"Undignified" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my room, dear," came the answer from an upper window. Falling all over herself in her undignified haste, Lloyd tore up the stairs. A final tangling of skirts sent her headlong into her mother's room, where she half-fell in a breathless, laughing heap, and sat at Mrs. Sherman's feet with her hair almost ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Partington were that an exceedingly attractive but somewhat imperious young woman had surprised him in a most undignified position. She had come cantering down the drive on a horse which, by comparison with the Exmoor ponies which every one rode in those parts, had seemed gigantic, and, finding a difficulty in making her presence known, had motioned to him with her whip. ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that would be delightful for her," answered Geoffrey; "but does it not strike you that all this is just a little undignified? These remarks, interesting as they are, should be made to Miss Granger, not ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... saw, O'Connor evidently felt too far off to act effectively, for, after standing a moment in the classic position just referred to, he suddenly lowered his spear, dropped on hands and knees, and made a slow, undignified advance of a few yards. Then he rose again, became classic once more and discharged his spear, in a manner that would have done credit to ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... real love of one's country should consist in. But of late they have grown, more candid and are ashamed of the expression 'love of country,' and have annihilated the very spirit of the words as something injurious and petty and undignified. This is the truth, and I hold by it; but at the same time it is a phenomenon which has not been repeated at any other time or place; and therefore, though I hold to it as a fact, yet I recognize that it is an accidental ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Allen, making his usual, though undignified, entrance over the railing of the porch, and seating himself with a sigh of content in one of the big chairs. "Say, what was all the row about?" he added, looking with interest at Mollie's still threatening ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... dried moss, two misshapen elves, of a larger size than common, with a plebeian working-day aspect, who were chatting noisily together, and making a pair of boots: these were the Hausmannen or domestic elves, that dance into tradesmen's houses of a night, and play all sorts of undignified tricks. They were very civil to the queen, for they are good-natured creatures on the whole, and once had many relations in Scotland. They then, following the course of a noisy rivulet, came to a hole from which the sharp head ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... confoundedly undignified, sir, confoundedly," said the major, as the cotton rope was secured about his waist. "Hang it, Gregory, I don't like it, ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... girlishness. For that was what she called it, for want of a better name. She was half disgusted at finding herself so young. Had life done nothing more for her than this? Was she still liable to become an easy prey to emotions that were undignified and inappropriate? It seemed as if her heart were clouded while her mind remained clear, for she saw Lord Reggie quite as he was, and yet she began to like him quite absurdly. Why she was attracted by him she could not conceive. Was it the swing of a Nature's pendulum? She had loved a hard, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... doubt to mature his great conception without external assistance. And within two years of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily taking out a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying machine possible. The first definite statement to that effect appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the men had an impatient note, and the whole party quickened pace until their glide was close to an undignified trot. Raf, forced to keep well behind lest ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... made sail. By two o'clock he had cleared the batteries and was safe outside without losing a single man. Boldly enough then the galleys gave chase, but, unfortunately, the wind suddenly shifted completely round. Drake at once went about, and the galleys fled in most undignified haste, leaving the English fleet to complete its triumph by anchoring unmolested in full view ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Florida I paid some attention to the negro method of conducting praise meetings, which they very appropriately call "de shoutings." If I give some verbatim reports of the negro's curious and undignified clerical efforts, it is not done for the purpose of caricaturing him, nor with a desire to make him appear destitute of mental calibre; but rather with the hope that the picture given may draw some sympathy from the liberal churches of the north, which do not forget the African ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... in the most jovial companionship, and once more his execution was postponed. It was as usual this time, the captain's wrath broke, shattered by that friendly blow upon the back. He still kept up a show of taciturnity, by a grumbling monologue concerning the undignified procedure of Irishmen in general, but the Irishman laughed so loud that Captain Jimmie was deceived into thinking he had said something very witty indeed, and laughed too, in ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Must I not confess to a boundless lust of gain in my country? Must I not concede the weakest vanity, which bristles and blusters at each foolish taunt of the foreign press, and admit that the men who make these undignified rejoinders seek and find popularity so? Can I help admitting that there is as yet no antidote cordially adopted, which will defend even that great, rich country against the evils that have grown out of the commercial system in the Old World? Can I say our social laws are generally better, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Court, and the invited spectators would proceed to the east portico of the Capitol to participate in the ceremonies of the inauguration. The greater portion of those in the Senate Chamber, however, did not wait, but started in a most undignified ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... habits, the diffusion of great towns, all militate against that sufficient gathering of masses of voters in meeting-houses which gave him his power in the recent past. It is improbable that ever again will any flushed undignified man with a vast voice, a muscular face in incessant operation, collar crumpled, hair disordered, and arms in wild activity, talking, talking, talking, talking copiously out of the windows of railway carriages, talking on railway ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... nothing to do with the modern civilized family. But as I see other women, the families about me, those that are always worrying over having children, trying to keep out of it,—why, they don't seem to be any better off. And it is—well, undignified,—not nice, you know.... We can't spare 'em, nor any more that may come! ... As I said, I believed all along that Steve had it in him, that his mind and character must tell, and though it was discouraging to have men put over him, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... to do but to put it on again. Before I had finished this operation Billali himself arrived with undignified and unusual haste. I asked him what was the matter, and he answered inconsequently that the Black One, the slayer of Rezu, was at the door "with ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... was furious, at having to play so undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while he paid marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated him with amused disdain. Nevertheless, angry though he was, he was impenitent, unabashed, ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... should find her with it in her hand. A literary man is always supposed to be flattered at finding a friend reading his last production, as if he did not know that the friend has probably grabbed the volume with undignified haste the instant he was on the horizon, with the intention of being discovered deep in it. Yet such little friendly frauds are sweet compared with the extremes of brutal frankness to which our dearest friends ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... this battle with Mr. Covey—undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is—was the turning point in my "life as a slave." It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood. I was a changed being after that ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... giving much the same result. Less than one-tenth of the electors used their franchise; and the extreme party won great successes. By the middle of September the new deputies were reaching Paris. The Legislative in its last moments was feeble and undignified. Marat threatened it with massacre, and declared that its members were as much the enemies of the country as were the imprisoned aristocrats. Under this menace the Legislative watched the massacres of September without raising a hand to protect its unfortunate victims. Danton did the same. ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... outside. He stepped back to one of the two windows on the front of the house, where he discovered an officer and two "grayback" soldiers. The ghost of his grandmother would not have been half so appalling a sight, and he retreated to the back door with a very undignified haste. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... aspect. Before entering his own home he obeyed an impulse to gallop by the Vosburgh residence. All was still quiet, and Marian, with surprise, saw him clattering past in a way that seemed reckless and undignified. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... which control mankind from heaven.... Their interference is such as becomes the rulers of the world, not partisans in the battle." [Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. ii. pp. xii., xiii.] It is the later poets of the Iliad, in Mr. Leaf's view, who introduce the meddlesome, undignified, and extremely unsportsmanlike gods. The original early poet of the Iliad had the nobler ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... the reader the attention he deserves. But he is very interesting, both psychologically and dramatically. On the one hand, he is not without respectable qualities. As a king he is courteous and never undignified; he performs his ceremonial duties efficiently; and he takes good care of the national interests. He nowhere shows cowardice, and when Laertes and the mob force their way into the palace, he confronts a dangerous situation with coolness and address. His love for his ill-gotten wife seems to be quite ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the term lieutenant augured ill. Surely the servant would speak of Desmond as the young lord if he had gained his cause. He, however, considered that it would be undignified to put the question. ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... that it cannot also be said, and marked with the same cheerful spirit that pervaded those of Oxley's, but unfortunately, the evil feeling of jealously that would arise from the presence of two leaders, showed plainly throughout in petty and undignified squabbles, which, in after days, led to paper warfare between the two explorers. It is painful, if amusing, to read of the disagreement as to their course in very sight of the lately discovered Australian ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... saying came to Colonel Barton's ears, and then there was a fine to do. Naturally he did not like being compared with Nebuchadnezzar. Who would? But it would have been undignified for a Colonel to take any notice then of the soldiers' tittle-tattle; so he said nothing, only bided his time and waited until he could pay back his grudge against the sergeant. A whole year he waited—then his chance ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... It seemed undignified to get into the donkey cart, but his nephew's conscience was at stake, and the Vicar-General got in, and Father Tom said ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... go to Mademoiselle de Vaudemont, who is within the convent." Madame rose quietly, her eyes averted. She would gladly have flown, but that would have been undignified, the acknowledgment of defeat. And just now she knew that she could not match this ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... sense—he could scarcely read and write, he was slow as an ox, and had common ways and spoke the low Marsh talk—he drank out of his saucer and cut his bread with his pocket-knife—he spat in the yard. How dared people think she would marry him?—that she was so undignified, infatuated and unfastidious as to yoke herself to a slow, common boor? Her indignation flamed against the scandal-mongers ... that Woolpack! She'd like to see their licence taken away, and then perhaps decent women's characters would ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... her graceful, pretty head, she started off at full speed, and, although such a beautiful, graceful animal when still, or walking slowly, she certainly was awkward and ungainly when running. Her gait was clumsy and shambling, and, with her tail whisking to and fro all the time, she made an odd and undignified appearance. Her speed, however, made up for her ungainly movements, and for some time she outdistanced the lion by a long way. The lion was lazy, as usual, and, thinking he could easily overtake a giraffe, did not put forth his best speed. Consequently, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... stood on his hind legs to greet them. Next moment the three were face to face. It would have been difficult to imagine a more undignified encounter. The big breed's legs seemed to collapse under him; the other, who carried the gun, and was therefore the more self-possessed of the couple, brought it sharply to ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... conquer the coy maiden queen. The warnings and expostulations of his friends failed to move him from this romantic project, but at length it reached the king's ears, and he strictly forbade the wild-goose project as hazardous and undignified. Erik, however, finally got his father's permission to visit England and make his suit to the queen in his own person. But there were many postponements of the journey, and when finally he left Stockholm to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... according to their rude notions of political economy; and, generally, whatever touched the interests of the commonwealth, though not falling within the general province of legislation, either because it might appear undignified in its circumstances, or too narrow in its range of operation for a public anxiety, or because considerations of delicacy and prudence might render it unfit for a public scrutiny. Take one case, drawn from actual experience, as an illustration: A Roman ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... martyrdom!" I argued. "So undignified and unimpressive! To have hot tar smeared over your body, and be hanged by the neck like a ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... Natalie's, she awoke to find herself famous from an attempt to pass over and through a stalled motor-car. After that the farmers used to keep an eye out for her, especially on Sundays, and give her the whole road when they saw her coming. Ann Leighton said it was undignified to go to church like that, to ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... he reminded himself, that Earthly parallels did not necessarily apply. It was undignified, certainly, to be revolving like a child on a merry-go-round, while these crowds glared with bright alien eyes; but the important thing was that they had not once offered him any violence. They had not even put him into the absurd revolving seat by force; they had led ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... Spirit-World, and to eternity! Why should great results spring from such small causes? Christ was born in a manger, he was not born a King. When you tell me why he was born in a manger, I will tell you why these manifestations, so trivial, so undignified as they appear to you, have been appointed to convince the world of ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... use to make protestations,' said Theodora; and she left the room much more annoyed than she could have been by the violent opposition for which she was prepared. Cool contempt was beyond everything irritating, especially where reply was impossible, and argument undignified. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in time to save five hungry men from an undignified end. The Glenavelin party looked on with amusement as the ravenous appetites were satisfied. Mr. Stocks, in a huge good humour, talked discursively of sport. He inquired concerning the morning's bag, and called up reminiscences of friends who had equalled ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... well as for their class. They encourage the notion that there is something degrading in labour,—than which nothing can be more false. Labour of all kinds is dignifying and honourable; it is the idler, above all others, who is undignified ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... mesmeric stunts! I shan't tell Brass what happened, for it won't do any good; and the less notice there's taken of it the better. But carrying things before him as he was—it was hard luck to have that occur. Puts him in an undignified position, to say the least. I wish I could think there was nothing more ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... to a large frog who sat upon a stone, looking so wise and grandfatherly that it really did seem quite proper to consult him. At all events, he gave his opinion in the most decided manner, for, with a loud croak, he turned an undignified somersault into the brook, splashing up the water at a great rate. "Well, perhaps it wouldn't be best on the whole. Industry is a good teacher, and money cannot buy happiness, as I ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... the power of all the puffers and detractors in Europe to put Catiline above Zaire; but he had none of the magnanimous patience with which Milton and Bentley left their claims to the unerring judgment of time. He eagerly engaged in an undignified competition with Crebillon, and produced a series of plays on the same subjects which his rival had treated. These pieces were coolly received. Angry with the court, angry with the capital, Voltaire began to find pleasure in the prospect of exile. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... but she did not like his laughing. She questioned if it were not undignified. She felt that it might be disrespectful. Then she asked herself why he ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... place, close up to Mother MacAllister. At first she decided she would not speak to Charles Stuart, nor look near him. Then, recalling her undignified conduct in the ball game with him, she felt ashamed. It would be no use to act haughtily now, she reflected with a sigh. "I wish I hadn't forgotten," she said to herself. "It's so much easier to forget than forgive." ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... good. The head of the long train was nearly across the wide grassland. For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that he might go out and meet the caravan master. But he discarded it. It would be somewhat undignified for the master of the estate to serve as a mere caravan guide. He ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... painful and somewhat undignified, there is no reason that it should not be sure and strong. But it must be consistently pursued. Dynamite in the hands of a child is not more dangerous than a strong policy weakly carried out. The reproach which may be justly laid upon the rulers ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... two portly and middle-aged talkers were most uncomfortably obliged to twist their necks in order to see one another; the attitude did nothing to ease the obvious asperity of the discussion. She thought the spectacle undignified and silly; and she marvelled, as all women marvel, that men who conduct themselves so magisterially should sometimes appear so infantile. She felt glad that it was Thursday afternoon, and the shops closed and ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... time was taken up with the bother that ought to have been mine! You were too busy even to let me hear what happened that night, after——" Suddenly she was sorry that she had begun. It was silly and undignified to reproach him. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... pyre. So Elijah's taunts came just when they were most biting, and none can say that they were undeserved. His fiery zeal and his naturally stern character broke out in the bitter irony with which he imagines a variety of undignified positions ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was in another quarter—crude, rampant, undignified jealousy. Captain von Heumann would twirl his mustaches into twin spires, shoot his white cuffs over his rings, and stare at me insolently through his rimless eyeglasses; we ought to have consoled each other, but we never ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... using a low truckle bed that in the daytime fitted under the King's bed, and at night was drawn out. Not seldom, however, and more often if the times were troublous, he would invite one of his councillors to share his couch, and talk the night through with him; a course which in these days might seem undignified. Frequently he and the Queen received favourite courtiers before they left their beds; particularly on New Year's morning it was the duty of the Finance Minister to wait on them, and awaken them with a present of ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... are doing," observed Her Royal Highness to Hedwig. "In this—this undignified manner you spend ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... peculiar contempt for gesticulation, and look upon it as something vulgar and undignified. This seems to me a silly prejudice on their part, and the outcome of their general prudery. For here we have a language which nature has given to every one, and which every one understands; and to do away with and forbid it for no better ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... here, I was "under fire." More frequently than was agreeable, a shot would come ploughing up the ground and raising clouds of dust, or a shell whizz above us. Upon these occasions those around would cry out, "Lie down, mother, lie down!" and with very undignified and unladylike haste I had to embrace the earth, and remain there until the same voices would laughingly assure me that the danger was over, or one, more thoughtful than the rest, would come to give me a helping hand, and hope ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... RONALD expressed sympathy with musicians who were handicapped by cacophonous or undignified names. For example, a singer called Hewlett or Ball laboured under a serious disadvantage when competing with artistes blessed with melodious appellations ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... confidently expected. To the end of the feast there was no let up to his magnificent cheerfulness and humor. J—— B——, ex-minister plenipotentiary as he was, went in for nonsense, and he, I am sure, will not soon forget how undignified we all were, and what screams of laughter went up from his own uncontrollable throat. Among other tomfooleries, we had an imitation of scenes at an English hustings, Dickens bringing on his candidate (his friend D——), and I opposing him with mine (the ex-minister). ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... London,—unauthorised tidings, and, one may say, undignified tidings,—but still tidings which were received with interest. Mrs. Toff had connections with Scumberg's, and heard through these connections that things at Scumberg's were not going on in a happy way. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... up the Propeller, "though it means that I must assume a most undignified attitude, for helicopters[2] I never approved of. In order to ascend more quickly the Pilot will deflect the Elevator, which, by the way, you see hinged to the Tail. By that means he will force the whole Aeroplane to assume a greater ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... were all in dressing-gowns, with our hair down, and the girls pretended to hide behind me and be coy, and we played the fool just like children. It was fun, Mamma, and think of the faces of Harry's two aunts, the Duchess and Lady Archibald, if they could have seen me being so undignified. But here no one has any nasty thoughts, they are all happy and natural and innocent as kittens, and I ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... is danced to promote digestion, and the members of the Imperial family, bowing first to the diplomatic corps, and then to the other guests, retire to the private apartments of the palace. Now we are at liberty to leave,—not sooner,—and rapidly, yet not with undignified haste, seek the main staircase. Cloaking and booting (Ivan being on hand, with eyes like a lynx) are performed without regard to head-dress or uniform, and we wait while the carriages are being called, until the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... ill?" The boy nods. "Is he worse?" Another nod. "Has he gone home to his club?" The boy evidently has a revelation to make, but would consider it undignified to make it except as a denial of something to the contrary. He sees his way after ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the startled man, the tilted chair tipped uncertainly, he clutched wildly at the smooth wall, and landed in an undignified heap in the middle of the kitchen floor, rapping his head smartly against the ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... a special branch of education, in which experts are only gradually becoming developed. The phenomena are as massive and wide-spread as is anything in Nature, and the study of them is as tedious, repellent and undignified. To reject it for its unromantic character is like rejecting bacteriology because penicillium glaucum grows on horse-dung and bacterium termo lives in putrefaction. Scientific men have long ago ceased to think of the dignity of the materials ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... course of action,—which, whatever its other results, would undoubtedly have conducted him to the guillotine with his political friends in May 1793,—was rendered impossible by a somewhat undignified hindrance. Wordsworth, while in his own eyes "a patriot of the world," was in the eyes of others a young man of twenty-two, travelling on a small allowance, and running his head into unnecessary dangers. His funds were stopped, and he reluctantly returned ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... visitors, and a hasty tea, we were obliged to say 'good-bye' to our newly-made friends, for we had to catch the five-o'clock train, and there was no time to spare. In fact, we nearly missed it, and I am afraid we must have presented an undignified spectacle to the numerous idlers who had turned out to look at us—I in a waggonette heaped with bags and bundles, and the others flying along the street. Passing through the pleasant country, we arrived at the North Terrace station, and reached Government House ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... have used an undignified expression in the message;" and then, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, I would alter the structure of that if I ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... applied them gingerly in their proper position; while Madame Simpson, adjusting her cap, and folding her arms, sat bolt upright in her chair, in a somewhat stiff and prim, and indeed, in a somewhat undignified position. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... self-love stung to the quick. But he was too experienced in such affairs to indulge any tragical emotions on the occasion. He stared at her for a minute, with an expression of absurd bewilderment. There was no very graceful exit from the undignified predicament to which he had, like a simpleton, reduced himself. Recovering his self-possession, however, he broke into a cold laugh, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... in the room, the story of the trip down to the Mississippi having stirred the lads' love of out-of-door adventure to the sizzling point. They capered about the handsome room in a most undignified manner, and counted the days that would elapse before they could ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the commanders roused him at last from the fond illusions in which he had hitherto indulged. Besides, most of the names were scrawled so illegibly, that some deceit was evidently intended. But instead of being recalled to his discretion by this warning, he gave vent to his injured pride in undignified complaints and reproaches. He assembled the generals the next day, and undertook personally to confirm the whole tenor of the agreement which Illo had submitted to them the day before. After pouring out the bitterest ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... hands loose, they rolled toward each other, and began violently to bunt heads. Finding that this banner of battle hurt the giver of the blow as much as it did the receiver of it, they rolled apart again, and began to kick at each other in a most ludicrous and undignified manner. The Lakerimmers were finally compelled to rush in on the track and separate the loving brothers. Strange to say, the Twins got no consolation for the loss of the race from the fact that the audience had laughed till the tears ran down ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... constantly persecuted him through a long course of years. The bearing of Guizot while minister, was dignified, calm, and indeed grand. He could never, by passionate attacks or bitter persecutions, be tempted into any undignified displays of temper. He was a stoic everywhere—in politics as well as in his religion, and at home. It is a singular fact that M. Guizot, who was a great minister of corruption, who bought votes by the wholesale, never allowed himself to ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... flying. The Prefect was smiling as he asked anxiously whether any bones were broken. Angelot trembled with hardly restrained laughter. It had seized him with an overpowering force, when he saw the General's fat figure rise in the air with a most undignified jerk, then being deposited in the thicket with a fine pair of riding boots and shining spurs uppermost. This was so exactly the accident that suited the man's swaggering airs of superiority, Angelot felt that he could almost forgive ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... never approved of Frank altogether; he didn't quite like the queer kinds of things that Frank did; for Frank's reputation at Merefield was very much what it was at Cambridge. He did ridiculous and undignified things. As a small boy, he had fought at least three pitched battles in the village, and that was not a proper thing for a Guiseley to do. He liked to go out with the keepers after poachers, and Dick, very properly, asked himself what ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... hearer by the meaning of its words, but merely by their cadence, so that sometimes, knowing where the pause must come, they beat time with the speaker, striking the expected close like dancers before the stop is reached. Equally undignified is the splitting up of a sentence into a number of little words and short syllables crowded too closely together and forced into cohesion,—hammered, as it were, successively together,—after the ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... two leaders began to "choose sides." The young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to his friend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter near them: "They won't really go on and do this fool, undignified, backwoods stunt, will they? They don't ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... a ladder. Out of this window dropped, and down this ladder rattled the president, vice-presidents, secretaries, and, in short, the most quiet and respectable men of the meeting. Their exit was as undignified as their entry had been pompous. At length the shed, being rather ancient, gave way under the weight of a very fat man, who was snugly deposited in a pigsty beneath, so ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... military. At the drawing-room on Thursday they refused to let his carriage pass through the Horse Guards, when he ordered his coachman to force his way through, which he did. He was quite wrong, and it was very unbecoming and undignified. Lord Londonderry called for an explanation in the House of Lords, when Brougham made a speech, and a very lame one. He said he ordered his coachman to go back, who did not hear him and went on, and when ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... his ideal of manly independence; it annoyed him that circumstances made the noble line of conduct so difficult. He believed himself strong, virile, yet so often it happened that he was constrained to act in what seemed rather a feeble and undignified way. But, after all, it was temporary; the day of his emancipation from paltry necessities would surely come, and all the great qualities latent in him would have ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... blood," she wailed. Then, realizing she was acting undignified before a Landman, ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... unanimous in its condemnation of the late Legislature. * * * As we have said before, the general littleness of the body, its petty conduct in many instances, its trades and combinations, the autocratic methods of self-seeking members, the quarrels, the cheap declamations and intemperate and undignified and unwarrantable public denunciations by members who should have shown a better sense of dignity and decency, the dishonesty in juggling with bills, the unreliability of promises—the general record and conduct of the body marked it as unworthy of the state or the approval ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping down the steps, felt a violent twitch backward, and, to save herself from a fall, sat down on the lower step with most undignified haste. ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... fellow-passenger, I took a stroll round the town and suburbs; though it is so open and green that it seems all suburbs. We invested a small sum in oranges, which we found in perfection, and sucked them as we went along in the most undignified way possible. We directed our steps to that part of the town where the better class seemed to reside, in cool, shady lanes, the houses embowered in large-leaved tropical trees, cocoa-nut, banana, bread-fruit, calabash, and other palms, with cycas ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... person should always accompany them. Such an attendant, who should be one of the fathers or mothers of the young people, if possible, would be in so great sympathy with the spirit of the group that his presence would impose no restraint and spoil no fun, yet it would be a curb on undue or undignified gaiety, and a ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... making-up before, sullen concessions and treaties. But this was different. He tried to imagine something he might say, some appeal that he might make. Everything he thought of was cold and hard, or pitiful and undignified, or theatrical and foolish. Suppose the door was closed! If already it was too late! In every direction he was confronted by the bristling memories of harsh things. He had a glimpse of how he must have changed in her eyes, and things became ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... lower hold of this huge four-master had been entirely cleared, and into this receptacle the devoted elephants were lowered by a gigantic steam crane. Meanwhile they were formed up behind a huge shed in order that none should witness the scheme of departure, or the undignified transfer of its companions. A selected victim was coaxed, flattered, caressed, and then marched proudly down the pier between two deceitful and majestic tuskers, a pair of stern old gentlemen that would stand no nonsense; soothed and bribed by a generous supply of sugar-cane, the unsuspicious ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Mrs Boffin took their seats in the back compartment of the vehicle: which was sufficiently commodious, but had an undignified and alarming tendency, in getting over a rough crossing, to hiccup itself away from the front compartment. On their being descried emerging from the gates of the Bower, the neighbourhood turned out at door and window to salute the Boffins. Among those who were ever and again left behind, staring ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... where old Jolyon—waiting for Irene to come to him across the lawn—had breathed his last, Jolyon wondered, whimsically, whether, having put everything in such perfect order, he had not better close his own eyes and drift away. There was something undignified in o parasitically clinging on to the effortless close of a life wherein he regretted two things only—the long division between his father and himself when he was young, and the lateness of his union o ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... from the time almost of his success as a novelist he was given, like too many successful novelists (not like Scott), to rather undignified and foolish attacks on critics. The explanation may or may not be found in the fact that we have abundant critical work of his, and that it is nearly all bad. Now and then we have an acute remark in his own special sphere; but as a rule he cannot be complimented on these performances, and when ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... a ridiculous appearance," she replied, "but as Duke seems to have forgiven you, I suppose I must, and I think I had better explain such undignified conduct on my part. Auntie has just told me that she is going to give a grand reception for me two weeks from to-day, or, really, two of them, for there is to be an afternoon reception from three until six for her acquaintances, with a few young ladies to assist me in receiving; and then, in ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... an undignified and pernicious scramble by the loyalists to seize for their own use the property of the few well-to-do insurgents. On all sides confiscation, unauthorized seizures, and violence marked the collapse of the Rebellion. In these proceedings ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect silence, as if they were collecting their thoughts, or, as though it were undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of deliberation which is met with among certain classes, and in certain provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious feature of our national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he momentarily regretted the lack of display that resulted from his decision to travel incognito. It would have been so much more effective if he had been greeted by the King and a glittering staff the moment he descended from the train. It was undignified, too, to pass through the streets of the capital in a disheveled hired vehicle, when a royal carriage, surrounded by a cavalry escort, might have brought him to the palace in style. It was somewhat late in the day, however, to rectify the mistake now. He could not ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... quelling this insurrection, when there was scarcely a man in it except members of his own flock, seems strange. It is true he had published an address to them, urging them to keep the peace; but it was prefaced by a long, undignified, and angry attack on Mr. Greeley, of the Tribune, and showed that he was in sympathy with the rioters, at least in their condemnation of the draft. The pretence that it would be unsafe for him to pass through the streets, is absurd; for on three ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... noticeably relaxing, good fellowship had become king. Their officer lay outstretched at full length upon three camp stools, a fellow long of limb, with face as dark as a Moor. He made no effort to arise from his undignified position, yet hailed me as though I had been a boon companion of ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... made to appear insignificant and debased, by all the conventions and petty, unoriginal judgments that go to the making of the rule of our society. The woman had to make her choice between love in an undignified poverty for which all her training had unfitted her, and a sterile ease and magnificence that gave her those opportunities which her temperament and education demanded. She chose for dignity and opportunity, was tempted to grasp at love, and thus finally came into a blind alley from which ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... direction of the new British trench; but at that distance they do not count. Then a railroad train seemed to have jumped the track and started to fly. Fortunately and unfortunately, sound travels faster than big shells of low velocity; fortunately, because it gives you time to be undignified in taking cover; unfortunately, because it gives you a fraction of a second to reflect whether or not that shell has your name and ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... monarch," who, "everything by turns and nothing long," having been the first to observe the impression the mignonne maid-of-honour had made on the King's susceptible fancy, had little hesitation in attaching to his diplomatic office the very undignified one of Sir Pandarus, and therefore with a brave defiance of decorum bent all his efforts to overcome the scruples, if any there might be, lingering in the mind of Louise with regard to transferring ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Army, with several band instruments, soon attracted the greater portion of the crowd. We found these open-air services held in many towns through England and Scotland. They were always conducted by "dissenting churches"—the Church of England would consider such a proceeding as too undignified. ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... anxious and ardent to preserve the history of Erin, that the description they have left us of the nobleness and dignified manners of the people, should not be wondered at, since they did not refrain from writing even of the undignified artisans, and of the professors of the healing and building arts of ancient times —as shall be shown below, to prove the fidelity of the historians, and the errors of those who make such assertions, as, for instance, that there were no stone buildings in Erin before the coming of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... indignities here. I happen to be present at the wanton destruction of Mr. M———'s second or third importation from England, see it taken ruthlessly from his head, thrust through and through with a sword-stick, and then made to play the unhappy and undignified part of a football so long as there is anything left to kick at. More than our common language, methinks—more than common customs and traditions—more than all those characteristic traits that distinguish us in common, and at the same time also ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... interposed the lawyer, decisively. "You are too young and impetuous to have any dignity; therefore, any performance not undignified would be impossible, a priori. The ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... with the god, and used as a badge, or a kind of crest, or local mark, in places where the mouse has been a venerated animal. (4) Finally, myths would be told to account for the sacredness of a creature so undignified. ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... grant to household employees the same rights and privileges given to business employees; she must apply business principles to housework. A great power lies in the hands of the modern housewife, a power as yet only suspected by a few, which, if properly wielded, can raise housework from its present undignified position to the place it ought to occupy, and that is in the foremost rank ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... was going to marry a quiet, studious, steady-going man; and here I find myself engaged to a romantic youth who flies about in the most undignified manner, embraces people behind doors, sings opera airs,—very much out of tune by the way,—and conducts himself more like an infatuated Claude Melnotte, than a respectable gentleman on the awful verge of matrimony. Nothing ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... of flesh. I despised thee, I hated thee, thy stupid ways, thy dreadful greeds, thine unspeakable obstinacy and unwillingness; thou didst give me horrible sicknesses with thine unsavoury wants, thine undignified requirements. I thought thee foolish and now know myself to be more foolish than thee, for thou hardly knowest the heavenly love whereas I knew and left Him, seeking other loves. The Fall was not thy fault, poor human ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... return to plague us. Entirely aside from the cavalier and insulting manner with which we have dealt with China, and the inevitably injurious effect upon our relations and interests there, it must be said that our action has been undignified, unworthy of any great nation, a sad criticism upon our sense of power and ability to rule our affairs with wisdom and moderation, and unbecoming our high position among the leading governments of the world. . . . We have treated ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... while she giggled with Rita in a most shameless and undignified fashion, went about hatless, with hair blowing and sleeves rolled up; decorated a donation party at the local minister's and flirted with him till his gold-rimmed eye-glasses protruded; behaved like a thoughtful and considerate angel to the old, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... household was up and at breakfast, when the witch—passing the guards who looked upon her as too contemptible to question—knocked at the palace door. It was the back-door, for even at that time palaces had such convenient apertures, for purposes, no doubt, of undignified retreat. A menial answered ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... nose took the shoal, and the brown mud boiled up in oozy circles under her forefoot. Then the current caught her stem by the starboard side and drove her broadside on to the shoal, slowly and gracefully. There she heeled at an undignified angle, and her crew ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... Ananias-and-Sapphira, perched coolly beneath his captor's ear, in a measure reassured him, and he made no further protest. He could not, however, appear reconciled to the inexplicable and altogether undignified situation, so he held his snout rigidly as high aloft as he could and shut his little eyes tight, as if anticipating ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the collector, and I looked out for at least one individual with turban of fine texture, decent robes, and venerable appearance; but a man of gigantic stature, and rude aspect, wearing a grey peasant's turban, welcomed us with undignified cordiality. We followed him down the street, and sometimes crossing the mud on pieces of wood, sometimes "putting one's foot in it," we reached a savage-looking timber kiosk, and, mounting a ladder, seated ourselves on the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Frontenac decided to act first and make explanations afterwards. On June 3, 1673, he left Quebec for Montreal and beyond. He accommodated himself with cheerfulness to the bark canoe—which he described in one of his early letters as a rather undignified conveyance for the king's lieutenant—and, indeed, to all the hardships which the discharge of his duties entailed. His plan for the summer comprised a thorough inspection of the waterway from Quebec ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... always to the same starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense) to her son, and showed here and there moments of genuine and not undignified emotion; but O! on the other side, what lapses—what a mechanical movement of the brain, what occasional trap-door devils of meanness, what a wooden front of pride! I came out damped and saddened and (to say truth) a trifle sick. My wife had better ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... There are two or three poor societies; it is for them to look after these cases. What is the use of having poor societies, if we are to do the work ourselves? So low! so undignified! so degrading! just ask any minister,—ask ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... that she could not believe she was wholly unwanted by such a man as he was, in such a little house as he had. People always wanted her. Her frankness in running after him showed him her sense of her position, her popularity, her attraction. How could she think she was undignified? No doubt she thought him an oddity who must be treated unconventionally. He felt savage, but ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... controversy took just then, it was against the Jesuit Fathers that Pascal's charges came home in full force. And their sin is above all that sin, unpardonable with men of the world sans peur et sans reproche, of a lack of self-respect, sins against pride, if the paradox may be allowed, all the undignified faults, in a word, of essentially little people when they interfere in great matters—faults promoted in the direction of the consciences of women and children, weak concessions to weak people who want to be ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... stroke of Shakespeare's social criticism hits the thoughtless pursuit of novelty, which infected the nation and found vent in Shakespeare's day in the patronage of undignified shows and sports. When Trinculo, perplexed by the outward aspect of the hideous Caliban, mistakes him for a fish, he remarks: "Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... managed to reach the Young Pilot, and greatly to the amusement of the piratical patriots, scrambled on board in a most undignified manner. In spite of our exertions the skiff was filled with water when we trod the deck of the schooner. Mr. Campbell relieved himself of his superfluous garments, and we went busily to work rigging purchases, with which to hoist ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... gave to a diseased expectation. Napoleon's protruding leg, extended wing and twisted neck, his busy and unconscious devotion to the arrangement of his person, his evident sensation of complete loneliness, most comfortable solitude, brought home with vehemence to the Father the undignified buffoonery of his conduct; the more piteous buffoonery of his friend. He seized the curtains with his hands and was about to thrust them aside and issue forth when an abrupt movement of the parrot stopped him. The bird, as if sharply attracted by something, paused in its pecking, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... again. He refused it. This had not been looked for. It had been taken for granted that he would abjure his fealty to the king at the first tightening of the cord. A conference was held, and it was declared that retreat would be undignified and unsafe, so the Tory was swung up again, this time with a yank that seemed to "mean business." He hung for some time, and when lowered gave no sign of life. There was some show of alarm at this, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... resolved that he would seek his entertainment elsewhere in future. It was to this theatre that John went on the day after his arrival in Cottenham. The town itself depressed him immeasurably. It was the most shapeless, nondescript, undignified town he had ever seen, and yet it was one of the richest places in England. There was no seemliness in its main streets; little huckstering shops hustled larger and more pretentious shops, but all of them had an air of vivacious vulgarity. They had not been given the look of sobriety ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... back, however, and would have done so when vacation came; but a classmate invited him to his home, and there he went, glad of the reprieve from an embarrassing, and, as it seemed to him now, an undignified conflict with a civilian. But the surrender brought its ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... been able to do. It was interesting and praiseworthy to grieve over such a disappointment as she had experienced, to be sorrowful, even heart-broken, but to whine! That put an entirely different aspect on her grief! To whine was feeble, childish, and undignified, a thing to which no self-respecting girl could stoop. As Rhoda recalled her tears and repinings, a flush of shame came to her cheeks, and she resolved that, whatever she might have to suffer in the future, she would, at least, keep it to herself, ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the dancers, as Emerson has said, or if it once happened it was probably the intentional freak of a happy schoolboy—a bit of farcical fun, too unworthy even to be mentioned by the "Sage of Concord" in his "Historic Notes." It was poor history and undignified in its connection. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... cart was seen coming round the corner, familiar furniture piled undignified on top, Tom, her brother, and Theresa, marching on foot beside the mass, proud of having walked ten miles or more, from the tram terminus. Ursula poured out beer, and the men drank thirstily, by the door. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the unrepentant winds were full of mischief. A monstrous dignity of fleecy clouds scudded undignified across the blue. The precious park became a tossing waste of woodland, teased into flurried liveliness, full of false starts and misdirection, instantly buffeted for every blunder and bellowing good-natured protests at every ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... couldn't get along without you," exclaimed Mr. Period, as he rushed forward and grasped Tom's hand, having alighted in rather an undignified manner from the horse that he had ridden. ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... which he never afterwards let go. The boar kept snapping and champing his great tusks; but Pincher, even with the leg in his mouth, was too active to be caught: so as the boar found that it was both futile and undignified to try to run away with a dog hanging on his hind-quarters, he tried another plan. Making for a clump of Ti-ti palms he went to bay, and contrived to take up a very good defensive position. Pincher would have never given up ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... really, it's Anthony. I'm the undignified heir to the stocks and bonds of an old party by that name who ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the dignified and stately Mr. Hawkins, came majestically down the line, carrying a camp stool under his arm. He had found it necessary to change his position, incensed at the undignified behaviour of the Hillsboro girls, who had taken up their position on one side of the field and were taking a lively interest in the game. He had ventured a slight rebuke, whereupon the whole battery of their indignation had been trained on him, with the result that he withdrew hastily. He sat down ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung |
