"Unseemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bench, and the landlord's face grew red as a cherry from smothering his laugh in his stomach; but he kept his merriment down, for he wished not to bring the ill-will of the brothers of Fountain Abbey upon him by unseemly mirth. So the two brethren, as they could do nought else, having mounted their nags, turned their noses ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... excited feelings. His parlor-maid, who was never in any hurry to open the door,—she had once kept him waiting ten minutes when he had forgotten his latch-key,—would certainly take no notice of this unseemly noise, but he, James Tapster, would himself hurry out and try to catch the delinquent, take his name and address, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... shoving the glad performers about as if they were tenpins, raging like the lions which roared their surprise at this unseemly hubbub in ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... more! But if these shall be favourably received, a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and unnatural rags in which he has hitherto ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... first time, the captain appeared to become aware of Frank's presence, and bending forward, fixed upon him a look that seemed to read his very soul. It was a proverb with the crew of the Arizona that "no rogue could ever face the old man's eye;" and although he was never known to utter an oath or unseemly word, his very glance had more effect than any amount ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... it may," replied Florian, "it is not quite becoming to speak thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth; there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor; but even so, a little charitable prevarication ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... steadily growing more inclined to receive our holy faith; moreover, we are gradually uprooting that hindrance to conversion, so common among those people, and so difficult to remove, the practice of having several wives. They are easily persuaded that it is impossible and unseemly for them to have more than one wife, accordingly they have forsaken the others, although in doing so the husbands lose their property; for in marrying the women the men give them dowries, and if they leave their wives they must lose the dowries that they gave. To do this is no slight merit, for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... you go at such unseemly hour with ghostly consolations?" inquired the Commandant, negligently rolling a cigarette between his long fingers, and resting back his ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... prescribed for them.' It is not wonderful that the declaration of an impending abrogation of Law was misinterpreted, and converted into a licence for Antinomianism. Mirza Jani mentions, but with some reticence, the unseemly conduct of ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... slight an offense! We do not ask if this is probable; but we do ask, if it is within the bounds of possibility to believe it? Did not the daughters of Lot see the nakedness of their father in a much more unseemly manner? Ham seeing his father so, seems altogether accidental; theirs deliberately sought. And on this flimsy, self-stultifying theory, the learned of the world build their faith—that Ham is the progenitor ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... mine own heart not unfold, And his true workings to the world disclose? Why self-unlocking for unseemly hold, Which me, as I show'd others, human shows? If I to Nature held her truthful glass, And on the stage life's self did strive to set, Creating thousand shadows that should pass For very substance when men's eyes they met; If there I imag'd love, hate, doubt, and trust, If all the pageant ...
— Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost • Gregory Thornton
... the sonnets, as might be expected, seeing that Shakespeare's rival was a great noble and not to be criticised freely. This fact explains to me Valentine's unmotived renunciation of Silvia; explains, too, why he is reconciled to his friend with such unseemly haste. Valentine's last words in the scene ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... impetuous. "Mon beau fils" allowed neither his wife nor the respect he owed the king to stand in the way of his very marked attention to the queen. His position as heir, and his long residence at court, almost as son to Louis, gave him ample opportunities for pressing his unseemly suit. He was the first to see Mary at the meeting place this side of Abbeville, and was the king's representative on ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... dignity gave way. Dropping into the nearest chair, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed again, while Mr. Baxter grew more and more shamefaced, and Miss Roberts more and more exasperated at his unseemly merriment. When he could speak ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... animal's temper might not be ruffled by unaccustomed trouble or unusual objects. Leather having seen that the horse could not eject Mr. Sponge even in trousers, had little fear of his dislodging him in boots and breeches; still it was desirable to avoid all unseemly contention, and maintain the high character of the stud, by which means Leather felt that his own character and consequence would best be maintained. Accordingly, he refrained from calling in the aid of any of the stable assistants, preferring for once to do a little work himself, especially ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... first appearance of organized efforts to curb the spirit of laughter. All good men and women were hectored into believing that one should weep, not laugh, over the absurdities of men in their cups. Next, we were warned that it is unseemly and unChristian to laugh at a fellow-man's discomfiture—an awkward social situation, a sermon or a political oration wrecked by stage fright, or a poem spoilt by a printer's stupidity. Under shelter of the dogma that to ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... giants, and many other equally fabulous inventions, bordering so closely upon the truly marvelous, that the truth would suffer wrongfully if related in full; but nevertheless are found among the wild and unseemly traditions of the ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... vous plait. Joujoux," I added. I was told to go straight on, to turn to the right and the left, to go up three steps and down three steps—but my mind wandered as it always does when I am listening to directions that I have to follow. By an unseemly scramble I got into an over-crowded lift. I seemed to be treading on children and reclining on tight, upholstered bosoms. At random, I chose the third floor and found myself among a forest of lamps. Desperately determined not to risk ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... thee further, Philip. The time may come when I may prove of service. Farewell, my child; but I pray thee to discontinue thy unseemly labour, for I must send in the neighbours to perform the duties to thy departed mother, whose soul I trust is ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... signed his name to Morus's preface. The mixture of fanatical choler and grotesque jocularity, in which he rolls forth his charges of incontinence against Morus, and of petty knavery against Vlac, is only saved from being unseemly by being ridiculous. The comedy is complete when we remember that Morus had not written the Clamor, nor Vlac the preface. Milton's rage blinded him; he is mad Ajax castigating innocent sheep instead ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... nursery days behind, he learned by degrees that the objection to himself and his people, which had at first endeavoured to explain itself as being the result of an unseemly lack of money, combined with that unpleasant feature, an uglier one—namely, lack of decent reputation. Angry duns, beggarliness of income, scarcity of the necessaries and luxuries which dignity of rank demanded, the indifference and slights of one's equals, and the ignoring of one's existence ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... aspirations, find objects for themselves in this veiled region. Feelings too shy to burst forth in unseemly anticipation of the immediate future, modestly satisfy themselves with this remote prospect of satisfaction. And thus, there arises the half-touching, half-amusing spectacle of men and women continually renewing illusory hopes, and continually pushing the date of their realization further ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... unhappy and remonstrant man. The music halls in London are now under strict supervision, and some of them used to need it very much in days gone by. Personally I should suppress the male comic singer who tries to win a laugh from degraded listeners by unseemly means, and I should not scruple to draft a short Act ensuring imprisonment for such as he; but, so long as the entertainment remains inoffensive to the general good sense of the community, we need not weep ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... leap from their horses and fight on foot; and train their horses to stand still in the very spot on which they leave them, to which they retreat with great activity when there is occasion; nor, according to their practice, is anything regarded as more unseemly, or more unmanly, than to use housings. Accordingly, they have the courage, though they be themselves but few, to advance against any number whatever of horse mounted with housings. They on no account permit wine to ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... everything save her impersonal sensuality, would go with anybody who might call her, but the administration of the house vigilantly guards its interests in her. A near insanity already flits over her lovely face, in her half-closed eyes, always smiling with some heady, blissful, meek, bashful and unseemly smile, in her languorous, softened, moist lips, which she is constantly licking; in her short, quiet laugh—the laugh of an idiot. Yet at the same time she—this veritable victim of the social temperament—in everyday life is very good-natured, yielding, entirely uncovetous and is very ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... crawled painfully along the road. Many of these were slain by the Turks, but not the less did the rest brave the dangers of the journey. And in the camp there was a great furbishing of arms and armour, and trimming of the plumes of helmets, for it was counted an unseemly thing that any man should enter such a place as the Holy City ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... admit that her companions' indignant and horrified aversion to the crime had not been hers, let alone their decent indifference towards the criminal. No, to be candid, she had been deeply interested in the whole affair, had even managed to extract an unseemly amount of entertainment from it. And that, of course, should not have been. It was partly Mr. Strachey's fault, for making it so dramatic; but none the less she genuinely despised herself, for ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... for a great price during the siege. But I will accept of no such gift; for if I were minded to have your riches, I could take them, and need not ask them neither from him, nor from any other; but thing so unseemly as to take that which is his from any one, without just cause, I will not do. They who have gotten wealth thus, God hath given it them; let them go to Abeniaf, and take back what he hath forced from them, for I will order ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... in them; but when this divine portion began to fade away in them, and became diluted too often, and with too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper-hand, then, they being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see, they began to appear base, and had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they still appeared glorious and blessed at the ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... habitual associations, for she had never yet ridden after the hounds—only said she should like to do it, and so drawn forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and her uncle declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent exercise unseemly in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other parts of the country, no lady of good position followed the Wessex hunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby, the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been a kitchenmaid ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... hair. This head she upbraids in a long speech with its follies and crimes, and among other things says to it, it is never well to marry a woman with whom one has previously lived in illicit intercourse; that it is an unseemly thing when a woman obtains the mastery in a family, &c. Clytemnestra is now seen approaching; Orestes begins to have scruples of conscience as to his purpose of murdering a mother, and the authority of the oracle, but yields to the persuasions ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... with a drawn sword in his hand. Then there would be complications. The Provost and senior fellows, not understanding Titherington's desperate plight, would resent his show of violence, which would strike them as unseemly in their academic groves. Swift, muscular porters would be sent in pursuit of Titherington, who would, himself, still pursue Selby-Harrison. The great bell of the Campanile would ring furious alarm peals. The Dublin ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... A.M., Mr. John Hopkins called. He apologized for the unseemly hour, but said he was leaving town at noon. His first impression of Belle was a very delightful one. He found her refined and cultured and he recalled the advice of a certain old bishop: "Never give a call to a clergyman unless you are ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting. It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly curiosity concerning the lodger. "You might just let me have one peep at him, Ellen?" she had pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had shaken her head. "No, that I won't! He's a very quiet gentleman; ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... my arms and glancing from one to other disdainfully, "your mirth is as unwarranted as unseemly! The money in question was expended in the service of—of one who—whose need was instant and great. I have the honour to bid ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... she doing there at that unseemly hour? Watching for some sailor lover whose ship was bearing him to her from over the great dark sea, or was she watching for a brother ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... uncrumpled and free from the results of the tighter and closer ones of the West, were laid aside for the dress of Europe. The only part of the garb which we use, that he did not assume and compel his people to accept, was the unseemly and uncomfortable hat, and this he would also have taken, had religion not interposed to prevent it. Of all parts of the Christian's costume, the hat is the most calculated to inspire disgust in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... over which this remarkably handsome, and now distinguishedly fashionable milliner, and dignified-looking lady presided. Nothing indiscreet or unseemly was ever permitted. The rule, perhaps, might be a little too grave, and the manner of the young ladies too sedate; but they were innocent and good; and they had their recreations, for Mrs. Fisher look them out, turn and turn about, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Mission Society of London, a short time previously, when carrying on their duties at Zanzibar. In this section-map, swallowing up about half of the whole area of the ground included in it, there figured a lake of such portentous size and such unseemly shape, representing a gigantic slug, or, perhaps, even closer still, the ugly salamander, that everybody who looked at it incredulously laughed and shook his head. It was, indeed, phenomenon enough in these days to excite ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly struggle, and the carriage door was slammed shut ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... crowd upon us. Fathers and mothers regard their children with painful solicitude. Not even parental partiality can close the eye to decaying teeth, distorted forms, pallid faces, and the unseemly gait. The husband would gladly give his fortune to purchase roses for the cheeks of the loved one, while thousands dare not venture upon marriage, for they see in it only protracted invalidism. Brothers look into the languishing eyes of sisters with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... admiral called out to them in excellent Spanish not to dispute, for he had money enough to satisfy them all. Meantime the Spanish commissary—general of cavalry, Contreras, came up, rebuked this unseemly dispute before the enemy had been fairly routed, and, in order to arrange the quarrel impartially, ordered his page to despatch De Villars on the spot. The page, without a word, placed his arquebus to the admiral's forehead and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... effecting his revenge, and has glanced at an answer. Anonymous in no wise approves of Hamlet's madness: it was, he thinks, the best possible way to thwart his design of revenge and it was carried on with unseemly lack of dignity. Shakespeare has followed his sources too closely, with bad results. There appears "no Reason at all in Nature, why the young prince did not put the Usurper to Death as soon as possible." To be sure this would have ended the ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... him a most wonderful silver box to hang around his neck and in which I will keep his amulets. There were many things which I will not take the time to tell thee. I am sorry to say that thy son behaved himself unseemly. He screamed and kicked as the barber shaved his tiny head. I was much distressed, but they tell me it is a sign that he will grow to be ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... by the ease or difficulty of splitting rocks, by the variable consistency of the fragments split, by the innumerable questions occurring practically as to bedding and cleavage in every kind of stone, from tufo to granite, and by the unseemly, or beautiful, destructive, or protective, effects of decomposition. [1] The same processes of time which cause your Oxford oolite to flake away like the leaves of a mouldering book, only warm with a glow ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... so great a Fault in me, that I find them wearying. It is not that they are in themselves so distasteful, as it is that there seemeth much work waiting to be done, which a woman's Hands might well do, were it not reckoned somewhat unseemly." ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... defiance. Foster tries in vain to straighten the dead limbs. As the teller of the story gazes at her, the grimly ludicrous reflection occurs to him that if Zenobia had foreseen all 'the ugly circumstances of death—how ill it would become her, the altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially old Silas Foster's efforts to improve the matter—she would no more have committed the dreadful act than have exhibited herself to a public assembly in ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... ta'en a small horn, An' loud an' shrill blew she, An' a' the fish came her untill But the proud machrel of the sea: 'Ye shapeit me ance an unseemly shape, An' ye's never mare ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... dignity too well to join in it; but he did what any respectable citizen would be expected to do in the circumstances—tried to suppress it, yet made such faces in the attempt that the whole house came down in volleys. But now he was resolved to set matters right, and prevent any further repetition of unseemly conduct. The way he did so is worthy of note. He took a pen, dipped it in the ink, and then, spreading his elbows out as one in great authority, and duly impressed with the dignity of the situation, wrote these words on a sheet of paper, which had the royal arms in the centre, his tongue meanwhile ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... night. A new witch was pricked with a needle to initiate her into his company. At the party the Devil was adored with worship due to God alone. Dancing, a device of the pagans, and hence considered wholly wicked, was indulged in to unseemly lengths. In 1883 in Sweden it was believed that dances were held about the sanctuaries of the ancient gods, and that whoever stopped to watch were caught by the dancers and whirled away. If they profaned holy days by this dancing, they were doomed to keep it ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... executioners hoped that in the midst of the tortures inflicted upon him—the most atrocious which man could devise—they would hear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so firmly did he resist them, that, without even saying his name, or that of his nation or city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied in the Roman tongue, to all questions, 'I am a Christian.' Therein ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... an unseemly interruption, Master Putnam," said Squire Hathorne sternly. "We all know that the early disciples were given the power to cast out devils and that they exercised the power continually, but that in later times the power has been ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... contretemps," said Brooks, all trembling. "If I had thought a little whistle, a mere tibia of ash, had power to precipitate this unlucky and unseemly belligerence I would never have ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... beg your pardon, Mr. Carlyle. But how came the marriage about at all—how came it to be hurried over in this unseemly fashion? You made the offer at Easter, Isabel tells me, and you married her three ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... present collectively in any organization of the kind in question profoundly to influence its course of action. By its cumulative action in shaping the usage and precedents of any such body, this shrinking from an imputation of unseemly familiarity with vulgar life tends gradually to set aside the initial motives of the enterprise, in favor of certain guiding principles of good repute, ultimately reducible to terms of pecuniary merit. So that in an organization of long standing ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... factions there; and a letter was sent, perhaps {136} by the hands of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (xvi. 15-18), asking for advice about matters of grave importance, including litigation between Christians and an unseemly freedom in public worship. Realizing the serious state of affairs, St. Paul determined to visit Corinth a third time, and sent Timothy as his representative to prepare for his coming (1 Cor. iv. 17, xvi. 10). After Timothy's departure he wrote ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... in the role he had so carefully thought out, did not note his unconscious father-in-law's face. He extended both his hands and advanced grandly upon fat, round Peter. "My father!" he exclaimed in his classic German. "Forgive my unseemly haste in plucking without your permission the beautiful flower ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... degrading injuries, these wasteful vexations, are what he must endure. No wonder if he vehemently resents a treatment so incongruous with his worth. No wonder if, vexed, hurt, goaded half to madness, he gets enraged, and unseemly contentions ensue, followed by painful depression and remorseful grief. No wonder if he finds it hard indeed to forget or to forgive the infliction of an evil so incomparably profound and frightful. There is, to a high smiled man, no wrong more hurtful or more difficult to pardon than to have mean ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... led to exegetical feats that made the Confutators butts of scorn and derision. At any rate, the Lutherans were charged with having failed, at the public reading, to control their risibilities sufficiently. Cochlaeus complains: "During the reading many of the Lutherans indulged in unseemly laughter. Quando recitata fuit, multi e Lutheranis inepte cachinnabantur." (Koellner, 411.) If this did not actually occur, it was not because the Confutators had given them no ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... President, with instructions to treat with Mexico on the basis of Slidell's proposals of 1845, arrived. Trist was a clerk in the Department of State, and Scott refused to recognize or have any relations with him. After much unseemly bickering and the conciliatory services of the British Minister to Mexico, the general and the envoy made peace, and negotiations were opened, only to be broken off by Santa Anna upon his arrival from the north. On August 19 and 20, the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... sweetheart at home, and she came down to greet him with roses that he had sent her in her bosom. It was not easy for him to do or say anything extravagant, and Emily Vincent, while she might have pardoned unseemly effusiveness to his exceeding love for her, was well content with the deeply earnest though unriotous expression of his passion. When finally he had folded her in his arms she felt that the greatest happiness ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... society of quite young girls or even children when most of his friends would have sought out females of their own age. Nothing could have been farther from his desires or intention than any lascivious or, indeed, unseemly act toward any female in whose company he might be: no mother need have hesitated to trust her daughter in his company. I firmly believe that the discipline of the same bed which Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ed. Bury, vol. ii, p. 37) makes so merry over could have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... misgivings troubled the heart of the betrothed in the Palazzo Cornaro, where she waited in happy confidence, being taught through the ceaseless vigilance of the Senate, that in royal marriages haste was ever unseemly, and full time would be allowed for the fashioning of the wedding trousseau, the weaving of wedding damasks and the complete preparation of a household outfit consistent with ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... AL. Submit to Fate without unseemly wrangle: Such complications frequently occur— Life is one closely complicated tangle: Death is ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... three hours' sleep—a narrow escape from capture—and some days of getting the wounded into hospitals at Washington brought Saturday, August 30th. And if you chance to feel that the positions I occupied were rough and unseemly for a woman, I can only reply that they were rough and unseemly for men. But under all, lay the life of a nation. I had inherited the rich blessing of health and strength of constitution such as are seldom given to women, and I felt that some return ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... final twirl. "Now, Clare dear, order Marigold and Summer-Savory, please, to be brought down in half an hour, and tell old Jose that we want him to help and scrub. No, young man, not another turn. These sports are unseemly on such a busy day as this. 'Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect my years?' as the immortal W. would say. I am twenty-five,—nearly twenty-six,—and am not ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... in its disguis'd coarse rust, And scurf'd all ore with its unseemly crust, The diamond, from 'midst the humbler stones, Sparkling shoots forth the price of nations. Ye safe unriddlers of the stars, pray tell, By what name shall I stamp my miracle? Thou strange inverted Aeson, that leap'st ore From thy first infancy into fourscore, That to thine own ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... Bremerton to write to him too! Pamela vowed inwardly that in that case she would not write him a line. And it seemed to her unseemly that her father's secretary should be making mock of her father's proceedings with a man who was a complete stranger to her. She walked impetuously ahead of Aubrey and Elizabeth. Towards the west the beautiful day was dying, and the light streamed ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his voice so that all could hear—'your Excellency would have let a dozen cowardly gentlemen drag a dying prisoner from his prison, forcing back his Majesty's officers at the dungeon doors, and, after baiting, have matched him against a common criminal. That was unseemly in a great man and a King's chief officer, the trick of a low law-breaker. Your Excellency promised a lady to protect her from individual courtesy, if she gave pleasure—a pleasure beyond price—to you and your guests, and you would have broken ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Satan's daughters; No more their mimic tones be heard, The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after! The cautious goodman nails no more A horseshoe on his outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit To his own mouth her bridle-bit; The goodwife's churn no more refuses Its wonted culinary uses Until, with heated needle burned, The witch has to her place returned! Our witches are no longer old And ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... you here in my house at this untimely and unseemly hour; I find you there in company with one who, to my assured knowledge, should long since have swung in the wind at Execution Dock. What brought you? Why did you open my door while I slept to such a companion? Christopher French, I have two treasures. One ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... had seen what was in the wind, saw also what his course must be. Whatever happened he could not allow a poet to be made ridiculous. It was ridiculous to struggle with two armed men, and unseemly; but suffering was never ridiculous. Patience, therefore! He anticipated the burly Ridolfo, who, having done his bellows-work, was now about to pin ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... this is a finishing school!" mocked Ardiune. "Don't on any account shock the neighbourhood by an unseemly exhibition ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What terrible silence would have fallen upon you as ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... mused the king; 'put out his eyes; those eyes which look with unseemly boldness at his uncle and ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... as soon as expired the three days of delay which he had appointed, the courier presented himself and going in to the King, demanded the answer, but he put him off to another day; whereupon he went to the end of the carpet-room[FN174] and spake with unseemly speech, even as the boy had fore said. Then he betook himself to the bazar and cried, "Ho, people of this city, I am a courier of the King of Outer Hind and came with a message to your monarch who still ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the same features as the track of yesterday. There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual chorus of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth. Here and there, and frequently too, we encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of some new settler's goods. It was a pitiful sight to see one of these vehicles deep in the mire; the axle-tree broken; the wheel lying ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Elizabeth. And this unseemly manner of peregrination displayed just one of Elizabeth's trying peculiarities. For four years she had been faithfully taught that little girls should never go barefoot outside their own gardens, and that when they were on the public highway they must walk quietly and properly on the ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... that Time will bring the hour when the wealth of Yahn shall be such as his dreams have lusted for. Then shall Yahn leave the earth at rest and trouble the shadows no more, but sit and gloat with his unseemly face over his hoard of Lives, for his soul is a usurer's soul. But others say, and they swear that this is true, that there are gods of Old, who be far greater than Yahn, who made the Law wherein Yahn is overskilled, and who will one day drive a bargain with him that shall be too hard for Yahn. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... water once more; but he was no mean conversational swimmer, and reached dry land without any unseemly floundering. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Faulks!" Another unseemly intrusion. This time it was Sprott, the chief messenger, flurried and frightened, no doubt, by recent reproof. "Sir Humphrey's going on awful, sir; he's rung his bell three times, and asked how long it took you ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... she had heard the tinkle of the coffee-cups in the corridor and wanted to put an end to what in any hands but Jimmy's would have been an unseemly altercation. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate. He marvelled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man, when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty to bestow, and which the minister himself ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... armour but little now, save when they were about some journey wherein was peril of wild beasts. Ursula had dight her some due woman's raiment betwixt her knight's surcoat and doe-skins which they had gotten, so that it was not unseemly of fashion. As for their horses, they but seldom backed them, but used them to draw stuff to their rock-house on sledges, which they made of tree-boughs; so that the beasts grew fat, feeding on the grass of the valley and the wild-oats withal, which grew at the upper end of ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... are to be diligently avoided by Bucolicks, whose nature it is to be soft, and easie: For in small matters, and such must all the strifes and contentions of Shepherds be, to make a great deal of adoe, is as unseemly, as to put Hercules's Vizard and Buskins on an Infant, as Quintilian hath excellently observ'd. For since Eclogue is but weak, it seems not capable of those Commotions which belong to the Theater, and Pulpit; they must be soft, and gentle, and all its Passion must ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... inadequate practice, since it happened as often as not that the aggrieved person was killed. In taking no notice of the calumnies, therefore, Washington prevented the President of the United States from being drawn into an unseemly duel. We cannot fail to recognize also that Washington was very sensitive to the maintenance of freedom of speech. He seems to have acted on the belief that it was better that occasionally license should degenerate into abuse than that liberty should be ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... of thorns under a pot. This silenced them for a little, but the noise broke out during the last prayer, and with the final word of the Benediction my gentlemen thrust their way through the congregation, that they might be the first at the church door. I have never seen so unseemly a sight, and for a moment I thought that Governor Nicholson would call the halberdiers and set them in the pillory. He refrained, though his face was dark with wrath, and I judged that there would be some hard words said before the matter ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... Ann. "Adnah goes about sighing all the day, and looks over-long in the mirror, and takes unseemly pains with her dressing, and does up her hair with flowers, and has feverishly pink cheeks, and likes to sit in a corner and brood, and takes long walks by herself, and especially, especially, seems fond ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... resolution to probe this mystery slowly, and without unseemly haste, I dropped the subject, and commenced to ask his advice regarding the complicated case of Lady Twickenham. The history of it, and the directions he gave can serve no purpose if written here; therefore suffice it to say that I remained to dinner and caught the ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... which I was now able to trace to its origin, on the lips of a small unseemly rag of human-kind. The speaker's skin was grey and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song, with much variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease called St. Vitus's dance) to be imperfectly under control; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he broke the right arm of his opponent. He bade his seconds tie up his own corresponding arm.] son of Amargin, youngest of the knights of Concobar. "Son of Amargin," said the king, "do thou watch over the boys this day in their pastimes. See that nothing is done unseemly or unjust. Observe narrowly the behaviour and disposition of the lads, and report all things clearly ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... in all perhaps a score. Terutak's wife had returned (even as she had vanished) unseen, and now sat, breathless and watchful, by her husband's side. Perhaps some rumour of our quest had gone abroad, or perhaps we had given the alert by our unseemly freedom: certain, at least, that in the faces of all present, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... When this unseemly scramble was over, the Saint—who, leaning his brow on his hands, had appeared not to notice these proceedings—struck up a solemn hymn-tune. Then he put his hands over his eyes, as if lost in an ecstasy; after which he suddenly began to call out our ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... choose Miss Wood's text. He made his selection from another of the Psalms; and when it came, I did not dare to look at anybody; I was much nearer unseemly conduct than the cow-boys. Dr. Mac Bride gave us his text sonorously, "'They are altogether become filthy; There is none of them that doeth good, no, not one.'" His eye showed us plainly that present company was not excepted from this. He repeated the text ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... for Aud to keep her countenance, for she was like to have wept. And yet she felt it would be unseemly to eat her invitation; and like a shallow woman and one that had always led her husband by the nose, she told herself she would find some means to cajole Thorgunna and come by her purpose after all. So she put a good face on the thing, ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 8. Unseemly it had been that he should so have ruled over Giuki's heritage and the Goths' people, when he five sons, for the fall of hosts, eager ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... fellow, I am tired to death," he said, as he sat down at Opdyke's side, hitched up his trousers to prevent unseemly bagging and smoothed ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Science; and from Science Freedom. 225 O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth's rivalry! and they, who long Enamoured with the charms of order, hate 230 The unseemly disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the Victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage[118:1] Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud 235 And dashed the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... stimulus to keep alive its zeal. For so soon as the press of danger ceased, and party strifes abated, with the accession of the House of Brunswick, Christianity began forthwith to slumber. The trumpet of Wesley and Whitefield was needed before that unseemly slumber could again ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... during the farewells in the Castle, but Ambrose represented that the good man was giving them much of his time, and that it would be unseemly and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... no shame will betide him, if I marry her." And quoth the eunuch, "O my lord, naught that in haste is done long endureth nor doth the heart rejoice therein; and indeed it behoveth thee not to take her on this unseemly wise. Whatsoever betideth thee, destroy not thyself with haste, for I know that her sire's breast will be straitened by this affair and this that thou dost will not win thy wish." But the king said, "Verily, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... circumstances of corroborative suspicion. The chief of these was, that a neighbor had declared he heard the father indulging in obstreperous mirth in a room adjoining that in which the corpse lay only about two hours after his son had expired. This unseemly, scandalous hilarity of her husband, the wife appeared to faintly remonstrate against. The directors had consequently resolved non obstante Dr. Parkinson's declaration, who might, they argued, have been deceived, to have the body exhumed in order to a post-mortem examination as to ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... seems to be insane and consuming: "All we the other gods have thee against us, O Jove! when we would give grace to men; for thou hast begotten the maid without a mind— the mischievous creature, the doer of unseemly evil. All we obey thee, and are ruled by thee. Her only thou wilt not resist in anything she says or does, because thou didst bear her—consuming child ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... Longueville, but narrating certain passages of her life, in which that of the seventeenth century, with its grandeurs and its miseries, is so completely identified; and if we feel a sincere admiration for the sister of the great Conde, that admiration does not close our eyes to her errors. It is not unseemly to admire a heroine whose lofty qualities are mingled with weaknesses which remind us of her sex. It is, moreover, the first duty of history, such as we understand it, and desire to have it understood, not to stop at the surface of events, but to seek for their causes in the depths ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... blow to Caroline. It seemed to her to be almost incredible that she, she, Caroline Waddington, should be forced to receive such a letter as that under any circumstances and from any gentleman. Unseemly, unfeminine, unladylike! These were the epithets her lover used in addressing her. She was told that it bored him to play the lover; that his misconduct was her fault; and then she was accused of mawkishness! ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... away from the itunkulu, and beyond reach of the unseemly sounds which issued therefrom, Mapela conducted me to the group of chiefs still gathered round the royal chair and introduced me to them severally and individually; then, discreetly and with a certain air of mystery, he hinted to his fellow indunas that the investiture ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... afternoon I prepared the garden with a deluge of champagne. The golden drops sparkled on every rose-petal: the lawn was drenched with it. After playing one round the Bishop was gloriously inflamed. He had to be carried home, roaring the most unseemly ditties. Since then, as I say, he has grown (I fear) a trifle suspicious. But let us ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... do, good Mr. Warden," said the Lady, scarce able to suppress a smile; "we will think more at large upon this matter. In the meanwhile, I trust to your remonstrances with this wild boy and with the family, for restraining these violent and unseemly jealousies and bursts of passion; and I entreat you to press on him and them their duty in this respect towards God, and towards ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... dismal night—and a four-wheeled cab is jolting along through the dark and almost deserted thoroughfares of Manchester. Miss Gertrude White is in the cab, and the truth is that she is in a thorough bad temper. Whether it was that the unseemly scuffle that took place in the gallery during the performance, or whether it is that the streets of Manchester, in the midst of rain and after midnight are not inspiriting, or whether it is merely that she has ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... China, is waiting—waiting more patiently than impatient Westerners, but waiting just as anxiously; waiting with ear wide open to every rumour; waiting with an eye on every shadow—to know whether the storm is going to break or blow away. There is something disconcerting, startling, unseemly in being waited on by those who you know are in turn waiting on battle, murder, and sudden death. You feel that something may come suddenly at any moment, and though you do not dare to speak your thoughts to your neighbour, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... as an ultimate result and a consummation. Again, he was preserved from the danger of going down too deep and too low into the unclean mysteries of modern humanity, not so much perhaps by moral delicacy as by an artistic distaste for all that is repulsive and unseemly. For those reasons, it would not be surprising if—when Death has made him young again—Alphonse Daudet was destined to outlive and outshine many who have enjoyed an equal or even greater celebrity during ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... assembled at midnight at Fenchurch Street station, making the surrounding neighbourhood echo again with their patriotic songs, and a special train took them down to Southend, where the London was lying. Arrived on board, a very unseemly dispute arose between some of the officers, resulting in Captain de R—— turning Major H—— out of the ship. The London did not call anywhere going down Channel, strict orders having been given to her captain not to do so, in consequence of the number ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... torture, hell. The good friar would have applied the consolation of philosophy to his griefs; but this frantic young man would hear of none, but like a madman he tore his hair and threw himself all along upon the ground, as he said, to take the measure of his grave. From this unseemly state he was roused by a message from his dear lady which a little revived him; and then the friar took the advantage to expostulate with him on the unmanly weakness which he had shown. He had slain Tybalt, but would he also slay himself, slay his dear lady, who lived but in his life? The ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... hut, saw several blacks spearing the sheep. He seized his musket and shouted, warning them to go away. One of them, who was sitting on the top rail with his back towards the hut, seemed to think that he was out of range of the musket, for he made most unseemly gestures, and yelled back at Joe in a defiant and contemptuous manner. Joe's gun was charged with shot, and he fired and hit his mark, for the blackfellow dropped suddenly from the top rail, and ran away, putting his hands behind ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... what they were saying at the Liberal Club, and smiled disdainfully at the thought of the unseemly language that would animate the luxurious heaviness of the Conservative Club, where prominent publicans gathered after eleven o'clock to uphold the State and arrange a few bets with sporting clients. He admitted, as ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... diminished in value. All this was evident as we went along. Here was warmth, and wealth, and independence staring us in the face; there was negligence, desponding struggle, and decline, conscious, as it were, of their unseemly appearance, and anxious, one would think, to shrink away from the searching eye ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... is for my struggling church, a weak blade of grass in the desert," Santa Fe was saying when Hill got the range of 'em, "I cannot but regret having taken from you your splendid contribution to our parish fund in so unusual, I might almost say in so unseemly, a way. That I have returned to you a sufficient sum to enable you to prosecute your journey to its conclusion places you under no obligation to me. Indeed, I could not have done less—considering the very liberal loan that you have made to my ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... said he, "that Lady Cromarty might think it somewhat unseemly of me to come enquiring about shooting so soon after her bereavement; so I gave her a somewhat different explanation. She is not likely to make any further enquiries about me and so you need say ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... the most singular relics of a character which excites even morbid curiosity. No more debauched and worthless wretch ever filled a throne; but, like the bad man in Aristotle, Henri III. was "full of repentance." When he was not dancing in an unseemly revel, he was on his knees in his chapel. The board of one of his books, of which an engraving lies before me, bears his cipher and crown in the corners; but the centre is occupied in front with a picture of the Annunciation, while on the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang |
