"Ill-timed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rash, they got very vexed, we were delighted, they were disappointed. At last at the end of ten days, they began to unload the vessel. Now! thought we, "what is going to happen, surely they are not going to stay here." Our ill-timed hilarity received a sudden check, for our fears were confirmed, they unloaded the vessel completely, and after ballasting her with sand and shingle, they set sail, and departed. But alas! for us they left ten of their people behind them, who commenced to our horror ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... she shared willingly in the ever-varying succession of amusements offered to strangers by the ingenuity of the liveliest people in the world—but nothing roused her: she remained persistently dull and weary through it all. In this frame of mind and body, she was in no humour to receive Henry's ill-timed addresses with favour, or even with patience: she plainly and positively refused to listen to him. 'Why do you remind me of what I have suffered?' she asked petulantly. 'Don't you see that it has left its mark on me ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... young men himself. Even with Mr. Crocker, who no doubt was troublesome, he contrived to maintain terms of outward friendship. His name was Jerningham, and next to Mr. Jerningham in age came Mr. Crocker, by whose ill-timed witticisms our George Roden was not unfrequently made to suffer. This had sometimes gone so far that Roden had contemplated the necessity of desiring Mr. Crocker to assume that a bond of enmity had been established between them;—or in other words, that they were not "to speak" ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interesting child, grasping his father's cane—"won't I make 'em squeak again!" But we know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legal difficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, the school at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So far we have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture. But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with all the dogged perseverance of a true Yorkshireman, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... But the blood mounted to his temples as he listened to these remarks, poured into his ear by a man of thirty-five, between puffs of his cigar, because there was nobody else to whom he could make them. But they seemed to Fred very ill-mannered and ill-timed. If he had not dreaded making himself absurd, he would gladly have stood forth as the champion of the Sparks, the Wermants, and all the other members of the Blue Band, so that he might give vent to the anger raging in his heart on hearing that odious compliment to Jacqueline. ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... of the late king of Prussia, as far as it extends, is a model of the biographical style. The review of the Origin of Evil was, perhaps, written with asperity; but the angry epitaph which it provoked from Soame Jenyns, was an ill-timed resentment, unworthy of the genius of that ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... the mayor and sheriffs in full dress presented themselves at our carriage window, and were about to deliver an address "to please the King;" but I thought such a proceeding ill-timed, and my niece De Nevers told these magnates that we ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... curious touch, and tampering with his bow.[24] Helen of Argos with her female train 395 Sat occupied, the while, to each in turn Some splendid task assigning. Hector fix'd His eyes on Paris, and him stern rebuked. Thy sullen humors, Paris, are ill-timed. The people perish at our lofty walls; 400 The flames of war have compass'd Troy around And thou hast kindled them; who yet thyself That slackness show'st which in another seen Thou would'st resent ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Ville-Marie she could not find persons suitable for teachers, she decided on going back to France, to induce the externs of Troyes, her native city, to form a corps of teachers for Canada. She foresaw her return would be considered unwise and ill-timed, but a voice within that would not be silenced, told her that God required her to return. According to the wisdom of the world, it did look badly for a single woman, without means or credit, to recross the ocean for the purpose of inducing others to imitate her wise folly, to renounce ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... wish, O Latins, we had determined our course of state, and it had been better thus; not to meet in council at such a time as now, with the enemy seated before our walls. We wage an ill-timed war, fellow-citizens, with a divine race, invincible, unbroken in battle, who brook not even when conquered to drop the sword. If you had hope in appeal to Aetolian arms, abandon it; though each man's hope is his own, you discern ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... almanack season, as it is technically called, the above illustration of our pages may not be inappropriate or ill-timed, inasmuch as it represents the spot whence all English ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... as he said this, whereupon he angrily demanded the cause of my ill-timed mirth; and as I detested his hypocrisy, I boldly told him that it ill became him to preach on the enormity of the crime of adultery, after having been guilty of that very offence with his kitchen ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electric light which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless activity, were transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendor ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... at the window, Numerian had staggered to the side of the bed which his ill-timed severity had made vacant, perhaps for ever. The power of action, the capacity to go forth and seek his child himself, was entirely suspended in the agony of her loss, as the miserable man fell on his knees, and in the anguish ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... Election.' Then that last reed was to break. At Lowther Castle, his wig was removed from his room, as a practical joke of a coarse order on the unoffending Boswell, and all the day he was obliged to go in his nightcap, which he felt was very ill-timed to one in his situation. The loss of the wig the unsuspecting victim declares will remain as great a secret as the writer of the letters of Junius, but ere long the tyrant whom he had invoked as the man of Macedonia to help Scotland has undeceived him. 'I suppose you thought,' ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity"—a day of "breaking down the walls and of crying to the mountains." Amidst this general alarm and mourning there were, however, found some whom a wild despair made reckless, and drove to a ghastly and ill-timed merriment. When God by His judgments gave an evident "call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth—behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine"—"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... This ill-timed observation extorted a groan from Tyrrel; but the traveller, running on with his own recollections, did not ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... persuading myself that it would be useless, and that I was perfectly justified in remaining silent. What vile pusillanimity! why thus respect the presumptuous power of popular errors and opinions, resting upon no foundation. True it is that an ill-timed zeal is always indiscreet, and calculated to irritate rather than convert; but to avow with frankness and modesty what we regard as an important truth, to do it even when we have reason to conclude it will not be palatable, and to meet willingly any ridicule or sarcasm ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... no fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness however a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... heeding Alice's shrill inquiry as to his clothes and his ruffled shirt. Coulson sat still, penitent and ashamed; at length he stole a look at Hester. She was playing with her teaspoon, but he could see that she was choking down her tears; he could not choose but force her to speak with an ill-timed question. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... whispered it to the judge in a bewitching way, as did a pretty but slightly passe French actress under similar embarrassing circumstances. She pleads: "What has a woman to do with dates—cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates—new style, old style, precession of the equinox, ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their station and never come? Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in woman's autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of dropping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... pale as the snow his brother had brought in from outside and which now showered about the victim of the ill-timed jest. ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; he should not have trifled with the feelings of his benefactor, his more than father; those feelings were to him sacred, and should be held ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the chancellor went out. M. de Maupeou came to tell me the whole of this conversation, which wrote down under his dictation, that I might show it to the king. You will see in my next letter what resulted from all this, and how the ill-timed enmity of the Choiseuls served my interests most materially. CHAPTER XI A word concerning the duchesse de Choiseul—The apartment of the Comte de Noailles—The Noailles—Intrigues for presentation—The comte de Bearn—M. Morand once more—Visit of the comtesse Bearn to the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... exulting shout from the pilot-house, the steering-wheel was put hard over, and the boat began to swing slowly at right angles to the current. She was headed in the direction of the raft, and Mr. Gilder knew that, owing to those ill-timed blows, it had been discovered. Yes. Now he could see it again. There it was, not a hundred yards away, and the Whatnot was headed so as to intercept it as it came down. What should he do? It would be foolish ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... caught that sound, they had barely tightened up their bridle-reins, when another sound, one just as unmistakable, burst out in front of them. A ragged, ill-timed volley ripped out from somewhere near the conflagration and was answered instantly by one that was close-ripped like the fire of heavy ordnance. And then one of the advance-guard wheeled his horse and drove his spurs home rowel-deep. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed [v]jocularity. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... time, O simple Queen, is this For idle dreams of fancied bliss? Hast thou not sense thy state to know, Engulfed in seas of whelming woe; Sick as I am with grief and pain My lips can scarce a laugh restrain To see thee hail with ill-timed joy A peril mighty to destroy. I mourn for one so fondly blind: What woman of a prudent mind Would welcome, e'en as thou hast done, The lordship of a rival's son, Rejoiced to find her secret foe Empowered, like death, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the futility of further effort; at any other time it would have set him to putting his house in order for the final crash, but now it merely enraged him. He redoubled his activity, launching a new campaign of publicity so extravagant and ill-timed as to repel the assistance he needed. He had lost his finesse; his nicely adjusted financial sense ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... about dogs, horses, and the state of the crops, when other conversations were proceeding in which she was really interested; she could receive any little grateful attention that he wished to pay her—no matter how awkward or ill-timed—as she received attentions from any one else, with a manner which showed she considered it as a favour granted to her sex, not as a ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the government. One of their first measures is to revoke the grant made not long before by Fajardo of certain monopolies to a seminary founded by him for educating Christian Japanese to go as ordained missionaries to their own country. The members of the Audiencia claim that this was an ill-timed act, in view of the persecution of Christians in Japan, and the edicts of its ruler expelling Spaniards from his realm, and forbidding his subjects to trade with them. Moreover, the seminary building is being erected in a place selected in violation of a royal decree, and which has been arbitrarily ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... remarks; they are ill-timed," said Montague, impatiently. "Let us hear the remainder of your suggestions. I shall judge of their value and act accordingly. You have not yet told us what part you yourself intend ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, continued she—you had reason—the heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent notice of it to the brain to ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... to your ill-timed mirth, Mr. Mareschal; this morning we were not committed publicly, as we now stand committed by your own mad act, when you had a letter in your pocket apprizing you that our undertaking ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... to David Stuart in June 1790: "The introduction of the Quaker memorial respecting slavery was, to be sure, not only ill-timed, but occasioned a ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... Don Juan, disgusted with this ill-timed pleasantry, "a proof that there has been a forced entry into the chamber is this broken glass of the window, of which you see some pieces still lying on ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... your inward remarks. And I dare say you will give me some overt advice to the same effect; well, it will not be ill-timed; it will illustrate your friendship, and do you credit as a good man and a philosopher. If I render your part respectably for you, that will do, and we will pay our homage to the God of words; [Footnote: i.e. Hermes.] if I fail, you will fill in the deficiency ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... boy laughed. He thought Uncle Remus was making him the victim of one of his jokes; but the youngster was never more mistaken. The old man was serious. Nevertheless, he failed to rebuke the ill-timed mirth of the child, appearing to be altogether engrossed in his work. After a ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... sink all private considerations. It was a sacrifice rendered necessary, inevitable for the success of this campaign." And he proceeded to explain to her all the circumstances that were interwoven with Lieutenant Butler's ill-timed offence. "Thus you see that from Terence you can hope for nothing. His honour will not admit of his ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... immediately made aware that the lady in question has overheard his ill-timed jest, while the customer vanishes ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... The ill-timed reflection of the Constable confirmed her in the resolution which she had already, and hastily adopted. "May Heaven forgive you, Sir Knight," she replied, "your injurious thoughts of His servants! It ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... admitted to the degree of bachelor of divinity, for which his grace had been denied him in 1641, and, as he then suffered for an ill-timed assertion of the presbyterian doctrines, he obtained that his degree should be dated from the time at which he was refused it; an honour which, however, did not secure him from being soon after publickly ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... and rolled sympathetically at the moment and the duenna found further argument impossible. She had to rush for her room, and later to confide her mandates as to Pancha to the stewardess, who came, peeped, and considered them ill-timed. At six bells Turnbull and a few determined, yet uncomfortable souls were consuming cognac and playing vingt et un in the cabin, while the lookouts were doubled on the deck and every ship's officer stood to his post. The sound of the muffled tinkle ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... The remark was ill-timed. I saw a spasm of anger distort Bezers' face. "Get up, boy!" he snarled, "I wrote to Mademoiselle what I would do, and that I shall do! A Bezers keeps his word. By the God above us—if there be a God, and in the devil's name I doubt it to-night!—I ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... soldiery, and the fiery car of war sweeps over our land, our temples of justice laid in ashes and every horror and desolation upon us; who, but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure shall be held to a strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and be cursed and execrated by all posterity, in all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... his roof sheltered them.[79] Protestants even spoke of him as a humane and chivalrous enemy.[80] Nevers was considered to have disgraced himself by the number of those whom he enabled to escape.[81] The Nuncio was shocked at their ill-timed generosity. He reported to Rome that the only one who had acted in the spirit of a Christian, and had refrained from mercy, was the King; while the other princes, who pretended to be good Catholics, and to deserve ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... loam, and fertilizing materials from great distances. The slopes of Granada back of Malaga and Almeria were covered with vineyards. Every foot of land susceptible of cultivation was turned to account, every drop of water from the ill-timed winter rains was conserved for the growing season. The application of intelligence and labor to tillage enabled the Hispano-Arab provinces to support a dense population.[1270] These Saracen cultivators had come from the severest ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... the gag was at once removed, the skipper at the same time cautioning Manners against any ill-timed attempt to raise an alarm, and then Nicholls was questioned as to the ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... brought here, having been taken on his way to Washington from Missouri. He manifested surprise at his captivity, and says that he is no enemy; being, I believe, Southern born. I learn it is the purpose of the governor to release him. And this may be a blunder. I fear about as much from ill-timed Southern magnanimity as ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... to laugh last indeed, but oft-times it is best not to laugh at all, for who can foresee the particle of dust which may enter your indecently and injudiciously wide open mouth to choke you in your ill-timed mirth. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... "Moreover, Bateson is probably religious rather from the force of convention than of conviction." Tremaine never failed to enjoy his own rounded sentences, and this one pleased him so much that it almost succeeded in dispelling the cloud which Elisabeth's ill-timed gibe had created. ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... and disgusted at so ill-timed an exit; but Zoe, who had seen his white face, was seriously alarmed, and made a movement to rise too, and watch, or even follow him; but, when he got to the side, he looked back to her, and made her a signal that his nose was ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... By all that was ill-timed and embarrassing, the Percivals themselves, returned from their visit, choosing a wet afternoon to drive over and pay their respects to Lady Hayes's young guest! Sheer horror of the situation took away Darsie's breath; she stood stock still in the middle of the floor, felt her lips gape apart, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sons of Greece! with silence hear! And grant your monarch an impartial ear: Awhile your loud, untimely joy suspend, And let your rash, injurious clamours end: Unruly murmurs, or ill-timed applause, Wrong the best speaker, and the justest cause. Nor charge on me, ye Greeks, the dire debate: Know, angry Jove, and all-compelling Fate, With fell Erinnys, urged my wrath that day When from Achilles' arms I forced the prey. What then could I against the will of heaven? Not by ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... thin As a two-months' babe that has been starved in the nursing. And sure I think He bore his death-wound like a little child; With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy He strove to clothe his agony in smiles, Which he would force up in his poor pale cheeks, Like ill-timed guests that had no proper dwelling there; And, when they asked him his complaint, he laid His hand upon his heart to shew the place, Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said, And prick'd him with a pin.— And thereupon Sir Francis called ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... holding. So tempting an opportunity of solving the great problem in regard to an Antarctic continent had never yet been afforded to man, and I confess that I felt myself bursting with indignation at the timid and ill-timed suggestions of our commander. I believe, indeed, that what I could not refrain from saying to him on this head had the effect of inducing him to push on. While, therefore, I cannot but lament the most unfortunate and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... where they were welcomed by both Bulgars and Albanians. As I wrote at the time: "It is criminal of the Powers to delay the frontier commissions. Both Serb and Montenegrin are working to clear off the Albanians from the debatable districts so as to show a Slav majority to the Commission." The ill-timed revolt gave them a chance of doing this. The Serbs fell on the Gostivar district, burning the villages with petroleum, and throwing such people as could not escape, back into the flames with their bayonets. An urgent appeal for bandages and medicaments came from ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... me," he began, "if I observe that his discourse—so warm with the true Christian spirit—is ill-timed. I gather that he is with us in desiring a Catholic reform. To-night only a proposal is before us; the proposal to form a sort of league among all those who cherish the same desire. Let us then ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... Juliet would have preferred more pointed praise. He is indeed so lost in his ill-timed reverie that Juliet has to call him again and again by name before ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the kingdom, and his son and successor Robert, being a strict devotee, built and repaired several churches which had been greatly injured by the Normans, and Paris began in his reign to assume an appearance of improvement, which continued until it received a check from an ill-timed joke of Philippe the First, who made a satirical remark upon William the Conqueror of England having become rather unwieldy, which so provoked that choleric monarch that he laid waste a great portion of Philippe's dominions; ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... ludicrousness of the idea, he burst into a loud fit of laughter, which did more to reassure his grannie than any amount of protestation could have done, however she pretended to take offence at his ill-timed merriment. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... and then abandoned with the reckless frivolity of the comic stage. We shall probably not be far wrong in ascribing the beginning of the trouble to Lady Castlemaine, who found her hold upon the royal favour threatened by some ill-timed intrigue of Buckingham. A charge of treason was brought against Buckingham, who was known to have at his command a rascally band of bullies and charlatans, who disturbed the streets of London, and whose outrages were not kept outside the precincts ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed jocularity. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Lucretia, with blushing cheeks, glanced from Rugiero to her son, who with downcast eyes appeared to be absorbed with the roast chicken on his plate.) "Without entering into details that would appear ill-timed to my dear sister" (here his eyes twinkled with roguishness and his lips parted in laughter), "suffice it merely to say that I acted as any other man under the circumstances would have acted, and kissed her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... five-cent piece given him by the kind-hearted old Master. But you need not think I am going to tell you every time his popgun goes off, making a Selah of him whenever I want to change the subject. Occasionally he was ill-timed in his artillery practice and ignominiously rebuked, sometimes he was harmlessly playful and nobody minded him, but every now and then he came in so apropos that I am morally certain he gets a hint from somebody who watches the course of the conversation, and means through him to have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... drooping head to gaze on the gaudy crown of popularity placed within his reach, but casts a pensive, riveted look downwards to the modest flowers which the multitude trample under their feet. If he had a piece likely to succeed, coming out under all advantages, he would damn it by some ill-timed, wilful jest, and lose the favour of the public, to preserve the sense of his personal identity. 'Misfortune,' Shakespear says, 'brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows'; and it makes our thoughts traitors to ourselves.—It is a maxim with many—'Take care of the pence, and the pounds ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to be might find excuses for the Croydon summer. I meant in other ways. For one thing, I have craved success as I think few men have ever craved it; and yet my plowings in that field have been ill-timed ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Harry was in the lead, the Captain close behind, with Quincy following leisurely. This was a young people's race—married men barred. For some unexplainable reason Captain Hornaby tried to cross Harry's bow. The project was ill-timed and unsuccessful. Harry had just made a spurt and his canoe went forward so fast that the Captain's boat, instead of clearing his, struck it full in the side and Harry and Maude were thrown into the water. Florence, who really loved ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... minutes Bonaparte entered, and taking up the pamphlet pretended to look through it: "Have you read this?" said he.—"Yes, General."— "Well! what is your opinion of it?"—"I think it is calculated to produce an unfavourable effect on the public mind: it is ill-timed, for it prematurely reveals your views." The First Consul took the pamphlet and threw it on the ground, as he did all the stupid publications of the day after having slightly glanced over them. I was not singular ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... No, death's this day too busy; Thy father's ill-timed mercy came too late. ( thank thee for thy labours, though; and him too, But all my poor, betrayed, unhappy friends, Have summons to prepare for fate's black hour. Yet, Belvidera, do not fear my cruelty, Nor let the the thoughts of ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... Decie, "is an element of danger in the situation; any ill-timed opposition of his might drive her to I don't know what. Christian is gentle, she is 'sympathetic' as they say; but thwart her, and she is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ill-timed skirmish, two severed heads, and a dead body, the rule of Brandeis came to a sudden end. We shall see him a while longer fighting for existence in a losing battle; but his government—take it for all in all, the most promising that has ever been ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been conferred upon it since the thrice happy administration of Sir Edmund Andres, of precious memory, who was also a Baronet"; and in a candid British judgment to-day, (that of Lord Mahon,) the honor was "a most ill-timed favor surely, when he had so grievously failed in gaining the affections or confidence of any order or rank of men within his Province." The subject occupies a large space in the private correspondence, and the title was the more flattering and acceptable to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... she burst into tears and went out into the shed-room, leaving Kirkwood's ill-timed gift ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... passion in our heart. He who only sees what really exists and only values what he knows, rarely becomes angry. The errors of our judgment produce the warmth of our desires.] These lessons, I know, are unsuited to him, perhaps at need they may prove scanty and ill-timed; but remember they are not the lessons I wished to draw from this study. To begin with, I had quite another end in view; and indeed, if this purpose is unfulfilled, the teacher ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... subjects of Babbiano were in a condition approaching open rebellion, resulting from the disquieting rumours that Caesar Borgia was arming at Rome for a decent upon the Duchy, and the continued absence of Gian Maria in such a season, upon a wooing that they deemed ill-timed. A strong party had been formed, and the leaders had nailed upon the Palace gates a proclamation that, unless Gian Maria returned within three days to organise the defence of Babbiano, they would depose him and repair to Aquila to invite his cousin, Francesco del Falco—whose patriotism ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... circumstances the President and his Cabinet adopted the course which in the light of subsequent events seems to have been woefully ill-timed and hazardous in the extreme. They determined to sacrifice the army and navy. In extenuation of this decision, it may be said that the danger of war with France, which had forced the Adams Administration to double expenditures, had passed; and that Europe was ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... hairs, Maudlin by weeping; and as for the "Bishop that burneth" the explanation is complicated. It seems that Cicely would run after the bishop for his blessing, and leave the milk on the fire to burn.[A] For all these ill-timed guests you are to baste Cicely, or "tug her a crash," or "make her seek creeks"; you "call her a slut," or "dress her down." But you encourage her at the end with ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... exception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, during the week now closed, has been enacted at Queen's Hall.[*] There were critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contended that such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it all sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime of fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... clashing down the street under the naked elms. For the women who sat with their work at the windows on either side of the way, hesitating whether to light their lamps, and drawing nearer and nearer to the dead-line of the outer cold for the latest glimmer of the day, the passage of this ill-timed vehicle was a vexation little short of grievous. Every movement on the street was precious to them, and, with all the keenness of their starved curiosity, these captives of the winter could not make out the people in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Convent cloister is not a hen-yard. Such ill-timed devotion well-nigh merits penance. Rise from thy knees, and go at once ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... exemption!" repeated Manasseh, in amazement. It had not once occurred to him that he, a former government councillor, might be drafted into the army. But he controlled his indignation at what seemed an ill-timed jest, and added, calmly: "At any rate, I cannot be charged with having forfeited my rights as a miner by ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... are just now in the neighborhood of a consecrated grove, your panegyric upon hunting is somewhat ill-timed, and I cannot assent to all you have said. For the present, All undisturbed the buffaloes shall sport In yonder pool, and with their ponderous horns Scatter its tranquil waters, while the deer, Couched here and there in groups beneath the shade Of spreading branches, ruminate ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... SPHERE. Whence this ill-timed impertinent request? And what mean you by saying that I am no longer the Perfection of ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... pacing slowly in the moonlight betwixt himself and the distant rocks. Who on earth could she be, and how had she got there? were the questions he asked himself, his first sensation being one of annoyance at so unexpected and so ill-timed an intrusion. But as the moments passed and the figure came more clearly into view, impatience gave way to curiosity, and curiosity to ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... when I took off my hat and gave her a look, but that wasn't a circumstance to her surprise when I proudly took off my little cousin's cap. She uttered a kind of a strangled cry and my cousin's mother came running, and the way she carried on was scandalous and ill-timed. I will draw a veil over the proceedings of the next few minutes. At the time it would have been a source of great personal gratification and comfort to me if I could have drawn a number of veils, good, thick, woolen ones, over the proceedings. My mother wept, my aunt wept, my little ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... petticoat assured her that the fugitives were safe. Then did she hesitate for a moment what course to take; but as I assumed my chair beside her, she composedly sat down, and crossing her hands before her, waited for an explanation of this ill-timed visit. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... soul of him. The sordid love of La Binet might have consoled him for the compulsory renunciation of his exalted love of Aline, just as to his exalted love of Aline he had been ready to sacrifice his attachment to La Binet. But that ill-timed riot had robbed him at once of both. Faithful to his word to Sautron he had definitely broken with La Binet, only to find that Aline had definitely broken with him. And by the time that he had sufficiently recovered from his grief to think again of La Binet, the comedienne ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... the caliph then repented, but too late, that he had not taken the advice of his vizier, who, with Mesrour, the calenders and porter, was from his ill-timed curiosity on the point of forfeiting his life. Before they would strike the fatal blow, one of the slaves said to Zobeide, and her sisters: "High, mighty, and adorable mistresses, do you command us to strike off their heads?" "Stay," said Zobeide, "I must examine them first." The ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... tried to persuade Jane to have the sick child carried on deck, for the sake of the fresh air, but she did not succeed; and not wishing to leave Mrs. Taylor, she took off her hat, and remained some time in the cabin—a piece of good-nature which Mr. Ellsworth seemed to think ill-timed. As they drew near the Highlands, however, she returned to her seat on deck; for the morning was lovely, and she did not wish to lose the scenery. She found Mrs. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... adopt a platform, but an ill-timed sneer at Harrison furnished just what they needed. He would, a Democratic newspaper said, be more at home in a log cabin drinking cider than living in the White House as President. The Whigs hailed this sneer as an insult to the millions of Americans who then lived, or ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... living men of worth can testify; and as it evidently shows that Mr. Savage's opinion of me as an actor was, in this latter part of his life, far from contemptible, of which, perhaps, in his earlier days he had too lavishly spoke; I thought this no improper (nor ill-timed) contradiction to a remark the writer of[7A] Mr. Savage's Life has been pleased, in his Gaite de Coeur, to make, which almost amounts to an unhandsome innuendo, that Mr. Savage, and some of his friends, thought me ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... at this ill-timed pride, Made fierce remonstrances, and then a threat He muttered (but the last was given aside) About a bow-string—quite in vain; not yet Would Juan bend, though 't were to Mahomet's bride: There's nothing in the world ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... have had much vexation and perplexity lately with the affair of the goods in Holland, and I have so many urgent correspondences to keep up, that some of them at times necessarily suffer. I purpose writing fully to you next post. In the meantime I send the enclosed for your meditation. The ill-timed bills, as you justly term them, do us infinite prejudice; but we ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... top or the platforms. Those few consisted of stout women in strange toilets, of those shopkeepers' wives from the suburbs, who made up for the distinguished looks which they did not possess, by ill-timed dignity; of gentlemen who were tired of the office, with yellow-faces, who stooped rather, and with one shoulder higher than the other, in consequence of their long hours of work bending over the desk. Their uneasy and melancholy faces also spoke of domestic troubles, of constant want of money, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and had escaped, by prompt evasion, the confinement which awaited his companions. Oswy, for it was he, thus showed his natural astuteness, while he also conferred the greatest possible obligation upon Elfric, since he bore the news of his ill-timed arrival at once to ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... began again when JORDAN explained that Father GILLIKAN, though he had been making a speech in the middle of the River Shannon at the moment of his arrest, was primarily in a boat. Even that didn't mend matters, and JORDAN, giving up attempt to understand ill-timed hilarity ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... fortune in marriage. Marie de la Tour's first impulse was to laugh in the face of a man who, old enough to be her father, addressed her in such terms; but one glance at the pale face and burning eyes of the speaker, convinced her that levity would be ill-timed—possibly dangerous. Even the few civil and serious words of discouragement and refusal with which she replied to his ardent protestations, were oil cast upon flame. He threw himself at the young girl's feet, and clasped her knees ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... will must be overpowered by force or thwarted by constitutional forms. Threatened alternately by the Jacobin mob of Paris and by the Royalist middle class, the Government played off one enemy against the other, until an ill-timed effort of the emigrant noblesse gave to the Convention the prestige of a decisive victory over Royalists and foreigners combined. On the 27th of June, 1795, an English fleet landed the flower of the old nobility of France at the Bay of Quiberon in southern Brittany. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... subdued, but against such overwhelming odds they had no chance. It would have been better for them had they acted on the captain's advice. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and this truth is not less applicable to the act of submission than to that of resistance. The only result of their ill-timed display of valour was the tighter fastening of the cords with which the savages bound them hand and foot, and somewhat rough handling when they, with their comrades, were tossed into the ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... off than in July when Lord Howe had landed on Staten Island. In nine days the tables had been completely turned. The attack upon an outpost had developed into a campaign which quite retrieved the situation. The ill-timed interference of Congress, which had begun the series of disasters, was remedied; the treachery of Lee was checkmated; and the cause of American Independence, which on Christmas Eve had seemed hopeless, was now fairly set on its feet. ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed sympathy; "I'm so much more used to ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... I think, been feeling love for him,—you looked it; I should have been less than a man, I should be unworthy of your—your affection, if I had failed to see it. I did see it,—I saw it as clearly as I see those oxen now; and yet I bounced in with my own ill-timed claims. To do so was to be a fool. To have been other than a fool would have been to have waited, to have backed out, to have bitten my tongue off before I spoke, to have done anything but what I did. I have no right to claim you, Gertrude, until I can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... in his place in the barge, and close to the Sovereign. Raleigh rose to retire, and Tressilian would have been so ill-timed in his courtesy as to offer to relinquish his own place to his friend, had not the acute glance of Raleigh himself, who seemed no in his native element, made him sensible that so ready a disclamation of the royal favour ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... not if this will ever come into your hands, but it and my sword shall be left in trust with the faithful Darius. We have made our ill-timed cast for liberty and it has failed, and to-morrow I and five others are to die at the rope's end. I bequeath you my sword—'tis all the tyrant hath left me to devise—and my blessing to go with it when you, or another Ireton, shall once more bare ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... is no slight consolation to us, while suffering under alternate reproaches for ill-timed severity, and injudicious praise, to reflect that no very mischievous effects have as yet resulted to the literature of the country, from this imputed misbehaviour on our part. Powerful genius, we are persuaded, will not be repressed even by unjust castigation; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Legislature of Virginia for my humble opinions, but the Act of Virginia is itself not without the very highest human sanction, as I shall show you by a passage which I am about to cite from the work of a man, with whom, in my mind, the writings of all other men are but as the ill-timed uninformed prattlings of children—a man from whom to differ in opinion is but another phrase to be wrong. Need I, after this, name him? for was there ever more than one man who could be identified with such a description? I mean Locke, the great ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... not know, sir," said the Doctor, now effectually roused, "that this was ill-timed buffoonery, and not an intentional insult, I should be seriously angry. As it is, I can overlook any exuberance of mirth which is, perhaps, pardonable when the mind is elated by the return to the cheerful bustle and activity of school-life. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... this work is, to turn your thoughts a little off from the clamour of contending parties, which has so long surfeited you with their ill-timed politics, and restore your taste to things truly superior ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... looked up. I had news that some of my Yankee speculations were turning out well, and I unexpectedly found myself a man of means again. Rimbolt, who certainly has the knack of making ill-timed suggestions, proposed that that would be a good opportunity for making good what properly belonged to my ward. I urged in vain that my ward was lost, and that the money properly belonged to me as a reward for the trouble I had ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... exclaimed, ignoring this ill-timed levity, "who, when you have Passed Beyond, will worship you and transmit to your ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... all. He feared to turn to his father for full sympathy, and his fears were apparently justified, for his father seemed only to have answered with rebuking him for his foolish "dreams of pleasure." To this ill-timed reproof Mozart answered: ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... replied Colman, sarcastically, "don't be frightened at a squib, when we've been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder!" Though of a most forgiving nature Goldsmith did not easily forget this ungracious and ill-timed sally. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... this place, and had nearly reduced him by the scarcity of water; when the elder hearing of his distress, permitted him to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes of wine for his own table. Being reproved by William for his ill-timed generosity, he replied, "What, shall I suffer my brother to die of thirst? Where shall we find another ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... their journey, riding, walking, and gossiping, at irregular intervals; during which he learned much news relating to the aspect and circumstances of the time, the names of the leaders, and those attainted and condemned, in this hasty and ill-timed rebellion. A considerable number of Lancashire partisans, officers of the Manchester regiment, commanded by Colonel Townley, had been conveyed to London, and tried for high treason, in July 1746. Some were reprieved and pardoned; others were executed, with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... said with an emphasis which sternly rebuked the ill-timed, and, as he deemed, untruthful flattery. "There is not his like, go ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... Servians; while the background was formed by the mountains of Bosnia, rising range over range in the distance. They reached the valley by a narrow winding path on the face of a precipitous descent, and entered the town; but their visit was ill-timed. It was Ramadan; the Disdar Aga was, or was said to be, asleep, and the castle could not be seen in his absence; and Mr Paton's enquiries from the Mutsellim, who acted as their cicerone, as to the height of the rock on which the citadel was built above the valley, only made ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... helplessness was too much for the tease; she broke down in a fit of smothered laughter, which convinced her victim that it was nothing but an ill-timed joke. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and answered, and turned back again. He was not of the composition of those who are balked of answers to their questions by ill-timed interruptions. But the little diversion gave Georgiana an instant's chance to make herself ready to answer like a woman and not like a startled schoolgirl. So that when he repeated, his voice ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... down from the ladder, and was standing surveying his work with one eye closed, and at the proper distance from it to judge of its effect; and his look of evident exultation shewed that nothing could be more ill-timed than any ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... of smiling contempt—a glance which, passing him, rested finally upon the prone body of Chief Inspector Kerry lying stretched upon the floor before the stove. Her pupils contracted to mere pin-points and then dilated blackly. She recoiled a step, fighting with the stupor which her ill-timed indulgence had left behind. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... conceal from him even such imaginings and things as it is common for women to hold secret. Her very bitterness, which it had been policy for her to cloak or soften, would gush from her lips at the sight of him; nor, in the depth of his rage and torment, could he, on the other hand, control the ill-timed utterance of his continual and overmastering passion. It came to this, then: he must go forward, and against his better judgment, because he was afraid to go back, for the whip of a woman's tongue drove him on remorselessly. It was better that the Messenger should die, and the land run ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard |
