"Unpalatable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this unpalatable information, Hicks and Gregory spurred abreast of us; for the remainder of the journey we four rode elbow to elbow, and ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the room was all arranged for it by that most audacious young woman—that the servants were ordered about—that it lasted till nearly midnight, and that the noise you all made positively woke Lady Henry out of her sleep. Really, Evelyn, that you should have been mixed up in such an affair is more unpalatable to me than I can find words to describe." And he paced, fuming, up and down ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... over by brothers David Dewar and James Inglis, the latter of whom has just recently gone to his reward. Brother David was a plain, honest, straightforward man, who never hesitated to express his convictions, however unpalatable they might be to others. Being elected a member of the Prison Board, he was called upon to give his vote in the choice of a chaplain from the licentiates of the Established Kirk. The party who had ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... artillery fire. But we in front line are safer than in the support position. At present our food is miserable. We are now fed upon dried vegetables and marmalade and when at night we obtain more food it is unpalatable. It is half sour and all cold. In the ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... a thankful office to offer advice; and advice is the more unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the service recommended, but often from its very obviousness. We are fired with anger against those who make themselves the spokesmen of plain obligations; for they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hard-boiled eggs and maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty of crust is quite eatable. French cooking is far away, however, and the bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... but once, to see an ass Mumbling make the cross-grain'd thistles pass, Might laugh again to see a jury chaw The prickles of unpalatable law. The witnesses, that leech-like lived on blood, Sucking for them was medicinally good; 150 But when they fasten'd on their fester'd sore, Then justice and religion they forswore, Their maiden oaths debauch'd into a whore. Thus men are raised by factions, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... with a pause of blank amazement at my ignorance, "why, to get money from the travellers!" Indiscreet guardiano! It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery. Yet, in spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last day in the establishment. The air is so pure and bracing, the views from our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so comfortable, that I am content ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... not?" he demanded. "Why can we not return to ways of our fathers when this republic was founded? You have spoken much truth, Mr. Everhard, unpalatable though it has been. But here amongst ourselves let us speak out. Let us throw off all disguise and accept the truth as Mr. Everhard has flatly stated it. It is true that we smaller capitalists are after profits, and ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... worry herself, as she certainly cannot help people who will not allow themselves to be helped, in her way at least of assisting them; good advice is generally unpalatable. She must look on the best side of the matter, and hope that her friend may be happy and comfortable in her own way. We doubt that you could have prevented the marriage, as your friend is very likely tired of the trouble of earning her living, and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... animals acquiring these colours will share in the protection afforded by them. And so we find a deceptive similarity between animals occurring in the same district, but not closely related, in which the mimicked form is unpalatable or has an odour repulsive to birds and lizards. It must, of course, be understood that the mimicry is unconscious, the result, as in the cases of cryptic resemblance, having been brought about by natural selection—the less perfect the mimicry the more liable are the individuals to be attacked, and ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... have been made of our coffee since we have been on board, which, to say the truth, has been as unsettled as most of the social questions of our day, and, perhaps, for that reason quite as generally unpalatable; but since I have seen our cook, I am quite persuaded that the coffee, like other works of great artists, has borrowed the hues of its maker's mind. I think I hear him soliloquize over it—"To what purpose is coffee?—of what avail tea?—thick or clear?—all ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... game, but without much success. A fox or so, a few plarmigan, that was all. These they saved for the dogs. Three times a day they boiled tea and devoured the little square of pemmican. It did not supply the bulk their digestive organs needed, and became in time almost nauseatingly unpalatable, but it nourished. That, after all, was the main thing. The privation carved the flesh from their muscles, carved the muscles ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... American system of education, designed to meet the demands of modern conditions, has been put in practice in parts of the United States. In spite of opposition from school boards, from all those who cling to the conviction that education must of necessity be an unpalatable and "disciplinary" process, the number of these schools is growing. The objection, put forth by many, that they are still in the experimental stage, is met by the reply that experiment is the very essence of the system. Democracy ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I never thought but nobly of my brother, Touching his honor and fidelity. Still I could wish him charier of his person, And of his time more frugal, than to spend In riotous living, graceless society, And mirth unpalatable, hours better employ'd (With those persuasive graces nature lent him) In fervent ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... v. Thomas Evans. The charge against this defendant was, that he had in his possession forty-seven barrels of stale unpalatable beer. On, the 11th of March, John Wilson, an excise officer, went to the storehouse, and found forty-seven casks containing forty-three barrels and a half of sour unwholesome beer. Several samples of the beer were produced, all of them of a different colour, and filled with sediment. ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... not unpalatable but very light. They are mostly exported to Vienna, being fortified previous to their departure to enable them to stand the voyage, and again manipulated on their arrival, so that their original ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... she should have died, and when she was a little better and began to feel hungry, there was nothing for her to eat but hay seeds and ivy leaves, or the roots of the trees, and Downy, who had of late been used to such good fare, could not bear to eat such dry unpalatable food ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill
... truth and exposure of the conspiracy, however, was unpalatable at Washington; and Secretary Jefferson Davis, while approving the conduct of Colonel Cooke and expressing confidence in General Smith, nevertheless curtly indorsed upon his report: "The only distinction of parties which in a military point ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... animal fat and I saw I had been eating freely of the most fattening kinds of food. I knew beer and liquor were made of grain, and that grain is used to fatten steers and cows and pigs. I refused to adopt a diet like any of those unpalatable ones I had experimented with, but the remedy was as plain as the cause. It was simple enough if I had the nerve ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... having resorted to the device of placing good meat at the top and bottom of the barrels, whilst the middle, being composed of unsound articles, had tainted the whole, thereby rendering it not only unpalatable but positively dangerous to health. The good provisions on board being little more than sufficient for a week's subsistence, a direct return to Rio de Janeiro was ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... have disappeared. The domestic chaplain of a lordly household is now nearly as superfluous as its archers or falconers; and the court calendars of former reigns record a variety of places and perquisites, which, did they still exist, would be unpalatable to modern courtiers, though compelled to earn their daily cakes, however dirty. Just as the last golden pippin of the house of Crenie was preserved in wax for the edification of posterity, a watchman has been deposited, with his staff ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... A great fear suddenly possessed her. What if the captain should get so very, very hungry, that he would be tempted beyond resistance, and forsake her after all! She felt the suspicion unworthy, yet it had come, and as the blind man pushed his plate aside, unable to swallow the unpalatable porridge, she resolved upon her first debt. Laying her hand on his she begged, "Wait a minute, grandpa! I forgot—I mean I didn't get the milk. I'll run round an' be back with it ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... who insists upon a whole instead of half a holiday, and before the evening closes is tired of himself and everything about him. In short, a little contradiction, like salt at dinner, seasons and appetises the repast; but too much, like the condiment in question, spoils the whole, and it becomes unpalatable in proportion ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... speaks out plainly, and straight to the point. "If she is to prepare a refection of cakes, she fails not to examine some cookery-book or some manuscript receipt, lest she should convert her rich ingredients into unpalatable compounds; but without ever having read one book upon the subject of education, without ever having sought one conversation with an intelligent person upon it, she undertakes so to mingle the earthly and celestial elements of instruction for that child's soul that he shall be fitted ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... hoped that Vane would take some part in the service, and of course everyone wanted to see him; still, the audience went away disappointed. Vane was far away, helping Ernshaw at his mission in Bethnal Green, and was telling his congregation truths just as uncompromising and perhaps as unpalatable as those he had told to his wealthy and ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... geographer Marmol, who describes himself to have spent twenty years of warfare and slavery in Africa, about the middle of the sixteenth century, mentions the river La-ha-mar as a branch of the Niger, having muddy and unpalatable waters. By the same authority, the Niger itself is called Yea, or Issa, at Timbuctoo, a name which D'Anville has adopted ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Miller. "I am with the biologists in this campaign. Let us have the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may be. If these phenomena exist, they are in the domain of natural law and can be weighed and measured. If they are imaginary, they should be swept away, like other ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... said coolly, as she ended her little pantomime. "Well, I can. To adopt Bobby's choice illustration, it would be like mixing potato and frappe. The potato would melt the frappe, and then the frappe would—well, would render the potato unpalatable. In other words, if we work together, I shall pulverize Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, and then the dust of her individuality will get in among my ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... most of the nations of the Old World. This is nothing more than the reaction of the stern Puritan tenets of the colonial times. It is the logical result of those dark and gloomy theories which aimed to make religion not only unpalatable but absolutely repelling to the young and the ardent, causing them to fly to the opposite extreme of throwing aside religion to 'a more convenient season,' when the pleasures of life should have lost their charm, and they themselves should be drawing near the close of their pilgrimage. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... jug, pare off all the white pith from three oranges so as to lay the pulp of the fruit quite bare, cut them in slices, take out all the seeds, or, as they are more generally termed, the pips, as their bitterness would render the drink unpalatable; add one ounce of sugar, or honey, pour a quart of boiling water to these, cover up the jug, and allow the orangeade to stand and steep until quite cold; it may then be given to the patient. This is a cooling beverage, and may be safely given ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... food, but, hungry as they were, found great difficulty in swallowing the porridge, so exceedingly unpalatable was it. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... army to triumph, or perish a free man with my brethren. A heavy weight presses on me, aid me to bear it; I require your counsels, transmit them to me through your journals. Tell me truth, even the most unpalatable; but repel calumny, and do not repulse a citizen whom you know to be sincere and intrepid, and who devotes himself to the cause of the Revolution and ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... remarked, with the same sardonic calmness, that Cyril's clothes would be provided for him, which would be one good thing. Cyril himself was only too glad to get away. He would have something to do, however unpalatable in itself, instead of digging in the garden, and going through the form of helping Robinson, his clerks, and cashier, with their books. He would have a good horse under him once more, if he were only to ride it to ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... presence of an aristocrat. At the upper end, beyond the little black bar, there was a platform, upon it a table, a pianoforte, and a stool. Still he managed to conceal his repugnance to all these uninviting things and he sipped his diluted Rhine wine, ate his sandwich—an unpalatable one—under the watchful eyes of his companion. By eight o'clock the room was jammed with working-people, all talking and in a half dozen tongues. Occasionally Yetta left him to join a group, and where she went silence fell. She was the oracle of the crowd. At nine o'clock Arthur's ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... upon to interpret, and that which he had to say was unpalatable enough, for he had to bid them empty their pockets, and pass everything they possessed over to ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... Montpelier—wine was no longer dispensed to the many visitors at that hospitable mansion. Nor was this all. Harvest began, but the customary barrel of whisky was not purchased, and the song of the scythemen in the wheatfield languished. In lieu of whisky, there was a beverage most innocuous, unstimulating and unpalatable to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... menace me with pale looks, until like Bob Acres I feel my courage oozing out at my finger ends. The days before these ordeals take place are spent in cramming your mind with mystic formula and indigestible dates—unpalatable diets, until you wish that books and science and you were buried in the depths of ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... old cowhorn—things that interested him, he did not know why. He made Indian necklaces of the shells, strung together alternately with the backbone of a fish. He let his hair grow as long as possible, employing various stratagems, even the unpalatable one of combing it to avoid the monthly trim of the maternal scissors. He lay for hours with the sun beating on his face to correct his colour to standard, and the only semblance of personal vanity that he ever had was pleasure ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... seen to have walls of peat three feet thick. To each man was given a pound of flour. For the rest, their food must be what they caught or clubbed—mainly, at first, the sea-otter, whose flesh was unpalatable to the taste and tough as leather. Later, Steller discovered that the huge sea-cow—often thirty-five feet long—seen pasturing on the fields of sea-kelp at low tide, afforded food of almost the same ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Unpalatable as this advice seemed, with all the loose gold lying about, we ended by adopting it. Indeed, we added slightly to our self-imposed tasks by determining on the construction of cradles. Yank had figured out a scheme having to do with hollowed logs and ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the staple food of the population, which was made soon after the commencement of the war, was composed partially of rye and potato flour. It was not at all unpalatable, especially when toasted; and when it was seen that the war would not be as short as the Germans had expected, the bread cards were issued. That is, every Monday morning each person was given a card which had annexed to it a number of little perforated sections about the size of a quarter of ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... been accepted as evidence for the supernatural. That the religious idea has been associated with these processes, and that for multitudes they have served as strong evidence of its truth, cannot be denied. And an examination of this aspect of the history of religion ought not to be ignored, however unpalatable such a study may be to ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... hereafter, are not at present the chief object of these researches. In order to maintain their scientific character, they must be independent of all extraneous considerations: they must aim at truth, trusting that even unpalatable truths, like unpalatable medicine, will reinvigorate the system into which they enter. To those, no doubt, who value the tenets of their religion as the miser values his pearls and precious stones, thinking their value lessened if pearls and stones of the same kind are found ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... Hundreds of white herons and various other kinds of birds were nesting in the trees, and there were a good many ducks about. We shot some of the herons and cut off the long hair-like plumes, but the flesh was strong and unpalatable. The ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... sometimes wish I had been born a Fejee belle, who lived, was tastefully tattooed, and died without having even dreamed of missionaries,—those officious martyrs who hope to wear a whole constellation on their foreheads as a reward for having been eaten by cannibals, to whom they expounded the unpalatable doctrine that, 'this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.' Moreover, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... remained with her. She returned wearily to the thought of Percy Gryce, as a wayfarer picks up a heavy load and toils on after a brief rest. She was almost sure she had "landed" him: a few days' work and she would win her reward. But the reward itself seemed unpalatable just then: she could get no zest from the thought of victory. It would be a rest from worry, no more—and how little that would have seemed to her a few years earlier! Her ambitions had shrunk gradually in the desiccating air of failure. But why had ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Reid, getting very red, for he was not accustomed to being patient when people gave him unpalatable advice. Then something that he saw—was it pity?—in the doctor's face made him white ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... duty Lord Fawn was a Hercules,—not, indeed, "climbing trees in the Hesperides," but achieving enterprises which, to other men, if not impossible, would have been so unpalatable as to have been put aside as impracticable. On the Monday morning, after he was accepted by Lady Eustace, he was with his mother at Fawn Court before he went down to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... they noticed that the pool was strongly impregnated with salt. Many streams in those parts of the prairies are quite salt, but fortunately this one was not utterly undrinkable, though it was very unpalatable. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... crust of bread, and put it into the pot where salt beef is boiling and near ready; it will attract some of the fat, and, when swelled out, will be no unpalatable dish to those who rarely taste meat.' That is called a brewis, my dear; suppose we give it to our pampered family here some day, and see what they say. How nearly are your biscuits done? I hear the people growling ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... being loaded under the electric lights, and watched the same for some time with interest; then, taking out my watch, I examined it, and came to the conclusion that if I was to see any patients that evening at all I must at once get back to my unpalatable rooms. I began to go along the pier, and passed into the shadow of the Sea Queen, now sunk in quiet, and drab and dark. As I went, a port-hole in the stern almost on the level of my eyes gleamed like a moon, and of a sudden there was an outbreak of angry voices, one threatening ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... another circumstance still, which increased the irritation and aversion felt by the large classes, of whom I have been speaking, against the preachers of doctrines, so new to them and so unpalatable; and that was, that they developed them in so measured a way. If they were inspired by Roman theologians, (and this was taken for granted,) why did they not speak out at once? Why did they keep the world in such suspense ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... a particularly hungry one. The coffee was done, every precious tea-leaf she had to husband for Arthur, and the butter had also to be carefully economised because a good deal was required for his crisp toast, which was unpalatable without it. Beth lived principally on the crusts she cut off the toast. When they were very stale, she steeped them in hot water, and sweetened them with brown sugar. This mess reminded her of Aunt Victoria's bread-puddings, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... exclusively to such measures as they were assured, by the eminent expounder, were strictly constitutional. The Abolitionists have sympathized with this gentleman in the obloquy he incurred, in common with themselves, for holding opinions unpalatable to the slaveholders, and for maintaining the constitutional rights of Congress. Because he insisted, in the Senate, on the power of Congress over slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, Mr. Rives, of Virginia, was so unkind as to say, that ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... quantity obtained from the acacias, the anacardium occidentale (cashew-nut tree) in America, has furnished from a single tree a mass weighing forty-two pounds. Gum is mawkish, insipid, and generally unpalatable, yet highly nutritive; and the Africans, during the harvest of gum at Senegal, live entirely upon it, eight ounces being the daily allowance for each man. In general they become plump on this fare; and such should be the result, if ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... not tried the dish myself," I took the opportunity to add. "It is said to be unpalatable. Did monsieur find ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discipline was as good as his leading, and his conduct at the base as praiseworthy as at the front. (Alec Naylor nodded his handsome head in grave approval; his father looked a little discontented, as though he were swallowing unpalatable, though wholesome, food). His whole idea—Beaumaroy's, that is—was to shield offenders, to prevent the punishment fitting the crime, even to console and countenance the wrongdoer. No sense of discipline, no moral sense, the Colonel had gone as far as that. Impossible to promote ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... to stay the tide of defeat, all was now over. The enemy had obtained a secure foothold on the Jersey shore from which to march across the State, when and how he pleased. Unpalatable as the admission may be, the fact remains that the Americans had been everywhere out-generaled and out-fought. Nearly everything in the way of war material had been lost in the hurried evacuation of New York.[3] ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... grows so old as to be come either stale, juiceless, or unpalatable. The older he grows, the mellower and riper he becomes. His eyes may fail him, his step falter, and his big- mouthed shoes—"a world too wide for his shrunk shank"—may cluck and shuffle as he walks; his rheumatics may make great ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... "However unpalatable it may be to a Southern white man, he must reckon with the fact, that between himself and the coveted favor of the nation stands the ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... been too easy. We left him there with one portable water-maker and all of that unpalatable but nourishing fungus which thrives upon Avis Solis that he could eat. I have no doubt that he lived until madness reduced his ability ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... concern. As to me, I speak only for myself and for my article.' Hereupon Mr. Schnackenberger made him acquainted with the circumstances, which were so unpalatable to the purchaser of 'the article,' that he challenged Mr. Schnackenberger to single ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... was to cut the aqueduct which carried fresh water into the city. The lake of Tezcoco in which Mexico stood was salt. By this one stroke, Cortes forced the inhabitants to depend upon a very meagre, scanty supply of water from wells in the city, many of which were brackish and unpalatable. The shores of the lake were swept bare by the beleaguerers. Iztatapalan, a rocky fortress was taken by storm and on April 21, 1521, the first attack was delivered along the causeways. The Mexicans met the advance with their customary intrepidity. ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... were conducted by a deputation from the Vereeniging Convention: Delarey, Botha, Smuts, De Wet, and Hertzog. These did their best, and even obtained some verbal changes of phraseology which made Lord Kitchener's terms less unpalatable. The question of British nationality was waived for the moment to allow of the other stipulations of the document being discussed; and the general subject was referred to a minor convention consisting of Lord Milner and his legal adviser on one side, and of Smuts ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... because of a lack of continence, of a failure to realize that since life is short, art should not be too long? It may be, too, that Richardson, newly handling the sentiment which during the following generation was to become such a marked trait of imaginative letters, revelled in it to an extent unpalatable to our taste; "rubbing our noses," as Leslie Stephen puts it, "in all her (Clarissa's) agony,"—the tendency to overdo a new thing, not to be resisted in his case. But with all concessions to length and sentimentality, criticism from that day to this has been at one in ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... mind had been sufficiently awakened he followed the advice of the old adage to "strike while the iron is hot," and impressed upon him the fact that being the eldest son he was naturally the prop of his house; nor did he ignore the truth, unpalatable as it might be, that Willard could hope for no material aid from the hands of his parents. He must carve his own way. He must build even the ladder up which he was to climb. Others had done so—why not he? And then he told him that the way to do it successfully ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... patriot will accept the ever-strengthening fact, however unpalatable, that the development and emancipation of womanhood has brought women to the front as workers, to stay; and he will perceive that therefore it is incumbent upon the men to endeavour to find that happy mean, where they can work together to the advantage of both, and to the stability ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... his success in getting men to listen to unpalatable truths lay in his gentleness of manner and rare humility of mind, but "gentlest of human beings" as he has been described, he had the courage of a lion in fight, and for his Master's sake he knew no palliation ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... so abstract, obscure, and generally unpalatable, as Logic and Metaphysics, the difficulty which the teacher finds in inspiring interest is extreme. That Sir W. Hamilton overcame such difficulty with remarkable success, is the affirmation of his two editors; and our impression, as readers of his lectures, disposes us to credit ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... you," said Yorke, thoughtfully. "I hope you were right there; I am sure at least that from your mouth I could hear home truths, which from another's would be very unpalatable. You are good enough to speak as though you would wish us to be friends. I am going to ask you, therefore, to ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... what I have to think," answered Carrie. "It is a mighty unpalatable truth, I can tell you. I suppose, now, your next step will be to prosecute her to send the police after her, and have her locked up. Then you will ruin me too, for Sam Raynes—not that he is overparticular, nor that he cares twopence about refinement, or anything of ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... next to the last, the jaws. This he interpreted to be a clear expression of the intention of nature, that every man might regulate, by his own volition, whatever was to be admitted into the sanctuary of his mouth; consequently, if the guest proved unpalatable, he had no one to blame but himself. The surgeon, who was well acquainted with these views of his patient, beheld him, as he cavalierly turned his back on Mason and himself, with a commiserating contempt, replaced in their ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... for an immediate supply. In small kitchens solemn pig-tailed daughters helped depressed mothers to perform the primitive ritual of its preparation. On the breakfast-tables of cheerless parlours it was partaken of in silence. Once the womenfolk discovered that it was thoroughly unpalatable, their zeal in forcing it on their households knew no bounds. "You haven't eaten your Filboid Studge!" would be screamed at the appetiteless clerk as he hurried weariedly from the breakfast-table, and his evening meal would be prefaced by a warmed-up mess which would be explained as "your Filboid ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... attended to in composing these soups was to render them wholesome and nourishing, yet they are very far from being unpalatable.—The basis of the soups, which is water prepared and thickened by barley, is well calculated to receive, and to convey to the palate in an agreeable manner, every thing that is savoury in the other ingredients; ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... its flow was checked and turned by what I must call a repressed resentment. His wife's blind heartiness was impossible to him, and he read with a clear eye the mind of a loved daughter. With him also I ranked as a necessity; so far as the necessity was distasteful to Elsa, it was unpalatable to him. Beneath his friendliness, and side by side with an unhesitating acceptance of the position, there lay this grudge, not acknowledged, bound to incur instant absurdity as the price of any open ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... of our social system, which is the child of our political, is the tyranny of public opinion, forbidding the utterance of wholesome but unpalatable truth. In a republic we are so accustomed to the rule of majorities that it seldom occurs to us to examine their title to dominion; and as the ideas of might and right are, by our innate sense of justice, linked together, we come to consider public opinion ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... fat, and make excellent eating. The flesh of no African animal is esteemed superior to the calf of the white rhinoceros, whereas the black varieties never grow fat, and their flesh is tough and unpalatable. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... left it, she had made up her mind that she would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness had all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath Day observances. It was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that had been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished with the doctor from Callender whenever she attempted escape under the plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall, the noise ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... mind," her openness and honesty were appreciated, when at an advanced age, and after she had run the career of five courts—by that experienced judge, the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who often presumed upon the venerable Duchess's candour in telling her unpalatable truths, which none but the honest could have borne to hear. It was this uprightness and singleness of mind which rendered the Duchess unwilling to believe in the duplicity and the influence of her cousin. Warned of it by Mr. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... upper servant in his household, and that he considered himself as having a right to complain if things were not orderly and comfortable. At first, she met his looks or words of displeasure, when his meals, for instance, were late, or so badly cooked as to be unhealthy and unpalatable, with— ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... saw. I think a very readable book might be made out of them, resembling "Guesses at Truth:" the turn given to an inquiry about morals, religion, or socials, is often of the highest degree of unexpectedness; the poor querist would find himself right in a most unpalatable way. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... pears, their early peas of supernatural tenderness, their asparagus, and their roses, and their strawberries, have they not hidden a good deal about their worm-eaten plums—about their cherries that were carried off by armies of burglarious birds; about their potatoes that proved watery and unpalatable; about their melons that fell victims to their neighbors' fowls; about their peaches that succumbed to the unexpected raid of Jack Frost; about their grapes that fell under the blight of mildew; ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... profit by such remarks," returned Miss Opie; "there is doubtless some truth in them, however unpalatable." ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... being of very little value as a hay plant. This difference in opinion is doubtless due largely to cutting the crop at different stages of growth. If allowed to become too advanced before it is cut, the woody character of the hay would doubtless make it unpalatable, whereas, if cut early, at least as early as the showing of the first blooms, if not, indeed, earlier, it would be eaten with a much greater relish. The yields of hay are said to usually ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... not smooth things over to any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr. Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill- advised marriage. Am I here, sir? Yes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... this country. When cooked, either by roasting or boiling, the root is even more nutritious than the potato, nor is it possessed of any unpalatable flavor, the pecularity being between that of rice and the potato. Dressed in milk, or mashed, they are absolutely a delicacy; and from the abundance in which they are cultivated in the West Indies and other parts, they promise to ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... he was about to propose what would come like a clap of thunder on all present, and on the country, he prepares the way for its favourable reception, by pointing out the almost necessarily direct pecuniary benefit ultimately derivable from his unpalatable tax; and the instant that he has disclosed his proposal, in the same breath carries our attention to a similar topic—an assurance calculated to arouse the self-interest and excite the approbation first of the commercial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and Captain Rives often bring in large bags of mountain grouse and young sage hens. The sage chicken are as tender and delicious as partridge before they begin to feed upon wild sage in the fall, but one short day in the brush makes them different birds and wholly unpalatable. We often send birds, and fish also, to friends at Fort Bridger, who were most hospitable the day we arrived, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... always boil their milk before using it, as the taste of milk fresh from the cow is considered unpalatable. After boiling, the milk is put in a pot and a little old curds added, when the whole becomes dahi or sour curds. This is a favourite food, and appears to be exactly the same substance as the Bulgarian sour milk which is now considered to have much medicinal value. Butter is also made ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... excellent fruit and the not unpalatable wine, knowing nothing of all this, saw the three reenter together and approach us, the couriers looking not only reluctant, but dazed: up ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... renewal, which not only occasion much trouble and mess, but are also frequently inefficiently performed. (2) Experience has shown that the filtering material, whether cloth, charcoal, or other substance, is extremely liable to become mouldy or musty, which makes the wafer both unwholesome and unpalatable. This system is especially adapted for small water supplies and for use in country houses, there being no operation to perform requiring either technical, chemical, or mechanical knowledge, nor producing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... the other deeply wounded. He was not altogether sure, upon reflection, whether he blamed Dr. Price very much for the amiable lie, which had been meant to spare his feelings, or thanked Sam a great deal for the unpalatable truth. ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the table between twelve and one. On this journey, according to the custom of travellers in Italy, we pay the vetturino a certain sum, and live at his expense; and this meal was the first specimen of his catering on our behalf. It consisted of a beefsteak, rather dry and hard, but not unpalatable, and a large omelette; and for beverage, two quart bottles of red wine, which, being tasted, had an agreeable acid flavor. . . . . The locanda was built of stone, and had what looked like an old Roman altar ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... item of meat. The canned roast beef is worse than a failure as part of the rations, for in effect it amounts to reducing the rations by just so much, as a great majority of the men find it uneatable. It was coarse, stringy, tasteless, and very disagreeable in appearance, and so unpalatable that the effort to eat it made some of the men sick. Most of the men preferred to be hungry rather than eat it. If cooked in a stew with plenty of onions and potatoes—i.e., if only one ingredient in a dish with other more savory ingredients—it ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... believe, furthermore mimics the fearless demeanour of the protected or venomous species, which birds and other insect-eaters know and respect. It might be supposed that the young Zoniopoda is itself unpalatable; but this is scarcely probable, for when the deceptive black mask is once dropped, the excessive shyness, love of concealment, and protective colouring of the insect show that it is much ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Op. 58, the second of Chopin's notable pianoforte sonatas (the third if we take into account the unpalatable Op. 4), made its appearance five years later, in June, 1845. Unity is as little discernible in this sonata as in its predecessor. The four movements of which the work consists are rather affiliated than cognate; nay, this ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Prince's friends. There are many letters of Stockmar's to the Prince extant, which prove that Stockmar never shrank from speaking the plainest truth to the Prince on matters of duty and faults of temperament, without any courtier-like attempt to blink criticism that might have been unpalatable. The Prince had the generosity and humility to value this trait of Stockmar's very highly, to such an extent that Stockmar's influence possessed if anything too great a preponderance. Stockmar had jealously nursed two profound political ideals—the unity of Germany under ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... However unpalatable these final conclusions may appear to pious readers accustomed to seek in the Book of Job for the most striking proofs of some of the principal teachings of the Christian dispensation, it is difficult, not ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... domiciled Irishmen in England, of the middle and better class. They sometimes forget their country, and in place of explaining away fallacies and making known facts which would have roused England long since to our aid, had they been fairly understood, fear to tell truths which they deem to be unpalatable, while perhaps their own palates are being feasted on the good things of the party who declaims against their country: thus permitting the continued existence of ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... in itself, and is stimulating to every Christian mind. Yet it is to be greatly feared that the first of these journeys aggravated, if it did not actually develope, the disease from which she ultimately died. She found the ceaseless round of millet and mutton so unpalatable as at the last to be able hardly to eat at all; and experience of tent life was needful before she could realise how absolutely devoid it was of almost everything that a European lady looks upon as essential to daily existence, and thus make adequate preparation for the life. Yet, in 1878, she not ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... water was unpalatable, being heavily chlorinated to sterilise it. Our modest ration of unsweetened lime-juice sufficed to remove the unpleasant flavour from one fill of a water-bottle, but would not stand further dilution. In any case water-bottles could not be refilled at will, and it was a long walk ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... and body throughout the long and tedious voyage of nine months, Mr. Martyn seeks no selfish ease. He preaches, reads and labors assiduously with officers, passengers and crew, and shuns not to declare the whole counsel of God, even the unpalatable doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked. He says: "The threats and opposition of these men made me willing to set before them the truths they hated, yet I had no species of hesitation about doing it. They said they would not come if so much hell was preached, but I took for ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... upon Rachel's face. She tried to eat: when the picnic meal could be put off no longer, but could scarcely swallow. Monny glanced at her anxiously from time to time, perhaps suspecting something of the truth. And the eyes of both, girls turned to me now and then with an appeal which made unpalatable my well-earned hard-boiled eggs, and drumsticks. Bother the whole blamed business! thought I. Hadn't I done all I could? Wasn't I practically running the lives of these tiresome tourists, as well as their tour? What did that adventuress out of a New England schoolroom want of me now, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Undoubtedly Steen's letter was sent at Goldschmidt's wish, but it is equally undoubted that its form had not been approved by him. That the alliance so cleverly led up to came to nothing was evidently as unexpected by the poet as unpalatable to him. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... look elsewhere for a passage: a moral defeat and a further delay in the relief of Ladysmith; and thirdly, to attack by night the mountain of Spion Kop, and thence to enfilade and command the Boer entrenchments. Sir Redvers Buller, who has always disdained effect, was for the second course—unpalatable as it must have been to a fearless man; miserable as it is to call off infantry after they have made sacrifices and won positions, and to call them off a second time. The discussion was an informal one, and no votes were taken, but the General yielded to the advice ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... christening, as to the necessity and decency of keeping himself sober on that day; but, alas! during this friendly admonition he could perceive, that early as it was, his brother was not exactly in a state of perfect sobriety. His remonstrances were very unpalatable to Art, and as a consciousness of his conduct, added to the nervousness produced by drink, had both combined to produce irritability of temper, he addressed himself more harshly to his brother than he had ever done in his life before. Frank, for the sake of peace, gave ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... based on this price, the tariff would be thirty-six per cent., but if based on $2.50 as the price, it would mount up to one hundred and ten per cent. To prevent this and to render the bill still more unpalatable to the Whigs, the Democrats introduced a dollar "minimum," so that the tariff on the bulk of our imported woollens, costing, as just stated, about ninety cents, would come in at forty-four and ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... wealth have advanced by strides, education has taken a few faltering steps forward. Pecuniary honesty has probably increased, honesty and industry being the virtues especially fostered by commerce and manufactures. Bigotry, the unwillingness to permit in others thought and language unpalatable to ourselves, has become less virulent, but has not disappeared. It is shown alike by the church and by her enemies. Yet the tone of controversy has softened even in France. There are fewer Voltairean sneers, fewer episcopal anathemas. Humanity has been growing; the rich and prosperous ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... curious old eggs ... a trifle over ripe ... beaten up with a lucifer match, would be like ... now I know. But I was not to be conquered. Glass number two was not so bad. Glass number three .... less unpalatable than glass number two—glass number four ... um, between number three and number four a considerable time was allowed to elapse, as I found I had been going it too fast. But now my enfeebled health is gradually being renovated, and they tell me that when I leave this, I shall be ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... the life and reign of Henry IV. by sir John Hayward, dedicated to the earl of Essex, was the unfortunate occasion of fresh offence to the queen; the subject, as containing the deposition of a lawful prince, was in itself unpalatable; but what gave the work in her jealous eyes a peculiar and sinister meaning was an expression addressed to the earl which may be thus rendered: "You are great both in present ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... more than will suffice to make a jelly strong enough to retain its form when turned out of the mould. The prejudice against Gelatine which existed in former years was doubtless caused by persons unacquainted with its qualities using too large a quantity, and producing a jelly hard, tough, and unpalatable, which compared very unfavourably with the delicate jellies they had been accustomed to make from calves' feet, the delicacy of which arose from the simple fact that the Gelatine derived from calves' feet is so weak that ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... are no doubt very unpalatable; and what makes them peculiarly offensive is, that it is impossible to refute them. For the deeper we penetrate into this question, the more clearly shall we see the superiority of intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling. There is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... bottom covered with flags and rushes. The lower half was clear, open water, rounding off at its lower end with a smooth, sandy beach, making it a very pretty thing to look at, but its water was so brackish as to be unpalatable for ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... Thackeray for recitation. He thought more of plot and stratagem than of humour, and used the latter, not for its own sake, but mostly to give brilliance to his narrative, to make his figures prominent, and his remarks salient. He thus silvers unpalatable truths, and although he disowns being a moralist, we generally see some substratum of earnestness peeping through the eddies of his fancy. With him, humour is subservient. And he speaks from his inner self, when he exclaims, "Oh, brother wearers ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... you, who are loved by so many young men, is founded on what I have frequently observed of ladies' ways at lunch, when they trifle with the lupin and the leek. In the leek no part is good, but the head is at any rate not so bad as the rest, and indeed not unpalatable; you, however, for the most part, following a depraved taste, hold it in your hand and munch the leaves, which are not only of no account but actually distasteful. How am I to know, madam, that in your selection ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... occasion throughout the voyage, by all those among us who could overcome the prejudice arising chiefly from the dark colour of the flesh. In no other respect that I could ever discover, is the meat of the walrus, when fresh-killed, in the slightest degree unpalatable. The heart ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the ladies retiring, some of us take a mixture of hot water, sugar, and pale French brandy, which is said to be deleterious, but is by no means unpalatable. One of the Indians offers a bundle of Bengal cheroots; and we make acquaintance with those honest bearded white-jacketed Majors and military Commanders, finding England here in a French hotel kept by an Italian, at the city ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mergansers are almost exclusively fish eating birds. Therefore their flesh is unpalatable and they are known as "Fish Ducks." They are also sometimes called "Sawbills" because of the teeth-like serration on both the upper and the under mandibles. Unlike the other species of ducks, their bills ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... vengeance for the slaughter of one of their kind. Crocodiles are animals of this sort. They are only found in hot countries, where, as a rule, food is abundant and primitive man has therefore little reason to kill them for the sake of their tough and unpalatable flesh. Hence it is a custom with some savages to spare crocodiles, or rather only to kill them in obedience to the law of blood feud, that is, as a retaliation for the slaughter of men by crocodiles. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... world under a hard and unpalatable law, "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." It is a bitter decree that is promulgated against us, "He that will not work, neither shall he eat." We all of us love to do our own will, and to be free from the manacles of restraint. What our hearts "find us to do," that we are disposed ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... of ideas is that of men trying to persuade themselves that special miracles of amiability are ever being worked, from the cradle to the grave, in their favor. Of the tremendous inconsistency and destructiveness which such miracles imply, they take no heed. The most unpalatable fact in physics is that of the Struggle ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... recklessness caused her to fear. If they were sick of the whole thing—well, what about it? What were they to do? They were in it, weren't they, up to their necks? Of two people who mutually recognised the plight, only one must foam and rage and stutter out unpalatable truths about it; it was for the other to pour on the oil, to deceive and pretend and propitiate and cajole, to try to keep things running and the creaking ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... that she would not throw her friend over. She was afraid to do so. But she was also becoming a little afraid of her friend,—afraid that she would be driven some day either to throw her over, or to say words to her that would be very unpalatable. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... asked for his opinion of Ormonde's appointment, he could find no more diplomatic answer than that "the King would do very ill in sending him, and the Duke would do much worse if he desired to go." Charles took the easiest course for one who wishes to push aside unpalatable advice: "the matter was decided, and there was nothing for it but to prepare instructions." Hyde was not to be turned aside; Ormonde, he urged, was needful to the King in London, and would be useless in Ireland. Hyde did not ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... funnels, with which they solemnly shovelled lime and flour out of bushel-baskets and down on the heads of the people in the street. They were packed into balconies all the way along the straight vista of the Corso, in which their calcareous shower maintained a dense, gritty, unpalatable fog. The crowd was compact in the street, and the Americans in it were tossing back confetti out of great satchels hung round their necks. It was quite the "you're another" sort of repartee, and less seasoned than I had hoped ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... "There's something mighty unpalatable going on," he said. "At first I thought Mifflin was the goat. I thought it might be some frame-up for swiping valuable books from his shop. But when I saw Weintraub come in here with his own latch-key, I got wise. He and Mifflin are in ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... Parian, with pine-apples, granadillas, bananas, pomegranates, and a durion blanda, are the "table decorations." The cuisine is almost too elaborate for a traveler's palate, but plain meat is rarely to be got, and even when procurable is unpalatable unless disguised. Curry is at each meal, but it is not made with curry powder. Its basis is grated cocoa-nut made into a paste with cocoa-nut milk, and the spices are added fresh. Turtles when caught are kept in ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... that crowded about her, threatening to embody themselves in her ruin. A clumsy, ridiculous fellow, she said to herself, from whose person she could never dissociate the smell of fish, who talked a horrible jargon called Scotch, and who could not be prevented from uttering unpalatable truths at uncomfortable moments; yet whose thoughts were as chivalrous as his person was powerful, and whose countenance was pleasing if only for the triumph of honesty therein: she actually felt stronger and safer to know he was near, and ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... conventional sense, she may be deeply hurt and lose her trust in her friend, if she by chance discovers her to have been in the house at the time. Nor is it always wise to truckle to sensibilities that may be foolish; blunt truthfulness, even if unpalatable, is often in the end the best service. There are cases where untruthfulness is shirking one's duty, just as there are cases where truthfulness ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... of the Dutch Governor showed that this statement, when translated, was evidently most unpalatable to him. After a ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... desired to become to this benighted beauty; but the desire was not worth entertaining, since I hardly expected to be many minutes longer on speaking terms with Mrs. Lascelles. I recalled the fact that it was I who had broached the subject of Bob Evers and his mother, together with my unpalatable motive for so doing. And I was seeking in my mind, against the grain, I must confess, for a short cut back to Bob, when Mrs. Lascelles ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... to frequent colds, or those in whom cough is persistent, should receive Peter Moeller's cod-liver oil, one-half to one teaspoonful, according to age, three times daily after eating. One of the emulsions may be used instead if the pure oil is unpalatable. Adenoids and enlarged tonsils are a fruitful source of constant colds and sore throat, and their removal is advisable (see p. 61). Hardening of the skin by daily sponge baths with cold salt water, while the child stands or sits in warm water, is effective as a preventive of colds, as is also ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... infrequent and well water unpalatable. Sea water is distilled, but the mineral and health-giving qualities are said to be absent. The water highly prized and sold is the rainwater caught in tanks. Hollowed out at the foot of the rock hills, there are numbers of peculiar construction, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... November. Those which the farmer leaves out as unsalable, and unpalatable to those who frequent the markets, are choicest fruit to the walker. But it is remarkable that the wild apple, which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields or woods, being brought into the house, has frequently ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... bringing back upon him also. I can only say that the task is both nauseous and unpromising. Look at him as he stands there before the foul, reeking, sloppy bar, with the glass in his hand, which he has just emptied. See the grimace with which he puts it down, as though the dram had been almost too unpalatable. It is the last touch of hypocrisy with which he attempts to cover the offence;—as though he were to say, "I do it for my stomach's sake; but you know how I abhor it." Then he skulks sullenly away, speaking a word to no one,—shuffling ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing truth. It was to save Wyllard's credit, and for that alone she had undertaken this most unpalatable task. She did not answer, and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... drawing-board and his slate doing dreadful sums, whereas Wendelin only studied two hours a day under a considerate tutor who gently coaxed him along the paths of learning. Everything that seemed difficult was carefully removed from his way, and everything that was unpalatable was coated with sugar before being presented to him. Thus even in school the fortunate child trod a path strewn with roses without thorns, and if he yawned now and then in his tutor's face, the latter could flatter himself that the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... their contents flow over the ground.[30] If the rabbis had such incidents in mind, crabbed utterances were not unjustifiable. Perhaps every rabbinical antagonist to woman's higher education was himself the victim of a learned wife, who regaled him, after his toilsome research at the academy, with unpalatable soup, or, worse still, with Talmudic discussions. Instances are abundant of erudite rabbis tormented by their wives. One, we are told, refused to cook for her husband, and another, day after day, prepared a certain dish, knowing that he would ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... aristocratic citizens, some of our white savans, repaid his truthful eloquence, by visiting upon him the bitterest maledictions. From the negro, said they, we will accept these statements as true,—from him, they are pertinent and forcible; but when such unpalatable truths are uttered by a white clergyman, we cannot abide, nor ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... two-thirds majority to overcome it, the veto prevailed. Thus President Johnson had won a victory over the Republican majority in Congress. This victory may have made him believe that he would be able to kill with his veto all legislation unpalatable to him, and that, therefore, he was actually master of the situation. He made the grave mistake ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... characters, by clothing with speech the animals of the field, the birds of the air, the trees of the wood, or the beasts of the forest, that the reader shall receive advice without perceiving the presence of the adviser. Thus the superiority of the counsellor, which often renders counsel unpalatable, is kept out of view, and the lesson comes with the greater acceptance when the reader is led, unconsciously to himself, to have his sympathies enlisted in behalf of what is pure, honorable, and praiseworthy, and to have his indignation excited against what ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... "you're rather like a dose of physic—wholesome but unpalatable. I'll get to work to-morrow. Now let's go and forage for some food. You've made me fearfully hungry—like a long sermon ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... of the situation decidedly more liberal than the facts warranted. Even after Eleanor had been served with the unpalatable truth, generously garnished with unpleasant gossip, she still clung to her belief in Harold and the conviction that he would be able to explain everything when she saw him. Quin's report of Madam's offer to send her to New York was received in noncommittal silence. She would ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable idea, "Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking: for me, you were always ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... among other things, with excellent mutton from a fat-tailed breed of sheep, chiefly for the largely Mohammedan population; but the sheep will not live in southern China, where the goat takes its place. The pig is found everywhere, and represents beef in our market, the latter being extremely unpalatable to the ordinary Chinaman, partly perhaps because Confucius forbade men to slaughter the animal which draws the plough and contributes so much to the welfare of mankind. The staple food, the "bread" of the people in the Chinese Empire, is nominally rice; but this is ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... but by dint of perseverance they managed to make a fire. Francois' grouse were plunged into the kettle. These, seasoned with wild onions, nasturtium, and prairie-turnips—which Lucien had gathered along the route,—made a dish that was far from unpalatable. The stock of bear-meat was not touched— with the exception of a small piece, which, with the heads and other refuse parts of the grouse, formed the supper of Marengo. As soon as they had finished eating, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... forests" had proved stronger than the whole of them; and, prostrate at the first round of the battle, they did not attempt another. They met the following morning. Bibulus told his story and appealed for support. Had the Senate complied, they would probably have ceased to exist. The oath was unpalatable, but they made the best of it. Metellus Celer, Cato, and Favonius, a senator whom men called Cato's ape, struggled against their fate, but, "swearing they would ne'er consent, consented." The unwelcome formula was swallowed by the whole of them; and Bibulus, who ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... a charge of murder, and was escaping under plea of clergy, was delivered by a special act into the hands of justice.[526] The leaven of the heretical spirit was still unsubdued. The queen dissolved her fourth parliament on the 9th of December; and several gentlemen who had spoken out with unpalatable freedom were seized and sent to the Tower. She was unwise, thought Noailles; such arbitrary acts were only making her day by day more detested, and, should opportunity offer, would ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... unfamiliar. Seeing the other break them with his teeth and eat the kernel, Tarzan followed the example thus set him, discovering the meat to be rich and well flavored. The dried flesh also was far from unpalatable, though it had evidently been jerked without salt, a commodity which Tarzan imagined might be rather difficult to ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... here, as always, from the tendency that makes the wish the father to the thought; or, in other words, we not infrequently shovel the unpalatable overboard, that we may lighten the ship, and ride out this or that squall without quite so much strain upon the sheet-anchor aforesaid. The majority of mankind believe, and will continue to believe, most staunchly in what they ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... it—because his mood in regard to it is the mood of the natural man; of the natural man, unsophisticated by false hopes, undated by vain assurance. His attitude towards death neither sweetens "the unpalatable draught of mortality" nor permits us to let go the balm of its "eternal peace." How frightful "to lie in cold obstruction and to rot; this sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod!" and yet, "after life's fitful fever," how blessed ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... perjury.[174] Later on, he declared with vehemence that his detention was without a shadow of legality, that his imprisonment ought not to continue for a single day, and that he ought to be compensated for the injury done him.[175] These may have been truths; but they were decidedly unpalatable, and the expediency of making these assertions to a prejudiced bench is at least doubtful. But expediency was not an arm that Luis de Leon could bring himself to use. He complained again and again of delays, attributing this loss of time to official mismanagement and ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... conviction that on no other condition should she be set free, though the recognition of Terry's voice made the command doubly unpalatable, and as she made the stiffest and most reluctant of ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dirty, damp, and cold, without a window or a fire. There was one old rickety bedstead, but as that belonged to the lady in our party, the rest betook themselves to benches, table, and floor. We filled our stomachs with an unpalatable potato soup containing cheese and eggs, and laid down—to wait for the morning. Grass is the only fuel here; but this is not the chief reason why it is so difficult to make good tea or cook potatoes at this wretched ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... England, and the rich proprietors and landholders of the Middle States, turned with alarm and horror from the levelling doctrines urged upon them by the "liberty and equality" propagandists of the South. The doctrines of Virginia were quite as unpalatable to Massachusetts at the beginning of the present century as those of Massachusetts now are to the Old Dominion. Democracy interfered with old usages and time-honored institutions, and threatened to plough up the very foundations of the social fabric. It was zealously opposed ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... bowl men and animals crawled like flies round the base of a pudding basin. From time to time the water kegs on the back of Juan's burro were sparingly tapped. At such times Buck Bellew never failed to be at Peggy's side with a tin cup of the warm, unpalatable stuff. But at least it was liquid, and Peggy thanked the man with as cheerful an air ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... necessary to make sandwiches several hours before they are needed. As they dry quickly they must be carefully wrapped or they will be unpalatable. Wring from cold water two ordinary tea towels; put one on top of the other. An old tablecloth will answer the purpose very well. As fast as the sandwiches are made put them on top of the damp towel; when you have the desired quantity, cover the top with ...
— Sandwiches • Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer
... it was time for the flattery. As if I couldn't extort that from any man. It's the A B C of our education. But the truth about one's self—the unpalatable, bitter truth—there's a sting of unexpected pleasure in hearing ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Samuel Parkes, Esq., and a small volume by my late lamented friend Sir Thomas Bernard, on the "Case of the Salt Duties, with Proofs and Illustrations." We are all sensible of the effect of salt on the human body; we know how unpalatable fresh meat and vegetables are without it. During the course of my professional practice, I have had frequent opportunities of witnessing the evils which have attended an abstinance from salt. In my examination before a committee of the House of Commons in 1818, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... Realism were qualities of Roman as distinguished from Greek culture. There was no self-delusion in Lucretius—no attempt, however unconscious, to compromise unpalatable truth, or to invest philosophy with the charm of myth. A hundred illustrations might be chosen to prove his method of setting forth thought with unadorned simplicity. These, however, are familiar to any one who has but opened the 'De Rerum Natura.' It is more profitable to trace this Roman ruggedness ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... been intrusted with its defense, completed the discomfiture of the Chinese. Pekin itself lay almost at the mercy of the invader, and, unless diplomacy could succeed better than arms, nothing would prevent the hated foreigners violating its privacy not merely with their presence, but in the most unpalatable guise of ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... came, and brought with it a most useful though unpalatable lesson to the St. Ambrosians. The Oriel boat was manned chiefly by old oars, seasoned in many a race, and not liable to panic when hard pressed. They had a fair, though not a first-rate stroke, and a good coxswain; experts remarked ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes |
