"Undeserving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and this specious talk, for I really can't come up to your cousin Lin. If others poke fun at her, they all do so with impunity, while if I say anything, I at once incur blame. The fact is I shouldn't have spoken of her, undeserving as I am; and as she's the daughter of a master, while I'm a slave, a mere servant girl, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... will apply your great learning to this subject. The matter is one which deserves long and deep consideration on your part; nor am I, for my part, undeserving of having the fruits of your wisdom imparted to me. You may even argue on both sides (as your way is), provided you argue more forcibly on one side than the other, so as not to dismiss me in suspense and anxiety, when the very cause ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... man, so unloved, so undeserving of love, is said to have once had a warm heart. His early troubles and his domestic griefs are said to have soured and estranged him ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... there is not a more undeserving vicious race of human kind than the bulk of those who are reduced to beggary, even in this beggarly country. For, as a great part of our publick miseries is originally owing to our own faults (but, what those faults are I am grown by experience ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... oh, a terrible dragon of virtue is she. May heaven preserve us poor men, undeserving though we be, from a life with the heroine of fiction. She is all soul, and heart, and intellect, with never a bit of human nature to catch hold of her by. Her beauty, it appals one, it is so painfully indescribable. Whence comes she, whither goes she, why do we never meet her like? ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... destructive, appointed this [his?] Naib. Thus, when Mr. Hastings had imprisoned the Rajah, in the face of his subjects, and in the face of all India, without fixing any term for the duration of his imprisonment, he delivered up the country to a man whom he knew to be utterly undeserving, a man whom he kept in view for the purpose of frightening the Rajah, and whom he was obliged to depose on account of his misconduct almost as soon as he had named him, and to exclude specially from all kind of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and while we endured some of the disgrace that attaches to mere forms, we had that consolation of which no cruelty or device can deprive the unoffending. Our sorrows were not heightened by the consciousness of undeserving. ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Warwick," pursued he, "is scarce the equal of his brother, yet is he undeserving of the name of a leopard cub; and my Lord Ambrose, as meseemeth, shall make a worthy honourable man. For what toucheth my Lord Guilford, I think he is not unkindly, but he hath not wit equal to his father; and as for Robin [the famous Earl of Leicester]—well, you ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... case in new raised armies, unused to danger, and from which undeserving officers have not been expelled, their conduct was not uniform. Some regiments, especially those which had served the preceding campaign, maintained their ground with the firmness and intrepidity of veterans, while others gave way as soon as they were ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... bright eye of Mittie actually sunk before the calm, rebuking glance, which gave emphasis to every cool, deliberate word. Here was the woman she had dared to treat with disdain, as undeserving her respect, as the usurper of a place to which she had no right, whom she had predetermined to hate because she was her step-mother, and whom she continued to dislike because she had predetermined to do so, all at once assuming an attitude of commanding self-respect, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... desperate effort, in a voice that trembled between the fear of offending by presumption or exaction, and the desire to give utterance to her wish—"I want ... will you say that—if by that time you do not think that I have been too faulty, too undeserving—that I shall go with you when you quit this world?" And, her eagerness at last overpowering her shyness, she looked up anxiously into ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... this epistle to you as the least undeserving of a very undeserving family. You, I think, have sent me one letter since I left London. I have nothing here to do but to write letters; and, what is not very often the case, I have members of Parliament in abundance to ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... happy. Mary remained with them more as a confidante than as a servant; indeed, she had so much money, that she received several offers of marriage, which she invariably refused, observing, with the true humbleness of a contrite heart, that she was undeserving of any honest, good man. Everybody else, even those who knew her history, thought otherwise; but Mary continued firm in her resolution. As for all the rest of the personages introduced into these pages, they passed through life with an average portion of happiness, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... whose refuge from most ills was talk, went to see a friend. She had many friends in the Brown Borough, and most of them were what Mrs. Gustus would call "undeserving." Mrs. Gustus has a very high mind; she and the C.O.S. are dreadfully grown-up institutions, I think; they forget what it feels like to have a good rampageous kick against the pricks. Nearly everybody ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... it. Loyalty is based upon it. The soldier who, to make a path for his comrades through the battle, deliberately flings away his life with a shout of "Teikoku manzai!"—the son or daughter who unmurmuring sacrifices all the happiness of existence for the sake, perhaps, of an undeserving or even cruel, parent; the partisan who gives up friends, family, and fortune, rather than break the verbal promise made in other years to a now poverty-stricken master; the wife who ceremoniously robes herself in white, utters a prayer, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... hold in faith on God's blessed promises, but when I would do so a sense of my own unworthiness shuts my mouth. But which of God's promises was ever made to the worthy recipient? Are they not all to the unworthy and undeserving? And if "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees," shall we not take courage, and claim God's blessed promises for ours, and often in silence and in solitude bend the knee for those we ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... pleasant warmth remains, or is there still fire there that I can rekindle to the old-time blaze, no matter what the effort required? What I want, Julia, is my old place in your heart, if I can have it. I was never a man that could do things in moderation; and, God help me, undeserving as I am, that and ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor. ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... the part of their respective estimation of another's evils, for which pity grieves, in so far as it esteems someone to suffer undeservedly, whereas nemesis rejoices, in so far as it esteems someone to suffer deservedly, and grieves, if things go well with the undeserving: "both of these are praiseworthy and come from the same disposition of character" (Rhet. ii, 9). Properly speaking, however, it is envy which is opposed to pity, as we shall state further ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Machemba's brother, Chimseia, she introduced me to him, and got him to be liberal to us in food on account of the service we had rendered to her. She took leave of us all with many expressions of thankfulness, and we were glad that we had not mistaken her position or lavished kindness on the undeserving. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... from the interruption of all other concerns; and he has the rather wished for this opportunity of undistracted and mature reflection, from a desire that what he might send into the world might thus be rendered less undeserving of the public eye. Meanwhile life is wearing away, and he daily becomes more and more convinced, that he might wait in vain for this season of complete vacancy. He must, therefore, improve such occasional ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... more. The sense of shame in him deepened with every word spoken by his chief. He felt how untrustworthy he had been, how undeserving of the selfless devotion which Percy was showing him even now. The words of gratitude died on his lips; he knew that they would be unwelcome. These Englishmen were so devoid of sentiment, he thought, and his brother-in-law, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... eyes. He took her in his arms and held her there for a moment. Never in his life had he felt so unworthy, so undeserving of this clean, pure girl who forgave him and trusted his spoken word and believed him to be the good man he could only wish to be. She was so far above him, so exalted, so noble that he should have bowed his forehead ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the many whom he will never see. The facility of Charles was such as has perhaps never been found in any man of equal sense. He was a slave without being a dupe. Worthless men and women, to the very bottom of whose hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute of affection for him and undeserving of his confidence, could easily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, state secrets and pardons. He bestowed much; yet he neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. He never gave spontaneously; but it was painful ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the main object of my excursion, I could not help being excited by the incidental sights and occurrences of a trip which to a commercial traveller or a newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in a conspiracy to impress us with their individuality, in which every ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim a particular notice, in which every person we meet is either an old ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... at this late hour of the night, refrain from saying two or three words. Most of the observations of the honourable Member for Preston I pass by, as undeserving of any answer before an audience like this. But on one part of his speech I must make a few remarks. We are, he says, making a law to benefit the rich, at the expense of the poor. Sir, the fact is the direct reverse. This is a bill which tends ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "inefficiency" so often brought against public and privately endowed agencies. The charges include the high cost of administration; the pauperization of deserving poor, and the encouragement and fostering of the "undeserving"; the progressive destruction of self-respect and self-reliance by the paternalistic interference of social agencies; the impossibility of keeping pace with the ever-increasing multiplication of factors and influences responsible for ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... to the whole scene of the proposal in the summer-house (in chapter iii., 'Lyrical'), give to this most unequal and imperfect book a certain crepuscular fascination of its own. Passages in it, certainly, are not undeserving that fine description of a style si tendre qu'il pousse le bonheur a pleurer. Emily's father, Mr. Hood, is an essentially pathetic figure, almost grotesquely true to life. 'I should like to see London before I die,' he says to his daughter. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... himself, is paying his addresses to Miss Assher; and Mr. Gilfil is pining for Tina, whom, if he had any discernment at all, he could not but see to be quite unfitted for him. Adam Bede is in love with the utterly undeserving Hetty, while Dinah Morris and Mary Burge are both in love with Adam, Hetty with Arthur Donnithorne, and Seth Bede with Dinah. At last, Hetty is got out of the way, Dinah comes to a clearer understanding ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... their sweetest boy Jovian, of the most innocent age, who lived seven years and six months, his undeserving [or unlamenting] parents ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... handsome make, and taking up your costly bows and quivers, speed ye in pursuit of her, lest overpowered by threats or violence and losing her sense and the colour of her cheeks, she yields herself up to an undeserving wight, even as one poureth forth, from the sacrificial ladle, the sanctified oblation on a heap of ashes. O, see that the clarified butter is not poured into an unigniting fire of paddy chaff; that a garland of flowers is not thrown away in a cemetery. O, take ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... compliant with your wishes. Now, won over by your compassion for us, and defended by your aid in our critical circumstances, it is incumbent on us that we show our sense also of the kindness received; lest we should seem ungrateful, and undeserving of aid from either god or man. Nor, indeed, do I think that because the Samnites first became your allies and friends, such a circumstance is sufficient to prevent our being admitted into friendship; but merely shows that they excel us in priority and in the degree of honour; for no ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... my Professor's nod, and the approval of my conscience. Worthiness, however!—the mind must be trained to discern it. We can err very easily in youth; and to find ourselves shooting at a false mark uncontrollably must be a cruel thing. I cannot say it is undeserving the scourge of derision. Do you know yourself? I do not; and I am told by my Professor that it is the sole subject to which you should not give a close attention. I can believe him. For who beguiles so much as Self? Tell her to play, she plays her sweetest. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... celestial throne, when the successive species of living beings were called into being in brief exertions of supernatural energy. But this mechanical view of God who, as Goethe said, "only from without should drive and twirl the universe about," what a poor conception of God, after all, was that; not undeserving the ridicule of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... command, illustrious and exalted lady, that I have gathered together these stories to form the present little book, you should the less readily suppose I have presumed to dedicate to your Serenity this trivial offering because of my esteeming it to be not undeserving of your acceptance. The truth is otherwise: your postulant approaches not spurred toward you by vainglory, but rather by equity, and equity's plain need to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of noble ladies must necessarily implore at outset the patronage ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Africa was the light of German civilization commencing to reflect itself upon the undeserving natives just as at the same period, the fall of 1914, it was shedding its glorious effulgence ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... body, and sorely afflicted in mind. The charge of theatrical affectation of illness has been brought against Grattan by the Unionists,—against Grattan who, as to his personal habits, was simplicity itself! It is a charge undeserving of serious contradiction. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... postponed to claims of those who have votes to give; and while parliament shall continue to declare that the voices of women are unfit to be taken into account in choosing members of the legislature, the masses of men will continue to act as if their wishes, opinions and interests were undeserving of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... this town such an act will win for you the eternal love an' gratitude of a down-trodden people; yore gun will blaze the way to liberty an' light, freedom an' the right to own yore own property, an' keep it. All I ask is that I be the undeserving medium." ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the test is to consider whether it operates according to the rules of reason and duty: for if, notwithstanding its general benevolence to mankind, it makes no distinction between its objects; if it exerts itself promiscuously towards the deserving and the undeserving; if it relieves alike the idle and the indigent; if it gives itself up to the first petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by accident than choice—it may pass for an amiable instinct, but must not assume the name of a ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... have quite so many gowns in this new country, Avis, and, may be, not even a horse and surrey of your own; but you will have love, and you will have happiness, and, best of all, Avis, you will give a certain very undeserving man his chance—his one sole chance—to lead a real man's life. Are you going to deny him that ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... is clear that such souls must consider themselves greater debtors—under greater obligations to serve Him: we must acknowledge that we have nothing of ourselves, and confess the munificence of our Lord, Who, on a soul so wretched and poor, and so utterly undeserving, as mine is,—for whom the first of these pearls was enough, and more than enough,—would bestow greater riches than ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... the legislature on the bill for appropriations for these purposes was insulting to the convention, the more ill-tempered and ill-bred secession members intimating that such a body of 'submissionists' were unworthy to represent Missouri, and undeserving of any pay. The manifest ill feeling between the two bodies—the legislature elected eighteen months previously, and without popular reference to the question of secession, and the convention chosen fresh from the people, to decide on the course of the State—soon ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to have been a failure. But she was not a failure. She was a fool whose incomparable foolishness had conferred not only prosperity, but happiness upon her. She shone, she scintillated, she diffused the glow of success. Though she was undeserving of admiration, she had been surfeited on it from her childhood; though she was devoid of the moral excellence which should command love, by a flashing glance or a waving curl, she could bring the most exalted love down from the heavens. There was no question ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... deliver me from a Pack of Villains. I most humbly beg your Pardon for my late Conduct and unjust Complaint of you. Do but stand my Friend, at this critical Conjuncture, and I'll be your most obedient Vassal till Death. Zadig had now no Inclination to fight for one so undeserving any more. Find some other to be your Fool now, Madam; you shan't impose upon me a second Time. I'll assure you, Madam, I know better Things. Besides he was wounded; and bled so fast that he wanted Assistance himself: And 'tis ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... of such diversity of Christian characters there is much to love and admire. I have selected the case of little Jane, as one not undeserving of notice. ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... so determinately, Fred, I'm sure that Clara has given sufficient reasons to justify the circumstances of an unpremeditated act, apparently so innocent, as to be undeserving of censure." ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... lessened by the absence of heavy weather. Indeed, the peril was even greater, inasmuch as the savages on comparatively fine days ventured forth on their marauding excursions, and in boisterous weather disappeared from sight, their wretched canoes being frail and undeserving the name of craft at all. This being so, I now enjoyed gales of wind as never before, and the Spray was never long without them during her struggles about Cape Horn. I became in a measure inured to the life, and began to think that one more trip through the strait, if perchance ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... wrote Mr. McCall, and told him that if the head of a great institution like the New York Life Insurance Company would be guilty of such perfidy as charged by you, the organization which would retain him in a position of responsibility was undeserving of ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... give money to seven or eight beggars who accosted her. She never can refuse any one who asks with a pitiful look and a pathetic cock-and-bull story. Several of them were young and strong, and quite undeserving of charity. Three, I observed, went straight to a public-house with what she had given them, and the last, a small street boy, went into fits of suppressed laughter after she had passed, and made ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable—that one false step involves her in endless ruin—that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful—and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the other sex." ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... prisoners they had visited and encouraged, all of which mercies are accredited to them as having been rendered to their Lord in person. The blessed company, overwhelmed by the plenitude of the King's bounty, of which they regard themselves as undeserving, will fain disclaim the merit attributed to them; "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... interest which the world took in him? and yet who could say? He might be unhappy and with reason. Was he a real poet, after all? might he not doubt himself? might he not have a lurking consciousness that he was undeserving of the homage which he was receiving? that it could not last? that he was rather at the top of fashion than of fame? He was a lordling, a glittering, gorgeous lordling: and he might have had a consciousness that he owed much of his celebrity to being so; he might have felt that he ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... privilege of which I am undeserving, that I was suffered, in ever so small a way, to do aught for his comfort by rendering help to Madame Gruithuissens in the making of messes to tempt the sick man to eat, and also by doing what lay in my power to console those who have been beside ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... it is the birthplace and home of one John Rallywood,' said Counsellor with a twist of his big moustache. 'You lucky, undeserving beggar! So Selpdorf's gone. ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... most undeserving husbands permit themselves with the severest of wives, there were times after their marriage when Colville accused Lina of never really intending to drive him away, but of meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... be owned that Ceres was not undeserving the highest titles bestowed upon her, being considered as the deity who had blessed men with the art of cultivating the earth, having not only taught them to plough and sow, but also to reap, harvest, ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... time that Lucy should see the world; and though there are many—at Bath, above all places, to whom the heiress will be an object of interested attentions, yet there are also many in that crowded city by no means undeserving her notice. What say you, dear Joseph? But I know already: you will not refuse to keep company with me in my little holiday; and Lucy's eyes are already sparkling at the idea of new bonnets, Milsom Street, a ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wrestling, boxing, running foot races, dancing, and drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was generally most agreeable to their masters. A slave who would work during the holidays, was thought, by his master, undeserving of holidays. Such an one had rejected the favor of his master. There was, in this simple act of continued work, an accusation against slaves; and a slave could not help thinking, that if he made three dollars during the holidays, he might ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... Denis!" cried Mrs. Quirk. "Denis, that I believed was dead! Call Mr. Quirk, my dear! Oh, this is too much joy! God is good, far too good, to an undeserving ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... was very gentle with her, and smothered her ruffled dignity; so that presently she went away with, in her manner, a lesser measure of hostility to the undeserving. In quite a different frame of mind she returned presently to ask if her mistress would like her to engage a full staff of other servants, or at any rate try to do so. "For you know, ma'am," she went on, "when once a scare has been established in the servants' hall, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... large numbers of men makes it a principle to praise none of them, not because they are undeserving, and not because he dislikes to commend, but because experience has taught him that usually the praise goes to the head of the recipient, both impairing his work and making it harder for others to associate ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... are born to independency, and are hereditarily, as I may say, on a foot with the highest-descended gentleman in the land, might have exerted a spirit, and would have a right to choose your own servants, and to distribute rewards and punishments to the deserving and undeserving, at your own good pleasure; yet what had I, a poor girl, who owed even my title to common notice, to the bounty of my late good lady, and had only a kind of imputed sightliness of person, though enough ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... to go to? What house would receive him? If one hotel refused him, all other hotels in London would do the same. Then he remembered the shelter which he had himself established for the undeserving poor. The humiliation of that moment was terrible. But no matter! He would drink the cup of God's anger ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the franking system are far more serious than the pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard. It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... to be consoled for a hundred reasons. Doesn't it console you to feel under your very feet the forces that are working to the immense amelioration of a not altogether undeserving people?" ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... attended him, and when you think that he had all this trouble to get PERMISSION to lay the cable, and that while he had already passed through much; yet his disappointments were destined to be tenfold greater ere success attended him; will you say he is undeserving of that success? The rights are secure; the stock taken; the cable is done and all seems ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... went to Fowler, Indiana, at which place, for five days and nights, I suffered every mental and physical pang that can afflict mortal man. Day and night I prayed God to be merciful, but no relief came. The dark hopelessness in which I lay I can not describe. I felt that I was undeserving of God's pardon or mercy. I had wronged myself, and my friends more than myself; I had trampled upon the love of Christ; I had loved myself amiss and lost myself. The Christian people of Fowler prayed for me; they called a prayer-meeting especially for me, to ask God to have mercy on and save ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... query were abandoned, and, unless only five minutes or so had elapsed since the previous visit, she had a pretty little way of greeting him that, though very gradually acquired despite surging impulse, was at last quite a settled fact, and he loved it,—well, he would have been an unappreciative, undeserving brute had he not. She would steal behind him, lean over the back of the chair (Jack refused to exchange it for the high-backed one suggested by Mrs. Pelham on the occasion of a brief visit paid them in March), ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... sweet-natured, profane-speaking, hot-tempered peasant woman of Provence can possibly be. Whatever the greatest geniuses of the kitchen can do, Felicite can and will do, and she has a loyal affection for her undeserving master, which leads her to attempt miracles and ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the expression of his countenance was very cold and stern, as he replied, "I thank you, Travilla, on her behalf; but, if you please, I would much prefer your not giving her anything at present, for, I am sorry to say, Elsie has been very stubborn and rebellious of late, and is quite undeserving of ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... suppose the Professor has faults—though he does not show them to us—they must be of the generous kind, at any rate. Father says that he never could keep a farthing; he would always give it away to undeserving people. Miss Du Prel, I find on closer acquaintance, is not without certain jealousies and weaknesses, but these things just seem to float about as gossamer on a mountain-side, and one counts them in relation to herself, in about the same proportion. Mr. Temperley—I don't know quite what to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... otherwise. We should cry out against any serious attempt, outside of the pulpit, to alter or readjust an order that enables us to buy for money a position of which we would be otherwise undeserving. It would be most discouraging to us to have substituted for the present arrangement a society in which the only qualifications for admittance were those of charm, wit, culture, good ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... to apologize to our readers for so lengthy an account of so undeserving a person,—but, at any rate, they ought by this time to know ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... defended himself with great spirit and force. He boasted of the exertions and sacrifices made by his family in the cause of Charles the First, and proved Rumsey, the witness who had murdered Russell by telling one story and Cornish by telling another, to be utterly undeserving of credit. The jury, with some hesitation, found a verdict of Guilty. After long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to redeem himself. [38] Hampden had inherited the political opinions and a large share of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... song; But weak of reason, and deprav'd of mind, Too oft on vile, ignoble themes we find The wanton muse her sacred art debase, Forgetful of her birth, and heavenly race; Too oft her flatt'ring songs to sin intice, And in false colours deck delusive vice; Too oft she condescends, in servile lays, The undeserving rich and great to praise. These beaten paths, thy loftier strains refuse With just disdain, and nobler subjects chuse: Fir'd with sublimer thoughts, thy daring soul Wings her aspiring flight from Pole to Pole, Observes the foot-steps of a pow'r divine, Which in each part of nature's ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... with their counsel, but even hearing him. Therefore finding he no longer contributed either to the benefit of the republic or of the people generally, he could not perceive any reason for his longer holding the magistracy, of which he was either undeserving, or others thought him so, and would therefore retire to his house, that the people might appoint another in his stead, who would either have greater virtue or better fortune than himself." And having said this, he left the room ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... 'And can you then, my dear Hebe, determine to give me up for such a trifling consideration?' Then raising her voice again, in a haughty manner, she said, 'I ought to despise and laugh at you for your folly, or at best pity your ignorance, rather than offer a sincere friendship to one so undeserving.' ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... reward from thee? Thou returnest evil for good?" The King replied, "It boots not: thou must die and that without delay." When the physician saw that the King was irrevocably resolved to kill him, he wept and lamented the good he had done to the undeserving, blaming himself for having sown in an ungrateful soil and repeating ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... time past traced discontent in Vera's letters, and fearing that he had been too didactic and peremptory in writing to her. He relinquished the engagement with much regret, and should always regard it as having been a fair summer dream—but, though undeserving, he hoped still to retain Miss Prescott's kindness and friendship, which had been of untold value ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... know he was so eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick's note-book, we can just trace an entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if for the purpose of concealing even the direction ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... which are genuine, and of acknowledged authority; but it is, in a great measure, true of all their ancient writings which remain; although some of these may have been erroneously ascribed to authors to whom they did not belong, or may contain false accounts, or may appear to be undeserving of credit, or never indeed to have obtained any. Whatever fables they have mixed with the narrative, they preserve the material parts, the leading facts, as we have them; and, so far as they do this, although they be evidence of nothing else, they are evidence ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... all they have, and which as yet Englishmen need not ask from their hands. You will enjoy that, and your own integrity, and the satisfactory consciousness of having not merited such graces from Courts as are bestowed only on the mean, servile, flattering, interested and undeserving. The only steps to the favour of the great are such complacencies, such compliances, such distant decorums, as delude them in their vanities, or engage them in their passions. He is their greatest favourite who is the falsest; and ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... honesty, if she basked all this day long in the assurance of immunity from the consequences of her folly and imprudence, it was less with the arrogance of Fortune's favourite daughter than with the humility of one to whom life had measured out benefactions of which she was consciously undeserving. The assertion that the world owed her a living was forgotten, and if recalled, would have been revised to the sense that she owed the world the duty of honourable and conscientious living. If her temper was tolerably exalted, it was well chastened ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... instance, from one slum post in New York during the winter of 1907-8, 2,800 loaves of bread were given out in one week, and for some months, an average of from 300 to 1,000 loaves, besides an average of two tons of coal per week. Some of this, naturally, would go to the undeserving, but the slum officers, as a rule, know the people of their immediate neighborhood, and ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... ships being at hand when soldiers are disposed to fly. An army of lions trained in such ways would fly before a herd of deer. Further, a city which owes its preservation to a crowd of pilots and oarsmen and other undeserving persons, cannot bestow rewards of honour properly; and this is the ruin of states. 'Still, in Crete we say that the battle of Salamis was the salvation of Hellas.' Such is the prevailing opinion. But I and Megillus say that the battle of Marathon began the deliverance, ...
— Laws • Plato
... Eternal life, pardon of sin, and deliverance from wrath to come, Christ propounds to thee, and these be the things that thou hast need of; besides, God will be gracious and merciful to worthless, undeserving wretches; come then as such an one, and lay no stumblingblocks in the way to him, but come to him for life, and live (John 5:34; 10:10; 3:36; Matt 1:21; Prov 8:35,36; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hadst been there, that thou mightest have sunk down at her feet, and begun that moment to reap the effect of her generous wishes for thee; undeserving, as thou art, of any thing ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... any thing to your Excellency that was in the least undeserving the title you have assigned to me," said Colonel ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Neville, I am sorely grieved to see in you more traces of a character as sullen, angry, and wild, as the night now closing in. They are of too serious an aspect to leave me the resource of treating the infatuation you have disclosed, as undeserving serious consideration. I give it very serious consideration, and I speak to you accordingly. This feud between you and young Drood must not go on. I cannot permit it to go on any longer, knowing what I now know from you, and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... does not think it worth while to remark, that, in these near intimacies, we are ninety-nine times disappointed in our beggarly selves for once that we are disappointed in our friend; that it is we who seem most frequently undeserving of the love that unites us; and that it is by our friend's conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour. Thoreau is dry, priggish, and selfish. It is profit he is after in these intimacies; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... HAMMERTON,—(There goes the second M.; it is a certainty.) Thank you for your prompt and kind answer, little as I deserved it, though I hope to show you I was less undeserving than I seemed. But just might I delete two words in your testimonial? The two words "and legal" were unfortunately winged by chance against my weakest spot, and would go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from justice, but the whole society alike. On the contrary, every particular act of generosity, or relief of the industrious and indigent, is beneficial; and is beneficial to a particular person, who is not undeserving of it. It is more natural, therefore, to think, that the tendencies of the latter virtue will affect our sentiments, and command our approbation, than those of the former; and therefore, since we find, that the approbation of the former arises from ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... I didn't know," murmured Erwin gratified, yet somehow feeling as if honors were being heaped gratuitously on his undeserving head. Something of this escaped him the while. Monsieur Cheval held ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... prostration, pulling off the upper part of our dress, or taking away the lower, is a matter of habit. It would be unjust to conclude that all ornaments, because they were at first arbitrarily contrived, are therefore undeserving of our attention; on the contrary, he who neglects the cultivation of those ornaments, acts contrarily to nature and reason. As life would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the arts, so these arts themselves would be ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... accepted you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... such as we had not known for months. But when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... household of the viceroy, are the ones who get the benefit. The governor will not allow the Audiencia to interfere in this; and thus the persons to whom this favor was extended suffer, and those enjoy it who were prohibited from doing so, and counted undeserving. I communicate this, that your Majesty may be pleased to order it corrected; for it is a matter which affects all with much grief and resentment. [In the margin: "No answer to be given, for suitable ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... personal kindness. It is impossible to see insolent and vulgar pretension in noisy triumph, while real and unobtrusive merit is neglected. When we see a creature strutting in laurels that have been won by another, human nature—much as it has been abused—prompts us to grasp them from undeserving brows and place them where they will have a natural grace. For trite examples, who would not rather elect Columbus than Americus to the place of Name-Giver for this continent? who does not rejoice that finally Hadley ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... feel now the lips and tongues of the flames. Hasten, slaves! More wood! More links and torches! And thou, woman, return to thy house, strip thyself of thy shameful robes, and ask of the most humble of thy slaves, as an undeserving favour, the tunic that she puts on when she ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... the democratic spirit of the age had left to his class. Kendal scanned him with interest and admiration and pleasure. It was an excellent thing that England's backbone should be composed of men like that, he thought and he half wished he were not so consciously undeserving of national vertebral honors himself—that Elfrida's warnings had a little more basis of probability. Not that he wanted to drop his work, but a man owed something to his country, especially when he had what they called a stake in it—to establish a home perhaps, to marry, to ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... cultivating hypocrisy, and fear, and selfishness, in place of good feeling. While insisting on truthfulness, she constantly sets an example of untruth by threatening penalties which she does not inflict. While inculcating self-control, she hourly visits on her little ones angry scoldings for acts undeserving of them. She has not the remotest idea that in the nursery, as in the world, that alone is the truly salutary discipline which visits on all conduct, good and bad, the natural consequences—the consequences, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... one's belief, stagger one's faith, stagger one's belief. Adj. unbelieving; skeptical, sceptical. incredulous as to, skeptical as to; distrustful as to, shy as to, suspicious of; doubting &c v.. doubtful &c (uncertain) 475; disputable; unworthy of, undeserving of belief &c 484; questionable; suspect, suspicious; open to suspicion, open to doubt; staggering, hard to believe, incredible, unbelievable, not to be believed, inconceivable; impossible &c 471. fallible &c (uncertain) 475; undemonstrable; controvertible &c (untrue) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... old man! he could not be brought to believe that one so dearly loved and highly trusted could prove so base and undeserving. ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... be more tight and snug in this perilous world of the desperate and undeserving? Sard thought not. But one matter troubled him: the lock of the pantry door had been shattered. To remedy this he moused around until he discovered some long nails and a claw-hammer. When he was ready to go to sleep he'd nail himself in. And in the morning he'd pry the door loose. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... others' praises out of envy and spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we should make way for those that are being honoured, if they are worthy of honour, and even if they seem to us undeserving of honour and worthless, we ought not to strip them of their praise by self-laudation, but by direct argument and proof that they are not worthy of all these encomiums. It is plain then that we ought to avoid ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Public opinion must inevitably follow the opinion of the best judges. The public after all is mainly composed of untutored minds, that know not good from bad themselves; but when they hear a man praised by the great authorities, they take it for granted that he is not undeserving of praise, and praise him accordingly. It is the same at the games: most of the spectators know enough to clap or hiss, but the judging is done by ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... service, the performance of which is of the highest importance to her, the greatest favor, and you will not fulfil her request while yet swearing you love her! Go! you are a cold-hearted man, and wholly undeserving of Corilla's love!" ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Lyttelton, "I must inform you that your husband is the most false and undeserving of that name! He has formed connection with a woman of abandoned character; he lavishes on her those means of subsistence which you will ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... double disciplining, at home and at school, too, she dared not rebel. Yet wrath smoldered within her. She came to where the substitute stood at the board, calmly explaining the process of "borrowing," and the resolution to regard her as an undeserving stranger was tempered by Bep's desire to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... unspiritual life, whose interests incline him to disbelieve in the reality of Christianity, his arguments may reasonably be suspected to be suggested by sins of character, and by dislike to the moral standard of the Christian religion, and, though not on this account necessarily undeserving of attention, must be watched at every point with caution, in order that the emotional may be eliminated ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... origin of the French word CLICHY, as applied to the noted prison of that name, but it is perhaps not undeserving the comment that in Continental Gipsy it means a key and ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... of those who attended the clinic—(my entire establishment was there to see that I had the proper attention and to tell me how happy they were that it wasn't any worse)—I say, I declared to all of them that I was an unmitigated fool and undeserving of the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... insignificant, undeserving. In Shakespeare many adjectives, especially those ending in -ful, -less, -ble, and -ive, have both an active and a passive meaning. See Abbott, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... most undeserving of all the attention she received, for she neither appreciated the gallant endeavors of her male admirers to make themselves agreeable to her, nor cared an iota for the jealousies or slighting remarks that passed the ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... on this occasion, after so long an interval, he drew the eyes of all upon him, and gave occasion to conversations to the following effect: "That the people had injuriously disgraced a man who was undeserving of it and that it had been greatly detrimental to the state that, in so important a war, it had not had the benefit of the service and counsels of such a man. That neither Quintus Fabius nor Marcus Valerius Laevinus could be given to Caius Nero as colleagues, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... people were delighted: but I am not sufficiently versed in stage antiquities to determine whether they did not flock as eagerly to the representation of many pieces of contemporary Authors, wholly undeserving to appear upon the same boards. Had there been a formal contest for superiority among dramatic writers, that Shakespeare, like his predecessors Sophocles and Euripides, would have often been subject to the mortification of seeing the prize adjudged to sorry competitors, becomes too probable, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Audiencia is the cause of the perversion of distributive justice. Dignities and offices are given to the unworthy and undeserving, thus causing those who have served his Majesty to complain. [20] For the appointive offices and offices of dignity, both of war and of the districts of alcaldes-mayor, are given to the brothers, sons, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... to realise that he was returning to wealth and luxury, indeed, monopolising it,-he the helpless, undeserving, indolent son, while all the others, and especially his mother, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it was now argued that their indiscriminate charities were doing more harm than good, and that the changed economic conditions of the sixteenth century called for a corresponding change in the distribution of relief, to save the country from being overrun by undeserving mendicants, amongst whom some of the religious Orders were themselves to be reckoned. It does not appear that any part of this argument held good against the Augustinian Canons, or that the more serious moral charges brought against ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... great curtsey and sail about a saloon full of company as if she was bred to it, and can dance a minuet and bear herself at a feast in a way to surprise you. Lady Maddon says that women who are very vile and undeserving are sometimes wickedly clever, and can pick up modist women's manners wondrously, but they always break out before long and are more indecent than ever; and you may mark my Lady Maddon's words, she says this one will do the same, but first she is playing a part and restraining ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 1. They went to Brother Christian Shallaberger's, in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, where they attended night meeting and Brother Daniel Yount spoke from Eph. 2:8, 9, 10. He explained the meaning of the word GRACE, that it is the love of God for the undeserving of his love. He defined FAITH as being a loving acceptance of God's revealed truth: that faith is the gift of God only this far, that he tells man what he is to believe and how he is to believe, that the Gospel of our salvation is what man is to believe; that he is to believe ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... is very ill, sir," continued the wife, "and much suffering has robbed him of his peace of mind. I am sure, sir, we shall be truly grateful for your help. We need it, sir, Heaven knows, and he is not undeserving—no, let them say what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Thackeray to the bad quality of some of the company she kept. That sagacious lady did not think it worth while to dispute the ipse dixit of a teacher so single-minded, if not sagacious. She bowed respectfully to all his suggestions, promised no longer to bestow her smiles on the undeserving—a promise of no small importance when it is remembered that, at thirty-three, Mrs. Thackeray was for the first time a widow—and that night she might have been seen laughing heartily with Mesdames Ford and Quickly at the amorous ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... wish volunteers. All this may readily be explained by the consideration that a man who thereafter proved to be so bitter an enemy was not sufficiently diplomatic to deceive even the obtuse perceptions of so undeserving a body as the author describes said committee. On the other hand, it would have been more prudent for the writer to have said less on this topic, as such hesitation in accepting his services might ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... miraculous recovery of M. Gravier of Grenoble, whom you received into your house," was the soldier's answer. "I have come to you, hoping that you will give a like attention to my case, although I have not a similar claim to your benevolence; and yet, I am possibly not undeserving of it. I am an old soldier, and wounds of long standing give me no peace. It will take you at least a week to study my condition, for the pain only comes back at ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... or otherwise, he was not undeserving of praise, either as to temper or 84 scholarship; and whether out of the excellence of his Christianity, or that of good humour, he was not very adverse to good living; and he ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... conviction that, without immortality, life is a series of worthless contrasts. An opposite opinion may be entertained, but a man has a right to express his own, which, coming from so great a mind, is not undeserving of attention; or, at least, is hardly deserving of reproof. The poet's idea is also stated thus in The Ring, in terms which perhaps do not fall below the poetical; or, at least, do not drop into ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... little hand—as brown as your own, my daughter, for his mother, like myself, was a pure Roman, and looked down upon by her people in consequence for marrying my son, who is of mixed blood (my husband being in family, as in every other respect, undeserving ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... outburst, when he kindly interrupted me and sought an escape from his own emotion in good- humoured confidences. He referred, with a smile, to the self- denial which had yielded the place of honour on so extraordinary an occasion to an undeserving man like Reissiger. When I assured him that this act had afforded me the liveliest satisfaction, and that I had myself persuaded my colleague to take the baton, he confessed that at last he began to understand me, but failed ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... tells the whole secret of her present wretched condition. Alas! how many a sweet girl have I seen dragged down, by a union with some worthless wretch, undeserving the name of a man! There is scarcely a wealthy family in our city, into which some such an one has not insinuated himself, destroying the peace of all, and entailing hopeless misery upon one all unfit to bear her changed ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... plains of heaven; Who most to Christ indebted, Who loftiest exalted, Being most forgiven: A plea there will appear for me; For of the many, Whom sovereign Mercy, With arm almighty, May raise that state to see, No one more undeserving Of joy so great can be. One song shall echo through the throng: "To Him who loved us: To Him who washed us: To Him who saved us, From deep and miry clay!" The thrilling anthem doubling, Unending, night ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... plenty rich and silly women in Glasgow who are systematically fleeced by the undeserving poor—people who have no earthly business to be poor, who have hands and heads which can give them a competence, only they are moral idiots. No woman should be allowed full use of large sums of money. She is so soft-hearted, she can't ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... pension, that the public would care twopence about George the Fourth, one way or the other; or that if any remembered the case at all, they would connect the pension in the least with anything about him, but attribute it solely to the Queen's and Minister's goodness, and the wants of a sincere and not undeserving man of letters, distinguished for his loyal attachment. I certainly think the L500 fine ought not to have been taken out of my pocket, or the other two L125 either; and I think also, that a liberal Whig ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... this instrument, so adjusted as to bear upon a figure not undeserving of a closer study. Night has fallen on the bleak and sombre scenery of the Sierra Guadarrama. The gray outlines of the Escorial are scarcely distinguishable from those of the dusky hills amid which it stands. No light is thrown forth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... have been invented for the comfort of the undeserving. We let fall our rain of compliments upon the unjust and the just without distinction. Every hostess has provided us with the most charming evening of our life. Every guest has conferred a like blessing upon us by accepting our invitation. I remember a dear good lady in ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... are completely unconscious of their own picturesqueness. Those of them who can be induced to sit do so with the idea that the artist is merely a benevolent philanthropist who has chosen an eccentric method of distributing alms to the undeserving. Perhaps the School Board will teach the London gamin his own artistic value, and then they will be better models than they are now. One remarkable privilege belongs to the Academy model, that of extorting a sovereign from any newly elected Associate or R.A. They wait at Burlington House till ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... to mind that the leading members of that council, when in the service of your Majesty's royal father, reported in the most solemn form, that documents reflecting upon her Majesty were satisfactorily disproved as to the most important parts, and that the remainder was undeserving of credit. Under this declared conviction, they strongly recommended to your Majesty's royal father to bestow his favour upon the Queen, then Princess of Wales, though in opposition to your Majesty's declared wishes. But when your Majesty had assumed the ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... harangue and turned in time to see Ralph lying in a heap on the floor, just as he had slipped that moment from his chair. The boy had listened to Goodlaw's praises of his conduct with a vague feeling that he was undeserving of so much credit for it. But when Sharpman, advancing in his speech, charged him with having dreamed his story, he was astounded. He thought it was the strangest thing he had ever heard of. For was ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... any that had been offered; natural affection was the pleader; and though blinded to its true interest, such weakness had an amiable source, and so was pardoned. But the other pleas were so basely selfish, so undeserving of anything but scorn, that Sir Eustace Maxwell could not forbear expressing it. "When Sir William Wallace is entering full sail, you will send your hirelings to tow him in! but if a plank could save him now, you would not throw it to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was a captain, then the highest rank in the navy. Possibly, probably, he never saw water bluer than that of the lakes, where he was wounded. The undeserving were not treated with quite the same indulgence. Those familiar with the Navy Register of those days will recall some half-dozen old die-hards, who figured from year to year at the head of the lieutenant's list; continuously "overslaughed," never promoted, but ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... servant to Ascalon for proofs," she said. "I shall give you shelter here until you are proved undeserving of it. And since the times ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... unfit to be citizens of a Republic, undeserving of peace, prosperity and liberty, and have no right to rise against conditions due to our own moral and intellectual delinquency. There is a simple way, Messieurs the Masses to correct public evils: put wise and good men into power. If you can not do that for you are not yourselves wise, or ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... conjectures, we have excepted only (1) those which were so near some other reading previously adopted or suggested, as to be undeserving of separate record, and (2) a few (of Becket, Jackson, and others) which were palpably erroneous. Even of these we have given a sufficient number ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... that captivity,' answered Hamet, 'since it has given me an opportunity of showing that I was not altogether undeserving of your kindness, and of preserving the life of that dear youth, that I value a thousand times beyond my own. But it is now fit that my generous patron should be informed of the whole truth. Know, then, that when the unfortunate Hamet ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... 'this would-be constable,' etc. By such expressions, his contempt for the man was communicated to the hearers. I own I felt it gaining on me, in spite of my better judgment; so that before he was done, the impression was strong on my mind that Butterwood Harvey was undeserving of the smallest credit. This impression, however, I found I could counteract the moment I had time for reflection. The only part of the speech in which he manifested his power of touching the feelings strongly, was where he dwelt on the irruption of the company into ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... affinity. But the marvel of his comprehensiveness is his mode of dealing with the vulgar, the vicious, and the low,—with persons who are commonly spurned as dolts and knaves. His serene benevolence did not pause at what are called "deserving objects of charity," but extended to the undeserving, who are, in truth, the proper objects of charity. If we compare him, in this respect, with poets like Dante and Milton, in whom elevation is the predominant characteristic, we shall find that they tolerate humanity only in its exceptional examples of beauty and might. They are aristocrats ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... importance of lending a very rich man her social countenance. She insisted that he was misunderstood. Men of great fortunes are always misunderstood. Nobody considers it a virtue to be charitable to the rich—they save all their charity for the poor, who as often as not are undeserving, and are generally insanitary as well. Mrs. Eustis thanked her heavenly Father she was a woman of larger vision, and never thought ill of a man just because he happened to be a millionaire. Millionaires have got souls, she hoped? And hearts? Mrs. Eustis said she knew Mr. Inglesby's ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... thank you for the honour you have done a person, equally unknown as undeserving, in your valuable present, which I did not receive till several weeks after it was sent: and since I received it, my eyes have been so bad, and my hand so unstable, that I have been forced to defer my duty, as desirous to thank you with my own hand. I congratulate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... State Street to the Old Colony Bank, bearing in a rusty leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window. There were certain pensioners, mostly undeserving, who knew old Mr. Bowdoin's hours better than he did himself. It was funny to see old McMurtagh elbow these aside as he sidelonged up the street. There was an old drunken longshoreman; and a wood-chopper who never chopped wood; ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... Eastern nations have too much good sense to waste their time and attention on objects undeserving of either. However, as far as Ali is concerned, I can assure you, the interest he excites is merely from the circumstance of his being your attendant—you, who are at this moment the most celebrated and fashionable person ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the incident with Lancaster above described, I was removed to the hulks, where I remained for somewhat more than a month, when I was put on board a convict ship, about to sail for New South Wales, along with a number of other convicts, male and female; none of them, I hope, so undeserving ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... the sex. It demonstrated that the sole possibility of woman's elevation to the rank of man's equal and friend was in the cultivation of her mind, and in the thoughtful discharge of the duties of her lot. It is a really noble and brave little book, undeserving of the oblivion into which it has fallen. No intelligent woman, no wise parent with daughters to rear, could read it now ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... poor creatures as this. His heart was always open to the miserable, so that Goldsmith said that the fact of being miserable was enough to "ensure the protection of Johnson." Sir John Hawkins says that, when some one asked him how he could bear to have his house full of "necessitous and undeserving people," his reply was, "If I did not assist them no one else would, and they must be lost for want." He always declared that the true test of a nation's civilization was the state of its poor, and specially directed ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... the old lady his compliments. Whether she ever learned what became of him, or that he grew up to be Doctor Franklin, the philosopher and statesman, we have no means of knowing. Doubtless she concluded that she had not "entertained an angel unawares," but rather had aided an undeserving fellow in pursuing a vicious course, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... influences for good and great works, and if none such can be unfolded then drop the man out of sight, with a "Requiescant in pace" engraven upon his tombstone. Few deserve a biography, and to the undeserving none ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... fine arts or to pure science instead of to trade and finance, let him be poor. If he chooses to spend his urban eighteen shillings a week or his agricultural thirteen shillings a week on his beer and his family instead of saving it up for his old age, let him be poor. Let nothing be done for "the undeserving": let him be poor. Serve him right! ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... the dear creature's cheek mantled!—How her eyes sparkled!—How sweetly acceptable is praise to conscious merit, while it but reproaches when applied to the undeserving!—What a new, what a gay creation it makes all at once in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson |
