"Seamy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bitterness of his struggle with the world, and, secondarily, to the complaints which that struggle engendered. One capital consequence, however, and one which specially concerns us, was that we get this unrivalled picture of the seamy side of foreign travel—a side rarely presented with anything like Smollett's skill to the student of the grand siecle of the Grand Tour. The rubs, the rods, the crosses of the road could, in fact, hardly be presented to us more graphically or magisterially than they are in some of these ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Laurence, Comtesse (afterwards Marquise de) The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess The Seamy Side of History ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... in Kansas, on the twenty-third of August, 1869. The family moved to Illinois the next year. His father was a lawyer, and the child had access to plenty of good books, which he read eagerly. In spite of his preoccupation with the seamy side of human nature, he is in reality a bookish poet, and most of his work—though not the best part of it—smells of the lamp. Fortunately for him he was brought up on the Bible, for even those who attack the Old Book are glad to be able to tip ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... dripping on the verandah - and very much inclined for a chat. The exact subject I do not know! It will be bitter at least, and that is strange, for my attitude is essentially NOT bitter, but I have come into these days when a man sees above all the seamy side, and I have dwelt some time in a small place where he has an opportunity of reading little motives that he would miss in the great world, and indeed, to-day, I am almost ready to call the world an error. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cliffs behind, with their sprawling gray feet in the emerald sea, and their green and gold shoulders humping up into the blue sky; beyond them the black Gouliot rocks and foaming Race, and the long soft bulk of Brecqhou with its seamy sides ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... paid. He took to this work as seriously, from an artistic point of view, as if it had been a large building. We often met, and I also spent a few evenings at his house in Kensington, when we invariably dropped into the old vein of strange, serious humour that helped us to forget the seamy side of life. The report I was able to give of Semper after my return home did much to influence Sulzer in his successful attempt to get him over to Zurich to build the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... simple matters of fact that it is perfectly obvious that the very atmosphere is charged with duplicity. The thing is taken as a matter of course. Judges are used to it, and act accordingly, deciding in most cases by a keen observation of the witnesses and an extensive knowlege of the seamy side of nature. But sometimes the very judges are nonplussed, so brazen are the faces of the gentlemen who "have kissed the book" Very often, no doubt, their honors feel inclined to say, like the American judge in directing his jury, "Well, gentlemen, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... remained as silent as before; indeed, on looking back, Maurice thought they had not exchanged a word all the way to Connewitz. He pushed in a kind of dream; the wind was with them, and it was comparatively easy work; but the ice was rough, and too hard, and there were seamy cracks to be avoided. The snow had drifted into huge piles at the sides; and, as they advanced, it lay unswept on their track. It was a hazily bright night, but rapid clouds were passing. Not a creature was to be seen: had a rift opened in the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... barely touched their blackly outlined forms, the murmur of their voices sounded ominous. In the circle we two sat, her hand upon mine, thrilling me comfortably yet abashing me. She surveyed me unwinkingly and grave—a triumph shining from her eyes albeit there were seamy shadows etched into her white face. It was as though she were welcoming me through ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... conventional misuse of a conventional word. The art of Yvette Guilbert is certainly the art of realism. She brings before you the real life-drama of the streets, of the pot-house; she shows you the seamy side of life behind the scenes; she calls things by their right names. But there is not a touch of sensuality about her, she is neither contaminated nor contaminating by what she sings; she is simply a great, impersonal, dramatic artist, who sings ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... the United States could not be given in apter words than those used by Gallatin, who, as the finance minister during four presidential terms, saw quite enough of the seamy side to sober his opinions, and who, as a prominent member of the war party, shared the disappointed hopes of his colleagues about the conquest of Canada. His opinion is, of course, that of a partisan. But it contains ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... seamy side, Mable," she said with a smile, "and you're not quite just to the school. I believe your parents sent you here because Miss Stearne is known to be a very competent teacher and her school has an excellent reputation of long standing. For twenty ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... wide knowledge of human nature, especially on its seamy side, based on a profound ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... turning the seamy side outwards, a modern Socrates might describe the evils of married and domestic life. They are evils which mankind in general have agreed to conceal, partly because they are compensated by greater goods. Socrates or Archilochus would soon have to sing ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... there are here," Mr. Fetherbee remarked to his next neighbor, a seamy old reprobate with ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... unusually sensitive, refined, responsive, and sentimental disposition. So fine were his emotional sensibilities that it was almost more than he could endure to hear—as he was compelled to day after day—the seamy, inharmonious, sordid, and criminal side of life. The recital and consideration of these things depressed him, made him morbid and sapped his vitality and courage. For the swift repartee, keen combat, and mutual incriminations ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Atheist's Mass Lost Illusions The Thirteen The Government Clerks Pierrette A Bachelor's Establishment The Seamy Side of History Modeste Mignon Scenes ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... eyes, as though to shut out something that the mind saw. He had had a rough life, he had become inured to the seamy side of things—there was a seamy side even in this clean, free, wide land; and he had no sentimentality; though something seemed to hurt and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Nothing in the universe could surprise him, and though not of eminent attainments in life, he seemed born to have acquired them. He understood so perfectly how to make both himself and others forget and keep at a distance the seamy side of life, with all its petty troubles and vicissitudes, that it was impossible not to envy him. He was a connoisseur in everything which could give ease and pleasure, as well as knew how to make use of such knowledge. ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... a dry throat. He looked out dimly over the sunlit fields, and swallowed once or twice. "Yes, it's so. There's a good deal of it there. Little more than a boy he was." The old fellow passed his seamy hand over his eyes without concealment. "Peter ain't very bright, sometimes, it seems to me," he added, brokenly; "overlook Bodeffer and Fisbee and me and all of us old husks, and—and—" he gulped suddenly, then finished—"and act the fool and take a boy that's the best we had. I wish the Almighty ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... Enoch went on eagerly: "It's a seamy, rough world, Diana, all higgledy-piggledy. The beautiful souls are misplaced in ugly carcasses and the ugly souls in beautiful. Those who might be friends and lovers too often meet only to grieve that it is too late for their joy. In such a world, when one beholds ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Comic Writing, Terence be altogether excused in this Regard; who, in his Adelphi, has left Demea in the last Scenes so unlike himself: whom, as Shakespeare expresses it, he has turn'd with the seamy Side of his Wit outward. This Conduct, as Errors are more readily imitated than Perfections, Beaumont and Fletcher seem to have follow'd in a Character in their Scornful Lady. It may be objected, perhaps, by some who do not go to the Bottom of our Poet's Conduct, ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... Birotteau The Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... life issued from the womb of nature after so long and painful a travail? The annihilation of the unfit is the seamy side, though the most real side, of natural selection. We ignore it, or extenuate it, and turn rather to consider the advances in organisation by which the survivors were enabled to outlive ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... detective instantly. "Never mind. It's a fairly decent world, taken en bloc. I ought to speak with authority. I see enough of the seamy side of it, goodness knows. Now, forewarned is forearmed. Don't be nervous. Don't take risks. Everything will come right in time. Remember, I'm not far away in an emergency. Should I chance to be absent if you need advice, send for Mr. Franklin. You can easily devise some official excuse, a mislaid ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Bourgoin from behind, "but the young gentleman has his fortune to make, and knows better than to look on the seamy side ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of to-morrow, Look at your fabric Of labor and sorrow. Seamy and dark With despair and disaster, Turn it—and lo, The design of the Master. The Lord's at the loom, Room ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon |
