"Distasteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Chevalier, picking up his hat and thrusting his sword into its scabbard; "I dare say this moment is distasteful to us all." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... bear-skin. The bunk was a trifle less filthy than the floor; so upon its boards we spread first the skin, then our saddle-blankets, and, with a pair of saddle-bags for a bolster, I wrapped myself in my cloak, and resigned myself to my distasteful accommodations. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... if a new dish made its appearance, without stopping to feast his eyes upon it, exclaim something in German, and suck the inside of his mouth; but all so openly, and with such perfect good-humour, that it was diverting without anything distasteful. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of his distinguished fellow-citizens, but, on the other hand, when his supply of money would permit, enjoyed a drinking bout at the tavern with men of the sword all the more, rejoiced to hear his daughter's rare gifts lauded. The use of the graver was thoroughly distasteful and unsuited to his rank; but even the most laborious work gained a certain charm for his paternal heart when, while wiping the perspiration from his brow, he thought of what his diligence would allow him to devote to the adornment and instruction ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at Pisa one day related to Shelley the sad story of a beautiful and noble lady, the Contessina Emilia Viviani, who had been confined by her father in a dismal convent of the suburbs, to await her marriage with a distasteful husband." Shelley, fired as ever by a tale of tyranny, was eager to visit the fair captive. The professor accompanied him and Medwin to the convent parlor, where they found her more lovely than even ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... relations between the President and General Grant was not distasteful to the Republicans of the country. Indeed it had been earnestly desired by them. Many of those who were looking forward to General Grant's nomination as the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1868, had been ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... by one who had been a revolutionary was distasteful to the governor. "That day will be when I find the occasion opportune, my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... vexatious restraint was exercised over her—when there was no one to reprove her for dreaming, or to criticize or forbid her chosen book—that solitude had become distasteful to her. She was restless and dissatisfied, and the misty sunlit landscape had lost its charm, and her book its power ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... to Paris to make arrangements for publishing his novels, he stayed in the old lodgings of his family in the Rue du Roi Dore, and here he often met a friend, M. d'Assonvillez, to whom he confided his fear of being forced into an occupation distasteful to him. M. d'Assonvillez was sympathetic, advised him to seek for a business which would make him independent, and, carried away by Honore's powers of persuasion and eloquence, actually promised to proved the necessary funds. We can imagine Balzac's joy at this offer, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... had been asked to speak at the Forum! It was the most distasteful bit of information that had come Mrs. Salisbury's way in a long, long time! She felt in her heart a stinging resentment against Mrs. Sargent, with her mad notions of equality, and against Justine, who was so complacently ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... she was making trial of me for the purpose; but, for some reason or another, the desired result had never come about, and we had fallen into the present strange relations, which had led me to address her as I had done. At the same time, if my love was distasteful to her, why had she not FORBIDDEN me to speak of ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Monacello in casa—perhaps he has had the Fairy in the house—has passed into a local phrase to designate a neighbour's unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient of these favours must never blab or even hint at the origin of his good fortune, for all gossip is highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that, we suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic information can be gleaned as to the methods of ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... incarnate; and, were the evidence as copious as that for coincidental hallucinations of the living, or dying, it would be of extreme importance. But it is not so copious, and, granting even that it is accurate, various explanations not involving anything so distasteful to science as the action of a discarnate intelligence may be, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective. Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and alternately into the faces of its comrades. ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... both been so pleasant tempered," she remarked in conclusion, "Lulu neither grumbling nor so much as looking sour over her tasks, or even the sewing lessons, which I know are particularly distasteful to her. Dear child, you have been very good, and I know it will rejoice your father's heart to hear it," she added, kissing the little ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... the word, the latter endurable, but the young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to involuntary likings and dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and though the man may be in every way amiable, his presence is very distasteful ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the gentleman, and then yielding it reluctantly with its distasteful three-year-old honour, "Sir ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... previous experience it was well understood that such agreements as these, far more drastic than any which had yet been tried, would prove ineffective if they remained purely voluntary associations; and what made the non-intercourse policy of the First Congress distasteful to conservative men were the measures taken to enforce it. To this end it was provided that there should be appointed in "every county, city, and town" a committee of inspection "whose business ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... regard the possession of some of the most ordinary inventions of civilization on the part of the officials of the Company as clearly demonstrating a close affinity between these gentlemen and the Manitou, nor were these attributes of divinity altogether distasteful to the officers, who found them both remunerative as to trade and conducive to the exercise of authority. When, however, the Free Traders and the missionary reached the Saskatchewan this primitive state of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... When they sat down to play cards, he, lisping and choking with laughter, said that all that "dear George" wanted to complete his domestic felicity was a cherry-wood pipe and a guitar. Pekarsky laughed sedately, but from his serious expression one could see that Orlov's new love affair was distasteful to him. He did not understand ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... epigrams. One of the most pleasant of his poems is an epistle to his friend Paulus Silentiarius, written from a country house on the opposite coast of the Bosporus, where he had retired to pursue his legal studies away from the temptations of the city. He tells us himself that law was distasteful to him, and that his time was chiefly spent in the study of ancient poetry and history. In later life he seems to have returned to Myrina, where he carried out improvements in the town and was regarded as the most distinguished of the citizens (/Anth. Pal./ ix. 662). He is believed to have ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... artistic production than ever came from Molly's work-basket. Once she consulted Mrs. Carew about the colour of a skein of wool, but otherwise showed no inclination to avoid topics in any manner connected with Christian, despite the fact that these were obviously distasteful to her family. In all that she said, indifference was blended in a singular way ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... sight of the fourth Flavia's face fell. Luke Asgill of Batterstown was the nearest Justice, and of necessity he was a Protestant. But it was not this fact, nor the certainty that Augustin was pouring his wrongs into his ears, that affected Flavia. Asgill was distasteful to her, because her brother affected him. For why should her brother have relations with a Protestant? Why should he, a man of the oldest blood, stoop to intimacy with the son of a "middleman," the son of one of those ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... and persons. Though his liking for animals was so strong, yet one fierce day in early summer, as he walked along a narrow road, he had seen the snakes breeding, and ever afterwards avoided that place and its ugly associations, for there was something in the incident which made food distasteful and his sleep uneasy for many days afterwards. The memory of it however had almost passed away, when at the corner of a street in Pisa, he came upon an African showman exhibiting a great serpent: once more, as the reptile writhed, the former painful impression ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt her: "I am very diffident about saying this to you—to a man so justly celebrated—pre-eminent in the greatest of all ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... Sophie," broke in the Count hotly, "you talk par Dieu, as if I was forcing my only child into a distasteful marriage." ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... promise restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him again to quit his court,—this time peremptorily,—adding, that the United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... be imagined, this independence of spirit was most distasteful to the vain and fickle queen; but Sidney's grace and talents and personal beauty rendered him a courtier with whom she was unwilling to dispense. The queen had favored him for these lesser gifts, but the great ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... together with certain other documents, he was cordially received by Sir Peregrine. He dined and spent the evening at the Cottage. In the course of conversation he referred to the project of establishing a Court of Equity—which by this time was no secret—and was surprised to find that the theme was distasteful to his host, who, in a tone not to be misunderstood, remarked: "Sir, you have not got your Court of Equity yet." "The words," wrote Mr. Willis,[96] "made some impression at the time, and subsequent events tended to throw further light ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... thought well to call us 'half civilised,'" the speaker went on. "Can it be that uncivilised is something distasteful to or not understood by Europeans and Americans? We have the ambition to erect some system of Eastern civilisation. It is possible that we may have it in our minds to call some things in Europe 'half civilised.' Surely the barbarians are usually the people other than ourselves. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... the over-population was at least as dense in the epoch of lords and ladies, and that nowadays some customs which made Edinburgh notorious of yore have been fortunately pretermitted. But an aggregation of comfort is not distasteful like an aggregation of the reverse. Nobody cares how many lords and ladies, and divines and lawyers, may have been crowded into these houses in the past—perhaps the more the merrier. The glasses clink around the china punch-bowl, some one touches the virginals, there are peacocks' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hard-working; while the Dog took old age, which is the reason why old men are so often peevish and ill-tempered, and, like dogs, attached chiefly to those who look to their comfort, while they are disposed to snap at those who are unfamiliar or distasteful to them. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... days of business employment proved a novel and trying experience. To a young girl accustomed to the quiet and exclusiveness of private life, the noise and promiscuousness of a public hotel corridor were singularly distasteful. The men ogled her; the women guests tried her patience. A pretty girl, it was only natural that she should attract attention from the men, but the persistent manner in which they stared, and tried to make acquaintance, annoyed her beyond ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... her scrimp figure, with its ill-fitting uniform, Heaven knows how long she went on. I was distracted by a clergyman passing on the outside of the ring of listening women and children, and looking, I chose to think, somewhat sourly askance at the distasteful ceremonial. I wished to stop him, on his way to the Minster, if that was his way, and tell him that so Christianity must have begun, and so the latest form of it must always begin and work round after ages and ages ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... A glorious infirmity then! And the peculiar sweetness which praise brings is grounded in the consciousness of our weakness. In certain regions of my life, it is true, goodness has become fairly natural; and there of course praise strikes me as ill-adjusted and distasteful. I do not like to have my manners praised, my honesty, or my diligence. But there are other tracts where I know I am still in the stage of conscious effort. In this extensive region, aware of my feebleness and hearing an inward call to greater heights, it will always be cheering to ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... of humanity to Ireland was not more distasteful to the electors of Bristol than a small instalment of toleration to Roman Catholics in England. A measure was passed (1778) repealing certain iniquitous penalties created by an Act of William the Third. It is needless ...
— Burke • John Morley
... long sermons to fashionable congregations, are distasteful to most readers, and in no very high favor with us. A deep interest in the welfare of South Carolina, and the high esteem in which we held the better, and more sensible class of her citizens, prompted us to sit down in Charleston, some four ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Soon these would leap on him, and that with an ugly clamour which he consciously turned from in repulsion and weary disgust. For he was very tired, as he now realized. The anxiety endured during his tedious cross-country journey, the distasteful tragic-comedy of the scene de seduction so artlessly made him by unlucky Theresa Bilsen, followed by this prolonged vigil; lastly the very real tragedy—for such it in great measure remained and must remain—of his interview with Damaris and the re-living of long buried drama that interview ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Phanes, "that I have no longing for my beloved Athens, for the scenes of our youthful games, for the busy life of the market? Truly, the bread of exile is not less distasteful to my palate than to yours, but, in the society afforded by this house, it loses some of its bitterness, and when the dear melodies of Hellas, so perfectly sung, fall on my ear, my native land rises before me as in a vision, I see its pine and olive groves, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... English Excellency at Berlin, busy intriguing little creature, became distasteful there, long since; and they had to take him away: "recalled," say the Documents, "22d January, 1751." Upon which, no doubt, he made a noise in Downing Street; and got, it appears, "re-credentials to Berlin, 4th March, 1751;" [Manuscript LIST in State-Paper ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... time the enthusiastic usurer had said his say and had his audience, and was straightway pushed on one side. Then my usurer, not knowing me, though indeed I knew him, or not liking the looks of me, as indeed his looks were distasteful to me, for I think a man's money greed is ever written in bitter ink upon the parchment of his face, passed away into the crowd beyond. Thereafter there accosted Messer Folco a man whose name I knew at the time but for the life of me I cannot recall it now, and all that I can remember of him ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... arrangements of the bees, and even to the imitative capacity of the magpie, he pays no higher tribute to the merits of the cat than that she is as capable of being amused as himself, and like himself, too, has her periods of gravity when recreative sports are distasteful. Her social qualities he does not allude to, though he, so eminently social himself, could scarcely have failed to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... illustrations cut out from Comic Cuts, the Police News, and various other publications of a similar order. As Burton looked around him, his distaste grew. It seemed impossible that he had ever existed for an hour amid such an environment. The prospect of the future was suddenly hugely distasteful. ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Perdiccas was marching homeward with the infant king, who was named, like his father, Alexander; and he knew that the general wanted to place the child on the Macedonian throne. This plan was very distasteful to Antipater. He was not at all afraid of the infant Alexander, but he knew that Perdiccas would want to be regent, and ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... on, and Copperheads live only in history, an evidence of how low men may sink in the scale of morality, and a warning to all future time. For the writer to have hesitated in a course of duty so plain, and yet so distasteful would have been criminal, cowardly, and unworthy of an American citizen. The advantage gained was followed up unremittingly, by day and by night, for many weary months, regardless of all professional ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... offence, and had attempted suicide, he was still irresistible, and he was discharged with several years of imprisonment to run. But, in truth, he was born for honour and distinction, and common actions, common criminals, were in the end distasteful to him. In his heyday he stooped no further than to employ such fences as might profitably dispose of his booty, and the two partners of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... task, and Mr. Polly sat beside him like a pupil, watching the evolution of the grey, distasteful figures that were to ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... eloquence, and his zeal, together with the perfect safety of action that he found in Switzerland, were the necessary qualifications. The need for a Bible was at first met by the version of Lefevre, printed in 1532. But the Catholic spirit of this work, based on the Vulgate, was distasteful to the evangelicals. Farel asked Olivetan, an excellent philologist, to make a new version, which was completed by February 1535. Calvin wrote the preface for it. It was dedicated to "the poor little church of God." In doctrine ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... was the trip to New Orleans. The general man and me got to be cronies of the deepest dye. Bananas we ate until they were distasteful to the sight and an eyesore to the palate, but to bananas alone was the bill of fare reduced. At night I crawls out, careful, on the lower deck, and gets a ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... examine with any minuteness her feelings towards him: but one thing she had known clearly since their first meeting—that he was physically distasteful to her. For all his good looks, and in his rather sinister way he was a handsome man, she had shrunk from him. Now, spirited away by the magic of the dance, that repugnance had left her. It was as if some barrier had been broken down ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... by D'Avenant to Betterton; but Rowe, to whom Betterton must have told it, does not transmit it. Rowe was perhaps right to forget it or leave it out; though the story is not in itself incredible. Such work must have been infinitely distasteful to Shakespeare, but necessity is a hard master, and Greene, who talks of him later as "Shake-scene," also speaks in the same connection of these "grooms." The curious amplified version of the story that Shakespeare organized a service of boys to hold the horses is ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Japan loves change for the sake of change, China dislikes it, and will only adopt it when it is clearly demonstrated to her that change is absolutely necessary. To the Japanese change appears to be a delightful excitement, to the Chinese a distasteful necessity; to the former whatever is must be wrong, to the latter whatever is is right. As a consequence of this difference between the two peoples, when China once makes a step forward it is generally after much deliberation, and is never retraced. Japan is constantly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... England, that he should not need them now, he had no intention of exasperating them. As to Spain, the King was simply waiting for overtures from Madrid. Raleigh, who was never a politician, saw nothing of all this, and merely used every opportunity he had of gaining the King's ear to urge his distasteful projects of a war. On the last occasion when, so far as we know, Raleigh had an interview with James, they were both the guests of Raleigh's uncle, Sir Nicholas Carew, at Bedingfield Park. It would seem that he had already placed in the royal hands the ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... the other's inquiring disposition, though it had different effects on the elder and younger character. Jane Mohun suspected that she had on her ferret look, and guessed that Gillian's disgusted air meant that the idea of her turning over Lady Merrifield's drawers was almost as distasteful as that ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in later years, when it might have been modified by time, was always more ready for a rapid march, a brilliant flank movement, or something of that kind. But though the trench-work must have been wearisome and distasteful to a degree, he threw himself heart and soul into it, meriting the following praise from Colonel Chesney, an eminent engineer officer: "In his humble position as an engineer subaltern he had attracted the notice of his superiors, not merely by his energy and activity (for these are not, it may ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... honesty have been; you, sir, are the only person living that ever was more than indifferent to me: and before I knew this to be what I blush now to call it, I could not hate you, or wish you ill, though, from my soul, the attempts you made were shocking, and most distasteful ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... place to make reply, or reason why when receiving orders, however; and it seems that the task imposed was a distasteful one; as, at the time of the banishment, he earnestly expressed the desire "to be rid of the worst piece of service" ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... and went out with the intention of going down the river to see old Master Rayburn, and ask him whether he had received the egg. But before he had gone far, the memories of the whole business seemed so distasteful, and he felt so much annoyed with himself, that ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... was twelve years old when he was engaged to the widow of his brother Arthur. At fourteen he protested against the marriage, which was distasteful to him, but at eighteen he married Katherine, the aunt of the Emperor Charles V. Cardinal Wolsey would have gladly brought about a divorce, for he wished for a successor to the throne in order to keep the power in his own ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... spent many happy vacations in summers past. The last two years he had attended the State College, taking the course in agriculture, and had worked in a grocery store in the village during the summer vacations, but this work had been distasteful to him—he missed the freedom of outdoor life, especially the birds and animals so plentiful on the farm. So this year, as his father could not afford to have him complete the course, he had asked permission to go on a farm. His two years in the State College had opened ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... transaction. The sale rendered it necessary for all the Indians to locate on the south side of the Minnesota, where game was scarce and trapping poor. There was nothing for them to live upon unless they adopted the habits of civilization and worked like white men. This was very distasteful to many of them, as they wanted to live the same as they did before the treaty—go where they pleased, when they pleased, and hunt game and sell fur to traders. The government built houses for those who desired ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... it has been an interesting morning bright with the activities out of which the future is to be made. The element of hope has predominated, but now comes a visitor who wishes to see me upon the one part of my duties and responsibilities which is distasteful to me—the exercise of patronage. He has been unloaded upon me by an influential person, upon whom he has more legitimate claims than upon the Department. He has prepared the way for a favourable ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... herself to the fruitless bribery she had practised upon Temistocle. But she had gained her end, even at the expense of permitting Del Ferice to publish her engagement to marry him. She felt that she could break it off if she decided at last that the union was too distasteful to her; but she foresaw that, from the point of worldly ambition, she would be no great loser by marrying a man of such cunning wit, who possessed such weapons against his enemies, and who, on the whole, as she believed, entirely sympathised with her view of life. She recognised ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... marry against her father's wishes, but she could leave the home now so distasteful to her. She had saved only a small sum from her mother's fortune, amounting to about one hundred dollars per year. With this, she retired to the Convent of the Congregation, and shut herself up with her books, and received only her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... care to be a practicing physician," Beason declared, "just for that reason. That sort of business would be very distasteful to me." ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... might be repelled by the generally received dogmas, they saw no way of escaping from them, save by the adoption of suppositions, so little justified by experiment or by observation, as to be at least equally distasteful. ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to breakfast in good spirits. He saw a way out of his difficulties. Though he had no false pride, he felt that a blacksmith's life would be distasteful to him. He was fond of study, and had looked forward to a college course. Now this was out of the question. It seemed that he was as poor as his friend, Dan Clark, with his own way to make in the world. When he left school, at the beginning of the vacation, he supposed that he would inherit a competence. ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... present Sultan, shows that, in some respects, at least, he is not indisposed to follow up the strong traditions of his race. At the beginning of his reign, the Ulema was resolved, if possible, to prevent the new Sultan from carrying on those reforms which had ever been so distasteful to the Turks, grating at once against their religious associations and their pride of race, and which recent events had certainly proved not to be productive of those good results anticipated by Sultan Mamoud. To attain this object, the Muftis adopted the expedient of working on ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... tolerably well-flavored, and are but slightly inferior to good linseed-cake. Most varieties of this cake, however, contain a small proportion of acrid matter, which often renders them more or less distasteful to stock, more particularly to cattle. This substance may be rendered quite innocuous by steaming or boiling the cake; either of these processes will also, according to Mr. Lawrence, destroy the disagreeable flavor which mustard-seed—a frequent adulterant of rape-cake—confers ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... were said to be caused by a small corked bottle of brandy, and the nature of a cat by a corked bottle of valerian. Patients also saw beautiful blue flames about the north pole of a magnet and distasteful red flames about the south pole; while by means of a magnet it was said that the symptoms of illness of a sick patient might be transferred to a well person also in the hypnotic state, but of course on awaking the well person at once threw off sickness ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... hungry (and I have heard of similar instances), she first tosses it about and worries it, as if it were a rat or other prey; she then repeatedly rolls on it precisely as if it were a piece of carrion, and at last eats it. It would appear that an imaginary relish has to be given to the distasteful morsel; and to effect this the dog acts in his habitual manner, as if the biscuit was a live animal or smelt like carrion, though he knows better than we do that this is not the case. I have seen this same terrier act ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... reason the subject appeared to be distasteful to Jessup, and Buck asked no more questions. Instead of following the others into the bunk-house they strolled on along the bank of the creek, which was lined with fair-sized cottonwoods. The sun had set, but the glow of it still lingered in ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... constitution altogether, or, which was more to be feared, by irremediably injuring the action of the brain. He resolved, however, to let him satisfy his conscience by reading the book; hoping, by the introduction of other objects of thought and feeling, to render it so distasteful, that he would be in little danger of yielding a similar pledge again, even should the temptation return, which ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... a work of art, and all his activities and poetic aspirations were subordinated to this end. The beautiful harmonious life is the true life, the well-rounded whole from which must be banished everything narrow, vulgar, and distasteful, and in which {108} everything fair and noble must find expression. 'Each individual,' says Schiller, 'is at once fitted and destined for a pure ideal manhood.' And the attainment of this ideal requires from us the most zealous self-culture and ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... loyal citizens. The national airs were frequently sung in the schools, and other exercises introduced, calculated to impregnate the youthful minds of the pupils with affection for their country. It appears that this feature of the public schools was distasteful to that class of people with whose ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... The subject was distasteful to Jim. He put it aside hastily. 'If I worked with you in this scheme for disposing of the gold you would run the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "Is my confession distasteful to you, Violet?" he gravely asked, when he could command himself to speak. "I was led to believe—I hoped that it would meet with a ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... retains, and this I already knew. As to myself I cannot remember that I spoke a word, though doubtless I did. Of one thing I am distinctly conscious: the man's presence at my side was strangely distasteful and disquieting—so much so that when I at last pulled up under the lights of the Putnam House I experienced a sense of having escaped some spiritual peril of a nature peculiarly forbidding. This sense of relief was somewhat modified by the discovery ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... night unless at least four persons were present. The defection of her two principal guests obliged her therefore to make suitable apologies and return to her evening visiting among former friends; for old maids find their own company so distasteful that they prefer to seek the doubtful ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... school in a suburb of London and upon his return to America entered the University of Virginia, a proud, reserved, and self-willed youth. Here he led an irregular life, so that Mr. Allan was forced to withdraw him from school and gave him work in his office. The routine of office work was very distasteful to Poe and he ran away to Boston, where he published his first volume of poems. Here he enlisted in the army, but when Mr. Allan heard of his whereabouts he secured his discharge and obtained an appointment for him, as a cadet, at West Point. ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... beautiful being who was to him its charm. When, however, that fair form had departed from his sight, he was awakened to the delusive nature of his hopes, and with the knowledge, exquisite even in its despair, that he loved Emmeline Hamilton, his profession became more and more distasteful. Had he followed the paths of ambition, as his inclination prompted, had he but had the means of seeking some station whence he might at length have risen to eminence, he cared not what the obstacles, his union with her might not ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... before I enlisted was "to spruce." This is almost, if not quite, a blend of "swinging the lead" and "doing a mike." To spruce is to dodge duty or to deceive. A man who contrived to slip out of the ranks of a squad when they were performing some distasteful task would be said to "spruce off." Or he would be denounced as a "sprucer" if he managed to arrive late for his meal and yet, by a trick, to secure a front place in the waiting queue at the canteen. A word in constant employment, ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... that no bar had been raised against Saturday. "You ought to have known," said Sir Thomas. Nevertheless, he allowed them to leave the chamber with the understanding that he would preside at his own table on the following day. "Why is it that Saturday is so distasteful to him?" Mary asked as they walked across Lincoln's ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... this distasteful and wearisome crowd of wintry folk is there to be encountered a man who has altogether proved a failure. But if he has done so, he will be found to be a man whose nature is of a more thoughtful, a more truly existent, a more clear-sighted cast than that of his fellows—a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... the room and attacked the mushy stuff hungrily. Everything is grist which comes to a small boy's digestive mill, anyway, and the food wasn't really distasteful. Then he lay back and, for the first time in his active life, realized what a refined torture complete and ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Work dealing exclusively in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We see this thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifying publicity; forced to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelled to exploit the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personally distasteful to him but whose whole method and school in ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... king particularly wished to save it, the nuns having been favourites of his mother. To Cavour, Victor Emmanuel's resistance had seemed simply a fit of superstitious folly; he did not sufficiently realise how distasteful the whole affair must be to a man like the king, who said to General Durando when he was starting for the Crimea, "You are fortunate, General, in going to fight the Russians, while I stay here to fight monks and ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... frequently have recourse to jhar phoonk, or mesmerism, for the cure of rheumatism; but many interesting things arc carefully concealed from the English, because we invariably ridicule or sneer at native customs—a mode of treatment peculiarly distasteful to the inhabitants of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... merciful conduct, and declared that the duty had been distasteful, but that as soldiers they must act ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... own parish church having also gone to decay. This gentleman was doubly allied to the Cromwell family, his first wife being great-grand-daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchinbrooke, and his second wife daughter of Henry Cromwell, of Upwood. He had been sent upon a distasteful embassy to Holland, where he experienced many indignities; and on his return, according to Mark Noble,[16] "he protested, that all the favour which he received in reward for this embassy, was, that he obtained the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... struck him as he went into the entrance hall was a scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him; there were some high travelling-trunks standing there. The face of his groom, who ran out to meet him, seemed strange to him. Not stopping to analyse his impressions, he crossed the threshold of the drawing room.... On his entrance there rose from ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... mistakes in a silly old game that did nobody any good as far as she could see. Anyhow, her afternoon was spoiled now, and she began to wish that basket-ball had never been invented. The very idea of action grew more and more distasteful, but at the sound of the three o'clock bell she got up very reluctantly and crossed over to the basket-ball court. Fortunately she was dressed ready for the game, since at four o'clock she was due ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... English being distasteful to the Bretons, they continually rebelled against it; though, as far as can be known, the English were no hard task-masters, forcing them, as the Egyptians did the Israelites, to make ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... pursuing a very independent policy in many respects, as when, for example, it persisted in allowing none but members of the Congregational church to vote. This measure, by which it was intended to preserve the Puritan policy unchanged, was extremely distasteful to the British government. At length in 1684 the Massachusetts charter was annulled, an attempt was made to suppress town-meetings, and the colony was placed under a military viceroy, Sir Edmund Andros. After a brief period of despotic rule, the Revolution in England worked a change. In 1692 Massachusetts ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... themselves do not fill to their satisfaction all the hours of a lifetime. Having provided no books nor learned to practise any art, the time hangs heavily on their hands. They dare not look forward into the future, so blank and cheerless does it appear. The past is even more distasteful to them. So, to fill the void in their hearts, they hurry out into the crowd as a ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... Darnley; but the match which Mary most wished for, and the most threatening to Elizabeth, was that with the vicious young lunatic, Don Carlos, the heir of Philip of Spain. The match with Darnley, too, as he was in the English succession, was distasteful to Elizabeth; but in order to divert the Spanish match—which, really, though she knew it not, was out of the question—she pretended to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... me as though I were her dear younger brother. Nobody, not even her father or mine, or Monsieur Leblanc, took the slightest notice of this queer relationship, or seemed to dream that it might lead to ultimate complications which, in fact, would have been very distasteful to them all for reasons that ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Lesley was gone he would give up a house altogether, establish his sister in a flat, throw journalism to the winds, and go abroad. The life that he had led so long, the life of London offices and streets, of the study and the committee-room, had become distasteful to him. As he thrust away from him the manuscript at which he had been busy, his lips were, half unconsciously, murmuring a very ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Charlotte Grenfell, the Argemone of Yeast, a lady of somewhat wilful, yet most brilliant spirit, with a small fortune of her own. Miss Grenfell had joined the Church of Rome two years before, and at that time thought of entering a convent. This idea was extremely distasteful to her sister and her sister's husband. Their favourite remedy for feminine caprice was marriage, and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Grenfell become Mrs. Froude. There were some difficulties in the way, for Froude's prospects were by no means assured, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... that Mr. Cobden exercised, on the occasion, "a real influence over him." The Premier refused the Committee, but remained silent; Sidney Herbert it was whom his chief entrusted with the arduous duty of replying to the great Leaguer. In the course of his speech he said, "it would be distasteful to the agriculturists to come whining to Parliament at every period of temporary distress; but in adverse circumstances they would meet them manfully, and put their shoulder ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Secretion of saliva increased by mercury in the blood. 1. By the food in the mouth. Dryness of the mouth not from a deficiency of saliva. 2. By Sensitive ideas. 3. By volition. 4. By distasteful substances. It is secreted in a dilute and saline state. It then becomes more viscid. 5. By ideas of distasteful substances. 6. By nausea. 7. By aversion. 8. By catenation with stimulating substances in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... daily alternation of repose and action, are no less grateful than imperative. That life may be sustained, and most of its functions performed, without any coincident enjoyment, is certainly possible. Our food may be distasteful, action painful, and rest unrefreshing; and yet we may eat, and exercise, and sleep, nay, live thus for years. But this is not our natural condition, and we call it disease. Were man a mere animal, the very act of living, in his natural or healthy state, would be to him a continuous enjoyment. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston |
