"Disgraceful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give to his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce "a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a piteous, d——d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or—I don't know what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to have a miserable ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... their present application; but I have not heard any denunciation from my colleague, or from any of those associated with him, of the provisions of that Fugitive Slave Law which was enacted in the interest of slavery, and for purposes of oppression, and which was an unworthy, cowardly, disgraceful concession to Southern opinion by Northern politicians. I have suffered no suitable opportunity to escape me to denounce the monstrous character of that Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. All these provisions were odious and disgraceful in my opinion, when applied in the ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... when he might have established himself again in trade.... This is cruel usage.' Boswell adds:—'I strongly suspect Dundas has given Pitt a prejudice against me. The excellent Langton says it is disgraceful; it is utter folly in Pitt not to reward and attach to his Administration a man of my popular and pleasant talents, whose merit he has acknowledged in a letter under his own hand.' Letters of Boswell, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... himself; which latter drove the miserable Ethelred, with wife and family, into Normandy, to wife's brother, the then Duke there; and ended that miserable struggle by Svein's becoming King of England himself. Of this disgraceful massacre, which it would appear has been immensely exaggerated in the English books, we can happily give the exact date (A.D. 1002); and also of Svein's victorious accession (A.D. 1013), [9]—pretty much the only benefit one gets out of contemplating such ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... large and difficult thing in my life, but my early training was all in the direction of regarding it as an irrelevant thing, as something disconnected from all the broad significances of life, as hostile and disgraceful in its quality. The world was never so emasculated in thought, I suppose, as it was in the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... tragi-farcical. Neither the town of Stonington or the State of Connecticut, had any legal power to comply with it, which Capt. Hardy well knew. And if Stonington Point with its rocky foundations had been in danger of being blown up, scarcely a voice would have been raised to have saved it on such disgraceful terms. The first duty of a citizen we are taught in Connecticut, is to obey the laws. Mrs. Stewart is under the protection of the government of the United States, and the petition of her husband for a permission for a departure is in the hands of a proper authority, who will undoubtedly ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... nonsense!" he cried. "Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked different ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... was flung open and cajoling and protesting words echoed along the passage up and down the staircase. It was disgraceful, and Kate expected every minute to hear her mother-in-law's voice mingling in the fray; but peace was restored, and for at least an hour she listened to sounds of laughing voices mingling with the clinking of glasses. At last Dick wished ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... thanks for your kind letter of May 20th and 26th, and also for the acceptable service you rendered me in making me known to Mr. Vaux, from whom I have had the pleasure of receiving two letters, and a promise of his assistance in preventing our soil from being polluted with the foul and disgraceful stain of slavery. The disinterested and praiseworthy zeal he evinces is as honorable to him, as it is gratifying to me, and is well calculated not only to give me an exalted opinion of his character, but to awaken the most lively feelings ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... new, I was ignorant, the mysteries of the human mind were a sealed book to me as yet, and I stupidly looked upon myself as a tough and unforgivable criminal. I wrote to Dr. Holmes and told him the whole disgraceful affair, implored him in impassioned language to believe that I had never intended to commit this crime, and was unaware that I had committed it until I was confronted with the awful evidence. I have lost his answer, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Elliott, a little shortly, "but it's all rubbish, and I don't think you ought to be allowed to go to such places! It's disgraceful—" ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... passed in previous reigns to improve the disgraceful state of the prisons in this country, but it was left to a band of workers, mostly Quakers, led by Elizabeth Fry, to bring about any real improvement. Any one who wishes to read what dens of filth and hotbeds of infection ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... [The disgraceful "No Popery" riots, which filled London with terror, and the whole country with alarm, in June, 1780, were occasioned by the recent relaxation of the severe penal laws against the Catholics. The rioters ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... detect an opium-eating people, and here we found examples all about us in every relation of life. It is a vice nearly always pursued in secret, but its traces upon the heavy, bleared eye and sallow features are plain and disfiguring enough. The disgraceful trade in the fatal drug, forced upon China by the English at the point of the bayonet, flourishes and increases, forming the heaviest item of import. It seems almost incredible that a people can long exist and consume such large quantities of this active ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... very properly refused to do. I have no doubt, however, that he has been successful in procuring the services of some one else. I am sorry to say, there are some clergymen in our city who would willingly assist in such a disgraceful proceeding. What ever could have induced a man with his prospects to throw himself away in that manner, I am at loss to determine—he has an independent fortune of about one hundred thousand dollars, besides expectations ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... pretty quick out of that piece of scenery,' he said. 'I felt downright mad at your being let in for such a disgraceful bit of business. I hadn't time to tell you that I'd sacked those men half an hour before. Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties, their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of them—Gumsucker Steve was to have come and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... gone, the cavalier came up to me, and holding out the purse, said, "I see plainly that necessity drove you to an action so disgraceful and unworthy of such a young man as you appear. Here, take that fatal purse; I freely give it you, and am heartily sorry for the misfortune you have undergone." Having thus spoken, he went away. Being very weak by loss of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... innocent gallantry, and above all with the fame of her brother, the Duke d'Enghien; but there were, it must be owned, already perceptible in her mind, some germs of an Important, which, later, Rochefoucauld knew only too well how to develop. But the slanderous attack that had been made upon her, the disgraceful motive of which was sufficiently clear, revolted every honest heart. The ungovernable impetuosity of Beaufort on this occasion was—as it deserved to be—strongly stigmatised. Having formerly paid his addresses to Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and been rejected, his conduct assumed ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... me so pairfectly miserable!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth she was frozen with horror. In the presence of one who was both a man and English she had admitted the disgraceful fact that she was not an imperial creature insolent with success and well pleased with the earth her footstool. She scrambled to her feet and ran coltishly past him and over the bridge, hiding her face and calling gaily, "Come on! ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was—Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled—to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears—a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... soon discovered that he was cold, heartless, and even dissolute. The intimacy betwixt them was fast relapsing into indifference, and, on her side, into dislike, when a certain denouement of Master Victor's notorious love-makings, accompanied by disgraceful circumstances, determined her to put an end to it, once and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... said. "All the City thinks so, and Vox Populi is Vox Dei, as the Babus say. Now I tell you that at the corner of the Padshahi Gate you will find my horse all this night if you want to go about and to see things. It is a most disgraceful exhibition. Where is the pleasure of saying 'Ya Hasan, Ya Hussain,' twenty ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... is determined by his position; and fine traits in a foreigner (unless he should happen to be something very great) strike us rather as part of a supposed mental alienism, and as such, naturally suspicious. It is rather disgraceful than otherwise to have your music teacher in love with you, and critical friends will never quite banish the suspicion that ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... as he unrolled himself from his blanket. "Or at least I felt one. That disgraceful Old Blacky nibbled at my ear twice. The first time I thought it was nothing ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... ninth Earl of Strathmore. He married in 1767 Miss Bowes, the great heiress, whose disgraceful ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... The first care of the new emperor was to deliver the Illyrian provinces from the intolerable weight of the victorious Goths. He consented to leave in their hands the rich fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and what was still more disgraceful, a great number of prisoners of the highest merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every conveniency that could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate their so much wished-for ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Digest shows that she had not complete free will in the matter: "It is understood that she who does not oppose the wishes of her father gives consent. But a daughter is allowed to object only in case her father chooses for her a man of unworthy or disgraceful character."[36] The son had an advantage here, because he could never be forced into a marriage against his will.[37] The consent of the father was always necessary for a valid marriage.[38] He could not by will compel his ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... to imagine another picture. What if instead of going out to the scene of his disgraceful death he had waited until after Jesus had risen? What if he had tarried behind some one of those great trees near the city along the way which he should walk, or, possibly on the Emmaus way? What if ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... to build it up, to increase the circulation—and to do that he had to keep on in the same way—he made that clear to me. I saw that we were in a vicious circle. The paper, to sell well, had to be made more and more detestable and disgraceful. At first I rebelled—but somehow—I can't tell you how it was—after that first concession the ground seemed to give under me: with every struggle I sank deeper. And then—then Alan was born. He was such a delicate baby that there was very little hope of saving ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... interruptions which characterise the British House of Commons, the silence and order of the Canadian House are very agreeable. [Footnote: In justice to the Canadian Parliament, I must insert the following extract from the 'Toronto Globe,' from which it will appear that there are very disgraceful exceptions ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... have gone, Fanny, I think you perfectly right. I may be sorry, I may be surprised—though hardly that, for you had not had time to attach yourself—but I think you perfectly right. Can it admit of a question? It is disgraceful to us if it does. You did not love him; nothing could ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... his glass an' bendin' a eye full of indignant reproach on Thompson; 'Texas, before I'd give way to sech onmanly weakness, jest because my wife's done stampeded, I'd j'ine the church. Sech mush from a cow-man is disgraceful. You'll come down to herdin' sheep if you keeps on surrenderin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... devoutly hoped that he had got a respectable team to cope with the Landfield fellows. If he could only have been sure of his half-back he would have been quite happy; and never a practice passed without his growling louder than ever at the disgraceful custom of sending useful behind-scrimmage men to Coventry. At the last moment he decided to give the responsible post to Loman, rather than move forward Wraysford from his position at "back"; and ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... conquer them and hold the country, nor money to pay the enormous expenses of this prolonged campaign), that I should not be at all surprised they will do their utmost to patch up a peace, which will, to say the least, be not only humiliating to our arms, but disgraceful to British feelings. I am perfectly certain, however, that the Sikhs will entertain no terms with us, except they are based on our quitting the Punjaub, and retiring across the Sutlej; this is a sine qua non with them." The same letter from Lahore mentions, "You have, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... cited me here, and accused me: come, then, say, and inform the judges who it is that makes them better. Do you see, Melitus, that you are silent, and have nothing to say? But does it not appear to you to be disgraceful, and a sufficient proof of what I say, that you never took any concern about the matter? But tell me, friend, who makes ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different ways different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy I'd have gone for the lot of them—they made me feel that wild. All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better to do. And at ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... this respect they resemble troops on parade. Their male children are beaten from their ninth year to their seventeenth year, by men with sticks. Their women are counted equal with their men. It is reckoned as disgraceful for a Baharanee to show fear when lights are extinguished in the hospital on account of bomb-dropping air-ships, as for an Ul to avoid battle. They do not blacken each other's faces by loud abuse, but by jests spoken ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... until a few weeks after George's marriage, when he also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and had an understanding with her which his comrade certainly suspected, but preferred to ignore. William was too much hurt or ashamed to ask to fathom that disgraceful mystery, although once, and evidently with remorse on his mind, George had alluded to it. It was on the morning of Waterloo, as the young men stood together in front of their line, surveying the black masses of Frenchmen who crowned the opposite heights, and as the rain was coming down, "I ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mar'shal), military. 6. Up-braid', to charge with something wrong or disgraceful, to reproach. Reck, to take heed, to care. 7. Ran'dom, without fixed aim or purpose, left ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Bridport, supposing it to have gone to Ireland, cruised for a few days off Cape Clear, and then anchored with twenty-six sail of the line in Bantry Bay. Here the bad spirits of the fleet had leisure for mischief, and facilities to communicate with one another. A general mutiny was planned, and the disgraceful distinction of setting the example was ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... by foes that they could not see and could not reach. Indian marksmen picked off the gunners until the artillery was silenced; then the Indians rushed in and seized the guns. In the combat there were both conspicuous exploits of valor and disgraceful scenes of cowardice. In that dark hour St. Clair showed undaunted courage. He was in the front of the fight, and several times he headed charges. He seemed to have a charmed life, for although eight bullets pierced his clothes, one cutting away a lock of the thick ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... enforce the lessons he would inculcate, to try to attract the love and attention of his pupil by the most winning ways he can possibly think of? And yet is he, this very tutor out of all doubt, to be the instrument of doing an harsh and disgraceful thing, and that in the last resort, when all other methods are found ineffectual; and that too, because he ought to incur the child's resentment and aversion, rather than the father? No, surely, Sir, it is not reasonable it should be so: quite contrary, in my humble notion, there ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... put an eager question. He would have rejoiced to be able to repeat in society the tale of some disgraceful and unpublished scandal attached to the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which he in his fear apprehends to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might, perhaps, fancy myself wiser than other men—that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know; but I do know ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... can deny it. It is not the choice of the Government of the United States, but of a faction; the Government was forced to accept the issue, or to submit to a degradation fatal and disgraceful to all the inhabitants. In accepting war, it should be "pure and simple" as applied to the belligerents. I would keep it so, till all traces of the war are effaced; till those who appealed to it are sick and tired of it, and come to the emblem of our nation, and sue for peace. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... hope not!" Tanno cried, "and I trust you will never try it again. It's disgraceful! And it's too risky. If you keep it up some fine day she'll slash the face off you or bite your whole head ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Bastile for those who dare to libel the Queens of France. In this spiritual retreat let the noble libeler remain. Let him there meditate on his Talmud, until he learns a conduct more becoming his birth and parts, and not so disgraceful to the ancient religion to which he has become a proselyte; or until some persons from your side of the water, to please your new Hebrew brethren, shall ransom him. He may then be enabled to purchase, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... bust, and the things he said to the man wot was spending money like water to rescue 'im was disgraceful. ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... his discoveries. He would have previously stipulated for a pardon, and they insisted upon his depending on their favour. He hesitated some time between the fears of infamy and the terrors of death, which last he at length chose to undergo rather than incur the disgraceful character of an informer. He was complimented with the axe in consideration of his rank and alliance with the house of Howard, and suffered on Tower-hill with great composure. In the paper which he delivered to the sheriff, he took God to witness that he knew not of the intended invasion ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... stopped at the custom-house."[3121] Next came the plot of the doctors: "they ruefully estimated my enormous gains. Were it necessary, I could prove that they often met together to consider the best way to destroy my reputation." Finally, came the plot of the Academicians; "the disgraceful persecution I had to undergo from the Academy of Sciences for two years, after being satisfied that my discoveries on Light upset all that it had done for a century, and that I was quite indifferent about becoming a member of its body.... Would it be believed that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... don't believe he's the kind of man to wilfully wrong another. I don't know Mr. Hayne, and Mr. Hayne apparently don't want to know me. I think that where a man has been convicted of dishonorable—disgraceful conduct and is cut by his whole regiment it is our business to back the regiment, not the man. Now the question is, where shall we draw the line in this case? It's none of our funeral, as Blake says, but ordinarily it would be our duty to call upon this officer. Shall we ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... sense of dignity and self-respect. The history of their relations with Japan, for the past two hundred years, is a continual record of absolute contempt and pitiless constraint on the one hand, and the most abject and disgraceful servitude on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... and abstaining from your customary amusements and habits for months [only think of it!], because some one has departed from misery to happiness, is not alone supremely ridiculous [though that is bad enough], but it is sublimely preposterous and [what is yet more] disgraceful to the last degree ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... widely known and popular by his "Annus Mirabilis," a narrative poem describing the terrors of the great fire in London and some events of the disgraceful war with Holland; but with the theaters reopened and nightly filled, the drama offered the most attractive field to one who made his living by literature; so Dryden turned to the stage and agreed to furnish three plays yearly for the actors of the King's Theater. For ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... making a cushion of it. Thursday, June 1, dragged on as miserably as its predecessor, the only event being the visit of a deputy, which gave rise to great anticipations, as he said, in my hearing, that our condition was disgraceful, and that straw and a small portion of soup ought to be ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... S. Nicholas, where remembring his vnfortunate losse of the old Emperor and his ill vsage since then at the Mosco, he being forced to take a bare letter for the summe of his dispatch, conteyning nothing of that he came for, and the poore and disgraceful present sent him (in the name of the Emperour) in respect of that that was meant him by the old Emperor, knowing all these to be done in disgrace of her Maiestie and himselfe, determined now to be discharged ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... adopted son walked home together, the former full of wrath at what he believed to be the disgraceful action of his nephew, and the latter secretly rejoicing at it. On reaching the house, the Major went at once to Rodman's room where he found the boy gazing from the window, with a hard, defiant, expression on his face. He was longing ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... I have shown how deep is the hatred which William II bears towards the old liberalism of the German Universities. Yet it is for this same William that certain Germanophils amongst our French Universities entertain such a disgraceful weakness. Whilst French newspapers are continually discussing, with evident sympathy, the possibility of the Kaiser's paying a visit to France during the Exhibition, it brings the tears to our eyes to read the following in the Journal ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... arrived. Here is your husband left in this miserable household of three, under very awkward circumstances for him. What does he do? But for the bank-note and the written message sent to you with it, I should say that he had wisely withdrawn himself from association with a disgraceful discovery and exposure, by taking secretly to flight. The money modifies this view—unfavourably so far as Mr. Ferrari is concerned. I still believe he is keeping out of the way. But I now say he is paid for keeping out of the way—and that bank-note there on the table is the price of his absence, ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... rage at the thought of having to abandon the invasion. Most of the officers expressed themselves as being ashamed of the affair, and would rather never go home. After all their boasting of how easily they would capture Canada and set up their visionary Republic, the disgraceful manner in which the whole campaign terminated, without so much as a slight skirmish having taken place, was more than they could bear. There were many brave yet deluded men who joined the expedition with a determination to fight, ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... me to dust the books sometime ago, but I neglected it, and this morning when the sun shone on them I saw that their condition was disgraceful. I was so much disgusted with my untidiness, that I dragged them all out on the impulse of the moment, and only realized how hot it was, and how I hated it, after the deed was done. Come, Berke, do help me. I'm ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... are the "wandering boys" also assisted. But the "Geschenk" (gift), as it is called, is a mere trifle; sometimes but a few pence, and in a large city like Berlin it amounts to but twenty silver groschen—little more than two shillings. It is not considered disgraceful to accept this donation; as all, when in work, contribute towards the fund ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... demoralized by this 'bolt out of the blue.' Instead of quietly reconducting the prince to the frontier with a reprimand for his inconsiderate and unconventional patriotism, it stupidly locked him up in a prison haunted by legends disgraceful to the Republic, proceeded against him with clumsy vehemence, gave him time to show himself to the French people, in the words of the Duc d'Aumale, as a 'pur sang,' a straightforward, dashing young French prince demanding the right of performing ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... disgraceful, nor my father either! It's not that. I cannot possibly explain, but it's the reason why I'm a fraud—as far ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... been made: and that its smartest feature was, that they forgot these things abroad, in a very short time, and speculated again, as freely as ever. The following dialogue I have held a hundred times: 'Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?' ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... the return or replacement of the article stolen; but stealing within the community, and perhaps even more so within the clan or village, is regarded as such a disgraceful offence, more so, I believe, than either killing or adultery, that its mere discovery involves a distressing punishment to the offender. As regards wounding and killing, the recognised rule is blood for blood, and a life for a life. The recognised ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... neighbors, not the most peaceable, a warlike character was either developed or else sustained. Inured to poverty they acquired a hardihood which enabled them to sustain severe privations. In their school of life it was taught to consider courage an honorable virtue and cowardice the most disgraceful failing. Loving their native glen, they were ever ready to defend it to the last extremity. Their own good name and devotion to the clan emulated and held ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... friends; there are many things for which we must be grateful to them: they have done and are doing much good in those lines of endeavour in which the best Russian minds have been engaged. Nevertheless, without aversion or indignation, we bear a disgraceful stain on our consciousness, the stain of Jewish disabilities. There is in that stain the dirty poison of slanders and the tears and blood ...
— The Shield • Various
... is mine!(Feels in his pocket for it.) One cannot rely on you for the least thing. The salute will be too late now. It is disgraceful! (HAMAR goes to the window and waves the handkerchief madly. At last the report of a cannon is heard. The guests are standing in a group, holding their ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... known as the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency—a name which was afterwards changed to that of the Credit Mobilier of America. The story of the Credit Mobilier, with its irregularities involving conspicuous politicians, is one of the most disgraceful in American history. The detailed history of these operations need not be considered here; it is sufficient to say that finally, in spite of political scandals, the Union Pacific lines were brought to completion. Within two years after ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... my orders are that they take no apparent notice of them, but write down the names of all present. If that can be done, and you are successful in finding the girls, we shall have the matter, as it were, in a nutshell, and we shall soon crush this disgraceful rebellion." ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... the substantial problem of finding room for all new-comers, having ceased to far more than decimate them, we may begin cautiously to suggest that perhaps if the birth-rate were slightly to rise we might be able to cope with the product. At present the disgraceful fact is not the birth-rate, but what we do with the birth-rate; though more disgraceful perhaps are the blindness and ignorance and assurance of the host of commentators in high places who waste their time and ours in animadverting ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Princess Charlotte, who, had she lived, would have been her Queen, and who was in many respects her prototype. It is certain, I think, that Charlotte Augusta of Wales, that lovely miracle-flower of a loveless marriage, blooming into a noble and gracious womanhood, amid the petty strifes and disgraceful intrigues of a corrupt Court, by her virtues and graces, by her high spirit and frank and fearless character, prepared the way in the loyal hearts of the British people, for the fair young kinswoman, who, twenty-one years after her ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... have an auction," began Miss Day; "no one ever heard of such a thing at St. Benet's. Why, it would be simply disgraceful!" ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the different causes which had driven these hill chiefs into rebellion. The footing which Dost Mahomed had lately acquired in the north-west encouraged them to persist, and it will be seen in the sequel, that at the disgraceful scene of Purwun Durrah the Dost was almost a prisoner in the hands of those who were considered, by the unversed in the intricacies of Affgh[a]n policy, to be only in arms for the restoration of their favourite to ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... was naturally of a gallant and fearless temper, thought no more of the highwaymen,—a species of danger so common at that time that men almost considered it disgraceful to suffer the dread of it to be a cause of delay on the road. Travellers seldom deemed it best to lose time in order to save money; and they carried with them a stout heart and a brace of pistols, instead of sleeping all night on the road. Mauleverer, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... should not require religion to make him honest! I scorn the notion. A man must be just and true because he is a man! Surely a man may keep clear of the thing he loathes! For my own honor," he added, with a curl of his lip, "I shall at least do nothing disgraceful, however I may fall short ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... very quiet keeping of the Feast," observed Anna, shaking her head. "It is said that King Antiochus is raging like a bear robbed of her whelps at the flight of Nicanor and the disgraceful retreat of Giorgias. A courier has ridden off, post-haste, bearer of despatches from the king to Lycias, the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... said Jimmy. "It's the only way. No sense in always drinking and making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Mona mused. "If her father were dead, she'd have no reason to conceal the fact. Nor if he had remarried. And if he has done anything disgraceful—maybe that's it, Bill! Maybe ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... provoking it would not be discontinued; nor until this last appeal could no longer be delayed without breaking down the spirit of the nation, destroying all confidence in itself and in its political institutions, and either perpetuating a state of disgraceful suffering or regaining by more costly sacrifices and more severe struggles our lost rank ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... Celia). "O too happy mortal in having so beautiful a wife!" Say rather, unhappy mortal in having such a disgraceful spouse through whose guilty passion, it is now but too clear, I have been cuckolded without any feeling of compassion. Yet I allow him to go away after such a discovery, and stand with my arms folded like a regular silly-billy! I ought at least to have knocked his hat off, thrown ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... have acted in such a disgraceful manner," said one of her listeners; "and yet Mr. Lington used to be so respected by everybody. He seems to have behaved like a little ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... within its district; it came into my district." They did not say, "let us make a bath to the honor of Venus, but they said, let us make Venus an honor to the bath." Another thing: "if they gave thee money wouldst thou enter naked before thy idol, or wouldst thou do aught disgraceful in its presence? yet if it stands on a canal everyone dishonors it." It is not said, save for their heathen gods, "that which is customary from its being a god, is forbidden, that which is not customary from its being a god, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... most of the town, and is delighted when he can sell some of it, and the neighbours are nearly all his cousins. He says the municipal government of the town, &c., is at a dead lock. Nothing can be done to the roads, (which are disgraceful!) or the streets, which are dreadful everywhere nearly, that there is perpetual bribery and corruption, and all owing to universal suffrage, which makes the respectable people quite helpless! This is the view of all the people ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... think, with a disgraceful record of non-accomplishment like that, that they'll protest General Gonzales' action on ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... blow my war-horn: Charles will hear it in the passes And return with all his army.' Oliver quoth: ''Twere disgraceful To your kinsmen all their life-days. When I urged it, then you would not; Now, to sound your horn is shameful, And I never ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... keep up this silly deception. You may as well try to make me believe that you were not aware of the presence of your brother and your silly sweetheart disguised as girls this afternoon, and that you did not lay the whole disgraceful plan for them to escape at the rear of the grounds." Miss Woodhull did not confide to Beverly that she had been most beautifully hoodwinked by those same girls, who had actually gone into the reception ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... The whole thing is disgraceful. London will ring with the scandal. What am I to say to Lady Maulevrier, to your brother? And pray how do you propose to get married at Havre? You cannot be married in a French town by merely holding up your finger. There ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... affairs. These pensioners Mr. Hastings engaged to recall; but he never did recall them. We refer your Lordships to the evidence before you, in proof that these odious pensioners, so distressing to the Nabob, so ruinous to his affairs, and so disgraceful to our government, were not only not recalled by Mr. Hastings, but that, both afterwards, and upon the very day of signing the treaty, (as Mr. Middleton himself tells you,) upon that very day, I say, he recommended ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters as to a common receptacle and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were seized who confessed they were Christians; next on their information a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... his refusal to explain himself in any way, is evidently no mere caprice of the moment. All this leads to the conjecture that the injuries he has sustained were inflicted on him from some motive of private vengeance; and that certain persons are concerned in this disgraceful affair, whom he is unwilling to expose to public odium, for some secret reason which it is impossible to guess at. We understand that he bears the severe pain consequent upon his situation, in such a manner as to astonish every person about him—no agony draws from him a word or a sigh. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... English poets wrote in praise of the wealthy and titled in order to be paid or favored by the men they flattered. Gray thinks that such conduct is disgraceful, and rejoices that the rude forefathers of the hamlet were prevented from writing poetry for such an end. The Greeks thought poetry was inspired by one of the Muses, and genius is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a feeling had the impressed seamen who fought our battles in the great struggle. No nation has ever had a more disgraceful institution than that of the press-gang of England. This institution, if so it can be called, must be an eternal stain upon her glory— posterity will never be able to read the history of her naval victories without a blush—without ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the same purpose. The more intelligent Manchurian farmers, however, are learning that it is a waste to rot one of the best cattle feeds in the {76} world and get its fertilizing value only—just as our American farmers, it is gratifying to see, are at last waking up to the disgraceful folly of using cottonseed meal as a crop-producer without first getting its other ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... Pierre; your voice spoke true. It was a dreadful duty that you were doing. The Gospel tells us, if we are smitten on one cheek we must turn the other. But it does not tell us to turn the cheek of a little child, of the woman we love, of the country we belong to. No! that would be disgraceful, wicked, un-Christian. It would be to betray the innocent! ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... Army had never been higher, the fighting spirit of the German Army had never been lower. It was low because the physical strength of the Germans was low, worn out, and broken by the shameful orgies, the disgraceful drinking which had reduced these men to the level of swine. It was low because the German fighting men had been led to believe that they would have to fight no longer, that the great effort was ended, that there ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... to it than to most of these stories," explained Richard. "You see it sounds a very disgraceful sort of thing, you being your brother's ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Samuel Briggs, an independent wax and tallow-chandler, of Fenchurch-street, City, but who keeps his family away from business, in fashionable style, in Russell-square, Bloomsbury. The example of many of our most successful literary chiffonniers, who have not thought it disgraceful to publish scraps of private history and unedited scandal, picked up by them in the houses to which they happened to be admitted, will, it is presumed, sufficiently justify my daughter in communicating, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... time?' he asked, passing one hand confusedly through the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. 'Do you remember when I left the office? Do you ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... are not in earnest. It is your good pleasure to take a great many things in life in a joking spirit. Now, for instance, when you sent me that bald, disgraceful, girlish essay, you played a practical joke which a less patient man would never have forgiven. To-night, when you talked that rubbish to that crowd of really clever men and women, you played another ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... princely Christian lady were fit to be admitted into the haram of a misbeliever? If I had yonder infidel Ilderim, or whatsoever he is called, again in the gripe with which I once held him fast as ever hound held hare, never again should HE at least come on errand disgraceful to the honour of Christian king or noble and virtuous maiden. But I—my hours are fast dwindling into minutes—yet, while I have life and breath, something must be done, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott |
