"Unamiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hour, had I thought of women as objects of a possible interest or of a reverential love. I had known them either in their infirmities and their unamiable aspects, or else in those sterner relations which made them objects of ungenial and uncompanionable feelings. Now first it struck me that life might owe half its attractions and all its graces to female companionship. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... calculated to depreciate and disparage them. And with respect even to the works of Nature, and the dispensations of Providence, they are more ready to see and to point out evils, than to acknowledge advantages. This temper—this habit of disparagement—is certainly very unamiable; and justly offensive, not only to those who are run down by it as its immediate objects, but to all who witness it. A man who consults his own comfort, or the comfort of those with whom he associates, should be ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... not agreed to that he inherited his father's grace of manner however. He was a definitely unamiable boy, if one might judge from appearances. He always wore a dark little scowl, as if he were either on the point of falling into a secret rage or making his way out of one; instead of allowing himself to be admired ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... George Gissing to point out the glaring fact that in the remarkable set of life studies of XIXth century women to be found in the novels of Dickens, the most convincingly real ones are either vilely unamiable or comically contemptible; whilst his attempts to manufacture admirable heroines by idealizations of home-bred womanhood are not only absurd but not even pleasantly absurd: one has ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... upright and indulgent person might be tempted to believe it was a proper regard and tenderness for the purity of his character; but others, not quite so considerate, would suspect, and perhaps with a nearer semblance of truth, that the unamiable spouse was instigated by a less honorable motive. It was a fact, not to be contradicted, that Marien Rufa and her once beloved Aboukar, at present detested as cordially as they had formerly loved each other; which curious phenomenon in the condition ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... guilty of having wished he would step straight back into them. He was a very surly fellow, very rugged and gruff. He was the antithesis of pleasant little Maltby. I used to think that perhaps he would have been less unamiable if success had come to him earlier. He was thirty years old when his book was published, and had had a very hard time since coming to London at the age of sixteen. Little Maltby was a year older, and so had waited a year longer; but then, he had ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... have been only too glad to put some of his own work on the shoulders of another, had it not been for the vexatious thought that he would be giving pleasure by so doing where he only wanted to annoy. And in his very unamiable disposition malice was a stronger quality ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... best displays of brilliant impudence was perpetrated on a Welsh judge, who was alike notorious for his greed of office and his want of personal cleanliness. "My dear sir," Jekyll observed in his most amiable manner to this most unamiable personage, "you have asked the minister for almost everything else, why don't you ask him for a piece of soap ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... have sometimes heard a girl say, "I know that I am very unpopular at school." Now, this is a plain confession that she is very disobliging and unamiable ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... Lancelot, with the whimsical expression that sometimes flashed across his face even in his most unamiable moments. "You must deduct the Thalers I made in exhibitions. As for living in cheap lodgings, I am not at all certain it's an economy, for every now and again it occurs to you that you are saving an awful lot, and you take a hansom on the strength ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... Spain. "From that dust," concluded the Duke, "has resulted all this dirt." It could hardly be matter of surprise, either to Philip or his Viceroy, that the discovery by Elizabeth of a plot upon their parts to take her life and place the crown upon the head of her hated rival, should have engendered unamiable feelings in her bosom towards them. For the moment, however, Alva's negotiations were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... house. Another zemindar, named Ganesh, dwelt in the Haripur district; he had one unmarried daughter, Hembati, who was given to Debendra in marriage. Hembati had many virtues; she was ugly, ill-tempered, unamiable, selfish. Up to the time of his marriage with her, Debendra's character had been without stain. He had been very studious, and was by nature steady and truth-loving. But that marriage had been fatal to him. When Debendra came to years of ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... the soldier, and we are sorry to record a speech representing him in a light so unamiable, "I don't see what right I have to release him; and I really have not the least inclination to do so. The rascal is the cause of all our difficulties; and, if evil should happen us, he will be the cause of that too. But for him, we should be now safe with our party. And besides, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... of 1638. On June 1 Morton was tried for guilty foreknowledge of Darnley's death. He was executed deservedly, and his head was stuck on a spike of the Tolbooth. The death of this avaricious, licentious, and resolute though unamiable Protestant was a heavy blow to the preachers and their party, and a crook in ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... that this would happen, and finding her, to my sorrow, a hundred times more beautiful than I had at first imagined; feeling too so very melancholy when she was absent, so joyous when near, I took upon myself to play the UNAMIABLE, in the idea that this would remove all danger by making her leave off the same affectionate and familiar manner. This innocent stratagem was tried in vain; the poor girl was so patient, so full of compassion for me. She would look at me in silence, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... an animal of note, and called General Jackson, from the fact of his licking up everything that came in his way, and taking 'the responsibility' on all occasions. He was a wicked looking beast, very lean and unamiable in aspect, with hair all standing the wrong way. He had fought some fifty bulls (so they said), always coming out victorious, but that neither one of the fifty had been an Attakapas bull, the bills of the performances did not say. Had he tackled Attakapas first it is likely ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... mean that it seems entirely delightful, appropriate, seemly, and beautiful. It pleases every sense; it is done just as it should be done, easily, courteously, gently, pleasantly, with a confidence which is yet modest, and with a rightness that has nothing rigid or unamiable about it. To see a thing so done, whatever it may be, leaves us with an envious desire that we might do the thing in the same way. It seems easy and effortless, and the one thing worth doing; and this ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... And as for humility, the boast of a child is the frankest thing in the world. A child's natural vanity is not merely the delight in his own possessions, but the triumph over others less fortunate. If this emotion were not so young it would be exceedingly unamiable. But the truth must be confessed that having very quickly learnt the value of comparison and relation, a child rejoices in the perception that what he has is better than what his brother has; this comparison is a means of judging ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... who was employed in a large toy and fancy goods establishment in the neighbourhood of Westbourne Grove, was tall and slim, with pale eyes and auburn hair. She had some claims to good looks, in spite of a slightly pasty complexion, and a large and decidedly unamiable mouth. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... days Bartley was in almost uninterrupted good humor, as he had always expected to be when he became fairly prosperous. He was at no time an unamiable fellow, as he saw it; he had his sulks, he had his moments of anger; but generally he felt good, and he had always believed, and he had promised Marcia, that when he got squarely on his legs he should feel good perpetually. This sensation he now agreeably realized; and he was also now ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... replied Swinton; "at all events, up to the present time they have been unsuccessful. It is an animal of most unamiable disposition, that is certain; and I would rather encounter ten lions, if all that they say of it is true. But it is time for us to go to bed. Those fires are getting rather low. Who ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... will become the Alsatia of humanity, the refuge for all those men and women people would rather see Somewhere Else, and whose travelling expenses they will perchance defray. Imagination reels before the horror of such an agglomeration of the unamiable. And the terrible thing about my terrestrial paradise is that there is no escaping from it. Everything has the defects of its qualities, and this is the reverse of the dazzling medal—the drawback which annuls all the advantages of Somewhere ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... intemperance of his regard for artifice. 'Le dandy,' says Baudelaire, 'doit aspirer a etre sublime sans interruption. Il doit vivre et dormir devant un miroir.' That, you are tempted to believe, is Mr. Meredith's theory of expression. 'Ce qu'il y a dans le mauvais gout,' is elsewhere the opinion of the same unamiable artist in paradox, 'c'est le plaisir aristocratique de deplaire.' Is that, you ask yourself, the reason why Mr. Meredith is so contemptuous of the general public?—why he will stoop to no sort of concession nor permit himself ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... as well as that of my dear husband; at any rate it is a sacrifice to God, which I trust will be accepted, and, both in a private and a public view, be overruled for the glory of God. I am sure, notwithstanding some repeated attempts to reconcile me to this affair, I must have appeared very unamiable to you; but the fact was simply this, I could not see you or converse with you, without so much emotion as quite unnerved me, therefore I studiously avoided you; but did you know the happiness which dear Mr. Marsden and I have ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of forbidden fruit, and which among prudish people goes by the name of modesty. It was refreshing. Charles Lamb himself would have enjoyed it, and, I should hope, would have added some qualifying footnotes to a certain unamiable essay of his concerning the behavior ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... juster action, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith, in man or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was in many respects ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... prepared to risk his crown, possibly his head, for any Pope who ever lived; nor did the project of providing a French bride for his successor, the Duke of York, promise much better. Louis proposed the Duchess of Guise, his own cousin; but James had heard too much of this unamiable and unattractive Princess from his sister, Henrietta, to relish the venture. The Duchess herself suggested a Princess of Lorraine, as a suitable bride, but Louis, who had no love for the d'Elboeuf ladies, nipped this ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... muttering from the window, and in a moment appeared at a door on the left, disclosing himself now fully as a degraded, flaccid-looking, frouzy ruffian of a very low type, flashily dressed, and of a most unamiable expression. Taking a candlestick from a dirty marble-topped slab that projected from the passage-wall, he struck a match, lit the candle, and preceded them up the narrow flight of stairs, his boots creaking loudly at every ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... thought until the midnight car carried them back to Annapolis, where Paul "clomb" the wall at the water's edge and "snoke" into quarters (in Bancroft's vernacular) in the wee, sma' hours, a weary, disgusted and unamiable youth. Perhaps had he suspected what was happening back at Columbia Heights his prompt oblivion in slumber would not have taken place, though Paul was a philosopher in his way. Helen was with friends and "she'd knock off crying when she found she had ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... was certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason ; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred. What pity that he will not curb the vehemence of his love ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Camas as a town was neither interesting nor important; but when one has spent three long weeks communing with nature in her sulkiest and most unamiable mood, even a town without a railroad to its name may serve to ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... capricious changes of temper with meekness. It was only in his unrestrained confidence with his widowed mother that he ever uttered a complaint of the young Atheling, and then he spoke of him in sorrow, not in anger; for he rightly attributed much of Prince Edwin's unamiable conduct to the pernicious influence which the artful Brithric had, through flattery, obtained ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... been encumbered with embarrassing questions and an unmanageable party. Time has disposed of the first, and he is divorced from the last; if his great experience and talents have a fair field to act upon, he may yet, in spite of his selfish and unamiable character, be a distinguished ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... short time. There is not the slightest danger of her injuring Hiram's prospects of a long life, or of causing him an hour's uneasiness. To be sure, he is despotic, but he is neither irritable nor unamiable. Besides, he has a great desire for social position (it aids in carrying out his plans), in which his wife is of real service. Hiram, although close and careful in all matters, is not what would be called ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... and replied: "A 'blue-stocking,' my dear, is generally supposed to be a lady, neither young, pleasant, nor pretty (and in most instances unmarried); who is unamiable, ungraceful, and untidy; ignorant of all domestic accomplishments and truly feminine acquirements, and ambitious of appearing very learned; a woman whose fingers are more frequently adorned with ink-spots than ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... really deem me imperfect. She spoke in this way because she thinks I am soon to die. However that may be, I have heard nothing but kind and tender words from her; and so I consider her most kind, and myself an unamiable creatures. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... was right. She had indeed a sinister end in view—but love was at the bottom even of that. The woman, whose name was Ortrud, had a son who was to the full as ugly and unamiable as herself, and she loved that son, although he treated her shamefully, abused her, and sometimes even threatened to beat her. To do him justice, he never carried the threat into execution. And, strange to say, this ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... unavoidable by those who have any eyes, and the latter is perhaps no less certain and necessary a consequence of our having any brains. This is altogether as bitter an enemy to guilt as the former is to innocence: nor can I see it in an unamiable light, even though, through human fallibility, it should be sometimes mistaken. For instance, if a husband should accidentally surprize his wife in the lap or in the embraces of some of those pretty young gentlemen who profess the art of cuckold-making, I should not highly, I think, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of Pope, whom he does not even deign to mention in his preface; but this joke was still more unsuccessful [than his History of Britain].' J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 478. Hume says of him, that he had 'scarce ever known a man more perverse and unamiable.' Ib p. 470. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... unusually exposed to them; we may have nerves very sensitive to pain, and be afflicted with a disease more painful. Virtue will not help us, and it is not meant to help us. It is not even its own reward, except for the self-centred and—I had almost said—the unamiable. ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was not insensible to the worth of Julian Fitzorphandale; and when she received from him a letter, asking permission to visit her, she felt some difficulty in replying to his ?[3]; for, at this very critical .[4], an unamiable young man, named Augustus St. Tomkins, who possessed considerable L. s. d. had become a suitor for her [Symbol: hand]. She loved Fitzorphandale [5] St. Tomkins, but the former was [Symbol: empty] of money; and Seraphina, though sensitive to an extreme, was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... of the lady infers such a tribute to the Poet, that I half suspect the author meant it as such. In reference to the subject, however, my judgment goes much rather with that of other critics: That in the unamiable passages of their deportment Benedick and Beatrice are playing a part; that their playing is rather to conceal than to disclose their real feelings; that it is the very strength of their feelings which puts them upon ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... out to be self-neutralized. Taking them jointly, we might ask—Were they, this life and this death, to be regarded as a common movement on behalf of a deep and heart-fretting Hebrew patriotism, which was not the less sincere, because it ran headlong into the unamiable form of rancorous rationality and inhuman bigotry? Were they a wild degeneration from a principle originally noble? Or, on the contrary, this life and this death, were they alike the expression of a base mercenary selfishness, caught ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... King Thomas, the last of the monological succession, he made such a piece of work with his prophecies and his sarcasms about our little trouble with some of the Southern States, that we came rather to pity him for his whims and crotchets than to get angry with him for calling us bores and other unamiable names. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... added passages, moreover, which assert the divine claims of Brahmans and the inferiority of the rest of mankind. Such assertions are little more than rhetorical flourishes, for Brahmans never were either so omnipotent or so unamiable as the Code would represent them; nor were the Sudras ever so degraded. In Sanskrit plays and poems, weak and indigent Brahmans are by no means unfrequent; and, on the other hand, we meet with Sudras who had political rights, and even in the Code find the pedigrees of ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... of Helvetius, is one subtle and far-reaching sentence, which made a strong impression upon Bentham. "In order to love mankind," he writes, "we must expect little from them." This might, on the lips of a cynic, serve for a formula of that kind of misanthropy which is not more unamiable than it is unscientific. But in the mouth of Helvetius it was a plea for considerateness, for indulgence, and, above all, it was meant for an inducement to patience and sustained endeavour in all dealings with masses of men in society. "Every man," he says, "so long as his passions do not obscure ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... criticism. For their international programme there is, to my mind, nothing to be said. But as a national Government, stripped of their camouflage, regarded as the successors of Peter the Great, they are performing a necessary though unamiable task. They are introducing, as far as they can, American efficiency among a lazy and undisciplined population. They are preparing to develop the natural resources of their country by the methods ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... country that abound in woods of any description, we are sure to be greeted by the loud voice of the Blue Jay, one of the most conspicuous tenants of the forest. He has a beautiful outward appearance, under which he conceals an unamiable temper and a propensity to mischief. Indeed, there is no other bird in our forest that is arrayed in equal splendor. His neck of fine purple, his pale azure crest and head with silky plumes, his black crescent-shaped collar, his wings and tail-feathers of bright blue with stripes of white and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... it was so pleasant in the garden. She would remain by the fountain. She liked its sparkling and splashing, it refreshed her; the Intendant could come for her in half an hour; she wanted to be alone; she felt in a hard, unamiable mood, she said, and he only made her worse by stopping with her when others wanted him, and he ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... contracted into perpetual wrinkles, and her temples encircled with a wreath of cypress and wormwood. From this union sprung a virgin, in whom might be traced a strong resemblance to both her parents; but the sullen and unamiable features of her mother were so blended with the sweetness of the father, that her countenance, though mournful, was highly pleasing. The maids and shepherds gathered round and called her Pity. A red-breast was observed to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... biography of a writer whose character the world has always treated with singular harshness, considering how much it owes him. There was likewise a crayon-portrait of Sterne's wife, looking so haughty and unamiable, that the wonder is, not that he ultimately left her, but how he ever contrived to live a week ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... order, not only to gratify the demands of appetite, but, also, that the counsel might have an opportunity to confer with his client and prepare his defence. Ketchum remonstrated against the delay as unreasonable, but the Justice, who felt no disposition to hurry himself, and was, at bottom, not an unamiable man, told him, there would be time enough to finish the case in the afternoon, provided he and Mr. Tippit did not talk too long. Meanwhile, upon the promise of Judge Bernard to be responsible for the safety of the prisoner, Holden ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... day; when, oh! commend us to a Frenchman's vanity, however grotesque it may sometimes be, rather than to our own reserve, shyness, formality, or under whatever other name we please to designate, and seek to hide its unamiable synonym, pride. Vanity, always a free, is not seldom an agreeable talker; but pride is ever laconic; while the few words he utters are generally so constrained and dull, that you would gladly absolve him altogether from so painful an effort as that of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... appear before them without ever affording him the slightest token of their readiness to accept the efforts made to please them. I felt quite sorry this evening for poor Mr. Didear, to whom not the faintest sign of encouragement was vouchsafed on his first coming on. This is being cold to an unamiable degree, and seems to me both a want of good feeling and good breeding. I acted as well as they would let me. As for poor John Mason, concluding, I suppose, from their frozen silence that he was flat and ineffective, he ranted and roared, and pulled me about in the last scene, till ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... owners, having received nothing for their product but Confederate money which the result of the war had made worthless, manifested an unamiable reluctance to give it up, for if they could market it for themselves it would more than recoup them for all their losses in the war. They had therefore exercised a considerable ingenuity in effacing ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... That statement looks unamiable, and what probably happened was that I felt humiliated at seeing other persons deeply beguiled by an experiment that had brought me only chagrin. I was out in the cold while, by the evening fire, under the lamp, they followed the chase for which I myself had ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... gay, cold, and satirical; his cousin—for cousins they were—was jealous, haughty, and relentless. Their negative disinclination to one another's society, not unnaturally engendered by uncongenial and unamiable dispositions, had for a time given place to actual hostility, while the two young men were at Oxford. In some intrigue, Marston discovered in his cousin a too-successful rival; the consequence was, a bitter and furious quarrel, which, but for the prompt and peremptory ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 44, speaking of the Infidels. It is a most unamiable chapter, with such assertions as "Allah leadeth into error whom ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... her chosen temple, the House of Commons. Besides the characters of the individuals that compose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe that this House has a collective character of its own. That character, too, however imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public collections of men, you possess a marked love of virtue and an abhorrence of vice. But among vices there is none which the House abhors in the same degree with obstinacy. Obstinacy, Sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for it was his custom after having been in any way unamiable to try and make up for it ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... orders of society in England. The effect of this is to produce narrow minds, or, what is worse, narrow hearts on one side, and a host of dissocial, irritable passions on the other. In each step of the scale, those beneath see chiefly the unamiable qualities ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... his head cut off is somewhat mitigated to me by the circumstance that the Pope should have sent him, of all things in the world, a cardinal's hat after that incapacitation. Theology herself becomes less unamiable to me when I find the Supreme Pontiff writing to the Council of Trent that "they should begin with original sin, maintaining yet a due respect for the Emperor." That infallibility should thus courtesy to decorum, shall make me think better ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... this kind speech from the unamiable girl; and with the somewhat painful feeling on the part of Miss Livesay that she was going to introduce into her hitherto peaceful household the apple of discord, she rose to take leave, with the promise, however, of renewing her visit in the next week ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... whole system was a war and a cheat. If the universe were entirely composed of knaves, he would be sure to have made his way. Now this bias of mind, alike shrewd and unamiable, might be safe enough if accompanied by a lethargic temper; but it threatened to become terrible and dangerous in one who, in default of imagination, possessed abundance of passion: and this was the case with the young outcast. Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... expedition opened to our view. There can be no harm, however, in stating that we were received by the commander of the fortress with a kind of acid good-nature, or mild cynicism, that indicated him to be a humorist, characterized by certain rather pungent peculiarities, yet of no unamiable cast. He is a small, thin old gentleman, set off by a large pair of brilliant epaulets,—the only pair, so far as my observation went, that adorn the shoulders of any officer in the Union army. Either for our inspection, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... swept under the counter, after Captain Candage was back on his quarter-deck, he gave it a stare over the rail, and his expression was distinctly unamiable. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to this effect—That the custom prevalent among children in that age of asking their parents' blessing was probably first brought into disuse by the Puritans. Is it possible to imagine a perversity of prejudice more unreasonable? The unamiable side of the patriotic character in the seventeenth century was unquestionably its religious bigotry; which, however, had its ground in a real fervor of religious feeling and a real strength of religious principle somewhat exceeding the ordinary standard of the 19th century. But, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... little sins. The least transgression is sufficient to condemn the soul forever. "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Especially avoid the indulgence of a selfish disposition. It is both unamiable and unchristian. Be always ready to sacrifice your own feelings, when by so doing you can give pleasure to others. Study the wishes and feelings of others, and prefer them to your own. Manifest a disinterestedness of feeling. Strive to be helpful to others, even at the expense of personal feeling ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... is certainly the most ferocious of his tribe—even exceeding, in this unamiable quality, his white cousin of the icy north; and many a melancholy tale of trapper and Indian hunter attests his dangerous prowess. He is both carnivorous and frugivorous—will dig for roots and eat fruits when within ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... Black Stork rather avoids the society of man, frequenting solitary places and building its nest on the very top of the very tallest trees. It is really, however, not an unamiable bird, as was proved by Colonel Montagu in the case of one which he managed to catch by means of a slight wound in the wing, and which lived with him for upwards of a year. It used to follow its feeder about, and displayed a most inoffensive disposition. With other birds it was on terms, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... up with his Lugger last Friday, with a lot of torn nets, and went off again on Sunday. I thought he was wrong to come up, and not to transmit his nets by Rail, as is often done at 6d. a net. But I did not say so to him—it is no unamiable point in him to love home: but I think he won't make a fortune by it. However, I may be very wrong in thinking he had better not have come. He has made about the average fishing, I believe: about 250 pounds. ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... answered, in his most unamiable manner (he applies that word to me with increasing frequency); "is that what you've waked me up for? Why, the Quackenbosses left Lake George on Tuesday morning, and I had the dispatch-box in ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... Domesticities, as set forth by our Prussian authorities, an opulent topic for us. Friedrich's Old Age is not unamiable; on the contrary, I think it would have made a pretty Picture, had there been a Limner to take it, with the least felicity or physiognomic coherency;—as there was not. His Letters, and all the symptoms we have, denote a sound-hearted brave old man; continually ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... exclusively to the innocent sufferers, rather than to those who are the cause of the suffering, I never could understand. This kind of diversion betrays a want of humane consideration in the contriver. It is infinitely more cruel and unamiable than Spanish bull-baitings, or the gladiatorial shows of the ancients, inasmuch as a shock to the finest feelings of human nature is harder to bear, and longer in duration, than the momentary pang induced by witnessing a ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... you have seen your grandfather in so unamiable a light," replied this extraordinary man. "You shouldn't allow it to affect your mind, though. He has sterling qualities, quite an extraordinary character; and I have no fear but he means to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... purposes of Providence, that the securing of this attention, and these regards, should be a principal aim? But can such an aim be pursued without frequent competition? And will not that too readily occasion jealousy, envy, and all the unamiable effects of mutual rivalship? Without the restraints of superior worth and sentiment, it certainly will. But can these be ordinarily expected from the prevailing turn of female education; or from the little pains that women, as well as other ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... persuade one," said the Honourable John Ruffin doubtfully. "You see, the duke has the reputation of being unamiable; and he has earned it well. My friends are only dabblers in charity; and I don't think they're keen enough on it to risk getting snubbed ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... that he was not surprised to find the country very much changed. This last piece of information was repeated in the form of a simple "No," given in reply to the direct question; and although it was given politely, and evidently without the least unamiable intent, it made us both feel very cheap. After all, it WAS absurd to ask a man if he were surprised to find the country changed after fifty or sixty years of absence. Unless he was an idiot, and unable to read at that, he must have ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... sorrow and desolation, were very painful. No longer battling with the disease, he seemed as it were to place himself [118] at the disposal of the victorious foe, dying passively, like some dumb creature, in hopeless acquiescence at last. That old, half-pleading petulance, unamiable, yet, as it might seem, only needing conditions of life a little happier than they had actually been, to become refinement of affection, a delicate grace in its demand on the sympathy of others, had changed in those moments of full intelligence to a clinging and tremulous ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... so restless in her disposition that none of her attendants were sure of a moment's quiet neither day nor night. She grew up, I am sorry to say, a very unamiable person, ill-tempered, proud, stubborn, and, in short, unfit to make those around her happy or to be happy herself. Let every little girl, who has been taught self-control and a due regard for the rights of others, thank Heaven that she ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ordinary and, at that time, debased character of Athenian society. A contempt for the Lacedaemonians, a passionate taste for the babbling and trickery of the forum, and an attempt to depreciate the social position and influence of the weaker sex, form the most unamiable features of this change. Yet we must allow, that if Euripides has reveled in the amiabilities of a Melanippe or a Phaedra, in the gentle revenge of a Medea or Hecuba, he has at the same time given us an Alcestis, the only real example of genuine conjugal affection ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... countenance is expressive of intellect and kind feelings, her figure buoyant with health, and her attire distinguished by a tasteful simplicity, she cannot fail to be eminently attractive, while ill health—a silly or unamiable expression, and a vulgar taste—will mar the effect of form and features the most symetrical. A clever writer has said, "Beauty is but another name for that expression of the countenance which is indicative of sound ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... before, the choice would not have been left to thee. It is peace for this time; but Thorfin the Viking will do well to sail south instead of north, for when we meet next Thorfin's ship quickly will need another captain,"—which was a very long and unamiable speech for Ulf the Silent to make. And he allowed his ship to drift until the sail of the other had dropped below the horizon, still speeding southward like a scared white rabbit, that is happy in a close shave from the snap of a wolf. Then Ulf swung ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... invited to come at once to the latter, Lucy hesitated. "Would not that be unamiable on my part? Mr. Talboys has just paid me the highest compliment a gentleman can pay a lady; it is for me to decline him courteously, not abuse him to his friend ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of Dryden is a much more important personage than in the "Antony and Cleopatra" of Shakespeare. She is, however, more cold and unamiable; for, in the very short scenes in which the Octavia of Shakespeare appears, she is placed in rather an interesting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed us, that he was apprehensive the justice of a wife's claim upon her husband ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... and wittily; yet with a strain of fancy and feeling, blended with his wit, which rendered it singularly original and attractive; and perfectly succeeded, though I know not whether he intended it or not, in directing the attention of the company from my altered and somewhat unamiable mood. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... attractive, in spite of her bright hazel eyes and pretty fluffy hair; there was a supercilious lift to her eyebrows, an unamiable droop to the corners of her mouth. Peggy did not make this analysis; she only thought, "I shall not like ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... that stiffness, that severity, that chilly rigour, with which Unitarians are sometimes taxed by religionists of a more ecstatic doctrine. Her childhood was very unhappy; the household seems to have been unamiable, and she was treated with none of that tenderness and sympathy for which firm and defiant natures are apt to yearn as strongly as others that get the credit of greater sensibility. With that singular impulse to suicide which is frequent among ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... dear, what an unamiable trait is envy! By the way, was that your frock-coat I wore ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon regarded, almost with contempt, a new-comer, when, after a few days, she discovered her weakness of mind. This unamiable part of her character has been more strongly developed during the ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... return, we will have a delightful surprise for Lillie." The darling, good sister, was just as pleased as possible with this plan: indeed, she had not got past liking to play with dolls herself; and she was very different from some elder sisters, who take an unamiable pleasure in teasing the younger ones, instead of joining in their plays, and doing everything to add to their happiness. So the doll and all sorts of pretty muslins and silks, and materials for ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question. This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any conversation with him. I've no doubt of his ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... but she is a very peculiar, and, I am sorry to be forced to say, an unamiable girl, and is governed by every idle caprice. I hope that you will not allow yourself to be annoyed by any want of courtesy which she may unfortunately have displayed. Although a member of the household, Salome has no right to dispense or to withhold the hospitalities of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the presents which I had just made them. Selfishness is, in fact, almost without exception, their universal characteristic, and the mainspring of all their actions, and that, too, of a kind the most direct and unamiable that can ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Spain, unamiable as he now was, looked with unconcealed interest at the man's dancing partner. She, too, was browned by the mountain sun and air—a slight, erect girl, her head well set, and a delicate waist-line above a belted brown skirt, which just reached the tops of her small, high, tan riding-boots. She wore ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... stood leaning on the back of his chair, fearing that he had been too abrupt in what he had said, cast a lingering look at Dora, as her father spoke about White Connal, and as she replied; but there was something so unfeminine, so unamiable, so decided and bold, he thought, in the tone of her voice, as she pronounced the word marriage, that he then, without reluctance, and with a feeling of disgust, quitted the room, and left her "to manage her own affairs, and to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... has to be admitted, likewise, that he was quite as ready to quarrel with his friends. He succeeded, at least once, in forcing a quarrel even upon Lamb. His relations with Leigh Hunt (who, whatever his faults were, was not unamiable) were constantly strained, and at least once actually broken by his infernal temper. Nor were his relations with women more fortunate or more creditable than those with men. That the fault was entirely on his side in the rupture with his first wife is, no doubt, not ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... his courtiers, the perpetual vexations and cares incident to such overgrown and unlimited powers, and the disgust, satiety, and contempt which his experiences engendered, we can not wonder that his character should change for the worse. And when we see a man rendered uninteresting and unamiable by cares, temptations, and bursts of passion or folly, yet who still governs vigilantly and ably, our indignation should be modified, when the lower propensities are indulged. It is not pleasant to palliate injustices, tyrannies, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the insolence and presumption of his artful son, goaded a free and irascible spirit like mine almost to madness. The moral force of his mother's character, though unappreciated by him, had been some restraint upon his unamiable, tyrannical temper. That restraint was now removed, and Theophilus considered that my dependent situation gave him a lawful right to my services, and had I been a workhouse apprentice in his father's house, he could not have given his commands with an air of more pointed insolence. My obstinate ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... of Agadir, which was clearly an attempt to 'force a quarrel on France.' But in 1911 Germany realized that her military calculations had been insufficient, if she wished to continue these unamiable diplomatic manners. It was not a question of self-preservation; it was a question, as the German Chancellor told the Reichstag, of showing the world that 'Germany was firmly resolved not to be pushed aside.' Hence the sensational Army Bill of 1912, necessitated, as the Government told ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... sorry that Jonathan looks so unamiable seen from your island. Yet I have too much respect for the writing profession to complain of it. It is a necessity of rhetoric that there should be shades, and, I suppose, geography and government always determine, even for the greatest wits, where they shall ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... cross-purposes even in the three-act farce. The more we saw in the Irishman a sort of warm and weak fidelity, the more he regarded us with a sort of icy anger. The more the oppressor looked down with an amiable pity, the more did the oppressed look down with a somewhat unamiable contempt. But, indeed, it is needless to say that such comic cross-purposes could be put into a play; they have been put into a play. They have been put into what is perhaps the most real of Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays, John ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... runs on to considerable length, acknowledging the good qualities of the poor woman, but killing each by setting against it some peculiarly unamiable trait. I confess that my feeling is quite turned in her favour by the unmanly assault which her brother (the author of the inscription) has thus made upon the poor dead woman. If you cannot honestly say good of a human being ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... evil; you could not take up a worse; and even when it is forced upon you, see as little of it as you can, and forget as soon as you can what you see. Your aunt, it may be, is not a very happy person, and no one can tell but those that are unhappy how hard it is not to be unamiable too. Return good for evil as fast as you can; and you will soon either have nothing to complain of or be very ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived; evil-minded, evil- disposed; black-browed^. malicious; malign, malignant; rancorous; despiteful, spiteful; mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent; unamiable, uncharitable; maleficent, venomous, grinding, galling. harsh, disobliging; unkind, unfriendly, ungracious; inofficious^; invidious; uncandid; churlish &c (discourteous) 895; surly, sullen &c 901.1. cold, cold-blooded, cold-hearted; black-hearted, hard-hearted, flint-hearted, marble-hearted, stony-hearted; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sitting angling from the side of the stream when, by ill-luck, the wind had entangled his beard in his line, and just afterwards a big fish taking the bait, the unamiable little fellow had not sufficient strength to pull it out; so the fish had the advantage, and was dragging the dwarf after it. Certainly he caught at every stalk and spray near him, but that did not assist him greatly; he was forced to follow all the ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... a corset; and for three hundred years, brave seamen of the Dutch, British and Basque nations had gone to a watery grave to procure for women this indispensable aid to correct clothing. But these filaments of horny palatal processes are unamiable. Though sheathed in silk or cotton, they, after the violent movements of a Suffragette or a charwoman, break through the restraining sheath and run into the body under the fifth rib, or press forward ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... like Cooper's we should expect to find prejudices; and he was a man of strong prejudices. Among others, was an antipathy to the people of New England. His characters, male and female, are frequently Yankees, but they are almost invariably caricatures; that is, they have all the unamiable characteristics and unattractive traits which are bestowed upon the people of New England by their ill-wishers. Had he ever lived among them, with his quick powers of observation and essentially kindly judgment of men and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... from our place in the world's markets, a model of municipal government and enterprise, a land where vice, poverty, idleness, and dirt are all unknown. We hear so much of this praiseworthy but most unamiable Wunderkind amongst nations, that we generally forget the Germany we know, the Germany still there for our affection and delight, the dear country of quaint fancies, of music and of poetry. That Germany has vanished, the ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessary departures from the commonly received practices of good society in the matter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate rather an unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow-beings, if we were not willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to be agreeable in the disposition of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... following day we sighted Butaritari Island—one of the largest atolls in the North Pacific, and inhabited by a distinctly unamiable and cantankerous race of Malayo-Polynesians whose principal amusement in their lighter hours is to get drunk on sour toddy and lacerate each other's bodies with sharks' teeth swords. In addition to Ah Sam, the agent for the Chinese trading firm, there were two European traders who had ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... natural that in selecting a couple of trustees he regarded the Captain as the man who, of all others, might be reckoned on to look after the interests of the child or children. When, however, the unamiable qualities of Captain Salt reached his ear, he would doubtless have made some alteration in the will, but for the tidings of that officer's death in the Low Countries. He had such confidence ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... most important one; so important that these birds, ugly and unamiable as they are, must be cared for, as if they were the prettiest and most prized of pets. We must provide them with food and water; we must tend them by day, and watch over them by night—as though they were some sacred ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... scheme—possibly endless oscillations which, however coincident with plagues, would extirpate the human race. We may see in manufacturing neighbourhoods, so long as no dependency exists on masters, where wages show that not work, but workmen, are scarce, how unamiable, insolent, fierce, are the people; the poor cottagers on a great estate may sometimes offend you by too obsequious a spirit towards all gentry. That was a transition state in England during the first half of the eighteenth century, when few manufacturers and merchants had risen to such ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... her way to Avignon, where a very important object called her. This was no other than to save her niece Marie from a distasteful marriage, which her parents, very good people, but dazzled by the wealth of the unamiable suitor, wished ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... lay behind them was right. The backwoodsmen were no sentimentalists; they were grim, hard, matter-of-fact men, engaged all their lives long in an unending struggle with hostile forces, both human and natural; men who in this struggle had acquired many unamiable qualities, but who had learned likewise to appreciate at their full value the inestimable virtues of courage and common-sense. The crisis demanded that they should be both strong and good; but, above all things, it demanded that they should be strong. Weakness would have ruined them. It was needful ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and my mother's weapon showed evidences of contact. For another instant they glared at each other in the most unamiable way; then my poor, wounded father, feeling the hand of death upon him, leaped forward, unmindful of resistance, grasped my dear mother in his arms, dragged her to the side of the boiling cauldron, collected all his failing energies, and sprang in with her! In a moment, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... contempt. The profusion of maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural advantages,—for such he seems to have thought them,—he had improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of rage, could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate upon his brow. The glare of his eyes ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... long, and I am forced to omit it. Besides, I suppose it would hardly be just to accord such a civility to the bear, while it is denied to the other animals. According to the description of this eminent practical naturalist, the bear is not by any means the unamiable monster he has been represented to be; but has, on the contrary, a great many good traits of character. He has been slandered, grossly slandered, if we may credit Mr. Goldsmith; and for one, I do credit him. He is exceedingly reliable in most of his statements. Now that ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... mortified as this disclosure of Mittie's unamiable disposition, and shocked at the instance first made known to him. "This is not a proper time for such remarks; I ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... significator of respectability; for which I can discover no reason, unless it be that the sun travelling always in the ecliptic has no latitude, and so solar folk are allowed none. When the sun is ill aspected, the native is both proud and mean, tyrannical and sycophantic, exceedingly unamiable, and generally disliked because of his arrogance and ignorant pomposity. The persons signified by the sun are emperors, kings, and titled folk generally, goldsmiths, jewellers, and coiners. When 'afflicted,' ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... action. At this stage, we have a kind of laughter which we may call that of pleasure, inasmuch as it is the first that deserves a distinct name. This laughter of pleasure required very little complication of thought, contained no unamiable feeling, and expressed the mildest sense of the ludicrous. At the same time, it did not flow from any mere constitutional joyousness, but only arose upon certain occasions, in consequence of some remarkable and unusual ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... said Charles Larkyns, "which always contained a full, true, and particular account of his Wheatley doings. He used to go over there, Verdant, to indulge in the noble sport of cock-fighting, for which he had a most unamiable and unenviable weakness; that was the reason why he was called 'Cocky' Palmer. His elder brother - who was a Pembroke man - was distinguished by the pronomen 'Snuffy,' to express his excessive partiality for that ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... The two unamiable beasts, glad of an object to vent their spleen upon, flew at each other. The bear, giant as he was, was ignominiously rolled in the dust by the furious onslaught of bulk and horns. He recovered himself with surprising alacrity, however, and rushed at the bull. The ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... Hardened by his father's heartless severity he learnt to live without sympathy, to despise mankind, to rely on himself. He was the author of a commonplace treatise against Machiavelli, partly founded on Montesquieu's Grandeur et Decadence. This unamiable youth, with the aspirations and the vanity of a minor poet, was the most consummate practical genius that, in modern ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... forswears love will he stretch out his hand to the gold, and found the Plutonic empire for himself. But the choice between love and gold may not rest altogether with him. He may be an ugly, ungracious, unamiable person, whose affections may seem merely ludicrous and despicable to you. In that case, you may repulse him, and most bitterly humiliate and disappoint him. What is left to him then but to curse the love he can never win, and turn remorselessly to the gold? With that, he will make short work ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... utterly free from self-interest. They generally had some lot of land to sell—or, probably, they would like to have a new comer for a neighbour, in the hope of selling him a span of horses or some cows at a higher price than they could obtain from the older settlers. In mentioning this unamiable trait in the character of the farmers near C—-, I by no means intend to give it as characteristic of the farmers in general. It is, properly speaking, a LOCAL vice, produced by the constant influx of strangers unacquainted with the ways ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... well, sir." All this was gallantly and heartily said and done. Mr. Adams took the General's hand, and said, with chilling coldness: "Very well, sir; I hope General Jackson is well!" The military hero was genial and gracious, while the unamiable diplomat was as ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the keg was broached, and sure enough it was water, and sea-water at that, as the Unamiable One said when he had tasted it out of a tin cup, for nothing else would convince him. "But I smell brandy still," he said, wiping his mouth ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... was of fair size, and contained a high desk, an office table covered with papers, and several chairs. There was but one person in the office, a young man with black whiskers and mustache and an unamiable expression. He sat on a high stool, but he was only reading the morning paper. He turned lazily as he heard the door open, and let his ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... an unamiable guest," snarled the owl, his yellow eyes growing keen and fierce with anger and mortified pride. "You are an ungrateful bird, Miss, and the bat is right. You do not deserve this generous hospitality which I have offered, this goodly shelter which you asked. Away with you! Leave ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... and queenly qualities and accomplishments, Elizabeth had many unamiable traits and unwomanly ways. She was capricious, treacherous, unscrupulous, ungrateful, and cruel. She seemed almost wholly devoid of a moral or religious sense. Deception and falsehood were her usual weapons in diplomacy. "In the profusion and recklessness ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... youthful imagination. But Mr. Godfrey presently found the truth of that maxim, as paradoxical as it is indisputable, that the heart of man is naturally hard and unamiable. He conducted himself in his new situation with the most unexceptionable propriety, and the most generous benevolence. But there were men in his audience, men who loved better to criticise, than to be amended; and women, who felt more complacency in scandal, ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... angry murmurs against them there came the feeling that all the fault was not theirs—that she was herself to be blamed. And by and by the anger passed away; but the misery remained, and oftener, and with more power, came the consciousness that she was a very cross, unamiable child, that she was not like her older sisters or the little ones, that she was a comfort to no one, but a vexation to all. If she only could die! she thought. No! she would be afraid to die! But, oh, if she had never been born! Oh, if ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... though it was all adverse and colored to her prejudice she would have liked to see the daughter of the great and famous Thomas whom she had known; besides, after all she had heard, she could fear nothing from Paula for her niece: uncommonly handsome, but haughty, repellent, unamiable, and—like Heliodora herself—of the orthodox sect.—What could tempt "great Sesostris" to give her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and present his thesis before the faculty of examiners, to take out his orders. For this purpose it was necessary he should repair to Valladolid, where the university was. To make the journey, his father now provided him with an old she-mule of a most unamiable disposition, which he had obtained in exchange for the young horse—the gift of Don Mariano—with a goodly number of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt. He had never noticed before that they were quite old people. The Vicar received him with his usual, not unamiable indifference. He was a little stouter, a little balder, a little grayer. Philip saw how insignificant he was. His face was weak and self-indulgent. Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him; and tears of happiness flowed down ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... I have known literary women, and as far as they have been made known to us in literary biography, the unwomanly and unamiable, the poor wives, and daughters, and sisters, have been the rare exceptions. I mean not alone "women of genius," but would include those of mere talent, of mediocre talent even, devoted to letters as a profession, and who, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a long absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and any thing that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable or unamiable per se; I must love or hate them as I see cause for either 'in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own stock, as much as men and women ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... I expect you to confess that I shall have more than balanced it. A ball-room is an epitome of all that is most worthless and unamiable in the great sphere of human life. Every petty and malignant passion is called into play. Coquetry is perpetually on the alert to captivate, caprice to mortify, and vanity to take offence. One amiable female is rendered miserable for the evening by seeing another, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... still the man is alive as well; and strangest of all, they are still under the same roof. Indeed, if report and appearance are to be trusted, Mr. Daemon is a model husband, and Mrs. Daemon's sudden and amazing temper has spent itself and left her a person of spirit indeed, but in nowise unamiable, and least of all, an ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... that is generally unamiable in his season of life, was, in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he existed a proof, manifest at least to me, that it is not out of the power of age to please, if it lays out to please, and if, making just allowance, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... dreadfully is God dishonored by such monstrous representations as these!" Such a being cannot be loved by us, for every heart rebels against it. "All descriptions of the Divine Being which represent him in an unamiable light do the greatest hurt to religion that can be, as they strike at love, which is the fulfilling of the law. I am persuaded that many of those who think they believe this doctrine do not really believe it, or else they do not ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... come down the companion, and he has locked himself up in his room, which shows that he is still in an unamiable mood. And so to bed, as old Pepys would say, for the candle is burning down (we have to use them now since the nights are closing in), and the steward has turned in, so there are no ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... favour), and with that of the husband's ferocity of character (the belief in which Boccaccio did not succeed in displacing), that has left the prevailing impression on the minds of posterity, which is this:—that Francesca was beguiled by her father into the marriage with the deformed and unamiable Giovanni, and that the unconscious medium of the artifice was the amiable and handsome Paulo; that one or both of the victims of the artifice fell in love with the other; that their intercourse, whatever it was, took place not long after the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... if Hamilton does not treat him with the deference he wants. I think we know more of each other than any one else does, and no one would think, in company, when Trevannion is smiling and talking so cleverly, that he is so unamiable." ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... his father now was life with an unamiable hornet. Careless as he affected to be of his father's vagaries, he was tried almost to madness, and fled away at every moment to Kenmuir; for, as he told Maggie, "I'd sooner put up wi' your h'airs and h'imperences, miss, than wi' him, the wemon that ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... talents shone out more eminently in the beginning than in the end of his life. His manners were rough and austere; and he possessed not that perfect integrity which frequently accompanies, and can alone atone for, that unamiable character. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... head. He was up and kicking the door and bellowing unamiable proposals and invitations, so that a strategist emerging silently by the tap door could locate him without difficulty, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... life so little is known, particularly during her unmarried years, that we are unable to fasten upon her the unamiable qualities of the allegorical beauties we assume to be her representatives; but if we can identify her married fortune with theirs,—then, in addition to the congruities already mentioned, we can have no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... jealousy and ill will, which occasionally appears, in Shakespeare's manner, by side lights, without confounding the main action; and by the little we see of this Poins, he appears to be an unamiable, if not a very brutish and bad, character.—But to pass this;—the Prince next says, with a deliberate and wholesome caution, "I doubt they will be too hard for us." Poins's reply is remarkable; "Well, for TWO of them, I ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... for self, is as unsuccessful as it is unamiable: it cannot succeed. The man who should hoard in his own granary all the corn of Egypt, could not eat more of it than a poor labourer—probably not so much. It is only a very small portion of their wealth that the rich ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... stingy indeed. She sells her clothes now to a dealer in London who buys up all sorts of wardrobes. Before she found out this wardrobe-dealer I used to get her cast-offs and managed quite nicely. It's horrid of her. She is a very unamiable character. Don't you ever take after her, Florry, be sure ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade |
