"Unreasonable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that within the last ten years, stock of all sorts have decreased in price, from L700 to L1,000 per cent. and it is not unreasonable to conclude, that in ten years hence, they will have experienced at least a similar reduction. Should this conjecture be verified, they will be of as little value in the remote parts of the colony, as the horses and cattle on the plains of Buenos Ayres, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... the kingdoms and the Churches of the West. The third was the eradication of heresies which were rending Christendom asunder and threatening to destroy that ideal of unity in creed to which the Middle Ages clung with not unreasonable passion. The fourth was a reform of the Church, considered as a vital element of Western Christendom, in its head ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... his calmness in that one meeting with San Giacinto when he had been persuaded of the justice of the latter's claims. Since then he had felt nothing but bitterness, and the outward expression of it was either an unreasonable irritation concerning small matters, or some passionate outburst like the present against life, against the world in which he lived, against everything. It is scarcely to be wondered at that he should have ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... in which some of the young people had been engaged the morning we had driven from home; a pansy, in a glass of water, which one of the children had been copying, was still on the chimney-piece. These trivial circumstances, marking repose and tranquillity, struck us at this moment with an unreasonable sort of surprise, and all that had passed seemed like an incoherent dream. The joy of having my father in safety remained, and gratitude to Heaven for his preservation. These feelings spread inexpressible pleasure over what seemed to be a new sense of existence. Even the ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... city. For some minutes neither spoke, but Vjera could hear her companion's quickly drawn, irregular breath. His heart was beating fast and his thoughts were chasing each other through a labyrinth of dreams, inconsequent, unreasonable, but brilliant in the extreme. His head high, his shoulders thrown back, his eyes flashing, his lips tightly closed, the Count marched out with his companion into the broad square. He felt that this had been the last day of his slavery and that the morrow's sun was to rise upon a brighter ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... mine honour," said Aymer de Valence, "I am glad to hear thee make some attempt at reason, although it is but an unreasonable kind of reason too, since its object is to destroy thine own hopes, and argue away thine own chance of happiness; but if I have, in the progress of this affair, borne me sometimes towards thee, as to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... invalid widow, took a sensible rather than a sentimental view of the case. If he were killed, she said, a wife would do him no good; and if he came home again, Grace would be waiting for him, and that ought to satisfy a reasonable man. It had to satisfy an unreasonable one. The Robertses had always lived just beyond the garden from the parsonage, and Grace, who from a little girl had been a great pet of the childless minister and his sister, was almost as much at home there as in her mother's house. When Philip ...
— An Echo Of Antietam - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the ordinary fees charged by reputable physicians anywhere for similar services, and will in no instance be unreasonable or excessive. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... cited in palliation of the doubts and surmises of Captain Thorn, which might otherwise appear strange and unreasonable. That most of the partners were perfectly upright and faithful in the discharge of the trust reposed in them we are fully satisfied; still the honest captain was not invariably wrong in his suspicions; and that he formed a pretty just opinion ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... when there were no soldiers about, but maintained a discreet silence in their hearing. Which side Sher Singh took, Gerrard found it difficult to discover. He complained bitterly in private of the arrogance of the army, the supineness of the Durbar, and the unreasonable behaviour of his co-Regent, but he seemed not to be making any attempt to form a party of his own, that might work towards a healthier state of things. Gerrard himself was the butt for every one's ill-humour. The Rani and the troops alike execrated him when he declined ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... copies from himself. His rapid descents from the hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great effect, are often unreasonable. To see him act, is like reading Shakspeare by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred gentleman enough to ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... to monopolize the attention of Madame Phoebus and her sister. This was not very unreasonable, considering that he was their visitor, the future chief of their house, and had brought them so many embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs, choice scents, and fancy dogs. But Lothair thought it quite disgusting, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, this theology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; the grandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren as they pass the bowl of potatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly as possible, ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... expected in those days to control, if not to do, the "fitting up" of the ship for her voyage. In view of the usual "breadth of beam" of ships of her class and tonnage, aft, and the fore and aft length of the poop, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there were not less than four small cabins on either side of the common (open) cabin or saloon (often depicted as the signing-place of the Compact), under the high poop deck. Constructed on the general ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... tried to keep under the feeling of immense disgust. He said to himself that it was unreasonable. Men were like that—moral cannibals feeding on each ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... money, and were so high with the English whose money they pocketed, that the bolder English Barons murmured openly about a clause there was in the Great Charter, which provided for the banishment of unreasonable favourites. But, the foreigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, 'What are ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield's not being well? I want to see Agnes. Very much I want to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... sanctions. Duelling, fornication, and perjury are forbidden by the divine law, but the prohibition is ineffectual whenever the real sentiment of mankind is opposed to it. The divine law is set aside as soon as it conflicts with the popular opinion. In exceptional cases, indeed, the credit attached to unreasonable practices leads to fanaticism, asceticism, and even insanity; but superhuman terrors fail at once when they try to curb the action of genuine substantial motives. Hence we must admit that they are useless in the case even of 'secret crimes.' Religion, in short, prescribes ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... capers he cuts, excite our philosophic risibility. We say he is mad as a March hare. (Have you ever wondered, Dane, why a March hare is deemed mad? The saying is a pregnant one.) However, love, as you have tacitly agreed, is unreasonable. In fact, in all the walks of animal life no rational sanction can be found for the love-acts of the individual. Each love act is a hazarding of the individual's life; this we know, and it is only impelled to perform such acts because of the madness ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... upon the elopement of this remarkable couple one must remember that they were no longer giddy and rash youth. Browning was thirty-four and the romantic Juliet was three years older. Again it must be remembered that the objecting father was a most unreasonable and selfish man. The climax of his selfishness was reached when in opposition to the advice of the physicians Mr. Barrett refused to allow his daughter to go to Italy. "In the summer of 1846," writes ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and went out in a kind of trance—it was so unreasonable, so utterly absurd. Why should Indians be watching to shoot down Wunpost when he had always been friendly with them all? And for that matter, why should anyone desire to kill him—that certainly could never lead them to his ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... her father, whose wishes are her own, wishes this woman to live, and that she will be in danger after her hero has left her; so she tells him that he may leave his bride with her and she will protect her. But the man is still more unreasonable. He says that she is cruel and hard-hearted. That is unjust, for she is not cruel. He says too that the woman shall die rather than be left with her. If he must die, he will kill the woman, too, and he is ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... areas, the piercing of avenues, becomes more comprehensive, it becomes less reasonable. If we can do such big things we may surely attempt bigger things, so that whether we want to plan a new capital or preserve the old, it comes at last to the same thing, that it is unreasonable to be constantly pulling down the London we have and putting it up again. Let us drain away our heavy traffic into tunnels, set up that clearing-house plan, and control the growth at the periphery, which is still so witless and ugly, and, save for the manifest tidying ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the South was not allayed by the admission of California and the mutinous execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. The temper of that section the while grew in consequence more unreasonable and arrogant. Worsted as the South clearly was in the contest with her rival for political supremacy, she refused nevertheless to modify her pretentions to political supremacy. And as she had no longer anything to lose by giving loose reins to her arrogance and pretentions, her ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... be their guides in danger, their saviours in extremity; they do not really desire them to obey all the ignorant impulses of the popular mind; and if they fail them in a crisis they are disappointed. Then, as Socrates says, the cry of ingratitude is heard, which is most unreasonable; for the people, who have been taught no better, have done what might be expected of them, and their statesmen have received justice ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... to her that he was all eyes, so great was the intensity of his gaze;—"I should scorn myself were I to permit myself to come before you with a plea for your favour founded on my father's whims. My father is unreasonable, and has been very unjust to me. He has ever believed evil of me, and has believed it often when all the world knew that he was wrong. I care little for being reconciled to a father who has been ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... may share Boswell's feeling that Johnson estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding—since he was a man of magnificent biases—yet we may grant that the critic-god made a sound distinction here, that Fielding's method is inevitably more external and shallow than that of an analyst proper like Richardson; no doubt to the great joy of many weary ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... interest, all of the author's other works. The truth, we believe, lies midway between these extremes. It is questionable whether the introduction into a novel of such subjects as are discussed in these romances be not an offence against good sense and good taste; but it is as unreasonable to deny the vigour and originality of their author's conceptions, as to deny that the execution is imperfect, and, at times, bungling ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "Thou art thyself unreasonable, Philip. Dost suppose it becomes a young woman to let her gallant know all she thinks about him? He ought to be ravished to believe that she does not hate him like the rest of them who wear beards; at any rate, thou wilt get nothing ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... hurt. She had looked upon Susan as her very special friend. She had let Susan see into her heart. And now she realized that Susan had criticized that heart. At that moment Charmian was too unreasonable to remember that criticism is often an inevitable movement of the mind which does not touch the soul to change it. Her attempt ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... all means. But look that you don't dig your grave. I saw no men the length and breadth of the land; and yet it is unreasonable to think that no men have been engendered to live in such a fine and fruitful country. If our father were not so old and hard to move, I tell you I should be for cutting adrift from Greenland and settling out there. But then I would go in a larger way than you intend. I would ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... of his native habitation on the banks of the Phasis. The gold mines to the south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and Chosroes; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that a vein of precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the hills, although these secret treasures are neglected by the laziness, or concealed by the prudence, of the Mingrelians. The waters, impregnated with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... only think of it, Peter—" Here he shuddered visibly. "I beg your pardon, I will not call you so again. But it is unreasonable to blame us for not telling ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... never finished. Wise man, he perceives at once that he can't have these things. And so he resigns himself to the universe, and settles down to a permanent, restrained discontent. No one shall say he is unreasonable. ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... horrible is the Uncleanness, Mortality, if not Murder, that the Ships are guilty of that bring great Crowds of these miserable Men and Women. Methinks when we are bemoaning the barbarous Usage of our Friends and Kinsfolk in Africa, it might not be unreasonable to enquire whether we are not culpable in forcing the Africans to become Slaves amongst ourselves. And it may be a question whether all the Benefit received by Negro Slaves will balance the Accompt of Cash laid out upon them; and for the Redemption of our own enslaved Friends ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... so I don't see that even mamma can object. Best assured I shall never become engaged to any one without your consent; that is," she added, with another of her irresistible caresses, "unless you are very unreasonable, and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... 'Perhaps it was unreasonable, but Alexis has always been to good schools. He was getting on beautifully at Leeds, and we thought he would have gained a scholarship and gone on to be a clergyman. That was what his mind has always been fixed upon. You cannot think how good and devoted he is,' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she appeared to lose all command over herself; and, making a sudden snatch at the heap of silver, put it back, holus-bolus, in her pocket. "It upsets one's temper, it does, to see it lying there, and nobody taking it," cries this unreasonable woman, sitting down with a thump, and looking at Sergeant Cuff, as much as to say, "It's in my pocket again now—get it out ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... French nerve and force with the Teutonic simplicity and truthfulness. Less accustomed to leading-strings, they walk more firmly on their own feet, and, breathing in the universal spirit of free inquiry, they are less in danger of becoming unreasonable ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... judging it incredible and strange, they have only to think that they have been asleep and dreaming, and that all these adventures were visions which they saw in their sleep: and I hope none of my readers will be so unreasonable as to be offended with a pretty ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... hesitated when they saw the cool way in which Tom confronted them. So they proposed a compromise, as they called it. "Look a here," said the one who had hitherto been the spokesman; "we ain't unreasonable, and we'll compromise this yere business. You give us your money and that chap's watch, and we'll let you alone. That's what I ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... masterful, and illness had left him weak and nervous, so he was often both domineering and petulant. Ben had been taught instant obedience to those older than himself, and if Thorny had been a man Ben would have made no complaint; but it was hard to be "ordered round" by a boy, and an unreasonable one into the bargain. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... those I have loved, illness of my own, quarrels, misunderstandings, enmities, angers, disapprovals, losses; I have made bad mistakes, I have failed in my duty, I have done many things that I regret, I have been unreasonable, unkind, selfish. Many of these things have hurt and wounded me, have brought me into sorrow, and even into despair. But I do not feel that any of them have really injured me, and some of them have already benefited me. I have learned to be a little more patient ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mr Cheveley, of course," said the baronet, rising; "although it did not strike me as anything unreasonable. Yet I am aware how you are situated with a numerous family and a comparatively small income; and, believe me, I will not lose an opportunity of forwarding the views of the young gentleman. Good morning, my dear Mr Cheveley, good morning," ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... objection which Mr. Ricardo had himself insisted on in that very page of his third edition to which Mr. Malthus refers.] in his work. On quitting this part of the subject, I shall just observe that Mr. Malthus, in common with many others, attaches a most unreasonable importance to the discovery of a measure of value. I challenge any man to show that the great interests of Political Economy have at all suffered for want of such a measure, which at best would end in answering a few questions of unprofitable curiosity; ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the most cursory inspection of the large room (fig. 16), that the main features of a Roman library are before us[114]; and perhaps, having regard to the tendency of the Renaissance, especially in Italy, it would be unreasonable to expect a different design in such a place, and at such ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... respectfully submit that, under these circumstances, my request to be permitted to remain on half-pay until the completion of the publication of the results of some years' toil is not wholly unreasonable. It is the only reward for which I would ask their Lordships, and indeed, considering the distinct pledge given in the minute to which I have referred, to grant it would seem as nearly to concern their Lordships' honour as ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... nuptials of their daughters with a Roman prince. [58] The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son, reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride; and suggests the most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of disorder ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... longer in those primeval times than subsequently, and were larger and stronger, "for there were giants in those days," and early invented tents, the harp, the organ, and were artificers in brass and iron, and built cities—as they were full of inventions as well as imaginations, it is not unreasonable to infer, though we can not know with certainty, that the antediluvian world was more splendid and luxurious than the world in the time of Solomon and Homer—the era of the Pyramids ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Peddlington, old chap," returned the baron, softening. "You are quite right. My desire was unreasonable; but I swear to you, by all my ancestral Bangletops, that I am hungry as a pit full of bears, and if there's one thing I can't eat, it is lobster and apples. Can't you scare up a snack of bread and cheese and a little cold larded fillet? If you'll supply the fillet, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... be all, I ensure you for a louis-d'or against the mood lasting four-and-twenty hours. No woman was ever steadily sensible for that period; and I will engage, if that will please you, Flora shall be as unreasonable to-morrow as any of her sex. You must learn, my dear Edward, to consider women en mousquetaire.' So saying, he seized Waverley's arm and dragged him off to review his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... requested John to appear before it at one of its meetings. But upon looking for this obscure John and finding him in jail, the committee were under the necessity of appearing before him. Whereupon, grown interested in him and made acquainted with the ground of his unreasonable imprisonment, some of the members effected his release—by recourse to the attorney with certain well-direct threats that he could easily be put into jail for his own debts. Not only this; but soon afterwards the young Westerner ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... would remonstrate in a case of this kind, or explain, but Tomlin is not ordinary. He is fiery. Seizing the back of his property, he hitches it up, and, with a deft movement worthy of a juggler, deposits the unreasonable Sopkin abruptly on the deck! Sopkin leaps up with doubled fists. Tomlin stands on guard. Rumkin, a presumptuous man, who thinks it his special mission in life to set everything wrong right, rushes between them, and is told by both to "mind his own business." The ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... didn't make the dirt that makes the road, and werry justly refuses to fork out tuppence-ha'penny! It's werry true Sir Eddard says that the t'other taxes must be paid, as what's to pay the ministers? But it's highly unreasonable that 'pike-men is to be put alongside of Prime Ministers, wedgetable wendors, and purveyors of promiscus polte-ry! Had that great man succeeded in bilking the toll, what a thing it would ha' been for us! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various
... cases that the suspicions of his fellow-brethren had been aroused, and, eventually, he was selected to make one of a company of Franciscans to the new province. Therefore, on hearing for the first time what Apolinaria meditated doing, he felt almost angry with her, foolish and unreasonable though he ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service—it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... sort of manifested goodness for which the average man of the world has a profound and unreasonable contempt. And there is another sort which most wholly commands the respect of that man who has lived hardest. From a religious point of view, both may be equally real and conducive to salvation. The cynic, the worn out man of the world, the man whose heart ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... be unreasonable—that is, contrary to reason—because it is above and beyond reason, or, at least, our human reason, which at best (as St. Paul says) sees as in a ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... was never molested a moment by the minions of violence. The madness and pitiless determination with which the mob steadily pursued Lovejoy to his doom, marks it as one of the most unreasoning and unreasonable in all time, except that which doomed the ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul
... to perform the labour required of them. The name of "Free Miners," by which they are and have been for centuries known, seems to refer to some right or privilege distinct from their original condition; and it does not appear unreasonable to suppose that certain persons at some distant period, either by having worked for a year and a day, or by reason of some now unknown circumstance connected with the origin of the privilege, were considered as emancipated, and ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... the business of Nobkissin. The money taken from him was not money pretended to be received in lieu of entertainment; it was not money taken from a farmer-general of revenue, out of an idea that his profits were unreasonable, and greater than government ought to allow; it was not a donation from a great man, as an act of his bounty. No, it was a sum of money taken from a private individual,—or rather, as has been proved to you by Mr. Larkins, his own book-keeper, money borrowed, for which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Wessex, was gratified to find the elements of like skill in his niece; and Gwendolen was the more careful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because since the trouble with Rex both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna had been unable to hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her. Toward Anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful affectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention Rex's name, and Anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was ill at ease with the lively cousin who ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... sacrilegious and blasphemous; such criticisms are for them open disrespect for divine things; and, inasmuch as divine things are, in fact, more real than any phenomena under natural laws can be, skepticism in the former case is always more unreasonable than in the latter, supposing always that the narrative of the Divine ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the three could make a satisfactory forecast of the policy of General Yozarro. It seemed to the American that he might be able to secure two or three pieces of cannon and open a bombardment of the boat from the shore, but this presupposed an unreasonable delay. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... this phrase was to be the sign-post of my life. All those people had gathered together at the turning of the cross roads. "Send her to the Conservatoire!" I wanted to be a nun, and this was considered absurd, idiotic, unreasonable. "Send her to the Conservatoire!" had opened out a field for discussion, the horizon of a future. My uncle Felix Faure and Mlle. Brabender were the only ones against this idea. They tried in vain to make my mother understand that with the 100,000 francs that my father ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... inconvenience to ourselves we have permitted the church to remain in this district. There is no better church music in this city, and we have a beautiful service in the evening at which, all pews are free. It is not unreasonable that we should have something to say concerning the doctrine to be preached here, that we should insist that that doctrine be in accordance with what we have always believed was the true doctrine as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the other arts, depends for its success on a strict adherence to this law; and the fear of departing in this case from the particular usages of our ancestors is equally unreasonable. Soft ground in the valleys compelled them to travel their pack horses right over the hills, and the want of the "Jenny" made them spin their yarn by the hand; but still, the same principle which guided them ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Harley and his friends began to hope that they might, by driving the Whigs from court and from power, gratify at once the queen and the people. There was now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence of past abuses, and show the waste of public money, the unreasonable conduct of the allies, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of minions, and the general danger of approaching ruin. For this purpose a paper called the Examiner was periodically published, written, as it happened, by any wit of the party, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... palpably at the mention of Benoni's religion. No people are more insanely prejudiced against the Hebrew race than the Germans. They indeed maintain that they have greater cause than others, but it always appears to me that they are unreasonable about it. Benoni chanced to be a Jew, but his peculiarities would have been the same had he been a Christian or an American. There is only one Ahasuerus Benoni ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... a person reads a book which creates a public sensation, and with which he is himself much pleased, it is natural he should desire to know to whom a grateful homage should be addressed. In this case the desire is so much the more unreasonable because it cannot be satisfied; first, because when death and proscription is the penalty, there has never been and there never will be a man of letters so imprudent, and, to speak plainly, so strangely daring, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... will look to him for aid, he will give you strength to resist. Thus is duty made easy, God loves you. Angels desire that you should come to heaven. Jesus has died to save you. The Holy Spirit is ready to aid you in every Christian effort, and to lead you on, victorious over sin. How unreasonable, then, and how ungrateful it is, for any child to refuse to love God, and to prepare to enter the angels' home! There you can be happy. No night is there. No sickness or sorrow can ever reach you there. Glory will fill your eye. Joy will fill ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... energy, not possible in those early stages when all the energies of men are taken up in the primary business of preserving and maintaining life. So it was that war had a beginning in human history. Is it unreasonable to suppose that it will also have ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... craving; or, if it was, John at any rate didn't know it. In its essence, perhaps, it was little more than curiosity. But it was disturbing, upsetting, it destroyed the peace and the harmonious leisure of his day. It perplexed him, it was outside his habits, it was unreasonable. "Not unreasonable to think it might be fun to talk to a pretty woman," he discriminated, "but unreasonable to yearn to talk to her as if your life hung in the balance." And in some measure, too, it humiliated him: it ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... jury are to judge. I differ from the other side when it says that they are bound to exercise no more care than was taken before the building of the bridge. If we are allowed by the Legislature to build the bridge which will require them to do more than before, when a pilot comes along, it is unreasonable for him to dash on heedless of this structure which has been legally put there. The Afton came there on the 5th and lay at Rock Island until next morning. When a boat lies up the pilot has a holiday, and would not any of these jurors ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... was negotiating with France and Spain. From the latter he arrogantly asked wholly unreasonable terms, whilst Mazarin, on the part of France, offered Dunkirk as a bribe. News opportunely arriving that certain Spanish possessions in America were feebly armed, Cromwell at once declared war: and now, supplementing unscrupulous policy by false theology, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... would have been unreasonable, but taking it for granted that he hasn't been communicative, I've a piece of news for you. Some Canadian tourists stayed a night at the Ghyll, two or three months ago, and it seems they met him in British Columbia. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Parliament. Of the new Parliament Fitzherbert[1075] is a member. We were so weary of our old King, that we are much pleased with his successor; of whom we are so much inclined to hope great things, that most of us begin already to believe them. The young man is hitherto blameless; but it would be unreasonable to expect much from the immaturity of juvenile years, and the ignorance of princely education. He has been long in the hands of the Scots, and has already favoured them more than the English will contentedly endure. But, perhaps, he scarcely knows whom he has distinguished, or ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... terrible campaignings against the Turk, in old times; and always such a stock of quarrels, at home, as must have been still worse to bear. A life of perpetual arguing, squabbling and battling,—one's neighbors being such an unreasonable set! Brabbles about Heidelberg Catechism, and Church of the Holy Ghost, so that foreign Kings interfered, shaking their whips upon us. Then brabbles about boundaries; about inheritances, and detached properties very many,—clearly mine, were the neighbors reasonable! In fact this sovereign ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... no conscience? Come, then, old man, let this unreasonable damsel see thy gipcieres. And if she must have some sendal of Inde, well,—fate is inevitable. What was the other thing, Magot? A new mantle? Oh, shocking! I can't afford that. What is the price of thy black cloth, ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... to me, asking what they shall do, and how their condition may be improved. They tell me what things they want, and why they think they ought to have them. I listen, and talk to them just as if they were so many children. If their requests are unreasonable, I try to explain to them, step by step, why it is not best that what they desire should be done, or tell them that other things which they ask for seem proper, and that I will do what I can to have them granted. If one will only take the pains necessary to make things clear ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... express belief in more than I can believe, nor, again, refuse to record my honest belief in some "fact of religion" because it will not be thought creditable for me, or because certain people will think me superstitious and unreasonable, just as other people will think me too rationalistic. I will yield nothing to the demand, "You cannot possibly believe this, when you have just said that you don't believe that. The two things must hang together. You cannot pick and ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... considering the sapphire, nothing that went on about it could be too extraordinary. And yet the tone their voices were taking on made her nervous. Whatever they were arguing about, she found it hard to go on standing thus with her back to it, and for so long, while her expectancy tightened, and her unreasonable idea that she did not want the ring, more and more took hold of her. If he did not want to sell it, why not let ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... taste and a sort of modesty always hinder a well man from talking of his fine appetite, his sound sleep, his exuberance of spirits, in the presence of one dying of consumption. Many of the rich do not exercise this tact, and so are greatly wanting in pity and discretion. Are they not unreasonable to complain of envy, after having done everything to ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... however ill-founded, offered an excuse for her behaviour: but she assured her in the strongest terms that her repugnance to the Baronet was unalterable, yet told her she might claim from her every good office that was not wholly unreasonable. ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... curious and interesting details; it can hardly be said to form a very interesting whole; while in no other of the publications of the author do his prejudices and aversions appear in so strong and unreasonable a light. His satire also, and we might even call it by the stronger name of abuse, is too general, and thereby loses its effect. Many of the characters are probably not too severely drawn; but some evidently are, and this circumstance ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... representatives; she is not to have the right either of raising an army or of endowing a church; she is in fact to surrender any claim to the rights of a nation in consideration of receiving a certain number of State-rights. In all this there is nothing unreasonable and nothing blameworthy. One part of the United Kingdom is prepared to accept new terms of partnership. But this acceptance, though reasonable and fair enough, is quite inconsistent with any claim for national independence. A nation is one thing, a state ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... complaining wife with complaints of his own; but his interests and his isolation had made him thoughtful and forbearing. He had the trait of gentleness which frequently sweetens and equalises large natures. He remembered that behind whatever complaints— reasonable or unreasonable—Puss might make, there existed a stronghold of affection and tenderness; he remembered that her whole life had been made up of a series of small sacrifices; he knew that she was ready, whenever occasion made it necessary, to cast aside her snuff-swab and her complaints, and go to the rack ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... abroad and lead to a burglary, in the course of which his father might lose his life? There are evidences, you know, tending to show that the burglary did actually at last take place, and the suspicion is, in view of that, by no means unreasonable. And yet, militating against it, is our knowledge that it was Lord Pharanx who "chose" to gather the jewels round him; that it was in his presence that Randolph drew the attention of the servant to them. In the matter, at least, of the little political comedy the son ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... to find that Rollo could reach higher than he could, though it was very foolish to allow himself to be put out of humor by such a thing. But boys, when they are ill-humored, and dispute, are always unreasonable and foolish. James determined not to be outdone, so he took up a stick, and reached it up in the air as high as he could, ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... wonder, perplexity, fury, at this monstrous and unreasonable persecution. He burst out into a loud and bitter laugh as Laura quitted him, and with sneers and revilings, as a man who jeers under an operation, ridiculed at once his own pain and his persecutor's anger. The laugh, which was one of bitter humor, and no unmanly ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'Madam, you are unreasonable!' said David, smiling, and putting down his pipe he laid an affectionate hand on his wife's arm. 'I went careering about the world with you last Saturday and the Saturday before, and this week end I must take for reading. There is an Oxford man who has been writing ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... proprietors. The small proprietor had very little say either in regulating the clauses of the Act, or in the choice of commissioners. Any owner of one-fifth of the land, however, could negative the measure and often used his right to impose unreasonable clauses. It is well known that the legal expenses and fencing were very costly. The enclosure commissioners too often divided the land in an arbitrary and ignorant manner, and there was no appeal from them except by filing a bill in Chancery. ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the Fourteenth Amendment than the acts of Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned or the corresponding ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... early happiness? Will you commune less with his departed spirit, while you watch over and cultivate the rare excellence of his child? You have been sadly visited; nor do I wonder that a feeling akin to insanity should drive you to bitter and unreasonable imaginings. But a home of love awaits you in your native England. My tenderness and affection must soothe you; the society of Raymond's friends will be of more solace than these dreary speculations. We will all make it ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... manhood and womanhood often involves brain, nerves, body, and soul in confusion; the child sometimes seems lost to himself and his parents,—his very nature changing. In this sensitive state come restless desires, unreasonable longings, unsettled purposes; and the fatal habit of indulgence in deadly stimulants, ruining all the life, often springs form the cravings of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... looked puzzled; a look half quizzical, half sad, stole over his fine face; while he hesitated, Carlos broke out hastily: "Rita! you are too unreasonable! Do you think we are in a city here? do you think the General has everything at his command, to maintain an establishment of women and children? It is not to be thought of. We have no room, no supplies, no conveniences of any kind; ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... unreasonable being!" assuming an air of grave admonition. "Don't you know that I have overstayed my time by ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... it imposed upon himself. He stood chained in fetters of her forging, as it were to the stake, but he was prepared to stand there like a man, and he did not deserve the things she said to him in a fresh paroxysm of unreasonable wrath. He might be a baby, but he was not a complete coward, or simply trying to make her miserable, as she declared; neither, on this occasion, was he thinking only of himself. But Phillida seemed suddenly to realise that, for she broke off with a ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... raise wonder than expectation," and he was accordingly pleased and surprised to find that Chesterfield took an interest in his undertaking. He proceeds to lay down the general principles upon which he intends to frame his work, in order to invite timely suggestions and repress unreasonable expectations. At this time, humble as his aspirations might be, he took a view of the possibilities open to him which had to be lowered before the publication of the dictionary. He shared the illusion that a language might be "fixed" by making a catalogue of its words. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... so unreasonable as to blame a live person for living! No woman's head is so small as to be filled for life by a memory of a few months. Four years have passed since I last saw my boy- husband. We were mere children; see how I have altered since in mind, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... necessarily exhibit statesmanlike qualities, and may not be true. Not all those who are working to better the condition of the people are Bolsheviki or enemies of society. Not all those who are attempting to conduct a successful business are profiteers. But unreasonable criticism and agitation for unreasonable remedies will avail nothing. We, in common with the whole world, are suffering from a shortage of materials. There is but one remedy for this, increased production. We need ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... was so severe and unreasonable, that her little daughter, through fear of her, had learned to deceive. Still Mrs. Rosenberg loved Mandoline, and would have been a better mother, perhaps, if she had only known how, and had not had ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... with instructions from Simla. The man who had made himself personally responsible for the safety of Cavagnari's mission was a strange guest with an army whose avowed errand was to exact retribution for the crime of its destruction. It might seem not unreasonable to expect that, as an indispensable preliminary to his entertainment, he should have at least afforded some prima facie evidence that he had been zealous to avert the fate which had befallen the mission, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... to note in this connection that the last four years of the records are explained by Professor Gowell as being low, due to various "accidents" (?) It is unreasonable to suppose the true explanation of these "accidents" would be found in connection with the increased responsibility and size ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings |
