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Untimely   Listen
adverb
Untimely  adv.  Out of the natural or usual time; inopportunely; prematurely; unseasonably. "Let them know... what's untimely done."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Untimely" Quotes from Famous Books



... first glance, all bespoke mortal illness to even the untrained eye—advanced cirrhosis of the liver, to the professional scrutiny. And he was to be the fourth, in a line of financially successful Kents, to die untimely from mere eating and drinking. You would not have stayed long with this sick man. Only a large love or a large salary could have made the atmosphere of his presence endurable, for he was the essence of impatience, the quintessence of wilfulness. The sumptuousness of his surroundings, the punctilious ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... While retrospection carries back Thy memory o'er time's beaten track And stops at that dread hour when thou With burning eyes and flashing brow, Call'd Heaven to hear the solemn vow Dictated with the latest breath Of the fond mother on the untimely bed of death." ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... better part, Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart? No hostile hand can antedate my doom, Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth; And such the hard condition of our birth, No force can then resist, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... midnight—when at the front door sounded a discreet but resolute knocking. Mrs. Bubb, though she had retired to her chamber, was not yet wholly unpresentable; reluctantly, and with wonder, she went to answer the untimely visitor. After a short parley through the gap of the chained door she ascended several flights and sought to arouse Mr. ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured husband and disconsolate father, and even went so far as to openly cast discredit on the sincerity of his grief. They reserved an ironical condolence for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... the sharp-cornered saint and prophet, though somewhat excoriated in the association. He held fast to his trusteeship of Antioch; and in 1866, Horace Mann having some years before been laid in his untimely grave, he stood in his place as president of the college. Through the agency of my dear friends of those years, Dr. Henry W. Bellows and Dr. Edward Everett Hale, I was to go with him as, so to speak, his under-study, discharging the work of English professor and sometimes the duties of preacher. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... nearer than two hundred miles, with Pratt, as Van expressed it, "camping with the foe." He had shaken his partners untimely from their beds that morning—(the trio were mining nights, on the four-to-midnight shift)—and busied them all with the work of the day, by way ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... their troops meant. Some of the most severely wounded had been left in their care. The battlefield with its horrors had been visited, and there was to be a funeral service over two actors in the bloody drama, whose untimely fate excited not only sympathy, but the deep interest and curiosity which ever attend upon those around whom rumor has woven a romantic history. The story of Graham's return in search of his friend, of the ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... comfortable. It was to him an untimely intrusion of an unpleasant theme. "But what in the world set the doctor off on this subject?" he asked, trying to make ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... well as pathetic in this cry. It did more for him than the most eloquent pleading could have done. Man, in a crowd, is an unstable being. At any moment he will veer right round and run in an opposite direction. The idea that the condemned man had a Susan who would mourn over his untimely end, touched a cord in the hearts of many among the crowd. The reference to her sweet blue eyes at such a moment raised a smile, and an extremely dismal but opportune howl from poor Toozle raised ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... perished,—among them the heroic Sarpedon, my own offspring, perished; Turnus, too, is summoned by the Fates, and has nearly reached his term of life." He spoke, and turned away his gaze from the battlefield, himself pitying the untimely death of Pallas. ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... Champlain, and the Hudson, while two frigates were to assail New York from the sea. The naval project, however, was so feeble and uncertain, so ill-starred, that adverse winds on the Atlantic brought it to an untimely end. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... people was terrible. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the horrid story: numbers perished of famine, and pestilence went forth with devastating fury where hunger had stricken. The "famine fever" carried away multitudes to an untimely grave. This disease extended also to the Irish in England. Many in London died of it, and great numbers in Manchester, but the affliction fell still more heavily upon Liverpool. Several Roman Catholic clergymen ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... right. It atones for all his mere errors of abstract opinion, that he was never admitted to the confidence of the Nullifiers, and that he uniformly voted against the measures inspired by them. He was against the untimely annexation of Texas; he opposed the rejection of the anti-slavery petitions; and he declared that no earthly power should ever induce him to consent to the addition of one acre of slave territory to the possessions of the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... have taken lower seats than becoming their sheykhly blood, of which the nomads are jealous; entering untimely, they sat down out of order, sooner than trouble all the company. A sheykh, coming late and any business going forward, will often sit far out in the assembly; and show himself a popular person in this kind of honourable humility. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... to 'come and see, my brethren, to what depths I have sunk!' And though, eventually, the Jewess died of a bloody flux, of a miscarriage, the past was beyond mending, and, while the son went to the bad, and took to drink for good and all, the father 'fell a victim by night to untimely death.' Yes, the lives of two folk were thus undone by 'the thorn-bearing company of Judaea.' Like ourselves, the Hebrew has a destiny of his own. And destiny cannot be driven out with a stick. Of each of us the destiny is unhasting. It moves slowly and ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... said he politely, "who must apologise for this untimely call. I have wanted to pay my respects to you since I arrived in Algiers, but till now I have had ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... saucy loon, whoever thou be! I'll warrant thee as much impudence in thy face as wind i' thy muzzle," said the disturbed seneschal. "Tarry a while, Hugo; ope not the gate without a parley, despite the knave's untimely summons." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... replied, "I hear and obey." Now when the Imam was admitted to the presence, Al-Rashid rose to receive him and seated him on the couch beside himself (where he was wont to seat none save the Kazi), and said to him, "We have not sent for thee at this untimely time and tide save to advise us upon a grave matter, which is such and such and wherewith we know not how to deal." And he expounded to him the case. Abu Yusuf answered, "O Commander of the Faithful, this is the easiest of things." Then he turned to Ja'afar and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... was so cruelly stricken by the crushing blow that had fallen upon her; the grief she felt for her husband's untimely fate was so deep and sincere, that she thought but little of her own future. She had ceased to feel either hope or fear. Let fate do its worst. No sorrow that could come to her in the future, no disgrace, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... old times. They talked over the arrival of Mrs. Cadurcis at the abbey, her strange character, her untimely end. Lady Annabel expressed her conviction of the natural excellence of Plantagenet's disposition, and her regret of the many disadvantages under which he laboured; it gratified Venetia ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... murmur of suppressed conversation. Looking from the window, he judged by the position of the stars that it was three or four o'clock in the morning. He sat upon the side of the bed, and sought, by listening intently, to penetrate the mystery of this untimely commotion. He thought he recognised the voice of Tip Watson, and he was sure he heard Sid Parmalee's peculiar cough and chuckle. The conversation soon lifted itself out of the apparent confusion, and became ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... them; and, when they possessed them, of all the crimes which belonged to their inhuman treatment. The injustice in the latter case amounted frequently to murder. For what was it but murder to pursue a practice, which produced untimely death to thousands of innocent and helpless beings? It was a duty, which their lordships owed to their Creator, if they hoped for mercy, to do away ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... religious controversy. If, however, any should admit the truth, but regret the tone of what I have said, lean only pray them to consider how much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness, than by untimely fear. ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... dismay upon her face, a pile of dusty volumes on the floor at her feet. The bookcase in the recess by the fireplace, with yawning doors and empty shelves, stood swept and garnished, awaiting re-possession. In a frenzy of untimely cleanliness, she had torn all the books from the repose of years, and now that the deed was beyond recall, she was a prey to disgust, and given over to repentance. The morning promised to be sultry, and the pile was very big; outside bugs ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... judge from the great promise of his works, he was like to do extraordinary honour to his native place and to all Tuscany; and whoever sees any of the drawings that he made when still a mere lad, stands marvelling at them and full of compassion for his untimely death. ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari

... climbing by high jumps, but receipts had not kept pace with expenses. There were the vast salaries which even the lesser drawing cards among the stars now demanded—and got. There were war taxes, excess profit taxes, amusement taxes. There was to be included in the reckoning the untimely fate of Let Freedom Ring, a vastly costly thing and quickly laughed to death, yet a smarting memory still. Its failure had put a crimp in the edge of the exchequer. This stroke would run a wide fluting of deficit right through the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... with me about it at Weymar. As he is also a music publisher I could tell him some things, and make others plainer, which would not be without interest to him. He need not be afraid that I shall belabor him with manuscripts or urge him to untimely or useless sacrifices...(I need not waste more words over the purity of my intentions!) But I think it is desirable that, if Kahnt consents to become editor of the Neue Zeitschrift, I should put him on his guard about several things ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... present, assume the proper shape. Fox or tanuki (badger), strip off all disguise; stand to the test of Saburo[u]zaemon's blade." But the sad wailing voice made answer—"Unkind the words of Endo[u] Sama. This is no trick of fox or badger. Meeting an untimely end, the Spirit now wanders as an unworshipped demon; as one deprived of all honour in the grave. Brave has been the deed of Endo[u] Dono. Others have come; to depart in fright. He alone stays to challenge. For so much, thanks. Deign worship to my spirit, ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... understand the meaning of consistency as many do, I wish I may be inconsistent with all my enemies. There are many hearts which have risen higher and sunk lower at his tales, and yet have been shocked and sorrowed at his untimely death a great deal less than mine has been. Honor and glory to him for the extensive good he did! peace and forgiveness for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... who was far superior to her husband in every way, grieved long and bitterly over the loss of her first-born, but it was many months before she learned the truth regarding her untimely end. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... long watched him with interest, began to congratulate itself on the devotion of such a man to the business of the country, he was in an instant taken from us. Then it was that, the memory of the past and the hope of the future blending together, all men seemed to mourn over this untimely end, and there was that pang in the public heart which accompanies the unexpected disappearance of ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... the untimely death of Edward R. Dickson, one of the most eager and gifted workers in the group of men and women devoting themselves to pictorial photography. He was born in Quito, Ecuador, forty-two years ago. According to the custom in Ecuador, he, ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1922 • Pictorial Photographers of America

... What do they come bothering for?" came the sound of a woman's voice from behind the door, and again the rhapsody rattled on and stopped, and the sound of a chair pushed back was heard. It was plain the irritated pianist meant to rebuke the tiresome visitor, who had come at an untimely hour. "Papa is not in," a pale girl with crimped hair said, crossly, coming out into the ante-room, but, seeing a young man in a good coat, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... fellows who were completely the creatures of Ralli, and who had on more than one occasion thrown out strong hints of their suspicion that Dickinson was on more friendly terms than he ought to be with the men now in confinement. To their searching inquiries as to the reasons for Dickinson's untimely and suspicious visit to them the ex-boatswain's mate was driven to reply with a complaint as to the extreme heat and closeness of the night, and of his inability to sleep in consequence, his restlessness being such as to constrain him to rise and come outside for a smoke and a chat with ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... example of the munificent Romans, for an everlasting possession to my fellow-citizens. But why do I say Florence only? If Florence remembers me, will not the world remember me? ... Yet," added Bardo, after a short pause, his voice falling again into a saddened key, "Lorenzo's untimely death has raised a new difficulty. I had his promise—I should have had his bond—that my collection should always bear my name and should never be sold, though the harpies might clutch everything else; but there is enough for them—there is more than enough—and for ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... it is," said she to Mr. Bond, one evening on his return from Nannie's, "that I must keep my doors open till half past nine o'clock, for you to be out on your untimely visits to a poor widder! It isn't any sich doings Susan Kinalden'll countenance, you'd ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... hoisted up and down against a ship's side. As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... her visitor very graciously; but Gilbert had no time to waste upon small talk, and after a hasty apology for his untimely intrusion, dashed at once into the question he ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... which is not perhaps absolutely equivalent to complete annihilation, is yet identical with that of "an hidden untimely birth." Translated into the language of philosophy this somewhat vague notion might be expressed as follows: All things, past, present and to come, which flit as unreal shadows on the wall of time and ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... with her parents and sisters—so that he could better fashion her to his own ways. He had her taught literature and made her skilled in all kinds of music; and he had really almost made her such as he would have cared to spend all his life with, had not an untimely death carried her off while still a girl, but after she had borne him several children: of whom there survive three girls, Margaret, Alice[85] and Cecily, and one boy, John. He would not endure to live long a widower, although his friends counselled otherwise. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... Errickson, a Union man, who fled to Memphis with his family for safety during the war. A few weeks before the present time, he returned to his home in Summerville. He had been home but a few days before he was shot dead in front of a store. His poor wife and two daughters were almost insane over his untimely death. He thought the country was becoming more quiet, and he could risk going quietly to their home. There was a very smart colored woman in town who witnessed his murder. She was at Memphis ostensibly ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... mentioning at all, or at least but cursorily touching on the sufferings and love of their Redeemer; and are little apt to kindle at their Saviour's name, and like the apostles to be betrayed by their fervor into what may be almost an untimely descant on the riches of his unutterable mercy. In addressing others also whom they conceive to be living in habits of sin, and under the wrath of God, they rather advise them to amend their ways as a preparation for their coming to Christ, than exhort them to throw themselves with ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... days ago I had heard Merry barking in a similar manner, and upon joining him I had discovered a snake coiled up with head erect in an attitude of defence. I had killed the snake and scolded the dog, as I feared he would come to an untimely end, should he commence snake- hunting in so prolific a field as Cyprus. Since that time all the dogs hunted the countless lizards which ran across the path during the march, and Shot was most determined in his endeavours to scratch them out ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... Leam she did really think that she had done her duty. She knew that she wished to marry him herself—in fact, meant to marry him—and that she would probably have been his wife before now had it not been for this girl and her untimely witcheries; but though, naturally enough, she was not disposed to love Leam any the more because she had come between her and her intended husband, she thought that she would have borne the disappointment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... apologists for the Inquisition, and interpreters of its laws. As a rule, they tried, like St. Raymond Pennafort and St. Thomas, to defend the decrees of the Popes. We cannot say that they succeeded in their task. Some by their untimely zeal rather compromised the cause they endeavored to defend. Others, going counter to the canon law, drew conclusions from it that the Popes never dreamed of, and in this way made the procedure of the Inquisition, ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... Bavaria!" sobbed August; for it is always a name of dread augury to the Tyroleans, by reason of those bitter struggles and midnight shots and untimely deaths which come from those meetings of jaeger and hunter in the Bayerischenwald. But the train stopped; Munich was reached, and August, hot and cold by turns, and shaking like a little aspen-leaf, felt himself once more carried out on the shoulders of men, rolled along on a truck, ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)

... Macduff, 'and let that lying spirit whom thou hast served, tell thee, that Macduff was never born of woman, never as the ordinary manner of men is to be born, but was untimely ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... States had he possessed the slightest political aspiration. He has never been ambitious for public office; but, on the contrary, it has always seemed to me that the Presidency was especially repugnant to him, which would be natural, considering the untimely death of his father, if for no other reason. He was almost forced to take an active interest in public affairs, but as soon as he was permitted to do so he retired to private life to engage in large business undertakings, and finally to become the ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... if it is the truth, I must say it. Truth, Margaret, is what I live for. No, I shall never recover, I feel it. My prayer is that these unhappy children may never know that they are the cause of my untimely—" ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... Is our life for ever to be without profit— without possession? Shall the strength of its generations be as barren as death; or cast away their labour, as the wild fig-tree casts her untimely figs? Is it all a dream then—the desire of the eyes and the pride of life—or, if it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing about a life to come, have ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... support the superincumbent load of five pretty full grown swallows. During a storm the nest fell into the tower corner of the window, leaving the young brood exposed to all the fury of the blast. To save the little creatures from an untimely death, the owner of the house benevolently caused a covering to be thrown over them, till the severity of the storm was past. No sooner had it subsided, than the sages of the colony assembled, fluttering round the window, and hovering over the temporary ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... interest and enthusiasm upon the work of preparing for the duties of this office. We are assured that "this appointment was universally thought to be an honor most justly due to his pre-eminent attainments in this science";[2] but his death the next year brought these plans to an untimely end. ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... about it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER GRANVILLE has told the Times how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore you to tell me how you have managed to live for so many years when all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... unsheathed at once. The Duke of Newcastle could only appeal to the House on the part of the Government not to pass a resolution calling upon the King to declare war, but to leave it to the King to choose his own opportunity. Newcastle feebly pleaded that to pass a resolution would be to give untimely warning to England's enemies, and reminded the House that England was likely to have to {178} encounter an enemy stronger and more formidable than Spain. Lord Hardwicke and Lord Scarborough could only urge on the House the prudence and propriety of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... struggle rather than of artificial forcing.") I tell you that is a lie. We do want social equality. Why, don't you want your manhood recognized? Then Mr. Washington said that our emancipation and enfranchisement were untimely and a mistake; that we were not ready for it. (Naturally, Mr. Washington said no such thing.) What did he say that for but to tickle the palates of the white people? Oh, yes, he was shrewd. He will get many hundreds of dollars for his school ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... the shock made my countenance all argent and gules, and the visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned, while the barber and Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a shield," could only stare at the untimely apparition. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... of?" thought the old lady, utterly at a loss to know what to say next. Mercy waited, on her side, with an impenetrable patience which only aggravated the difficulties of the position. The silence was fast threatening to bring the interview to a sudden and untimely end, when the door from the library opened, and a man-servant, bearing a little silver salver, ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... financiers. It was a sad blow to them to think that the one great enterprise they had recently engineered—a foil to some of the immense affairs which had recently had their genesis in New York and elsewhere—should have come to so untimely an end. Chicago finance really should not be put to shame in this fashion if it could be avoided. So that when Mr. Schryhart arrived, quite warm and disturbed, and related in detail what he had just learned, his friends listened to him with eager ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... of the saloonkeepers, and then turns in a large part of the money to the State treasury to relieve the hayseeds from taxes. Ah, who knows how many honest, hard-workin' saloonkeepers have been driven to untimely graves by this law! I know personally of a half-dozen who committed suicide—because they couldn't pay the enormous license fee, and I have heard of many others. Every time there is an increase of the fee, there is an increase in the suicide ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... Pasquier's Letters contains the following passage, which applies perhaps quite as forcibly to the present age as to his own time: "I cannot forbear complaining at this time of the calamity of this age which has produced such a plenty of reputed or untimely authors. Any pitiful scribbler will have his first thoughts to come to light; lest, being too long shut up, they should grow musty. Good God! how apposite ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... ailment as heartbreak, and so happily, the desolate man left to preside in lonely state, over the goodly roof-tree which her presence had filled and made sweet and satisfying, was spared a suspicion even, of the real cause of her untimely end. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... would be good proof of accuracy of aim. The investigation which followed would be a feather in the cap of the officer in charge, whatever the verdict. De Plonville, with something like a sigh, more than suspected that his untimely death would not cast irretrievable ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... article to their testimony; and in this way Romish idolatry and gospel truth were developed by equal stages, and an adequate testimony was maintained all through that gloomy period. The stars of the ecclesiastical firmament fell unto the earth, like the untimely figs of the fig-tree; but the lamp of the Alps went not out. The Vaudois, not unconscious of their sacred office, watched their heaven-kindled beacon with the vigilance of men inspired by the hope that it would yet attract the eyes of the world. At length—thrice welcome sight!—the watch-fires ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... I'll warrant," answered Stukely, as he deposited the package in the basket. "There, Colin, lad," he continued, "that is the last for to-night; and—listen, sirrah! See that thou mix not the parcels, as thou didst but a week agone, lest thou bring sundry of her most glorious Majesty's lieges to an untimely end! There"—as the boy seized the basket and hurried out of the shop—"that completes my day's work. Now I have but to put up the shutters and lock the door; and then, have with thee whither thou wilt. Help me with the shutters, Dick, there's a good lad, so shall ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, who, after spending some years in one of the East India Company's sepoy regiments, obtained a civil appointment in India, and died at Gibraltar on his way homeward. Some pathetic lines in the short poem by Matthew Arnold called A Southern Night commemorate his untimely death. The book is remarkable for the autobiographic description, too austere and censorious, of life in Indian cantonments, or during an Indian campaign, before the great Mutiny swept away the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... as a favour done to me, though the Gentleman hath received but an untimely grace from you, yet my charitable disposition would have been ready to have done him freer courtesies as a stranger, than upon those ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... unfruitful of events in the experience of that family, in whose fate and feelings I have attempted to interest the reader. In this interval Ferdinand Armine had paid one short visit to his native land; a visit which had certainly been accelerated, if not absolutely occasioned, by the untimely death of his cousin Augustus, the presumptive heir of Grandison. This unforeseen event produced a great revolution in the prospects of the family of Armine; for although the title and an entailed estate devolved to a distant branch, the absolute property of the old lord ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... restrained from behaving himself like a madman. At length, from raving about the state of the nation, he relapsed into a state of stupor, in which he became so insensible that they were all alarmed lest death step in and put an untimely end to his existence. In truth, so much did they fear the result of their joke, that they would have sent for a parson and begged him to pray kindly for the poor man, but that he opened his eyes, and gave out such other signs of returning ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... own discords, which education and moral training had done nothing to reconcile. The manly support, too, of the nobler nature was wanting, and the best half of her future and its possibilities was buried in the untimely grave of her husband. Here is what she was when she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... of Sophie's lover—the unfortunate clerk, who was sent to the army, for his honest but untimely application—could not be learned. He may now think that his punishment was deserved, and that the girl was really guilty; but it is more than probable that he will never again interfere to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... continuance of friendly relations with the Yamato Court. Six months after his invasion of Mimana he renewed the despatch of envoys to Japan, and it was not until their arrival in Yamato that they learned Japan's mood. Much to the credit of the Yamato Court, it did not wreak vengeance on these untimely envoys, but immediately afterwards an armed expedition was despatched to call Shiragi to account. The forces were divided into two corps, one being ordered to march under Ki no Omaro northwest from Mimana and effect a junction with Kudara; the other, under Kawabe no Nie, was ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... horrid sight! the tender bones Are dashed against the jagged stones: Sightless and mangled there they lie, Poor babes! untimely ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils unlike any scent ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... brief day our friends speak of us with subdued voices. The following morning, while the first worm is busily engaged in testing the construction of our coffin, they are teeing up for the first hole to suffer more acute sorrow over a sliced ball than they did over our, to us, untimely demise. The labyrinthodon was coming more slowly now. He seemed to realize that escape for me was impossible, and I could have sworn that his huge, fanged jaws grinned in pleasurable appreciation of my predicament, or was it in anticipation of the juicy morsel ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Wife, with new Elegies upon his (now knowne) untimely death. Whereunto are annexed New Newes and Characters written by himselfe and other learned Gentlemen. Editio septima. London: printed by Edward Griffin for Lawrence ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various

... too, their teacher growing more expert by practice, the descendants might attain to even greater accomplishment than their nefarious progenitor. No longer did the faint hope of being delivered from their tormentor by an untimely or even natural death, occur to the harassed Grassdalians. Death was an incident natural to one cat, however vivacious, but here was a dynasty of ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were separated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce Softly Bishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousand pounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of his old friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure was due to the fact that he had not seen ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... getting old, and another girl in the house simply means more work for you and a lot more problems for me. If 'she' (my father had never been able to reconcile himself to pronounce the name of my mother since her untimely death)—if 'she' were here I would not hesitate, but to bring another orphan into a family already half-orphaned ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... element of gold-dust hung in the air, breeding argument. The early, thin, bright morning steadily mellowed against the windows distant from the stove; the panes melted clear until they ran, steamed faintly, and dried, this fresh May day, after the night's untimely cold; while still the Legislature sat in its shirt-sleeves, and several statesmen had removed their boots. Even had appearances counted, the session was invisible from the street. Unlike a good number of houses in ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... went on, and, as it progressed, it became evident that, while thousands deprecated agitation of the slave question as untimely, the war could never end until that question was disposed of. And it also became every day more plain that the 'little arrangement' so frequently insisted on, and expressed in the words, 'Conquer the enemy first, and then free ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... thou seen a vernal Morning bright Gem every bank and trembling leaf with dews, Tinging the green fields with her amber hues, Changing the leaden streams to lines of light? Then seen dull Clouds, that shed untimely night, Roll envious on, and every ray suffuse, Till the chill'd Scenes their early beauty lose, And faint, and colourless, no more invite The glistening gaze of Joy?—'Twas emblem just Of my youth's sun, on which deep shadows fell, Spread from the PALL OF FRIENDS; ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... handsome had it not been so elongated and strained out of its proper lines of beauty, and her forehead was of a wonderful height, a smooth expanse between bunches of black curls, and in the midst was set that curious patch which she had worn ever since Bacon's untimely death, it being, as I live, nothing more nor less than a mourning coach and four horses, cut so cunningly out of black paper that it was ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... then," he resumed, "that while I am anxious to commit no untimely intrusion on your hours at North Villa, I am at the same time desirous of being something more than merely inoffensive towards you. I should wish to be positively useful, as far as I can. In my opinion Mr. Sherwin has held you to rather a hard engagement—he is trying your discretion ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... to call either Moab, Edom, or Judah to account for the part they had taken in the movement, perhaps because they were not mentioned in his instructions, or because he preferred not to furnish them, by an untimely interference, with a pretext for calling in the help of Egypt. The year was doubtless too far advanced to allow him to dream of marching against Pharaoh, and moreover that would have been one of those ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and the fine poem, "Boyarin Orsha," but his fame began only in 1837, with his splendid poem on the death of Pushkin, "The Death of the Poet," beginning, "The poet perished, the slave of honor," in which he expressed his entire sympathy with the poet in his untimely death, and poured out all his bitterness upon the circle which was incapable of appreciating and prizing the genius. This, in a multitude of manuscript copies, created a great sensation in St. Petersburg. Soon afterwards, on hearing ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... towns, the story of sickness and death fills a large part. Fever and ague, brought on by exposure, privations, and by the miasma from swamp, river and uncleared lands, disabled a large number of the early settlers, and hurried some to untimely graves. There were no physicians, and save a few drugs and the simples gathered from the river banks and forest, there were ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... well aware, two of the daughters of our widowed Queen have themselves long been widows. Two of her sons perished in their ripening prime. Her favourite daughter, the Princess Alice, and her favourite grandson, the heir-presumptive to her throne, drooped beside her like flowers untimely touched by frost; and within the last few weeks we ourselves have seen yet another of her grandsons laid beneath the sod in this very city of Pretoria. Nor is it with absolutely unqualified regret we call to mind that notably sad event. Like many ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... relation to his case, and thus divert the king's thoughts from any impression the other might have upon him; but the place Lord Falkland stumbled upon was still more suited to his destiny, being the expressions of Evander upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, lib. xi. Lord Falkland fell in the battle of Newbury, in 1644, and Charles was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... regions of Spain. God alone knew where! To attempt to return would be hopeless—sheer imbecility; he would most certainly get lost on the mountains, and perish from hunger and thirst, or fall over some precipice, or into the jaws of a bear; or, at all events, come to some kind of an untimely end. No! there was no alternative, he must remain and trust in Mlle de Nurrez. But the house was appalling; he did not like looking at it, and the bare thought of its interior froze his blood. Then he awoke to the fact that she was still addressing him, that her soft hands were lying on ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... by her side, and commenced questioning her concerning her former home and history. Never in her life had Mrs. Nichols felt more communicative, and never before had she so attentive a listener. Particularly did he hang upon every word, when she told him of her Helena, of her exceeding beauty, her untimely death, and ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... beating their breasts, so that those who were superstitious enough to notice such matters became alarmed for the fate of the armament, and foretold that it would start forth gloriously, but would wither untimely away. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... mother, and his grief over her untimely death, is a touching story. Attacked by a fatal disease, the life of Nancy Hanks wasted slowly away. Day after day her son sat by her bed reading to her such portions of the Bible as she desired to hear. At intervals she talked to him, urging him to walk in the paths of honor, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... CHARLES THE SEVENTH. The Duke of Bedford, to be a match for him, entered into a friendly league with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, and gave them his two sisters in marriage. War with France was immediately renewed, and the Perpetual Peace came to an untimely end. ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... this untimely painting did not lie with the ship's officers, but with custom. As far back as Noah's time it became law that ships must be constantly painted and fussed at when at sea; custom grew out of the law, and at sea custom knows no death; this custom will continue ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... as in many natural bodies, untimely decrepitude was the penalty of precocious maturity. Their early greatness, and their early decline, are principally to be attributed to the same cause, the preponderance which the towns acquired ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... earth, flat or mountainous, after a slight fall of snow—and indeed, in an impassioned state of mind, we feel a moral beauty in such poetical expression as "sorrow shedding on the head of youth its untimely snows"—yet the natural propriety of such an image, so far from justifying the assertion of a general analogy between Winter and Old Age, proves that the analogies between them are in fact very few, and felt to be analogies at all, only when touched upon very seldom, and very slightly, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... still trace with little difficulty the line of the old Middlesex canal, with here and there a break, from the basin at Charlestown to its junction with the Merrimac at Middlesex village. Like an accusing ghost, it never strays far from the Boston & Lowell Railroad, to which it owes its untimely end. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... disciplines; and it may be that man was an angel, that is to say, a messenger sent from God, as Raphael was to Tobit. Too suddenly did he contemn, despise, and misregard him; but too long thereafter, by an untimely and too late repentance, did he do penance for it. You say very well, answered Epistemon, yet shall you never for all that induce me to believe that it can tend any way to the advantage or commodity of a man to take advice and counsel of a woman, namely, of such a woman, and the woman of such a ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... alone, being deprived of the aid of their friends, by a kind of apostasy they return to the mechanical arts solely to gain a livelihood, to the loss of the Church and the degradation of the whole clergy. Thus Mother Church conceiving sons is compelled to miscarry, nay, some misshapen monster is born untimely from her womb, and for lack of that little with which Nature is contented, she loses excellent pupils, who might afterwards become champions and athletes of the faith. Alas, how suddenly the woof is cut, while the hand of the weaver is beginning his work! Alas, how the sun is eclipsed in the ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... distinguished by the glimmering light that remained. Judith sighed heavily and shuddered, as her paddle again dipped, and the canoe moved cautiously around the point. A sight had afflicted her senses, and now haunted her imagination, that was still harder to be borne, than even the untimely fate and passing ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... intellectual powers or of their moral insight, but is the one quality which essentially distinguishes the artist from the mere man of genius. Among the English poets of the last generation, Keats is the only one who early showed unmistakable signs of it, and developed it more and more fully until his untimely death. Wordsworth, though in most respects a far profounder man, attained it only now and then, indeed only once perfectly,—in his "Laodamia." Now, though it be undoubtedly true from one point of view that what a man has to ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... But some untimely thought did instigate His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those; His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state, Neglected all, with swift intent he goes To quench the coal which in his liver glows. ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... yea, I've suffered anguish From the very hour when, as the spring Of nature dragged my anchors loose, the soft Entreaty of a lover's sigh did blow Concurrent with my tide, and swept me out Into a troubled sea. Now, battered on the rocks of hard opinions, My most untimely wreck is quite complete; Yet spare the hulk for ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... the plenitude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over his grave, or maintained his title to the admiration with which posterity regards him as the first and only just conqueror that the world has produced. The untimely fall of their great leader seemed to threaten the ruin of his party; but to the Power which rules the world, no loss of a single man is irreparable. As the helm of war dropped from the hand of the falling hero, it was seized by two great statesmen, Oxenstiern and Richelieu. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... politician on the unpopular side. The causes are, his high character for probity, honour, and talents; his fine countenance; the benevolent interest he took in the concerns of all his friends; his simple and gentlemanlike manners; his untimely death.' 'Grave, studious, honourable, kind, everything Horner did,' says Lord Cockburn, 'was marked by thoughtfulness and kindness;' a beautiful character, which was exhibited but briefly to his contemporaries, but long remembered ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... gave it as her opinion that if her sisters had met with a violent death they were entirely to blame themselves, for some reason which she could not explain, and she added that she thought that their loose and undisciplined way of talking had had much to do with their untimely fate. Just as her sisters had been, she too was taunted by the laundresses regarding her choice of a husband, but her answer ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... of all pomp and state, nay, even of the normal surroundings of gentle birth, so long as he had those things which were absolutely necessary to his own personal comfort. He was honestly sorry for the untimely fate of his young kinsmen; but he slipped into his nephew's vacant place with an ease which filled his wife and daughter ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... character could not weigh with them, as, if the prisoner were guilty, his former apparent good character only aggravated his sin. He then concluded by telling the jurors that they were bound by solemn oaths to allow nothing to interfere with the truth of their verdict—that they must all deplore the untimely death of the young woman who was to have appeared before them, and sympathise with the brother for the loss of his sister—but that his misfortune in this respect, could not lighten his guilt if he were guilty, or ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... stood out now chivalrously in behalf of a certain Blowselinda, or Bonstrops, who had, it seems, a room to hire, once the occasional residence of Slicing Dick of Paddington, who lately suffered at Tyburn, and whose untimely exit had been hitherto mourned by the damsel in solitary widowhood, after ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... well-deserved hatred of aristocratic oppression, though living only in traditional remembrances, had prevailed in the sentiments of the common people over the hatred against Austria, though despotic and a stranger; so much so, that, to triumph over the ill-advised, untimely movement of 1846, Austria had nothing to do but open the field to murder, by granting a two dollars' reward for every head of ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... Ethics," reprinted in the first half of the present volume, was delivered before the University of Oxford, as the second of the annual lectures founded by Mr. Romanes: whose name I may not write without deploring the untimely death, in the flower of his age, of a friend endeared to me, as to so many others, by his kindly nature; and justly valued by all his colleagues for his powers of investigation and his zeal for the advancement of knowledge. I well ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... the government was doomed to receive a stunning blow. The news of the fall of Khartoum and the untimely death of General Gordon sent a thrill of horror and indignation throughout England. The government was seriously condemned for its procrastination in not sending timely relief, for the rescue of the imperiled English. ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... these same torments, I should not hesitate to dedicate my blood and all my powers to an object so sublime.' When the hangman stood above him, ready to begin the work of mutilation, he is said to have exclaimed: Mors acerba, fama perpetua, stabit vetus memora facti—my death is untimely, my fame eternal, the memory of the deed will last for aye.' He was only twenty-two years of age.[1] There is an antique grandeur about the outlines of this story, strangely mingled with mediaeval Catholicism in the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... in earnest, had a loftier purpose, worked in a nobler spirit, than this Dominican monk of Florence. His opposition to the Medici, his conflict with Rome, his visions and prophecies, his leadership of the politics of Florence, his powerful preaching, his untimely death, all give a romantic and a tragic interest to his life, and conspire to make him one of the most interesting figures in modern history. His moral purpose was conspicuous even when tainted by personal ambition. His political influence was supreme while it lasted, and was ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... has lost by death since Christmas, MM. Lachmann, Stuhr, Jacobi, Erman, and Dr. CHARLES THEODORE FRANZ, who died at Breslaw early in January, at the untimely age of forty-five. For eleven years Dr. Franz occupied the chair of Classical Philology in the University of Berlin. He is the author of a variety of works: in the first rank of which stand his Criticisms on the Greek Tragic Poets, and his several collections ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... passed by the prisoner, after his sentence was received, in the bosom of his family. Mr. Wharton wept in hopeless despondency over the untimely fate of his son; and Frances, after recovering from her insensibility, experienced an anguish of feeling to which the bitterness of death itself would have been comparatively light. Miss Peyton alone retained a vestige of hope, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... predestination, to lie with my heels in the air among the scented clover, and listen to old Chaucer telling the sweet story of Grisel the patient, or to weep for the chaste Desdemona, and mourn over the untimely end of her gallant spouse. There were times as I rose up with my mind full of the noble poetry, and glanced over the fair slope of the countryside, with the gleaming sea beyond it, and the purple outline of the Isle of Wight upon the horizon; when it would be borne in upon me that the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... heiress whose father, Gobseck, has just died, Vautrin forges a will by which the fortune is bequeathed to Lucien. Unluckily for the ex-convict's plans, some police spies have been on the track of his proceedings, and an untimely arrest of him and his protege casts them into prison. These adventures are told in Whither Bad Ways Lead and two other volumes. A concluding book, entitled Vautrin's Last Incarnation, relates the outlaw's duel with justice ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... which have not even yet proved fruitful. Some discoveries and devices are so far ahead of the times in which they are produced that several lifetimes often pass before the world is ready to utilize them. Like immature or unripe fruit, they are apt to die an untimely death, and it sometimes curiously happens that, several generations after their birth, a subsequent inventor or discoverer, in honest ignorance of their prior existence, offers them to the world as absolutely new. The times being ripe, they pass into immediate and extended public use, so that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord



Words linked to "Untimely" :   inopportune, unseasonable, early, premature, wrong, ill-timed



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