"Ungracefully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rather disposed to think that he took this opportunity for a sort of sally in flank. He fastens on one of Macaulay's weakest points, a point the weakness of which was admitted by Macaulay himself—the "gaudily and ungracefully ornamented" (as its author calls it) Essay on Milton. And he points out, with truth enough, that its "gaudy and ungraceful ornament" is by no means its only fault—that it is bad as criticism, that it shows no clear grasp of Milton's real ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... astride a charger, which lifted one fore-leg in a fling of scorn. Of course Wilbur would meet her, and they would take a taxicab, but even a taxicab seemed rather humiliating to her. It should have been her own private motor car. And she would be obliged to descend the stairs at the station ungracefully, one hand clutching nervously at the tail of her gorgeous gown, the other at her evening cloak. It was absolutely impossible for so slight a woman to descend stairs with dignity and grace, holding up an evening ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Summoned to receive the inferior prize, Godwin Peak, his countenance harsher than before, his eyes cast down, moved ungracefully to the estrade. And during the next half-hour this twofold exhibition was several times repeated. In Senior Latin, in Modern and Ancient History, in English Language and Literature, in French, first ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... be much pleasure in that, I confess," said Fleda gravely. "How very ungracefully and stiffly ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... call the Ladders. At Phaselis he stayed some time, and finding the statue of Theodectes, who was a native of this town and was now dead, erected in the marketplace, after he had supped, having drunk pretty plentifully, he went and danced about it, and crowned it with garlands, honoring not ungracefully in his sport, the memory of a philosopher whose conversation he had formerly enjoyed, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Leo Ulford bowed rather ungracefully. Standing up he looked more than ever like a huge boy, and he had much of the expression that is often characteristic of huge boys—an expression in which impudence seems to float forward from a background ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... speechless. He sat a little forward, a hand on either knee, his mouth ungracefully open, an expression of blank and utter bewilderment in his face. For the first time he began to have vague doubts concerning this young lady. Everything about her had been so strange: her quiet entrance into the carriage, ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... likenesses, sometimes uncouth and unnatural, sometimes rigid and rebellious to the lines of the body? One would say that they are not worn properly. The helmets are stupidly put on, the hats are outlandish and ungracefully worn. The scarfs are in their place and yet they are awkwardly tied. Here is none of that unique ease of carriage, that natural elegance, that neglige dress, caught and rendered to the life in which Frans Hals knows how to attire every age, every stature, every ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... stage? Is it not, that those who have the best sense always speak the best, though they may not happen to have the best voices? They will speak plainly, distinctly, and with the proper emphasis, be their voices ever so bad. Had Roscius spoken quick, thick, and ungracefully, I will answer for it, that Cicero would not have thought him worth the oration which he made in his favour. Words were given us to communicate our ideas by, and there must be something inconceivably absurd in uttering them in such a manner, as that ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... refuse. I seize, then, the present opportunity, not as the best, but as the only one I can be sure of commanding, to express that affectionate admiration with which you have inspired me in common with all your contemporaries, and which a French writer has not ungracefully termed "the happiest prerogative of genius." As a Poet and as a Novelist your fame has attained to that height in which praise has become superfluous; but in the character of the writer there seems to me a yet higher ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the kind of figure that Constance had expected to see; a young lady something above the middle height, passably, not well, dressed, moving quickly and not ungracefully, but with perceptible lack of that self-possession which is the social testimonial. She wore a new travelling costume, fawn-coloured, with a slightly inappropriate hat (too trimmy), and brown shoes which over-asserted themselves. Her collar was of the upright sort, just turned down ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... a tentative effort or so in the form of a suggestive speech; he had given her openings to give him an opening to put things on a practical basis, but she had never had the intelligence to see what he was aiming at, and he had found himself almost floundering ungracefully in his remarks, while she had looked at him without a sign of comprehension in her simple, anxious blue eyes. The creature was actually trying to understand him and could not. That was the worst of it, the blank wall of her unconsciousness, her childlike belief ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... men at the same time in each company," and caused it to be rigidly enforced. No one who ever saw Hanson can forget him. In stature he was a little under the medium hight, and he was powerfully but ungracefully built. His bulky and ungainly form indicated great but awkward strength. His shoulders were huge, round, and stooping, and he sat on his horse in the attitude in which a sick man bends over the fire. His head was large and perfectly round. His complexion ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... had scrambled ungracefully to his feet and found himself face to face with a picture that he was ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson |
