"Unseemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been told with variations, which did credit to the ingenuity of Carlingford; and Mr Morgan's version was that they had walked arm in arm, in the closest conversation, and at an hour which was quite unseemly for such a little person as Rosa to be abroad. The excellent Rector gave the story with strong expressions of disapproval; for he was aware of having raised his wife's expectations, and had a feeling, as he related them, that the circumstances, after all, were ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... is to be found as well among the cooler temperaments of the Teutonic stock, as among us of warmer blood. Do not this placid hill-side, yon lake, and the starry heavens, look as if they regretted their late unseemly violence, and wished to cheat the beholder into forgetfulness of their attack on our safety, as an impetuous but generous nature would repent it of the blow given in anger, or of the cutting speech that had escaped in a moment of spleen? What hast thou to say to my opinion, Signor ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... raise their spleen against the Regent's spinney? Were charitable boxes handed round, And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea? Perchance, the Demoiselle refused to molt The feathers in her head—at least till Monday; Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt A tract presented to be read on Sunday?— But what is your opinion, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... behold who it is, Mr. Beltham, that acknowledges to the misfortune of arousing you at an unseemly hour—unbetimes, as our gossips in mother Saxon might say—and with profound regret, sir, though my habit is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... whom insisted on having an independent turn at life. Meanwhile then, if he was adequately aware that the bed of his moral existence would need a good deal of making over if he was to lie upon it without unseemly tossing, he was also alive to the propriety of not parading his inconsistencies, not letting his unregulated passions become a spectacle to the vulgar. He had none of that wish to appear deep which is at the bottom of most forms of fatuity; he was perfectly ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... supper. Nothing could have cut deeper than this neglect, and thereafter adherents of the third remove declined to speak when passing; some even refused to nod. The Harkey faction also condemned the early marriage of Bill and Sarah as unseemly. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... as no boat awaited them at the shore, their case looked hopeless indeed. But the old salt left in charge of the schooner was equal to the occasion. The unsabbath-like tumult on the shore quickly attracted his attention, and with unfeigned astonishment he had observed his commander's unseemly egress from the church. But, when the armed band of colonists appeared upon the scene, he ceased to rub his eyes in wonder, and quickly loaded up a swivel gun, with which he let fly, over the heads of his officers, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... and a very earnest bigot. "There can be no doubt," says our historian, in his convincing way, "that he often paused in his reckless career, filled with remorse, wrestling with his flighty spirit, to overcome his unseemly sports"; and as to the sincerity of his fanaticism, "to suppose otherwise is to charge a mere youth with a hypocritical cunning worthy of the Borgias in their zenith." Masterly strokes like these are, of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... 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 ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... I after in the field espied, Performing wondrous feats of chivalry, I was surprised by Love, ere I descried That freedom in my Love, so rash a guide, I lay this unction to my phantasy, That no unseemly place my heart possest, Fixed on the worthiest ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Officer and Mess President, was everlastingly piping all hands on deck at unseemly hours to save the home and push it back into shape; we were householders in the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... deep water once more; but he was no mean conversational swimmer, and reached dry land without any unseemly floundering. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... of these two fellow-pupils, they too could not help becoming attached to them and admiring them, but as they also came to know that they were great friends of Hseh P'an, they did not, in consequence, venture to treat them lightly, or to be unseemly in their behaviour towards them. Hsiang Lin and Y Ai both kept to themselves the same feelings, which they fostered for Ch'in Chung and Pao-y, and to this reason is to be assigned the fact that though these four persons nurtured fond thoughts in their hearts ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... witness against Thee?" He affected to believe that it was something of enormity that had been alleged; but it was really because he knew that nothing could be founded on it that he gave way to such unseemly excitement. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... suffered unseemly ills, baulked in thy discretion thou art erring; and like a bad physician, having fallen into a distemper thou art faint-hearted, and, in reference to thyself, thou canst not discover by what manner of ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... of electric fire, launched upon the storm-tost President from Berlin itself, and even from the King's House itself,—by whom, too clearly recognizable,—what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in fact, on Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a Voltaire charged with electricity. Friedrich evidently in considerable indignation, finding that public measures would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand; wrote ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... I would, even though I were to see you again clinging to the rock and imploring it to take pity on your thirst. And he who dies for you, Unorna—of him you ask nothing, save that he will crawl away and die alone, and not disturb your delicate life with such an unseemly sight." ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... barely seen her party, as I passed it with a double row of gazers interposed, all eager to catch the sunlight of Majesty, appearing to care little how much she might be annoyed or they abased by their unseemly gaping. I hope no Americans contributed to swell these groups, but after what I have seen here I am by no means sure ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... father!' "'Listen!' said the elder sister, 85 'He is praying to his father! What a pity that the old man Does not stumble in the pathway, Does not break his neck by falling!' And they laughed till all the forest 90 Rang with their unseemly laughter. "On their pathway through the woodlands Lay an oak, by storms uprooted, Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree, Buried half in leaves and mosses, 95 Mouldering, crumbling, huge and hollow. ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... defeated. At this point Nicholas Trist, envoy from the 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 ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... me was protracted to an unseemly length before the sting of this remark reached him; it penetrated finally, however, and in his sharp change of posture there was a lightning flicker of the experienced boxer; but he checked the impulse, and took up the task of obliterating me in ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... order, and the sails white as snow. In short, everything, from the single narrow red stripe on her low, black hull to the trucks on her tapering masts, evinced an amount of care and strict discipline that would have done credit to a ship of the Royal Navy. There was nothing lumbering or unseemly about the vessel, excepting, perhaps, a boat, which lay on the deck with its keel up between the fore and main masts. It seemed disproportionately large for the schooner; but when I saw that the crew amounted to between thirty and forty men, I concluded that this ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... it's a shame for visitors to crowd up and get in the way unless they are prepared to sit perfectly still, whatever happens." Really one feels ashamed of the squealing and frightened laughter of careless white visitors who stand or sit nearer than they should and then make an unseemly disturbance when a snake gets too close. The priests resent such conduct, but always go right on without paying any attention to it. The rattles and singing voices of the Antelope priests furnish a dignified, rhythmic accompaniment throughout ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... to divert themselves, and the Nuns, with a little pleasant and inoffensive Chit-chat. For though I have heard some relate a World of nauseous Passages at such Conversations, I must declare, that I never saw, or heard any Thing unseemly; and therefore whenever I have heard any such from such Fabulists, I never so much wrong'd my Judgment as to ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... windows, can only be discerned here and there through the tapestry of boughs. A fine, open-work, Gothic screen half conceals and half shows the garden, as you stand in front of the house—(see the Engraving.) It was the offspring of necessity, for it became desirable to mask an unseemly old wall, on which are many goodly fruit-trees. What we most admired about the estate, was the naturally useful and elegant manner in which the great poet has laid out the plantations—first, with respect to the bounding or enclosing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... while she was thinking this, with a cold blank misery in her heart, she had to invent some excuse for this unseemly visit. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... are without who held watch in the corridor; they declare that a long, white figure, with a veiled face and black gloves, passed slowly by them the whole length of the corridor, and entered this room; they, believing that some unseemly mask wished to approach your majesty, followed the figure and saw it enter this room. They ran hither to seize the masker, but your majesty knows no such ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... contemptuously. She had flung open her veil, unashamed as are women of her station that I, not her brother or her husband, should gaze upon her face. It was a pleasant enough face of a woman of five-and-twenty years of age; yet, methought, as I looked into it now, that there was unseemly boldness in her eye and even something of ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... 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
... one hundred prisoners, and humorously remarked that the table at which he was standing, was really a patent incubating apparatus, under which four dozen of Mrs. Macleod's chickens were coming to maturity. He hoped these embryo fowls would not interrupt the lecture by any unseemly remarks. At the risk of wearying the chickens, I spoke for an hour and a half, dealing in the course of my remarks (to be as apposite as possible) with the dungeon scene in "The Legend of Montrose," where Dugald Dalgetty squeezes the windpipe of ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... insistence, any threat of imminent collision, there was none of it. It was the bell of a man who loved margins, who was at his ease, and would have all the world at its ease. More than anything else, it reminded me of the boom of some ivy-clad church tower, warning the world without unseemly haste that another hour had, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... part in the simple life about me. Chin Tien is one of the largest and most prosperous of Omei's monasteries, and it is also one of the best conducted. Everything was orderly and quiet. Discipline seemed well maintained, and there was no unseemly begging for contributions as at Wan-nien Ssu. It boasts an abbot and some twenty-five full-fledged monks and acolytes. All day long pilgrims, lay and monastic, were coming and going, and the little bell that is rung to warn the god of the presence of a worshipper ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... good reasons been carefully concealed from me and from others. That Farmer Perryman was one actor in that tragedy, and that Mrs. Abel was another, had been already revealed past recalling. More than this it was unseemly ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... of which she only dimly guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... not. Captain Puffin, at the other table, seemed to be behaving with the same impropriety, for the sound of his shrill, falsetto laugh was as regular as his visits to the bucket of red-currant fool. What if there was champagne in it after all, so Miss Mapp luridly conjectured! What if this unseemly good-humour was due to incipient intoxication? She took a little more of that delicious ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... that two young and interesting friends of mine just about to be engaged to each other would be simply inconsolable if the plan were given up; and, in short, that I should show by not going an extremely hateful and unseemly spirit—"besides, it wouldn't do to have it without you, my dear," continued my amiable friend, "because you know you are always the life of the party." So I ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... conclusion Dove eventually came to himself—though not with such unseemly haste as Madeleine. Having approached the matter from all sides, he argued that it would be more considerate to Ephie to put it in this light than to tell the story in detail. And consequently, two elderly people in Peterborough nodded to each other one morning ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time. "But I am anxious to mention something," she said. "And I wished not to alarm Mrs. Farfrae ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... office for to do. All such and many other he stirreth them for to do, and all under colour of devotion and of charity; not for he is delighted in any deed of devotion and of charity, but for he loveth dissension and slander, the which is evermore caused by such unseemly singularities; for where so ever that any one or two are in any devout congregation, the which any one or two useth any such outward singularities, then in the sight of fools all the remenant are slandered by them; but, in the sight of the wise man, they slander themselves. But for ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... in its effect, should be encountered without some attempt to fix the responsibility. To Thurlow Weed's sorrow[569] was added the mortification of defeat. He had staked everything upon success, and, although he doubtless wished to avoid any unseemly demonstration of disappointment, the rankling wound goaded him into a desire to relieve himself of any lack of precaution. Henry J. Raymond scarcely divided the responsibility of management; but his newspaper, which had spoken ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... he, "behold and regard well this sturdy cut-throat fellow that sitteth beside me, big of body, unseemly of habit, fierce and unlovely of look—one to yield the wall unto, see ye! And yet—now heed me well, this fellow, ragged and unkempt, this ill-looking haunter of bye-ways, this furtive snatcher of purses ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... small volume. Probably this is a little too concise, and the narrative is somewhat dry and bare. It is often, however, acute, and is always clear; and even were its defects greater than they are, we should think it unseemly to criticize the last work of one who has performed so many useful services to literature ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... hurried out of church. She thought it unseemly. Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle. Mary looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him with ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... be good enough to explain how you come to be found struggling in this unseemly manner? I sent you up here to meditate ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... never met I any that should be like to wise me in this matter. And, the sooth to say, but I would not desire to dwell amongst kin that had set my mother aside, and reckoned her not fit to company with them, not for no wickedness nor unseemly dealing, but only that she came of a trading stock. It seemeth me, had such wist our blessed Lord Himself, they should have bidden Him stand aside, for He was but a carpenter's son. That's the evil of being in ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Solomon to the Queen of Sheba; and lastly, into the apartment honoured by the august presence of Lord Glenmorris. That personage was dividing the sofa with three spaniels and a setter; he rose hastily when I was announced, and then checking the first impulse which hurried him, perhaps, into an unseemly warmth of salutation, held out his hand with a pompous air of kindly protection, and while he pressed mine, surveyed me from head to foot to see how far my appearance justified ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "What—what—what does this unseemly excitement mean?" sternly demanded the Iron King, while Cora arose to shake hands with her uncle and brother; and while Rose, fearful of doing wrong, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... his friendships were the main adventure. We have mentioned a name which is too frequently the object of malignity on English lips, the name of Voltaire. No one would pretend that the multiform energy of this giant of literature did not take some unseemly directions and several unlovely shapes. But the qualities of Voltaire must, in the eyes of any unbiassed observer, vastly overtop his defects. If, however, we wish to see Voltaire at his best, we must contemplate him in relation to our soldier-philosopher. As soon ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... working in the life. "Long-suffering" is repeated, and so is "kindness" or "goodness." "Faithfulness" is reproduced in "never faileth." Then "self-control" receives the emphasis of an eight-fold repetition of "nots." Listen:—"Envieth not," "boasteth not," "not puffed up," "not unseemly," "seeketh not (even) her own," "is not provoked," "taketh not account of evil" (in trying to help others, like Jesus' word "despairing of no man"[24]), "rejoiceth not in unrighteousness" (that is when the unrighteous is punished, but instead feels sorry for him). ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... appearing, and their twinkling was answered by responsive gleams in the city below. Against the velvety dusk two tall objects towered in the distance, the beautiful Gothic spire of the cathedral, and the tall, unseemly gas pipe of Clarke's Bottle Factory. Between them, under a haze of smoke and ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Broadway, from Prince Street to the Bowling Green, each leading her pet greyhound by a ribbon leash, or which of us it was that, in seeking to recapture an escaping hound, was upset by it in the mud, to the audible delight of some rivals in a 'bus and his own discomfiture, being rendered thereby unseemly for the beauty's ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... positive that final decision has yet been reached, but I heard daybreak to-morrow mentioned. The probability of an early movement of our troops is the excuse urged for such unseemly haste." ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... with the strangers, and remarked sourly, "Much wisdom, my lords, may be found in the complaints of women. Azalia has doubtless been telling you of the riddle of the Mankalah rug, forgetting that it is unseemly in a maiden to point the way to the possession of ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... at all since I became unconscious; so you have had all your long journeys for nothing, my learned friends, and a very good joke too;" at which the Regius Professor of Physiology burst into a roar of laughter and slapped his thigh in a highly indecorous fashion. The audience were so enraged at this unseemly behaviour on the part of their host, that there might have been a considerable disturbance, had it not been for the judicious interference of young Fritz von Hartmann, who had now recovered from his lethargy. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his deed. To adequately describe what met my eyes when the door swung back on its hinges, is beyond my powers of description. Fiddles here!—Fiddles there!—Fiddles everywhere, in wild disorder! I interrogated my friend as to the cause of their being in such an unseemly condition, and received answer that he had instructions to remove most of the instruments from their cases and arrange them, that I might better judge of their merits. I was at a loss to understand what he meant by arranging, for a more complete disarrangement could not have been ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... nonsense, it was clear to her from every look and word that she was not mistaken in believing William unchanged in mind and disposition, and that there was a warm and a kind heart beating under the finery. Moreover, she felt that if the unseemly magnificence could once be thrown aside, the whiskers and mustachios cleared away, and his fine manly person reinstated in the rustic costume in which she had been accustomed to see him, her brother would then appear greatly improved in face and figure, taller, ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... watching her, she was likely to drop the piece of wood on the floor, or, what was worse, to drop it on the fire instead of laying it on. The scattering of ashes on the floor of the temple was held unseemly, that live coals should fall from the Altar was considered almost sacrilegious. Meffia, more than once, perpetrated such appalling blunders. Very tardily did she learn her duties; only after four years could she be trusted to take her regular turn in care of the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Marcia Reale, Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with men, women with women, little boys and girls together. The gallery whirled with a laughing crowd. There was plenty of excitement and enjoyment—not an unseemly or extravagant word or gesture. My comare careered about with a light maenadic impetuosity, which made me regret my inability to accept her pressing invitations. She pursued me into every corner of the room, but when at last I dropped excuses and told her that my real reason for not dancing ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... shoving the glad performers about as if they were tenpins, raging like the lions which roared their surprise at this unseemly hubbub ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 ...
— Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost • Gregory Thornton
... rooms near by rushed Mr. Cantwell, the principal—-or "Prin." as he was known, his face white with the anger that he felt over what he regarded as a most unseemly disturbance. ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... a terrible 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
... Grigory, stepping back in astonishment and clasping his hands. "What have you got on your shoulders, a head or some other object? You send a note up to the altar, and write a word in it which it would be unseemly even to utter in the street! Why are you rolling your eyes? Surely you know the meaning ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... 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 Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... has broken. Everything has been hurried over as much as possible; with no unseemly haste—just in the most ordinary, kindly way—however. But Lady Rylton's hand was at the helm, and she guided her barque to a safe anchor with all speed. She had kept Tita with her—under her eye, as it were—until the final accomplishment ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... Carlovingian cycles. And of this we fortunately have in English a poetical version from the great trouvere among the poets of our day, the late Mr William Morris. Of yet others, the often-mentioned Voyage a Constantinoble, with its rather unseemly gabz (boasting jests of the peers, which are overheard by the heathen emperor with results which seem like at one time to be awkward), is among the oldest, and is a warning against the tendency to take the presence of comic elements as a necessary evidence of late date. Les Saisnes, dealing ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... box apportioned to the Daily News when the Doctor attempted to evade this rule and to present himself before the Speaker without the customary credentials. He was of course forbidden to enter and after some unseemly altercation outside the bar, two members were found to volunteer to introduce him. He marched up the House with his umbrella in one hand and the certificate of the Returning Officer in the other, his eyes flashing a quite unnecessary defiance, poor gentleman, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... you couldn't blame them. He and Dick—they had been like two children, scared out of their wits, crying out, hitting at each other in the dark. Youth and age, that was what they had fought about. It had been an unseemly scrap, a "you're another." Dick had been brought up against life as it looks when you see it naked, the world—and what a world! No wonder he swore it was a world such as neither he nor his fellows, like him aghast, would ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... mixed up every afternoon owing to the failure of fellows to play when they were supposed to, and it was one of Amy's duties to hunt up the offenders and threaten them with all sorts of awful fates if they didn't arise at some unseemly hour the next morning and play off the postponed match before Chapel. Clint went over to the courts one afternoon before practice in the hope of seeing his room-mate perform. But Amy was dashing around with a score-sheet in hand and the matches in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... whole of the open space was more or less disfigured by stumps, dead and girdled trees, charred stubs, log-heaps, brush, and all the other unseemly accompaniments of the first eight or ten years of the existence of a new settlement. This period, in the history of a country, may be likened to the hobbledehoy condition in ourselves, when we have lost the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... he lives?" I asked gloomily, and, unseemly though it might be, it was perhaps hardly strange that I could not bring myself to wish anything but that he ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... fish of as sorry aspect as may readily be scared up. Generally speaking, he is repulsive as to hat, abhorrent as to vesture, squalid of boot, and in tout ensemble unseemly and atrocious. His appeal for alms falls not more vexingly upon the ear than his offensive personality smites hard upon the eye. The touching effectiveness of his tale is ever neutralized by the ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... Indian women are invariably extremely shy, rarely like to be photographed, and are anxious only to escape observation and notice. The ladies of the gobernador's own family, however, of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry, not only had no objection to being photographed, but were moved to unseemly and unsympathetic laughter at the predicament of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... the publisher, Vlac, who had officially 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 ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... taken possession of the streets, and stationed soldiers there with orders to allow no one to pass. The soldiers killed a young lad who tried to pass, or wounded him so severely that it is said that he died. Notwithstanding the unseemly hour, the people came running out at the outcry and clamor especially those from the nearest houses. They saw and noted everything with fairness, and consequently it has been published that the chief murderers were those whom the governor took with him, both those ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... "Your speech is unbridled and unseemly. I am not worthy to be likened to that holy man of old, for whose sake the Lord well nigh saved Sodom, nor am I placed in so sore a strait. You spoke of nothing worse than kissing. The girl will not be the worse, I trow, for a buss or two. Women are not so mighty ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... contemplate with equanimity the prospect of Westminster Abbey and its solemnities being given up to the tender mercy of the evening papers and a joking judge surrounded by millinery. Such an exhibition would be unseemly. It would soil our national existence. In a word, it would have ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... uncared for through the city; no father heeded his daughter ever so little even though he should see her done to death before his eyes at the hands of an insolent step-dame, nor did sons, as before, defend their mother against unseemly outrage; nor did brothers care at heart for their sister. But in their homes, in the dance, in the assembly and the banquet all their thought was only for their captive maidens; until some god put desperate courage in our hearts no more to receive our lords on their ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... and women! Dash the children's brains out against the stone wall! Violate young girls! Mutilate their fair bodies so that they will be unseemly when they are found by the husband or father. Burn, steal, kill—but remember that your Kaiser and the War Staff have promised to stand between you and God Almighty and the Day of Judgment! Even if Jesus did say, "Woe unto them that offend against my little ones," you must ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... relations were endangered by the presence of two independent leaders. Divided authority here, as it nearly always does, caused petty and undignified squabbles, which were in later days elaborated into unseemly paper conflict. It is painful if somewhat amusing to read of the acrid disputes as to the course, under the very shadow of the majestic Australian Alps whose solitude had only then been first disturbed by white men; and how, on agreeing to separate and divide the outfit, it was proposed ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... to tell that a party, on horseback and on foot, were winding out of the ravine, and coming straight up over the pasture.—All was now certainty; and great was the bustle, to put out of sight all unseemly tokens of preparation. In the midst of the hurry, Frolich found time to twist some of her pretty flowers into her pretty hair; so that it might easily chance that the bishop would not miss her silk gown.—When, ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... greeted with soft music on muted violins) deprecated all unseemly pranks. Nothing would induce him to change his patronymic or turn it upside ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... among us, which imposed on every one of us a certain charge as to the good conduct of the whole,—making each, as it were, alive to the faults and responsible for the misconduct of our little community. Rude noise, unseemly confusion, the least approach to dissipation at a tavern, or any other violation of propriety on the road, would have been considered as an insult to the college. And thus it happened that we established throughout Switzerland a character for decorum such as no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... man, seated on a powerful iron grey horse, who had entered the court with attendants while the Duke of Rothsay was engaged with Louise, and now remained stupefied and almost turned to stone by his surprise and anger at this unseemly spectacle. Even one who had never seen Archibald Earl of Douglas, called the Grim, must have known him by his swart complexion, his gigantic frame, his buff coat of bull's hide, and his air of courage, firmness, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... was separated from the dining "saloon" by a sliding door—which frequently refused to slide at all, or else perversely slid so suddenly as to endanger finger-tips and cause unseemly words to flow. This noble apartment of elegant dimensions (to borrow the undefiled English of the house-agent) could contain four feasters at a pinch. Sabz Ali having cooked the dinner, the cook-boat was laid alongside, and Sabz Ali, clambering in and out ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... of Aristotle were most exemplary. The unseemly wrangles of Philip and his wife were never repeated in the home of Aristotle. Yet we will have to offer this fact in the interests of stirpiculture: the inconstant Philip and the termagant Olympias brought into the world Alexander; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... him at all sorts of unseemly places and hours out of doors,—in the dark,—fainting away in his—his arms, if I must speak out. All the town is talking of it.' Mr. Gibson's hand was over his eyes again, and he made no sign; so Miss Browning went on, adding touch to touch. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... now doth appertain; But people from the change have nothing won. Rid of the evil one, the evil ones remain. Lord Baron call thou me, so is the matter good; Of other cavaliers the mien I wear. Dost make no question of my gentle blood; See here, this is the scutcheon that I bear! (He makes an unseemly gesture.) ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... were being escorted by Althea Riley, one of the prefects, along the corridor to the studio. Hitherto, by dint of judicious curbing, they had always walked two and two in decent line and had refrained from prohibited conversation. To-day they surged upstairs in an unseemly rabble, chattering and talking like a flock of rooks or jackdaws at sunset. It was in vain that Althea tried to restore order, her efforts at discipline were simply scouted by the unruly mob, who rushed into the studio helter-skelter, took their places anyhow, and only ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... in the kennels and among the horses' heels, and learned to use oaths as roundly as any Giles or Tom whose work was to wield the curry comb. It was indeed a curious thing to hear her red baby mouth pour forth curses and unseemly words as she would at any one who crossed her. Her temper and hot-headedness carried all before them, and the grooms and stable- boys found great sport in the language my young lady used in her innocent furies. But balk her in a whim, and she would pour forth the eloquence of a fish-wife or ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his mustaches a la Victor Emmanuel, and rolled his "r," as he said, "Sacr-r-r-r-r-e bleu!" even more ferociously than usual. It was only by a powerful effort that he restrained himself from indulging in various witticisms which would have been most unseemly in the presence of a poor girl who had just lost her father and all her hopes of fortune. But he did forget himself so much as to say that the drive to the cemetery had whetted his appetite, and to address his wife as Madame Range-a-bord, a title ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... bird or buccaneer That shapes its lawless figure on the main, And each new impulse tends to make outflee The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here; Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be Than that, though banned, ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... background. He would be spared the anxieties of early and impecunious marriage, his professional career would not be weighted by family cares, the whole world was once more open before him, and the slate clean. These were considerations which could not prudently be overlooked, though it would be unseemly to emphasise them too strongly when the poignancy of regret ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... violently bitter quarrel between the pair, the night before the man's death; and so far from having forgiven her husband, even then, the woman exhibited the turbulence of her temper and behaved in an unseemly manner during and after the services. Her outcries gave me a very strange impression and in fact so shocked and terrified me, that to this day I cannot recall the scene without a singular sensation of disquiet. Withal, it was the first funeral which I had ever attended. As a ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... a praying with the Spirit, that is, the effectual praying; because without that, as men are senseless, so hypocritical, cold, and unseemly in their prayers; and so they, with their prayers, are both rendered abominable to God (Matt 23:14; Mark 12:40; Luke 18:11, 12; Isa 58:2, 3). It is not the excellency of the voice, nor the seeming affection, and earnestness ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the lively crowd of the populace—flashing with repartee, seemly or unseemly, as they gathered close to the door just under the marble slab with its solemn appeal to reverence, "Rispettati la Casa di Dio"—penetrated into the Frari to see where the more pleasure could be gotten, as also to claim their right to be there; for this pageant was for the people also, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Oileus' son rebuked him in unseemly sort: "Idomeneus, why art thou a braggart of old? As yet far off the high-stepping mares are coursing over the wide plain. Neither art thou so far the youngest among the Argives, nor do thy eyes look so far the keenliest from thy ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... thought thee possessed of more manly feelings than to make light with so sad a subject, and introduce an unseemly jest." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the handsome Jewess met less success, and Louise Cocote, by way of a joke, put her petticoats over his head, so that Madame was obliged to interfere to check such unseemly behavior. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and evil-eyed, with matted hair— Workers of spells and witcheries are they— The brood of Calatin—beware! beware! They proffer of their fulsome food a share, And, 'Stay with us a while,' a false crone cries 'Unseemly is the strong who would the ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... —Yet these unseemly and desolate appearances do not prevent the attendance of congregations more numerous, and, I think, more fervent, than were usual when the altars shone with the offerings of wealth, and the walls were covered with the more interesting decorations of pictures ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... having been so mercifully treated by the English he would not leave them till he had learned more of their language and religion. In this he was especially instructed by good Master Hunt, the chaplain, who had ever proved himself a friend to the Indians, and to his own countrymen, whose unseemly disputes he had been instrumental ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... walking as though he was out for a wager, and speaking as though he expected people to do things in a minute; but he soon got over that. Folks at Chewton Cudley had a way of looking with a slow, placid, immovable stare at anybody who showed unseemly haste. If they were told to "be quick" or to "look sharp," they would leave what they were about to gaze with a cow-like serenity at the disturber. It was quite a lesson in placidity even to watch a farm-labourer or a workman sit on a gate or a cart-shaft to eat a slice of bread and cheese. ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... can almost see the half-earnest, half-humorous smile on his lip) that he was the most unfortunate fellow on earth. He was at any rate a bringer of good fortune to his friends, the Dean retorted; one friend at least he had saved from an unseemly outbreak of passion. At the Archbishop's table, in fact, Colet had found himself placed opposite to an uncle with whom he had long waged a bitter family feud, and it was only the singular chance which had brought him ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... nobles, were studded with gold and precious stones; the tables were profusely spread with gold and silver plates, goblets, and vases. Two bards stood before the King's couch, and sung of his victories. Wine was drunk in great excess; and buffoons, Scythian and Moorish, exhibited their unseemly dances before the revellers. When the Romans were to depart, Attila discovered to them his knowledge of the treachery which had been carried ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... very seriously with certain conventionalities of the metropolis. He overthrows, by his indomitable will, a great many social follies. He eats soup with a knife and fork; wears no more than one shirt a week; forces his way into ladies' chambers at unseemly hours, to cure them of timidity; and introduces sundry other reforms, all of which are recorded as evidences of glorious independence and a true nobility of spirit. Sometimes he goes farther,—farther than we care to follow him. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... commonwealth, but none so universally and vehemently regretted; and that it was to the honor of himself and all others, if bounds were observed. The same things which became private families and small states, became not princes and an imperial people; that it was not unseemly to lament in the first transport of sorrow, nay, relief was afforded by weeping, but it was now time to recover and compose their minds. Thus the deified Julius, upon the loss of an only daughter;[112] thus the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... treat it so unkindly,' I cried, springing down from my horse and laying my hand upon my companion's arm. 'There is no need to trail it in so unseemly a fashion. If it must be moved hence, I shall carry it with all due reverence. 'So saying, I picked the body up in my arms, and bearing it to a wayside clump of yellow gorse bushes, I laid it solemnly down and drew the branches ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it; soon will it be known to those who will scoff at it. But Christians and worldlings will look for consistency; and if it be wanting, the last will be the first to mark it. A decided character will soon deliver you from all solicitations to what may be even unseemly, and dignified consistent conduct will command respect. Not but the Lord may let loose upon you the persecuting sneer and banter of the wise of this world, whose esteem you wish to preserve; but, if he do, the trial will be ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... seen, with grief, the young and respectable Superior of the Ursulines tear her bosom with her own hands and grovel in the dust; we have seen the sisters, Agnes, Claire, and others, deviate from the modesty of their sex by impassioned gestures and unseemly laughter. When impious men have inclined to doubt the presence of the demons, and we ourselves felt our convictions shaken, because they refused to answer to unknown questions in Greek or Arabic, the reverend fathers have, to establish our belief, deigned to explain to us that the malignity ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... censuring as the best, and swear, by God's foot, he would never stir his foot to see a hundred such as that is!" The conduct of the gallants, among whom were included those who deemed themselves critics and wits, appears to have usually been of a very unseemly and offensive kind. They sat upon the stage, paying sixpence or a shilling for the hire of a stool, or reclined upon the rushes with which the boards were strewn. Their pages were in attendance to fill their pipes; and they were noted for ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... English captain in attendance on the Duke sent his card to Carlton's room. He came, he explained, to present the Prince's compliments, and would it be convenient for Mr. Carlton to meet the Duke that afternoon? Mr. Carlton suppressed an unseemly desire to shout, and said, after a moment's consideration, that it would. He then took the English captain down stairs to the smoking-room, and rewarded him ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... at him in astonishment. Mrs. Forbes's face was immovable. A sense of humor was not included in her mental equipment, and she considered the whole affair lamentable and unseemly in ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... me as a wringer of the public conscience, and does not my Cousin Rosalie mention me with a shudder of horror in her tepid prayers? If I really give them cause for reprobation they will be neither wiser, nor better, nor sorrier. And if the baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I for one shall know that the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was lighted, when my great-grandfather earned the radiance by services rendered at Brighton to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. This is the only way in which I can make Judith reparation, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... neighbour who is not chagrined at the turn events have taken—and the world would be only too glad of an excuse to call me 'fool.' Pomponnet's wife must be above suspicion. You will remember that a little lightness of conduct which might be forgiven in the employee of the florist would be unseemly in my fiancee. No more conversation with monsieur Tricotrin, Lisette! Some dignity—some coldness in the bow when you pass him. The boulevard will observe it, it will ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick |
