"Unbecoming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touched by the spur of ambition, usually stimulating on such occasions; and yet I ought to stand exculpated from the charge of ungracious or unbecoming indifference to public applause. I did not the less feel gratitude for the public favour, although I did not proclaim it; as the lover who wears his mistress's favour in his bosom is as proud, though not so vain, of possessing it as another who displays the token of her grace upon his bonnet. Far ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... assumed such portentous and awful gravity that he set her off again to such a degree that the dowagers in the other room looked at her rebukingly. It was bad enough, they thought, that she should talk to old Houghton's son at all, but to show such unbecoming levity-well, it was not what they would "expect of a Bodine." Ella saw their disapproval, and felt she was losing her self-control. The warnings she had received against her companion embarrassed her, and banished the power ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... continued experience had varnished her self-esteem with a glaze of cynicism sufficiently consistent to protect it against any but the strongest attack. She believed in no man's protestations. She distrusted every man's motives as far as herself was concerned. This attitude of mind was not unbecoming in her for the simple reason that it destroyed none of her graciousness as regards other human relations besides that of love. That men should seek her in matrimony from a selfish motive was as ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... extended from the servants to the masters, and Abraham vainly called his nephew Lot to account for his unbecoming behavior, Abraham decided he would have to part from his kinsman, though he should have to compel Lot thereto by force. Lot thereupon separated himself not from Abraham alone, but from the God of Abraham also, and he betook himself ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... in color and style. While one is buying or making she may as well select attractive models. When one is attired in unbecoming clothes, unconsciously the face reflects the thought in unbecoming lines. One's voice takes on a coarser, unbecoming tone, and the poise takes on an unbecoming attitude. For the same reason our girls should not wear men's old hats or ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... more habitual. Dean Zachary Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, in vain remonstrated. At last, on his parishioners taking the matter up, and raising an outcry as to his neglect of duty, and the unbecoming character of his dress, he resigned his curacy and lectureship, and became for the rest of his life a literary ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... badness, roughness; wicked mode of life. {ungeb[ae]re}, sf. despairing lamentation. {ungebant}, aj. unbeaten, untrodden. {ungebatten}, aj. useless, worthless. {ungeborn}, part. aj. unborn. {ungeburt}, sf. low birth. {ungef[u:]ege}, aj. very great, powerful; bad, unbecoming, coarse, uncouth, rude; av. {ungefuoge}. {ungehabe}, sf. sorrow, grief. {ungel[i]che}, av. immeasurably, incomparably. {ungel[o]net}, aj. unrewarded. {ungelouplich}, aj. incredible. {ungel[u:]cke}, ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... the deck in a flowing cotton-velvet dressing-gown with huge sleeves, and in bottines of sky-blue cloth. Even an Aku Moslem, who read his Koran, printed in Leipzig, and who should have known better, had mimicked Europeans in this most unbecoming fashion. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... gracious, generous, tender-hearted in victory and cheerful in defeat (as we had soon to learn, alas!), even his enemies confessed this young Stuart a worthy leader of men. Usually suffused with a gentle pensiveness not unbecoming, the ardour of his welcome had given him on this occasion the martial bearing of a heroic young Achilles. With flushed cheek and sparkling eye he ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Mrs. Chilton's eyes were lusterless, her cheeks pallid and shrunken, and her forehead crossed and recrossed by fretful lines. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and her hair was combed tightly back in the unbecoming fashion that had been hers when Pollyanna first had seen her, years before. All the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... guilty of conduct grossly unbecoming a soldier. But you've served your guard house period, and you'll be busy, for many weeks yet to come, in working out the fines imposed against you. For breaches of discipline it is the intent of the authorities to provide sufficient punishment. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... turban of dark cloth spotted with white, folded to stand up straight from the forehead, and looking somewhat as if it was made of pasteboard. This is very unbecoming, and younger men often abandon it and simply wear the now common felt cap. They usually have long coats, white or dark, and white cotton trousers. Well-to-do Parsi women dress very prettily in silks of various colours. The men formerly shaved the head, either entirely, or leaving a scalp-lock ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... had been overtaken in a similar manner. He also narrated how a certain field-chaplain Grant, of Desborough's regiment, having after a hot and dusty day drunk sundry flagons of mum, had thereafter sung certain ungodly songs, and danced in a manner unbecoming to his sacred profession. Also, how he had afterwards explained that such backslidings were not to be regarded us faults of the individual, but rather as actual obsessions of the evil one, who contrived in this manner to give scandal ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unbecoming," said Father Francis, gravely, though a twinkle in his eye showed that he was not so profoundly shocked as his penitent appeared to be. "But go to graver matters. Immodesty, said you? I shall be very sorry, if this is so. You did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... conscience has refused to have the questions peaceably decided, I hope by this act of his to attach to my cause all the allies and the entire people. But now, if we also shall take up a course similar to his, I shall not have any decent excuse to offer nor be able to charge my opponents with any unbecoming conduct. You must also look ahead very carefully to the justice of your cause. If you have this, the strength that arms afford is full of hope, but without it nothing remains sure, though for the moment a man may ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... whom the school was closed by the "Snow Riot." This was an attempt on the part of the white people to get rid of the progressive Negroes of the District of Columbia. Their excuse for such drastic action was that Benjamin Snow, a colored man running a restaurant in the city, had made unbecoming remarks about the wives of the white mechanics.[3] John F. Cook, one of the most influential educators produced in the District of Columbia, was driven out of the city by this mob. He then ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... believe that her experience would be endorsed by the great majority of her class. If a "Clergyman's Wife" would take the pains to inquire into the facts of the case, she would not be long in ascertaining from what quarter the signal for unbecoming finery among "females of the lower orders" ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... complaint Major de Barner requested of the Governor satisfaction and punishment upon the accuser, and a notary, one Robin, who prepared notarial acts, in an unbecoming affrontive manner. This request was made under three heads: first, that Despin might be exemplarily punished, not merely for a false dishonoring accusation of Major de Barner, a commanding officer and injurious ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... his captain, "hush! thou beast, man!—If thou dost not respect my gray hairs, because I have been e'en too much of a routier myself, respect the boy's youth and innocence, and let us have no more of such unbecoming daffing." ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... keen sensibilities and uncloyed pleasures can. I could not help observing that John was very much struck by the attractions of Miss Constance Temple, and that she for her part, while exhibiting no unbecoming forwardness, certainly betrayed no aversion to him. I was greatly pleased both with my own powers of observation which had enabled me to discover so important a fact, and also with the circumstance itself. To a romantic girl of nineteen ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... responsible for the lack of organized power in the nation; but as the representative of the Government, which by a dozen years of inefficiency and neglect had laid open this and other frontiers, the fling was unbecoming. On December 10, the garrison of Fort George was reduced to "sixty effective regulars and probably forty volunteers. The militia have recrossed the river almost to a man."[125] M'Clure also learned "that the enemy were advancing ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... that they are unbecoming, but the Ministers' wives dislike being dictated to. They say that they represent their sovereigns, and object to be told what they shall wear and what they shall ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... averse to sharp reproof of the highest officials when he thought them in the wrong. He once wrote to Joseph E. Johnston that a letter of his contained "arguments and statements utterly unfounded" and "insinuations as unfounded as they were unbecoming." ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... don't see anything remarkable. That is a neat, plain suit; the materials are good, and it's not unbecoming, if you want her to look like a little school-girl; but it has not a particle of style, and no one would ever give it a second glance," said Mrs. Clara, feeling that her last remark condemned ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... society would seem to be to resist the aggression of foreign influence and its insidious and dangerous assaults upon all that Americans hold dear, politically and religiously. It appears to be to prevent injury to the Republic from the ill-timed and, I may say, unbecoming tamperings with the laws, and habits, and deeply sacred sentiments of Americans by those whose position, alike dictated by modesty and safety, to them as well as to us, is that of minors in training for American, not ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... in few words spoken what is seasonable. But it is unbecoming for me to converse with ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Martial duly sat, and in a most formal manner Kaiser Bill was tried and convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and of traitorously destroying the American flag, and was sentenced to be shot at sunrise the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... dexterous on water as on land. I chimed in with my friend, in order to avoid giving him further irritation, and declared I should be disposed, from my own experience, to give up Benjie as one of Satan's imps. Joshua Geddes began to censure the phrase as too much exaggerated, and otherwise unbecoming the mouth of a reflecting person; and, just as I was apologizing for it, as being a term of common parlance, we heard certain sounds on the opposite side of the brook, which seemed to indicate that Solomon and Benjie were at issue together. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of her own accession at Hatfield. We are not told that she affected any great concern for the loss of her sister, much less did any unbecoming sign of exultation escape her; but, "falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration she uttered this verse of the Psalms; A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile oculis nostris[33]: which to this day we find on the stamp ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... perform such abominable deeds—killing his father, marrying his mother. Where lies the blame! Where the poetic justice! Suddenly it occurs to him: OEdipus was a passionate fellow, lacking all Christian gentleness—he even fell into an unbecoming rage when Tiresias called him a monster and the curse of the whole country. Be humble and meek! was what Sophocles tried to teach, otherwise you will have to marry your mothers and kill your fathers! Others, again, pass their ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and sister were still hesitating in what manner they could best attempt to bring their mother over to their party, she, suspecting our meetings, taxed her children with them; taxed her fair daughter with deceit, and an unbecoming attachment for one whose only merit was being the son of the profligate favourite of her imprudent father; and who was doubtless as worthless as he from whom he boasted his descent. The eyes of Idris flashed at this ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... President's house was perfectly well understood, dwelt upon the possibility that the President might be guided by some other criterion than discharge of duty as the law directs. "Perhaps the officer is not good natured enough; he makes an ungraceful bow, or does it left leg foremost; this is unbecoming in a great officer at the President's levee. Now, because he is so unfortunate as not to be so good a dancer as he is a worthy officer, he must be removed." These rhetorical flourishes, which are ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... Chapter II) often improves a badly proportioned room by optical illusion. The ideal lightings for dining rooms are side lights. Dining-room drop lights or domes are very trying to the eyes of those who dine, and are unbecoming. Side lights (adding candles for grace and charm) are far pleasanter to the ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... of the parish church has possessed from immemorial time the prerogative of refusing to allow in the churchyard under his control any monument, gravestone, design, or epitaph which is, in his opinion, irreverent, indecorous, or in any way unbecoming the solemnity and sanctity of the place. This authority, wherever exercised, has been subject to the higher jurisdiction of the Diocesan Bishop, and presumably to the rule of the Ecclesiastical Courts; ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... that this great man was accused of a crime very unbecoming a philosopher: I mean bribery and extortion. You know that he was sentenced by the House of Lords to pay a fine of about four hundred thousand French livres, to lose his peerage and his dignity of Chancellor; ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... General Prescott commanded at Rhode Island, in the revolutionary war, (the same whom our Major Barton stole, and carried off in the night, from his head quarters, in a whale boat) he was very much disliked for his silly haughtiness, and unbecoming pride. One day a Baptist preacher waited upon him to complain of an oppression exercised on some of his followers, by the military, and taking his bible out of his pocket, he began to read a passage which he deemed applicable to the case; on sight of which the General flew into a rage, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... not to trouble me again." Thus after having passed through much danger with a spirit not unbecoming—as I hope—an English gentleman, I acted, when the worst was passed, like a peevish schoolboy. I am ashamed of my conduct in this small matter, and trust it will pass without much notice in the narrative of events ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... added may make a competence. Monsieur and Madame Joliet were good and willing. The man began to wear a strange not unbecoming air of solidity and good morals. The girls now saluted him respectfully when he passed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... instructresses, which had been arranged without the necessary permit, and that you sang there with them songs of a worldly and reprehensible character. Therefore, dear sir, I beg you in the future not to permit yourself similar actions unbecoming to your schoolmaster's vocation, and I herewith warn you that at a repetition of such behaviour you will be immediately discharged from ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... you. There is nothing so alluring to the citizen as that. If there be a softness which you have not by nature, so affect it that it shall seem to be your own naturally. You have indeed a way with you which is not unbecoming to a good-natured man; but you must caress men—which is in truth vile and sordid at other times, but is absolutely necessary at elections. It is no doubt a mean thing to flatter some low fellow, but when it is necessary to make a friend it can be pardoned. ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... took his fancy. Her hair was built up in a loose Frenchy way, after the fashion of the empire, and her cheeks were slightly mottled with red veins. Her color was too high, and yet it was not utterly unbecoming. She had friendly gray-blue eyes, which went well with her light-brown hair; along with a pink flowered house-gown, which became her fulling figure, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the bonnet, but he barred her off with an arm like a fence-rail, removed a lid from the stove, put the unbecoming article in on the red-hot coals, and replaced the lid. "There!" he said, "that helps the scenery, don't it? Now let's ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... flippantly, as Ada Snow, prayer-book in hand, came into view at the crossing against a dust-cloud in the background, on her way to a friend's house from service at the little mission chapel on the hill. Ada's cheeks took on a not unbecoming flush, her eyes drooped modestly beneath Mr. Sutton's glance,—a maidenly tribute to masculine superiority,—before she ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... protection, and submit to his will with patience and resignation of soul. It gives the law, not only to his words and actions, but to his very thoughts and purposes; so that he dares not entertain any which are unbecoming the presence of that God by whom all our thoughts are legible. It crushes all pride and haughtiness, both in a man's heart and carriage, and gives him an humble state of mind before God and men. It regulates the passions, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... home life,—when Trevannion came up with his usual air of cool, easy confidence. Trevannion was the most gentlemanly young man in the school; he never was in a hurry; was particularly alive to any thing "vulgar," or "snobbish," and would have thought it especially unbecoming in him to exhibit the smallest degree of annoyance at any untoward event. It took a good deal to put him out of countenance, and he esteemed it rather plebeian to go his own errands, or, indeed, to ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... all right. She'll rouge a bit, and powder a bit, and dress like anything. You needn't be unhappy about Dora. I can tell you Dora isn't going to be unhappy about you. Unhappiness would be extremely unbecoming to her, and she knows it. It isn't particularly becoming to any woman. You would be less damaged ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... loved hardships and rough fare. "It in no way befits religion," he writes, "to seek remedies for the body, nor is it good for health either. You may now and then take some cheap herb,—such as poor men may,—and this is done sometimes. But to buy drugs, to hunt up doctors, to take doses, is unbecoming to religion and hostile to purity." His success in winning men to the monastic life was almost phenomenal. It was said that "mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, and companions their friends, lest they be persuaded by his eloquent message to enter the cloister." ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... that she had already lost her maidenhead, informed one of his friends that his wife was no virgin. When this reached the ears of Theodora, she ordered the servants to hoist him up, like a boy at school, upbraiding him with having behaved too saucily and having taken an unbecoming oath. She then had him severely flogged on the bare back, and advised him to restrain his ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... the jugglers and preachers, his competitors, on informations laid against the Green Box, on that delinquent the wolf, on his own affair with the three Bishopsgate commissioners, and who knows?—perhaps—but that would be too fearful—Gwynplaine's unbecoming and factious ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... seems willing this season to add a few inches to the length of skirts, and six to eight inches is becoming the accepted length for street wear. This is an excellent length, not so long as to endanger the chic of the costume, nor so short as to be unbecoming in either sense ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... believed to have been offered him on the field of battle. Washington had taken no measures in consequence of the events of that day, and would probably have come to no resolution concerning them without an amicable explanation, when he received from Lee a letter expressed in very unbecoming terms, in which he, in the tone of a superior, required reparation for the injury sustained "from the very singular expressions" said to have been used on the day of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Earth,' takes occasion to observe that every thought is attended with a consciousness and representativeness; the mind has nothing presented to it but what is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, which tells you whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This act of the mind discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour in those whose consciousness goes no farther than to direct them in the just progress of their present state or action; but betrays an interruption in every second thought, when the consciousness is employed ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... the token with a profound obeisance, and a discomposure which his station rendered not unbecoming. It was obvious to most persons present, that the gratitude of the beautiful Princess was expressed in a manner more acceptable to the youthful life- guardsman, than that of Alexius Comnenus. He took the ring with great demonstration of thankfulness:—"Precious relic!" he said, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... as possible, for she strongly dissented from the old-fashioned idea that a good cry was consoling. On the contrary, she thought that the headache and unbecoming traces of emotion that followed tears had a particularly depressing effect, and left one with nerves. She resolved to dismiss the subject for the moment, anyhow, and to go to Vera's in the afternoon to meet Madame Zero and two or three of Vera's ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... estrangement that doesn't last more than a few years, then a joyful reconciliation, perhaps all the more joyful on account of the former separation. Then,' said the Lion, 'I see something—ahem!—a series of most painful incidents, most unbecoming to myself ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... wear precisely the same mask-veils as those jealous rascals the Turks and Arabs do at the present day, we do not know, and we are not now going to enquire: we only wish to protest, en passant, against these same modern Eastern veils; they are the most frightful, unclassical, unbecoming things ever invented as face-cases. Our present purpose is with the head-dress of modern British ladies—let ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Cases used this argument; but it was less unbecoming in him than it is in a philanthropist of the present day. The speaker does indeed say that "the 'infinite of agonies' and the infinite of crime, since suffered and committed, proves that mercy cannot exist in opposition ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... living; down I fell again upon my knees, parted the hair from her forehead, and, with the dearest respect, laid my lips for a moment on that cold brow. It was such a caress as a father might have given; it was such a one as was not unbecoming from a man soon to die ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hair. Maria Theresa looked sternly at the reflection of her little maid of honor's face in the glass. She saw how Charlotte's hands trembled and this increased her ill-humor. Again she raised her eyes to her own image, and saw plainly that anger was unbecoming to her. The flush on her face was not rosy, but purple; and the scowl upon her brow was fast deepening into a wrinkle. Her bosom heaved with a ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... his purpose and not telling him of what he had heard, simply told AEthelwold that on a certain day he intended to visit the lady himself. AEthelwold, in alarm, hurried to his wife and begged her to conceal her beauty and clothe herself in unbecoming attire, so that she might not win the king's admiration; but she did just the reverse, and enhanced her natural beauty by donning handsome raiment and jewellery. Her plan succeeded, the king fell in love ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... tormented by an ardent curiosity, which was turning to positive suffering. She must indeed have been pretty, with her gentle, calm eyes, so large that it looked as though she never closed them like other mortals. Her gown was a little ridiculous, a real old maid's gown, which was unbecoming without appearing clumsy. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... don't want to use unbecoming expressions," said Mole. "You wouldn't like to hear what I was ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... should have turned out as she did and rather perplexed at the apparent want of reason. And Auriole with the disposition to like him better than any man of her acquaintance suffered an entire reversal of feeling and went headlong to the other extreme in a spirit of unbecoming revengefulness. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... other by one or two days, assumed much authority over him. One day the Major with the help of an accomplice, who was supposed to be able to imitate my handwriting, addressed an official letter to the senior in my name, informing him that both of them had been reported to me for unofficer-like and unbecoming conduct, and requiring them to repair immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... heeding the interruption, "on the duties which will now devolve upon you, and the line of conduct which I should advise you to pursue in your new sphere. These hoydenish manners, these ridiculous expeditions, these scampers all over the country, must be renounced forthwith. Unbecoming as they are in a young unmarried female, a much stricter sense of decorum, a vastly different repose and reserve of manner, are absolutely essential in a wife; and it is as a wife, Kate, that ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... lady the king's mistress and not his wife, was a dignified ecclesiastic justified in following him into her apartments? and had the amour been ever so unbecoming, was this a species of conduct likely to detach him from it? But the story of the wife and daughter together speculating upon his affections is surely improbable in the highest degree: we know that the monkish writers, who furnish the ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... State Constitutions, the judges of the highest courts are now often expressly forbidden to accept other office,[Footnote: See Chap XXII.] but in the absence of such a prohibition it would be considered as unbecoming. Formerly and during the first third of the nineteenth century this was in many States not so. Some were then judges because they held legislative office and as an incident of it. Others did not hesitate to accept political positions. Of the six Federalist electors chosen in New Hampshire ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... the time Diane and Steele rode on top of the stage. When they did ride inside their conduct was not unbecoming; indeed, it was sweet to watch; yet it loosed the fires of jealous rage and longing in me; and certainly had some remarkable effect upon Sally. Gradually she had been losing that strange and somber mood ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... so, I suppose, it is nothing "unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman" to hold such midnight irrigation in ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... expressions of disappointment to her mother. But since we may not disguise her occasional acts of imprudence, it must be confessed that at times her mortification led her to speak of her husband to strangers in a tone of disparagement which was highly unbecoming. Maximilian had been accompanied by the Count de Rosenburg, who had in consequence been admitted to the intimate society of the court during the archduke's visit, and who had inspired Marie Antoinette with so favorable an opinion of his character and judgment that after his return to Vienna she ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... lick a wound he had received from a dog. He entertained me with the like witticisms three or four months together, of which this was one of the most favourable, whereupon I made these reflections that it was more unbecoming a Minister of State to say silly things than to do them, and that any advice given ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Greville sternly, "if thou canst find no better subject for thy prate, than these unbecoming fooleries, be silent—Helen! why should you encourage his forwardness, and girlish love of babbling? Go hence, sirrah! take thyself to rest; and you, Margaret," added he, turning angrily to the woman, "remember that from this hour I hear no more insolent remarks, on any dwelling it may suit ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... here," said Harry, and I saw Lee standing beside a slender figure in unbecoming dress among a group of men in blue shirts and quaintly mended jackets; also that some planks had been laid across ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... that when this promenade was laid out a few years ago, the householders along the water's edge absolutely refused to turn their front windows away from Beacon Street. Furthermore, they ignored the fact that their back yards and back windows presented an unbecoming face to such an incomparably lovely promenade, and the inevitable household rearrangement—by which the drawing-rooms were placed in the rear—was literally years in process of achievement. But such conservatism is one of Boston's idiosyncrasies, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Covenant of Works appears. It was not unworthy of God to enter into covenant with man in innocence. He was the workmanship of his own hands. The constitution given to him admitted of intercourse on his part with his Creator. It was not unbecoming the dignity of God's character to give to man a law. It was becoming his character to give him a moral constitution that would lead him to obey it. It was equally becoming the glory of his nature to accept of obedience to it. His entering into covenant with ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... Q. 73, A. 3) a sin which is against God is, in its genus, graver than other sins. Hence presumption whereby a man relies on God inordinately, is a more grievous sin than the presumption of trusting in one's own power, since to rely on the Divine power for obtaining what is unbecoming to God, is to depreciate the Divine power, and it is evident that it is a graver sin to detract from the Divine power ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... supply; and, after all, they would have told me something of the joy they were in at the sight of a boat and pilots, to carry them away to the person and place from whence all these new comforts came. But it was impossible to express it by words, for their excessive joy naturally driving them to unbecoming extravagances, they had no way to describe them but by telling me they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to give vent to their passions suitable to the sense that was upon them; that in some it worked one way and in some another; and that some of them, through a surprise of joy, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... neglect of these arts, or conduct unbecoming a samurai, was mercilessly punished. When Hayama Muneyori retired to his province without accompanying the army sent to attack O-U, he was severely censured and deprived of his estates. Cognate instances might be multiplied. In the year 1193, the first case of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... a winter's wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon—the mother of L'Aiglon at twenty—married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon's death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of kings who had made a mesalliance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... was carried on with unstudied rudeness. They were women of high and noble quality; and as I was an interloper, I could take no exception to a conversation in a language I had stated I did not understand. If they were rude, I had acted in a manner unbecoming a gentleman. Still, I was somewhat on the defensive. I took out my ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... became extremely severe, she could stand it no longer. Mrs. Harmon had just been indulging in one of her long dissertations, and finished by asking the rector's wife if she did not consider it very unbecoming for a small boy, and a waif at that, with no doubt bad blood in his veins, to be so much in the company of a rough creature like Captain Josh. He should be at home, studying his lessons and learning ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... instead of exciting the woman's eroticism. The manner in which alcoholic flirtation manifests itself in cynical, dull, obtrusive and stupid conversation, corresponds to its other forms of expression. Woman desires flirtation; but does not wish it to assume an unbecoming form. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... confounded Birkendelly a good deal. He retired by himself and examined the ring, and could see nothing in it unbecoming a Christian to wear. It was a chased gold ring, with a bright emerald, which last had a red foil, in some lights giving it a purple gleam, and inside was engraven "Elegit," much defaced, but that his sister could not see; therefore ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... grasp, and I saw Leila, who turned away laughing. She wore a short grey dress and a jacket of the same colour and a small round hat. I must confess that this costume of a Parisian dressed for walking was most unbecoming to her fairy-like beauty and seemed a kind of disguise. And yet, seeing her so, I felt that I loved her with an undying love. I tried to rejoin her, but I lost her among the ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... while Nan lounged in an easy chair, near by. Patty's golden hair was drawn smoothly down from a central part, and tightly confined at the back of her neck, where it was rolled and twisted into an immense knot, hard and round, that was exceedingly unbecoming. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... unbecoming that my Assistant should take it upon herself to lecture her superior after that fashion; and I promptly informed her (my blood being pretty hot by this time) that I would thank her to obey orders and give advice when it was asked for. Much abashed at this unexpected ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... in the last act of it, as I dare not vindicate, so neither can I wholly condemn, till I find more reason for their censures. The procedure of Indamora and Melesinda seems yet, in my judgment, natural, and not unbecoming of their characters. If they, who arraign them, fail not more, the world will never blame their conduct; and I shall be glad, for the honour of my country, to find better images of virtue drawn to the life in their behaviour, than any I could feign to adorn the theatre. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... give up business. If it be unscriptural to be engaged in our calling, merely, even for the sake of earning the means for procuring the necessaries of life for ourselves and family, how much more unbecoming that a child of God should be engaged in his calling for the sake of any of the last mentioned reasons.—This second point, then, Why do I carry on this business? Why am I engaged in this trade or ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... of modern times. That translation was unfortunately made from corrupt manuscripts (the best that could then be procured), in which the bold phraseology of Kalidasa has been occasionally weakened, his delicate expressions of refined love clothed in an unbecoming dress, and his ideas, grand in their simplicity, diluted by repetition or amplification. It is, moreover, altogether unfurnished with explanatory annotations. The present translation, on the contrary, while ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... before the reign of the American Czar, Gladstone, Premier of England, said, "I would rather be right and believe in the Bible, than excite a body of curious, infidelic, so-called scientists to unbecoming wonder by tracing their ancestry to a troglodyte." And Huxley replied, "I, too, would rather be right—I would rather be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... on myself Penwether. I have been a fool and I own it. But I have done nothing unbecoming a gentleman." He was almost tempted to quarrel with his brother-in-law, but at last he allowed the letter to be sent just as Sir George had written it, and then tried to banish the affair from his mind for the present so that he might enjoy his life till the next hostile step ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... birds and squirrels sporting among the tree-tops; or sitting idly with their hands in their pockets, opening and shutting their jack-knives, or counting their marbles, or munching apples and corn-dodgers in a sneaking and unbecoming manner behind their books; or, more naughty still, shooting paper bullets at old Hobby's wooden leg as he eat dozing behind his high desk of a drowsy summer afternoon,—our George, with his hands to his ears to keep out the schoolroom ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... she could, she looked like a fright. Bending over hot stoves and boiling gravies is not very beneficial to one's complexion, and 'Lena's cheeks, neck, forehead, and nose were of a purplish red—her hair was tucked back in a manner exceedingly unbecoming, while the broad check-apron, which came nearly to her feet, tended in nowise to improve her appearance. She felt it keenly, and after returning Durward's salutation, she broke away before Anna or John, Jr., who were both surprised at her looks, had ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... confidence. Old Battle, who had a deep fellow feeling for his master, must needs imitate the affection he displayed for the fishmonger, and to that end began to make free with his horse, which, after sundry friendly bites of the mane, and otherwise exhibiting himself in a manner very much unbecoming a horse of such good morals, reared and had done serious damage with the bones of the other, but for the interposition of his master, who separated them with the stock of his big whip. Peace being restored, the animals were removed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... did not see one rise a hundred feet into the air, nor fly straight away for a hundred yards. They would get up just above the grass, and flutter and drop—a puttering, short-winded, apoplectic struggle, very unbecoming and unworthy. ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and countenance, swarthy, lean, long, with a quick, alert, black look, as of one who was a fighter, and accustomed to command; upon one cheek he had a mole, not unbecoming; a large diamond sparkled on his hand; his clothes, although of the one hue, were of a French and foppish design; his ruffles, which he wore longer than common, of exquisite lace; and I wondered the more to see him in such a guise when he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Worse began to take part in the conversation, the attache felt that the reins were slipping out of his hands. Worse went at it hammer and tongs; not that he raised his voice, or used unbecoming expressions, but his views were so subversive and so original, that the others were forthwith reduced to silence. At the first onset he brushed aside all the nonsense about Norwegian women, and that sort of thing, and went on boldly to consider the position ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... cadets in the courtroom roared their approval, the cadet judge consulted quickly with the members of the Council. A decision was reached quickly. A verdict of conduct unbecoming cadets was brought against both units, with orders for a strong reprimand to be placed on their individual official records. In addition, each unit was denied leaves and week-end passes from the Academy until the end of the term, ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... doctrine is appropriate and necessary. It is a warning that our eyes are not closed to the schemes on foot for the suppression of republican government on this continent. While our present necessity compels us, as of course, to act with great circumspection, yet it would be unbecoming our dignity to quietly ignore the spoliation of Mexico. It is often said that President Lincoln, in his letter accepting the Baltimore nomination, has repudiated this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... son, in speaking of her to Lord Harvey, at a time when any exaggeration was open to an easy refutation, and writing in a spirit most likely to provoke it, does not scruple to say, with a tone of dignified haughtiness not unbecoming the situation of a filial champion on behalf of an insulted mother, that by birth and descent she was not below that young lady, (one of the two beautiful Miss Lepels,) whom his lordship had selected from all the choir of court beauties as ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... these great truths ten years ago, and placed ourselves upon them boldly, as it was our duty to have done, we would have no trouble in this country to-day; but instead of declaring the great truths enunciated in these resolutions, we went off upon issues unbecoming the Democratic party. A portion of our leaders wandered and went astray, and asserted that the people of a Territory had the right to prohibit slavery whenever, in their judgment, it ought to be prohibited; ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... exceptional &c. 83; intrusive, incongruous; disproportionate, disproportionated[obs3]; inharmonious, unharmonious[obs3]; inconsonant, unconsonant[obs3]; divergent, repugnant to. inapt, unapt, inappropriate, improper; unsuited, unsuitable; inapplicable, not to the point; unfit, unfitting, unbefitting; unbecoming; illtimed, unseasonable, mal a propos[Fr], inadmissible; inapposite &c. (irrelevant) 10. uncongenial; ill-assorted, ill-sorted; mismatched, misjoined[obs3], misplaced, misclassified; unaccommodating, irreducible, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and the Captain were already there: Quin, flaming in red regimentals, as big a monster as ever led a grenadier company. The party were laughing together at some joke of one or the other: and I must say I thought this laughter very unbecoming in my cousins, who were met, perhaps, to see the death of one ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Leopold's best friends talk about him was strong in Helen, but her heart misgave her: was it not unbecoming? She would be in terror of discovery all the time. In the middle of the stair, she drew ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... put up with avarice," I think his lordship meant what he wrote, and if he practised what he preached, shall not quarrel with him. As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing, and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. The fare to my house, say, is ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... formalities of his century there shines a certain quickness and sensibility; he even condescends to be lively after a stately fashion, and to indulge in a little 'raillying,' only guarding himself rather too carefully against unbecoming levity. Indeed, though a man of the world at the present day would be as much astonished at his elaborate manners as at his laced coat and sword, he would admit that Sir Charles was by no means wanting in tact; his talk is weighted with more ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... it was not clear to respectable Florentine brains, unless they held the Frate's extravagant belief in a possible purity and loftiness to be striven for on this earth, how life was to be carried on in any department without human instruments whom it would not be unbecoming to kick or to spit upon in the act of handing them their wages. Some of these very men who passed a tacit judgment on Tito were shortly to be engaged in a memorable transaction that could by no means have been carried through ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... said Helen, "but the neck of my suit never was right. It's awfully unbecoming. How would ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... occasion, when I candidly remarked that von Papen and Boy-Ed came back to the Fatherland for certain unbecoming acts, some of which I enumerated, a Frau Hauptmann jumped to her feet and, after the customary brilliant manner of German argument, shrieked that I was a liar. She declared that their Zeitung had said nothing about the charges I mentioned, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... himself be removed as soon as the term for which he had been elected had expired. But entreaties and threats were alike of no avail. Even Clay could not get the removal of a naval officer guilty of unbecoming conduct. In his zeal for nonpartizanship Adams fairly leaned backwards, with the result that incompetents were shielded and the offices were left in the hands of men who, in a very large number of cases, were openly hostile to the President ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... black. She was statuesque, picturesque, of good family, and had a wondrous poise. Rossetti straightway sent for William Morris to come and admire her. William Morris came, and married her in what Rossetti resentfully called "an unbecoming and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... It would be unbecoming the representatives of this nation to assemble for the first time in this solemn temple without looking up to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the honour of all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a matter of political arrangement. If it is, we can only say that it will be most indecent, we might almost venture to say unbecoming; but our dislike to the use of strong language is well known, or at least it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... distant part of the field, was also suffering, and in great pain. The symptoms were such as a medical man would pronounce 'choleraic.' I say WOULD have pronounced; for, on examination, the surgeon was also found to be—er—in pain, and, I regret to say, expressing himself in language unbecoming the occasion. His impression was, that some powerful drug had been administered. On referring the question to Mr. Hawkins, he remembered that the bottle of whiskey partaken by them contained a medicine which ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... don't misapprehend me; I don't say so, for I often smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh; 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion; everybody can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jest of an inferior person, or when anybody else of the same quality does not laugh with one—ridiculous! To be pleased with what pleases ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... unperliteness, seeing as how a many of us has never had a chance of larnin' how to behave ourselves in delicate sitivations. Your honour doesn't need to be told—at least, we hopes not—that we didn't mean nothing in any way unbecoming or disrespectable to you or the rest of the hofficers—no, not by no manner of means whatsomever. All we want to say is just this here: that all hands on us, down to the powder-monkeys, begs most respectably ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... against him was that he had asserted Palestine to be a poor land. This was held to contradict the Scriptural statement that it was a land flowing with milk and honey. The minutes of the trial are painful reading. It was conducted on both sides with unbecoming violence. Among other expressions used by Calvin, the public prosecutor, were these: that he regarded Servetus's defence as no better than the braying of an ass, and that the prisoner was like a villainous cur wiping his muzzle. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... seemly in the world, than to see a Christian walk as becomes the Gospel; nor any thing more unbecoming a reasonable creature, than to hear a man say, I believe in Christ, and yet see in his life debauchery and profaneness. Might I, such men should be counted the basest of men; such men should be counted by all unworthy of the ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... ambitious to meet the requirements of their elevated position and realized in any degree the legitimate claims which their country had upon them, their natural efforts to take part in the administration were promptly checked, and they were reminded that it was unbecoming and unfitting for the descendants of the gods to mingle in ordinary earthly affairs. In this way it often fell out that the ablest of the emperors retired from the actual position of reigning emperor in order ...
— Japan • David Murray
... about that. Mr. Dusautoy once called to ask for my support for a vestry meeting, but I make it a rule never to meddle with parish skirmishes. I believe there was a very unbecoming scene, and that Mr. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has been stated, a beautiful head-dress from a sister in New York, who had obtained it from a friend in Paris. The style was quite attractive, though neither unbecoming nor showy. Mrs. Bates had her own share of vanity, and wished to appear at a large party soon to take place, in this head-dress, where she knew it must attract attention. Although a little vain, a ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... methinks thou mightest take away a portion, without injury to the goodly fabric.—Behold!" and the Reverend Jonas lifted, with the cook's long knife (which he snatched in unbecoming haste from the girdle), the paste of the edge of the gigantic pie, and stole a weighty slice of the venison ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall |
