking, sturdy fellow, appeared as much interested in the animated scene ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... home. It was his own sonorous voice which answered Gilbert's knock, bidding him enter with a muttered curse upon the interruption by way of addendum. The room into which Mr. Fenton went upon receiving this unpromising invitation was in a state of chaotic confusion. An open portmanteau sprawled upon the floor, and a whole wardrobe of masculine garments seemed to have been shot at random on to the chairs near it; a dozen soda-water bottles, full and empty, were huddled in one corner; ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... things that you would otherwise find difficult to endure, many duties otherwise too hard to fulfil; for there is poetry in every thing that is really good and true. Happy those practical students of its beauties who have learned to track the ore beneath the most unpromising surfaces! Poetry, I look upon, in fact, as the most essential, the most vital part of the cultivation of your mind, as from its spirit your character will receive the most beneficial influence: you must learn the double lesson of extracting it from every thing, and of throwing it around every thing; ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... a very unpromising pupil," returned Cecilia, "for I fear I should not only want diligence to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... regiment could defend them against an army. And yet, in two years' fighting the Italians have advanced and have astonished the world by their exploits in campaigning above the line of perpetual snow and among crags as unpromising as church steeples. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... young man at length arrived before the house which had been pointed out to him as the object of his destination. It was a small low building, one story above the ground, with even a more desolate and unpromising exterior than any he had yet passed. An old yellow curtain was closely drawn across the window up-stairs, and the parlour shutters were closed, but not fastened. The house was detached from any ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... from strong before this event, completely broke down, and she had never fully recovered. The seeds of consumption, which had probably been implanted in her before her birth, had rapidly developed themselves under the unpromising regimen to which she had been subjected, and it was apparent that she had not long to live. She was unable to afford proper nourishment to her child, which languished from day to day, and the only strong desire left to her was that she might survive ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... wake things up. Past the forty yards again she went, throwing tackles and full back at every point in the Tiger's line for short gains, and showing no preference. But, all said, it was slow work and unpromising with the score board announcing five minutes to play. The Yale supporters, however, found cause for rejoicing, and cheered gloriously until there was a fumble and the Blue lost four yards on the ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... mint, and lavender, and mignonette, sprout in the crevices where snakes and lizards harbour. The grass around is gemmed with blue pimpernel and convolvulus. Gladiolus springs amid the young corn-blades beneath the almond-trees; while a beautiful little iris makes the most unpromising dry places brilliant with its delicate greys and blues. In cooler and damper hollows, around the boles of old olives and under ruined arches, flourishes the tender acanthus, and the road-sides are ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... is no difficulty in the matter. Whatever be our personal infirmities, He whom we serve can overrule or supersede them. An act of duty must always be right; and will be accepted, whatever be its success, because done in obedience to His will. And he can bless the most unpromising circumstances; He can even lead us forward by means of our mistakes; He can turn our mistakes into a revelation; He can convert us, if He will, through the very obstinacy, or self-will, or superstition, which mixes itself up with our better feelings, and defiles, yet is sanctified by ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... of the languor of the six weeks spent in the steaming heat of the river. The first breeze would blow that away. Now the calm was complete. I judged that the second officer—a callow youth with an unpromising face—was not, to put it mildly, of that invaluable stuff from which a commander's right hand is made. But I was glad to catch along the main deck a few smiles on those seamen's faces at which I had hardly had time ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... for the arrival of the steamer at Bombay, speculating upon the chances of finding friends able to receive us. As we drew nearer and nearer, the recollection of the good hotels which had opened their hospitable doors for us in the most unpromising places, caused us to lament over the absence of similar establishments at the scene of our destination. Bombay has been aptly denominated the landing-place of India; numbers of persons who have no ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... though the weather was not cold, the evenings always seemed damp and chilly in that great room; and Legree, moreover, wanted a place to light his cigars, and heat his water for punch. The ruddy glare of the charcoal displayed the confused and unpromising aspect of the room,—saddles, bridles, several sorts of harness, riding-whips, overcoats, and various articles of clothing, scattered up and down the room in confused variety; and the dogs, of whom we have before spoken, had encamped themselves ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... with you; for we find that after you have exercised your force against us for upwards of three years, we are now upon the point of establishing our liberties in direct opposition to it. Neither can we conceive that, after the experiment you have made, any nation in Europe will embark in so unpromising a scheme as the subjugation of America. It is not necessary that everybody should play the Quixote. One is enough to entertain a generation at least. Your Excellencies will, I hope, excuse me when I differ from you as to our having a religion in common with you; the religion of America ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... where he himself was concerned, there had been no lack of eloquence on Bill's part. In the brief period in which he had known him, Bill had talked all the time and always on the one topic. As unpromising a subject as the tariff laws was easily diverted by him into a discussion of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... there is little chance for reforming them. They have no principle to which to appeal. The gratification of lust so degrades the soul and benumbs the higher sensibilities that a votary of voluptuousness is a most unpromising subject for reformatory efforts. The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is strikingly exemplified in this case. The remedy must be applied before the depths have been reached. It was well said by a celebrated physician to a young man beginning ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... was like the stillness of death, they went up the hillside, with footsteps muffled in the clinging snow; and sixty feet above the great river, in a part of the wood where the timber was least unpromising, they marked out a site for their ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... a loud and oratorical tone, often stopping, recasting a sentence, striking out and filling in, hospitable to every suggestion, not in the least disturbed by interruption, holding on stoutly to his purpose, and producing finally, out of these most unpromising conditions, a clear and logical statement, which he could not improve with solitude and leisure at ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... undertaken the unpromising task of moderating desire, exert all the power of their eloquence, to shew that happiness is not the lot of man, and have, by many arguments and examples, proved the instability of every condition by which envy or ambition are excited. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... The prospect looked rather unpromising. Judson Parker and his sister were the only Parkers in Avonlea, so that no leverage could be exerted by family connections. Martha Parker was a lady of all too certain age who disapproved of young people in general and the Improvers ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... disconcert; dash one's hopes, crush one's hopes, destroy one's hopes; hope against hope. abandon; resign, surrender, submit &c. 725. Adj. hopeless, desperate, despairing, gone, in despair, au desespoir[Fr], forlorn, desolate; inconsolable &c. (dejected) 837; broken hearted. unpromising, unpropitious; inauspicious, ill-omened, threatening, clouded over. out of the question, not to be thought of; impracticable &c. 471; past hope, past cure, past mending, past recall; at one's last gasp &c. (death) 360; given up, given over. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... another regrettable feature about him was the fact that he, being a young man of wealth, had the idea that he should always be deferred to, never argued with upon any subject, and his advice sought upon everything pertaining to sport. These unpromising traits in his character soon got him into hot water, and before he had been a week in Samoa he was nicknamed by both whites and natives "Misi Ulu Poto—masani mea uma,"—"Mr. Wise Head—the Man Who Knows Everything". The term stuck—and Marchmont took it quite seriously, ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... and profit were lying hid in distant countries, in uninviting, or hazardous undertakings; something like what is said of the divining rod, that it will hit upon metals and upon water. As many gardeners have a lucky hand, so in trade I prospered in every, even the most unpromising speculation. It was neither strength of understanding nor extent of knowledge, but mere luck. One becomes a man of understanding however, so soon as one has luck. My partner was astonisht; and, as he had a small estate here, we removed ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... acquiesce in the restoration of the Saxon line, had, in the mean time, invited his brother's descendants from Hungary, with a view of having them recognised heirs to the crown. The death of his nephew, and the inexperience and unpromising qualities of young Edgar, made him resume his former intentions in favour of the Duke of Normandy; though his aversion to hazardous enterprises engaged him to postpone the execution, and even to keep his purpose ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume |
