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Displeasing   Listen
adjective
Displeasing  adj.  Causing displeasure or dissatisfaction; offensive; disagreeable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Displeasing" Quotes from Famous Books



... been home a week. Valentine had found ample time to consider how he should behave to Dorothea, Mrs. Brandon. He had also become accustomed to the thought of her being out of his reach, and the little excitement of wonder as to how they should meet was not altogether displeasing to him. "Giles will be inclined, no doubt, to be rather jealous of me," was his thought; "I shall be a bad fellow if I don't take care to show him that there is no need for it. D. must do the same. Of course she will. Sweet D.! Well, it can't be ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... the hermit had been talking to the women in a wonderful way about war and the God whom he worships. He thinks that war is an evil thing; that to fight in self-defence—that is, in defence of home and country—is right, but that to go on viking cruise is wrong, and displeasing to God." ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... the King is slain in fight; And changed the aspect now things wore of old: Thou therefore, man of God, approach my gates With counsel sage. This further I require; Thy counsel must be worthy of a Queen, Nor aught contain displeasing."' Cuthbert spake: 'My charge requires my presence at Carlisle; Beseech the Queen to meet me near its wall On this day fortnight.' Thitherwards thenceforth Swiftlier he passed, while daily from the woods The woodmen flocked, and shepherds from the hills, Concourse still widening. These ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... order that no occasion may be taken from this, as some ill-intentioned persons desire, to discontinue the pacification and exploration, it is advisable to impose a large fine on each and all who do not observe it, with the injunction that his Majesty will also consider such conduct as displeasing to himself. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... based on this pentatonic scale, need not be at all displeasing, is proved by many of the old Scotch tunes, which are built on the same system. An excellent illustration of its rhythmic structure, frequent iterations, and melodic character may be found in our own familiar tune, "There is a happy land, far, far away." ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... of Norfolk extraction, and an archdeacon of Ely. He was consecrated to the see on Mid-lent Sunday, 1289, at Canterbury, by John Peckham archbishop. His election, however, was displeasing to the diocese. He was translated to Ely ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell

... kind. But, nevertheless, I was taken with John Smith, in spite of his name. There was so much about him that was pleasant, both to the eye and to the understanding! One meets constantly with men from contact with whom one revolts without knowing the cause of such dislike. The cut of their beard is displeasing, or the mode in which they walk or speak. But, on the other hand, there are men who are attractive, and I must confess that I was attracted by John Smith at first sight. I hesitated, however, for a minute; for there are sundry things of which ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope

... largely predominates are those between nations. Separate and independent communities are still in a state of nature. The tie between them is only the imperfect, loose, and non-moral tie of self-interest and material power. Many publicists and sentimental politicians are ever striving to conceal this displeasing fact from themselves and others, and evading the lesson of the outbreaks that now and again convulse the civilised world. Mr. Carlyle's history of the rise and progress of the power of the Prussian monarchy is the great illustration of the hold which he has got of the conception ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... harbor, sovereign kings! Did you visit Dominora, you would not be marched straight into a dungeon. And though you would behold sundry sights displeasing, you would start to inhale such liberal breezes; and hear crowds boasting of their privileges; as you, of yours. Nor has the wine ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... trenchant in every sentence of every page, who never lapses for a line into the contingent, who marches through the intricacies of things in a blaze of certainty, is not only a writer to be distrusted, but the owner of a doubtful and displeasing style. It is a great test of style to watch how an author disposes of the qualifications, limitations, and exceptions that clog the wings of his main proposition. The grave and conscientious men of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... independent of exterior causes, if he sees every thing in God; how comes it that so many false ideas are afloat, that so many errors prevail, with which the human mind is saturated? From whence comes these opinions, which according to the theologians are so displeasing to God? Might it not be a question to the Malebranchists, was it in the Divinity that SPINOZA ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... by the secret knowledge that he had nobody but himself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, by this proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him,—his son's having adopted American standards and opinions,—broke out furiously with a wrath wholly disproportionate to ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... addressed. Wonder, doubt, hope, and again incredulity were lost at last in a recognition of the other's kindly intentions toward himself, and the prospects which they opened out before him. With a shame-faced look, and yet with a manly acceptance of his own humiliation that was not displeasing to his visitors, he turned about and pointing to the morsel of bread lying on the table before them, he ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... Madonna Agnesa's child, and having a more colourable pretext for speaking to her, took courage, and told her in words that message of his heart which she had long before read in his eyes; but though 'twas not displeasing to the lady to hear, it availed ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... But his good-humor was gone: the usual suavity of his manner was a little ruffled. His recognition of Mary Kingston had evidently been displeasing as ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... possible; and she was well content to reign alone in the heart of her fractious, unreasonable but most affectionate, humorous, and irresistible great man. Although her rival had been but a name and an idea, a mere abstraction in which she had never really believed, she did not find it altogether displeasing to herself that the lively Martia was no more; she has almost told me ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... and all the comforts and refinements of civilised life, to cross the ocean, to fix their abode in forests among wild beasts and wild men, rather than commit the sin of performing, in the House of God, one gesture which they believed to be displeasing to Him. Did those brave exiles think it inconsistent with civil or religious freedom that the State should take charge of the education of the people? No, Sir; one of the earliest laws enacted by the Puritan colonists ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... with things, their archetypes, contemplated first in themselves, and secondly in relation to each other; in all which processes the mind must be skilful, otherwise it will be perpetually imposed upon. In the next couplet the word conquest, is applied in a manner that would have been displeasing even from its triteness in a copy of complimentary verses to a fashionable Beauty; but to talk of making conquests in an epitaph is not to be endured. 'No arts essayed, but not to be admired,'—are words expressing ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... that the news bureau that sent out this item was friendly to Barry Conant and the "System," and that it would print nothing displeasing to them. Therefore, this must be, a foreword of the coming harvest of the bulls and the ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... uneasy, and had also aroused the attention of the sixty assembled bourgeois. Presently they began to write their ballots, and the wily Pigoult contrived to obtain a majority for Monsieur Mollot, the clerk of the court, and Monsieur Godivet, the registrar. These nominations were naturally very displeasing to Fromaget, the apothecary, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... it was in blank verse. But Dryden himself has spoken memorably upon rhyme. Discussing the imputed unnaturalness of the rhymed 'repartee' he says: 'Suppose we acknowledge it: how comes this confederacy to be more displeasing to you than in a dance which is well contrived? You see there the united design of many persons to make up one figure; ... the confederacy is plain amongst them, for chance could never produce anything so beautiful; and yet there is nothing in it that shocks your ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... I was cautious in what I said before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane; and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes which half led me to imagine she was not. I confined my remarks, therefore, to general topics, and to such as I thought would not be displeasing or exciting even to a lunatic. She replied in a perfectly rational manner to all that I said; and even her original observations were marked with the soundest good sense, but a long acquaintance with the metaphysics of mania, had taught me to put no faith in such evidence of sanity, and I continued ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... pretensions, for he calls it a "hideous blot";—a violation of the healthy action of our institutions, for he calls it a "disease";—a violation of our whole public happiness, for he calls it a "curse." But his way of working was more calm and cool,—often displeasing those whose plans of action are formed far from any direct entanglement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... were not displeasing. I reasoned that we had got out of the bay, and were passing into the open sea, where I knew the wind was always fresher, and the waves larger and bolder. "The pilot," thought I, "will soon be dismissed, and then I may safely show ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... the child and servile fear; while the savage displayed, in the midst of her tenderness, an air of freedom and of pride which was almost ferocious. I had approached the group, and I contemplated them in silence; but my curiosity was probably displeasing to the Indian woman, for she suddenly rose, pushed the child roughly from her, and giving me an angry ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... of her, and cried because she was so unhappy. Well, she traveled from place to place, footsore and weary, but in her own country no one dared aid her, for fear of displeasing the wicked fairy, who at this time was all powerful. So she entered a strange land, where some peasants took her in, clothed and fed her, and gave her a staff and a flock of geese to tend. And day after day she guarded the flock, telling her sorrows to the dog, how she missed ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... home he would stamp his foot and shake their houses down. Their own prophets, Francis and Singuista, had preached war, too, telling the Indians that their partial adoption of civilization, and their relations of friendship with the whites, were sorely displeasing to the Great Spirit, who would surely punish them if they did not immediately abandon the civilization and butcher the pale-faces. Francis predicted, also, that in the coming struggle no Indians would be killed, while the whites would be completely exterminated. All this was promised on condition ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston

... uncompromising, and displeasing as it is—to extract from it an exceptional and delightful plot, must necessarily manipulate events without an exaggerated respect for probability, molding them to his will, dressing and arranging them so as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... daily feel my attachment to it strengthening. The very stumps that appeared so odious, through long custom, seem to lose some of their hideousness; the eye becomes familiarized even with objects the most displeasing till they cease to be observed. Some century hence how different will this spot appear! I can picture it to my imagination with fertile fields and groves of trees planted by the hand of taste;—all will be different; our present rude dwellings will have given place ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... those that are perished betweene the Ilands and the maine. Thus it hath pleased God to fight for vs and to defend the iustice of our cause, against the ambicious and bloody pretenses of the Spaniard, who seeking to deuoure all nations, are themselues deuoured. A manifest testimony how iniust and displeasing, their attempts are in the sight of God, who hath pleased to witnes by the successe of their affaires, his mislike of their bloody and iniurious designes, purposed and practised against all Christian princes, ouer whom they seeke vnlawfull and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... to war against those Defenceless people, he would displease his great father, and he would not receive that pertection & Care from him as other nations who listened to his word- This Chief who is a young man 26 yr. old replied that if his going to war against the Snake indians would be displeasing to us be would not go, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... was ready for the post. The first secret I ever had from my husband was the writing of that letter; and, proud and sensitive as he was, and averse to asking the least favour of the great, I was dreadfully afraid that the act I had just done would be displeasing to him; still, I felt resolutely determined to send it. After giving the children their breakfast, I walked down and read it to my brother-in-law, who was not only much pleased with its contents, but took it down himself ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... female dependents, and you know the man." If this be madness, would that the madman might have bitten all mankind before he died! To the advice, "Take here the grand secret, if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing none: court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion," he appends, with an evident reminiscence of Rathbone ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... to love displeasing, My Winifreda, move your care; Let naught delay the heavenly blessing, Nor ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... words, but with a subtle intimation in her manner that she did not consider the inconvenient termination such a misfortune, after all, and that it somehow suggested an alternative that was not displeasing. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... invested Fort Kehl, situated on the Rhine, opposite to Strasburg; and the Imperialists, dreading that the next storm would fall upon Philipsburg, employed themselves with great diligence to put that important fortress in a proper posture of defence. If the suspension of play was displeasing to our hero, the expectation of being besieged was by no means more agreeable. He knew the excellence of the French engineers, the power of their artillery, and the perseverance of their general. He felt, by anticipation, the toils of hard duty upon the works, the horrors ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... virtue, but because she detested him as a man who was bent on accomplishing a marriage between her brother and Flora Francatelli. This hatred she concealed, and even the eagle-sighted Ibrahim perceived not that he was in any way displeasing to the lovely Nisida. With the exception of the grand vizier, and the slaves who waited upon her, the lady saw no one on board the ship; for she never quitted the saloon allotted to her, but passed ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... called the bottom motive of duty, and defined as the immediate determination of the will by law, thwarting self-love. Here the child reverences what is not understood as authority, and to the childish "Why?" which always implies imperfect respect for the authority, however displeasing its behest, the teacher or parent should always reply, "You cannot understand why yet," unless quite sure that a convincing and controlling insight can be given, such as shall make all future exercise of outward authority ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... had been brought up to believe, that, although it was very right and proper to take a quiet walk in a garden or in the fields toward the close of the day, it was not right, but would, on the other hand, be displeasing to God, for any one, old or young, to spend any part of the day which God had consecrated to his own service and to the spiritual improvement of the soul in ordinary sports and amusements. Jennie, too, had the same feeling; and accordingly, ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott

... not suggest to the other man that he take in your ideas. Instead you concentrate his attention on your selfishness and your individual opinion. The characteristic gestures of the typical old peddler are displeasing because they are made in the wrong direction. He holds his arms close to his body and gesticulates toward himself. He makes the impression that he does not have your interest at heart in the least, ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... but with as chaste an Ardour, As Souls departing pay the Deities, When with incessant Sighs they haste away, And leave Humanity behind. Oh! so did I Abandon all the lesser Joys of Life, For that of being permitted but t'adore ye. Alas, if 'twere displeasing to you, Why did your self encourage it? I might have languish'd, as I did before, And hid those Crimes which make you hate me now. —Oh, I am lost? Antonio, thou'st undone me; [He rises in Rage. —Hear me, Ungrate; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... presents an aspect of frivolity unequalled except by an Eights' Week of to-day. The Queen has her Court at Merton, and the city is full of ladies of high degree. Their flounces and their furbelows are everywhere, and daily they congregate in Christ Church meadows and Trinity Grove, to hold revels displeasing to the Heads of Houses, who fear for the youth in their charge, and a mockery to their own hearts, which are anxious enough. Their dresses may be fine, but they themselves are lodged in garrets, and they miss the dainty fare to which ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... that had made them run go; or, rather, it was Duty and Fate walking in Oscar's displeasing likeness. Nothing easier, nothing more reasonable, than to see the tutor and tell him they should not need him to-day. But that would have spoiled everything. They did not know it, but deep in their childlike ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister

... that he craves for love, and he complains of it, yet not because he loves—seeing that to no true lover can love be displeasing; but because he loves unhappily, whilst those beams which are the rays of those lights, and which themselves, according as they are perverse and antagonistic, or really kind and gracious, become the gates which lead towards heaven or towards hell. In this way he is kept ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... then," said Arabella, pressing the matter quite home. At this time she was very close to him, and though her words were severe, the glance from her eyes was soft. And the scent from her hair was not objectionable to him, as it would have been to Miss Stanbury. And the mode of her head-dress was not displeasing to him. And the folds of her dress, as they fell across his knee, were welcome to his feelings. He knew that he was as one under temptation, but he was not strong enough to bid the tempter avaunt. "Say that it ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... lend me any assistance. "Disposed!" replied he with great emotion; "I thought you had known me so well as to assure yourself without asking, that I, and all that belongs to me, are at your command. In the meantime you shall dine with me, and I will tell you something that, perhaps, will not be displeasing unto you." Then, wringing my hand, he said, "It makes my heart bleed to see you in that garb!" I thanked him for his invitation, which, I observed, could not be unwelcome to a person who had not eaten ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... work of an actual chisel." He admires the smooth empasto; and among the painters who practised it, laudably mentions Vander Werff. But he blames others less known for carrying it out to an extreme finish. To our taste, the smooth empasto of Vander Werff is most displeasing; rendering flesh ivory, and, in that master, ivory without its true and pleasing colour. This branch of the subject ends with remarks on touch, which completes the list of the parts that contribute "to make a good picture." The manner ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... triumph, and so I shall have an excuse for not entering the city. You will laugh. But oh, I wish I had remained in my province. Could I but have guessed what was impending! Think for me. How shall I avoid displeasing Caesar? He writes most kindly about a 'Thanksgiving' for ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... from the Window of an obscure Lodging-house, in the neighbourhood of London The Old Bachelor Careless Content A Pastoral Ode to a Tobacco-pipe Away! let nought to Love displeasing Richard Bentley's sole Poetical ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... that we did it more with a view to distribute the burthen of taxation equally upon the people than to increase it collectively; still', he thought that, 'either we should not do it at all, or delegate the duty to inferior agents, whose close inspection of the great parent could not be so displeasing to the Deity.'[1] ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... of ones self shews a Diffidence, which is not displeasing, it implies at the same time the greatest Respect to an Audience that can be. It is a sort of mute Eloquence, which pleads for their Favour much better than Words could do; and we find their Generosity naturally moved to support those who are ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... a henpecked husband, that man is the prince. One day, his carasposa giving audience to a deputation from the captains of the vessels lying in Papeetee, he ventured to make a suggestion which was very displeasing to her. She turned round and, boxing his ears, told him to go over to his beggarly island of Imeeo if he ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... the divine, who, though an excellent, was, as we have elsewhere seen, an irritable man.—"Do not insult me; but think honourably of the messenger, for the sake of Him whose commission he carries.—Do not, I say, defy me—I am bound to discharge my duty, were it to the displeasing of my ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... heaven, since, not content with certain liberty, we are incurring the dubious risk of sovereignty and slavery, let us adopt some method, whereby, without much loss, without much blood of either nation, it may be decided which shall rule the other."—The proposal is not displeasing to Tullus, though both from the natural bent of his mind, as also from the hope of victory, he was rather inclined to violence. After some consideration, a plan is adopted on both sides, for which Fortune herself ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... he returned to me with thick speech, wandering footsteps, and a back all whitened with plaster. I had half expected, yet I could have wept to see it. All disabilities were piled on that weak back—domestic misfortune, nervous disease, a displeasing exterior, empty pockets, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... went to sea, England and Spain were by no means friendly. Henry the Eighth of England had ill-treated his wife, who was a Spanish princess. In addition he had drawn the English people away from the Church of Rome. These things were most displeasing to Spain, but there was still another reason for disagreement. The interests of the two countries were opposed commercially, and this was the most important cause ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... influence in their behalf. Donna Clara's face beamed with delight at my communication: and she candidly acknowledged, as she had before in the note, that his person and his character were by no means displeasing. I then produced another note, which I said he had prevailed upon me to deliver. After this, affairs went on successfully. I repeatedly met her in the evening; and although I at first was indifferent, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... were rougher than his voice, just as his real feeling in the matter was deeper than his expression of it, and secretly he was a little proud of his achievement and felt a subtle proprietorship over his companion that was not displeasing. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... provided that my suit is not displeasing to her," answered Richard, not without a tremor in his voice, for the old man's face was terrible to look upon. Hatred and Wrath were struggling there with Avarice, and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... Divine gift, and is the instrument of our justification in God's sight. We are all by nature displeasing to Him, till He justifies us freely for Christ's sake. Faith is like a hand, appropriating personally the merits of Christ, who is our justification. Now, what can we want more, or have more, than those ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... you have held me in memory. I have the intention of returning to the country of England, even in this bad time of winter, when the climate is most funereal. I shall do my best to call back, if possible, the scattered ruins of the property, and to institute again the name which my father made displeasing. In this good work you will, I have faith, afford me your best assistance, and the influence of your high connection in the neighbourhood. Accept, dear aunt, the assurance of my highest consideration, of the most sincere and the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... should have stirred such portentous alarm. There is no atheism, no overt attack on any of the cardinal mysteries of the faith, no direct denunciation even of the notorious abuses of the Church. Yet we feel that the atmosphere of the book may well have been displeasing to authorities who had not yet learnt to encounter the modern spirit on equal terms. The Encyclopaedia takes for granted the justice of religious toleration and speculative freedom. It asserts in distinct ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... old humbug 'Elizabeth,' insanely called 'the good Queen Bess,' viz: the balancing opposite interests, she drew custom to her house and grist to her mill, without troubling herself as to selection from her numerous admirers, which, besides displeasing the others, would place another in authority over that bar, which, for the last ten years, she had ruled monarch of all she surveyed. She had no relative, save one nephew, a wild, shy boy, strange and moody in his habits, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite

... over to the small table and addressed the solitary guest: 'We desire you to dine with us.' 'I am very grateful for your kindness, gentlemen,' was the reply, 'and I would cheerfully accept your invitation, but my presence at your table, if acceptable to you, might be displeasing to others. Therefore, permit me to remain ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... anti-British feeling, so far as it is not inevitable, is to be checked. In such "men" the new Indian feelings of manhood and citizenship and nationality will find recognition and response, in spite of displeasing accompaniments, for such feelings we must look for under British rule and from English and Christian education. From such "men," also, the new Indians will accept frank condemnation of social irrationalities or political exaggerations, as e.g. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... question you about Miss O'Hara. There is some commotion in the school in connection with her. She seems to be displeasing some of those ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... be likely to grant that prayer, Ellen, if he sees that you do not care about displeasing him in those 'great many things?' will he judge that you are sincere in wishing ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... moderate fortune in trade, he retired into Brittany, his native country, with his two daughters; the youngest, Louise, being amiable and pretty; the eldest, plain and ungraceful. The dissimilarity of the two sisters, the one universally pleasing, the other displeasing everybody, created such misunderstanding between them that their father was obliged to separate them. He kept the plain daughter at home, and placed the younger and pretty one as a boarder in a neighbouring town to that in which ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... to dwell at length upon the fact so sadly apparent, that the American minstrel has had for his principal "stock in trade" the coarse, the often vulgar, jest and song; a disgusting (to the refined) buffoonery, attended with painfully displeasing contortions of the body; and, worst of all, the often malicious caricaturing of an ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... Mio Signor: I write this to thee to tell thee amid what bitter anxieties I live.... I believed that so many prayers and tears, and love without measure, would not have been displeasing to God.... Thy great valor has shone as in a ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... is," Colville proceeded, as if he had been encouraged to do so, "I have had the misfortune—yes, I'm afraid I've had the fault—to make myself very displeasing to Mrs. Bowen, and in such a way that the very least I can do is to take myself off as far and as soon as I ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... From those bright eyes, but still, alas! in vain, To such low level stoops not thy chaste pride. If others seek the love thus thrown aside, Vain were their hopes and labours to obtain; The heart thou spurnest I alike disdain, To thee displeasing, 'tis by me denied. But if, discarded thus, it find not thee Its joyless exile willing to befriend, Alone, untaught at others' will to wend, Soon from life's weary burden will it flee. How heavy then the guilt to both, but more To thee, for thee it did the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... was so displeasing to him that his thoughts became confused, and for a while he sat brooding over the subject, endeavouring to find a ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... your dear little kindnesses. Let me stay alone in Dicky's tent till morning, and please don't let any one come near me. You can tell everybody the whole story to-night, if you think best, though I should be glad if only Dr. Paul and Bell need know; but I do not mind anything after displeasing you—nothing can be so bad as that. Perhaps you think I ought to come out and confess it to them myself, as a punishment; but oh, Aunt Truth, I am punishing myself in here alone worse than any one else can do it. I will go back to Santa Barbara any ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... is angry that we sit so near his path," mused Griselda. "How his eyes look into one's soul. His gaze really makes me tremble. I will not sit here on his return, lest it be displeasing ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... licentious pamphlet, thrown abroad in these lawless times in the defence and encouragement of Divorces (not to be sued out; that solemnity needed not; but) to be arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to the displeasing and unquiet wife, upon this ground principally, That marriage was instituted for the help and comfort of man: where, therefore, the match proves such as that the wife doth but pull down aside, and, by her innate peevishness and either sullen or pettish ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... Gnob piped on, "that he has harkened to the speech of the white man up at the Big House, and that he bends head to the white man's god, and, moreover, that blood is displeasing to the ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... hundreds of their countrymen, emigrated; and after a time, a younger son, Mr. Muntz's father, who seems to have been a man of great enterprise and force of character, became a merchant at Amsterdam. This step was very displeasing to his aristocratic relatives, but he followed his own course independently. In a few months he left Amsterdam for England, and established himself in Birmingham. At the age of 41 he married an English lady, Miss Purden, she being 17 years of age, and they resided ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... all they should be varied and complete, suggesting freedom and spontaneity. When only half made they are likely to call attention to the discrepancy, and to this extent will obscure rather than help the thought. The continuous use of gesture is displeasing to the eye, and gives the ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser

... I had praise from them, whom I then thought it all virtue to please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein I was cast away from Thine eyes. Before them what more foul than I was already, displeasing even such as myself? with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows and restlessness to imitate them! Thefts also I committed, from my parents' cellar and table, enslaved ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... me to say," returned the black mask, "that while your voice is not familiar, the tone is, and very displeasing to my ears. And if you do not at once resume your seat, I shall be forced to ask ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... were cut short by his arrival at the hotel garage, with the displeasing discovery that no one named Dale had reached Symon's Yat that evening, while the stolid fact stared him in the face that his cherished Mercury demanded several hours of hard-working attentions if it were to glisten and hum in its usual perfection ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... of notice, seemed to confirm this intelligence; this was the arrival of a Russian officer with a flag of truce. He had so little to say, that it was evident from the first that he came only to observe. His manner was particularly displeasing to Davoust, who read in it something more than assurance. A French general having inconsiderately asked this stranger what we should find between Wiazma and Moscow, the Russian proudly replied, "Pultowa." This answer bespoke ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... would have drawn that flower carefully with a lead pencil; it would be washed with colour and stippled until it reached the quality of wool, which is so much admired in that art training-school; and whenever the young lady was not satisfied with the turn her work was taking, she would wash the displeasing portion out and start afresh. The difference—there are other differences —but the difference we are concerned with between this hypothetical young person of Kensington education and Mr. James, is that the drawing which Mr. James exhibits is not ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... away in her rich blue brocade. Her behest was obeyed, of course, though it was evidently displeasing to the nursery authorities, and Lady Strickland gave a warning to be discreet and to avoid gossip ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her head drooped. "Let us talk of something else," she said in an altered voice. "Myself is displeasing to me." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... water or the rope." Thus addressed by the daughter of the king of the Vidarbhas, Nala answered her saying, "With the Lokapalas present, choosest thou a man? Do thou turn thy heart to those high-souled lords, the creators of the worlds, unto the dust of whose feet I am not equal. Displeasing the gods, a mortal cometh by death. Save me, O thou of faultless limbs! Choose thou the all-excelling celestials. By accepting the gods, do thou enjoy spotless robes, and celestial garlands of variegated ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... Governor Sloughter and his friends met in the City Hall, where the council of the new Governor was sworn in—a council every member of which was an enemy of Leisler. Then Leisler was arrested, with his son-in-law, Milborne, and both were condemned to death as rebels. But the Governor was afraid of displeasing the King by putting Leisler to death, for, after all, Leisler was the man who had been the first to recognize the authority of King William in New York. He refused to sign the death-warrant. But the enemies of Leisler were not content. Nicholas Bayard, who had become more ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet

... The question, she knew, was void of offence. "Carrying on" meant nothing, but the homely phrase seemed suddenly very displeasing—horribly vulgar! Her very ears burned. What if, some time, he should hear a like phrase used to describe their wonderful friendship? The thought was acute discomfort. Oh, how mean and ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain fair day in a fishers' village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... flocks, like our sparrows, hopping about everywhere, and perching on the hedges and house-tops. I anxiously wished for an opportunity to make myself better acquainted with one of them. Presuming that shooting in the town might be displeasing to the inhabitants, who would naturally claim to themselves a sort of exclusive sporting right, I took my gun down to the sea-shore, and there shot one of the birds. It belonged to the Gyr-Falcon family (Polyboriniae), and was one of the species peculiar to South America (Polyborus ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... kept on at it, framing high compliments; one answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as their tongues. All the fish kept dancing, too; Maurice heard the clatter and was afraid to stop playing lest it might be displeasing to the fish, and not knowing what so many of them may take it into their heads to do to him ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... Rose beside her mother. This good girl arose at dawn to prepare the young men's breakfast; for she had an excellent natural disposition, and so much intelligence that she seemed to know by instinct that her birth was displeasing to them, and sought to gain their regard by ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... let me confess to you. I have not brought the bonnet. A bonnet is a personal matter, and I would not let anyone choose one for me. Still, as you had more faith in man (or woman), I would have risked even displeasing you, only Robert would not let me. He said it was absurd—I 'did not know your size;' I 'could not know your taste;' in fact, he would not let me. Perhaps after all it is better. You shall see mine, which is the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... mankind. We are given to understand—darkly, indeed, but with as much certainty as we can be entitled to require—that the mixture between the two species of created beings was sinful on the part of both, and displeasing to the Almighty. It is probable, also, that the extreme longevity of the antediluvian mortals prevented their feeling sufficiently that they had brought themselves under the banner of Azrael, the angel of death, and removed to too great a distance the period between their crime ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... they had received on that occasion at the hands of Monsieur de Breze, that the King had hastily decided to hold another levee on the evening of the 5th of May, to which all the deputies were again invited and at which much of the formal and displeasing ceremony of the first reception was to be banished. At the first levee His Majesty had remained in state in the Salle d'Hercule, to which the deputies were admitted according to their rank, the noblesse and higher clergy passing in through the great state apartments, the tiers being introduced one ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... of personal responsibility to Him; in other words, without a "fear" of Him, such as Moses taught, and which is represented by David as "the beginning of wisdom,"—the fear to do wrong, not only because it is wrong, but also because it is displeasing to Him who can both punish and reward. I do not believe that Socrates had this idea of God; but I do believe that he recognized His existence and providence. Most people in Greece and Rome had religious instincts, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... principal impression entirely fills our mind: the accessory and accidental ideas, in which chiefly dwell all impressions of baseness, are effaced from it. It is for this reason that the theft committed by young Ruhberg, in the "Crime through Ambition," [a play of Iffland] far from displeasing on the stage, is a real tragic effect. The poet with great skill has managed the circumstances in such wise that we are carried away; we are left almost breathless. The frightful misery of the family, and especially the grief of the father, are objects that attract ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... couldn't get him. All I expected to do was to give him a polite hint that his attentions were displeasing to us. It was the same man that has been following us all along, Mrs. Gray. It was the same hoofprints, too, that I found up in the range where we first made camp. If that critter and I ever get close enough to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... Virgil and other famous Latin Poets, and that now after Two Thousand Years they make the best Tragedies we have, in which all that pleases, only does so, as 'tis conformable to these Rules, (and that too without our being aware of it,) and what is displeasing, is such, because it is contrary to them, for good Sense, and right Reason, is of all Countries and Places, the same Subjects which caus'd so many Tears to be shed in the Roman Theatre, produce the same Effects in ours, and ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier

... easily be believed that his former standing for a Proctor's place, and being disappointed, must prove much displeasing to a man of his great wisdom and modesty, and create in him an averseness to run a second hazard of his credit and content: and yet he was assured by Dr. Kilbie, and the Fellows of his own College, and ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... pale and gloomy; he compressed his lips as he used to do when any thing displeasing was communicated to him. "You have told me one of the absurd stories with which nurses try to frighten their children," he said, harshly. "But I do not believe it, nor shall I allow myself to be frightened and take imprudent steps. No one will dare attack ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... head for the first time. His face was a little long, his features irregular but not displeasing, his deep-set eyes seemed unnaturally bright. His cheeks were sunken, his forehead unusually prominent. The whole effect of his personality was a little curious. If he had no claims to be considered good-looking, his face was at least a ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... you that when you write to me about something in my conduct which is displeasing to you, and I in turn give you my views, let it always be a matter between father and son, and therefore a secret not to be divulged to others. Let our letters suffice and do not address yourself to others, for, by heaven, ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

... he said. "We are all very anxious indeed to hear the result of your interview with Brott—and apart from that, I personally have too few opportunities to act as your escort to let a chance go by. I trust that my presence is not displeasing to you?" ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... wonder at the houses on either side, and at the faces of the children who stood in the doorways as he passed. At first he did not see anything that disturbed him; for word had gone before him to remove from sight everything that might be displeasing or painful. ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin

... exertions. Ineffable delight, blended with a divine benignity, beamed over the hero's countenance. He felt conscious of being engaged in contending for all that is dear to man; and, consequently, struggling in a cause which could by no means be displeasing to Heaven. He doubted little the success of his country, for he knew in what he confided; but he was not presumptuous, for he had early been instructed, that "the battle is not always to the strong." His own personal fate was ever humbly resigned ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... cherish the persuasion that it contains no sentiments, and expresses no feelings, which can be justly displeasing to a dignified clergyman, who has firmly professed his attachment to the great principles of the Church in times more dangerous to her interests, and more difficult for her ministers, than any which have heretofore ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull

... displeasure at this audacious crime. In the former he said: "I am at once sending in every direction in pursuit of the perpetrator, with a view to catch him and inflict such punishment upon him as is required by a deed so wicked, so displeasing, and, moreover, so inconvenient; for the reparation of which I wish to forget nothing." And lest any persons, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, should be aroused by this news to make a disturbance of the peace, he called upon all the governors to explain the full circumstances of the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... is impoverished. Why? Nine times in ten, because of a disregard of synonyms. Listen to the talk of the average person. Whatever is pleasing is fine or nice or all to the good; whatever is displeasing is bum or awful or a fright. Life is reflected, not as noble and complex, but as mean and meager. Out of such stereotyped utterance only the general idea emerges. The precise meaning is lazily or incompetently left to the hearer ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... of such things as are displeasing to the local forest deities must be positively avoided, such as the mention of salt, of fish that are not found in the region, and of ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... consists of their picked wild desperates, resolute for mischief, such as neither fear God nor regard their fellow-creatures, but understand themselves bound to hurry from the road whatever is displeasing to themselves, so the rear-guard consists of misproud serving-men, who, being in charge of the baggage, take care to amend by their exactions upon travelling-merchants and others, their own thefts on ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... distance from the Emperor, Monsieur le comte. You know of course how difficult it is for soldiers who are not under the eye of their master to obtain promotion,—not counting that the integrity and frankness of Monsieur de Reybert were displeasing to his superiors. My husband has watched your steward for the last three years, being aware of his dishonesty and intending to have him lose his place. We are, as you see, quite frank with you. Moreau has ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... and has begged my pardon; he declares he had no thought of displeasing me at the governor's, but from my behaviour was afraid of importuning me if ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... rode by, and I ran to the window, did you chide me then? Did you not come to the window yourself? When he looked up, smiled, nodded, and greeted me, was it displeasing to you? Did you not feel yourself ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... things was extremely displeasing to Louise and Enna; scarcely less so to their father; but the others, convinced that they were in the path of duty in thus extending kindness and sympathy to deserving strangers, who were also "of the household of ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... she will then for the first time be left, as she ought to have been long since, to manage her own affairs in her own way. If her constitution on the subject of slavery or on any other subject be displeasing to a majority of the people, no human power can prevent them from changing it within a brief period. Under these circumstances it may well be questioned whether the peace and quiet of the whole country are not of greater importance than the mere ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... gaunt, clean-shaven, and the ill-fitting wig that gaped about the shrunken temples gave it the queer pinched look which tells of a starved belly. Eyes red-rimmed and staring, a long thin nose, and an unearthly pallor made it displeasing: the dropped jaw, showing the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... triumph. "Antony's cursed sentimental notions, of course—might have known it. You are one of those who prefer the blackfellows to your own people, sir, who think the lives of the Company's servants are nothing compared with the fear of displeasing the natives." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... nothing contrary to innocence and honour. — I am still persuaded that he is not what he appears to be: but time will discover — mean while I will endeavour to forget a connexion, which is so displeasing to my family. I have cried without ceasing, and have not tasted any thing but tea, since I was hurried away from you; nor did I once close my eyes for three nights running. — My aunt continues to ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... and elegance like hers should be doomed to know the withering effect of Time; and that those agile limbs should one day become as stiff and helpless as those of others. An old danseuse is an anomaly. She is like an old rose, rendered more displeasing by the recollection of former attractions. Then to see the figure bounding in air, habit and effort effecting something like that which the agility peculiar to youth formerly enabled her to execute almost con amore; while ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... on friendly terms with every one. Nothing could be more charming than her manners, it was said. She was "not a bit stuck up," the Gershom girls acknowledged. If she had any "citified airs" they were not of the kind that are especially displeasing to country people. She was friendly with every one, and before her visit came to an end, it came into Elizabeth's mind that she was particularly pleasant in words and ways with her ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... an endless unbroken succession of pupils learning from qualified teachers, and raised above all suspicion of imperfections such as spring from mistake and the like. It is the Veda which gives information as to good and evil deeds, the essence of which consists in their pleasing or displeasing the Supreme Person, and as to their results, viz. pleasure and pain, which depend on the grace or wrath of the Lord. In agreement herewith the Dramidakarya says, 'From the wish of giving rise to fruits they seek to please the Self with works; ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... chose to vanish without a word of civil farewell. Let them go their ways—I did not know which of them annoyed me more. Notwithstanding the letter, notwithstanding the disappearance, my scheme must be carried out. And then—for home! But the conclusion came glum and displeasing. ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... her; he doubted her vocation. Whatever happened in the house, the excitable woman made it her own concern; and, although she had known Melissa from childhood, and was as fond of her as she could be of the child of "strangers," the news that Diodoros was to marry the gem-cutter's daughter was displeasing to her. A second woman in the house might interfere with her supremacy; and, as an excuse for her annoyance, she had represented to her brother that Diodoros might look higher for a wife. Agatha, the beautiful ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of them sat down in the Room of Magic and began to think. It was so still that after a while Dorothy grew nervous. The little girl never could keep silent for long, and at the risk of displeasing her magic-working friends she ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... solution to this problem: Since we cannot tune either the fifth or the third perfect, we must compromise, we must strike the happy medium. So we will proceed by a method that will leave our fifths flatter than perfect, but not so much as to make them at all displeasing, and that will leave our thirds sharper than perfect, ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... wish you would tell me frankly! Does it vex you that he should be so good to me? This kind, kind offer about Geoff,—is it too much? Yes, yes, I know it is too much; but how can I refuse what he is so good, so charitable, as to offer, when it is such a boon to us? Oh, if you would tell me! Is it displeasing, is it distasteful ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... indeed ought to assume only a national tone. The transition from song to speech, without any musical accompaniment or heightening, which was censured by Rousseau as an unsuitable mixture of two distinct modes of composition, may be displeasing to the ear; but it has unquestionably produced an advantageous effect on the structure of the pieces. In the recitatives, which generally are not half understood, and seldom listened to with any degree of attention, a plot which is even moderately complicated cannot be developed ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... to see God's care for all His creatures, especially the helpless ones. When He was teaching His chosen people in the olden times about things which are pleasing or displeasing to Him, He told them a good deal about how they were to treat the animals. You would hardly expect to find anything in the Bible about bird-nesting; and perhaps you might think that if a boy found a nest with eggs or young birds in ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... the white race the finest grained skins generally belong to persons of dark complexion. This, as a characteristic of the black race, I think might be accepted as some compensation for the coarse woolly hair. The nose and mouth, which are so peculiarly displeasing in their conformation in the face of a negro man or woman, being the features least developed in a baby's countenance, do not at first present the ugliness which they assume as they become more marked; and when the very unusual operation of washing has been performed, the blood ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... laughed good-naturedly as he greeted them and indeed his friendship for them seemed to be increased by the recent experiences through which he had passed. Several times he came to the room of Will and Foster and remained until his welcome was decidedly that was displeasing to both the boys, though there threadbare. There was something in his bearing was a certain indefinable something about him that was not altogether unpleasant. His language, his bearing, and his ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson

... have never before seen, is an individual of about fifty years of age, whose dark hair is streaked with gray. His features are delicately chiselled, his eyes are bright, and his expression is intelligent and not at all displeasing. He is somewhat of the Grecian type, and T have no doubt that he is of Hellenic origin when I hear him called Serko—Engineer Serko—by the ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... received him with a gay countenance and open arms, declaring that he had done well to accept his invitation, or he should assuredly have gone to fetch him in person as he had threatened. Biron excused himself, but with a coldness extremely displeasing to the King, who, however, forebore to exhibit any symptom of annoyance; and after a short conversation in which no further allusion was made to the position of the Marechal, Henry, as he had often previously done, proposed to show him the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... number. Having had this by him for a week, he had not as yet answered the invitation. He had received two or three notes from Lady Laura, who had frankly explained to him that if he were really ill she would of course go to him, but that as matters stood she could not do so without displeasing her brother. He had answered each note by an assurance that his first visit should be made in Portman Square. To Madame Goesler he had written a letter of thanks,—a letter which had in truth cost him some pains. "I know," he said, "for how much I have ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... no surer way of securing the company of the Devil, than to make sure he is at that moment busy with another—particularly if that other chance to be the most saintly man you know, and merely displeasing to you, at the moment, because he hath not bidden you to sup with him. The Devil and the Chaplain made a ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... tasks as sincere as the ones just finished, but displeasing, because I had to mix with a low, profane set, to cultivate them, to drink occasionally despite my deftness at emptying glasses on the floor, to gamble with them and strangers, always playing the part of a flush ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... Badajoz. The real intention of the First Consul was to have peace: he had three vessels granted him by Portugal, and abandoned the island of Trinidad to the demands of the English Government. At one time England also claimed Tobago, but the very terms of the treaty were displeasing to Bonaparte's pride, and he assumed the insulting tone which he had been accustomed to use with foreign diplomatists. "The following is what I am directed to tell you," wrote Talleyrand: "excepting Trinidad, the First Consul will not yield, not only Tobago, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... rhythm of this kind, to say nothing of the old Anglo-Saxon poems, like Beowulf, and the Scripture paraphrases attributed to Caedmon. But this species of oratio soluta, carried to the lengths to which Whitman carried it, had an air of novelty which was displeasing to some, while to others, weary of familiar measures and jingling rhymes, it was refreshing in its boldness and freedom. There is no consenting estimate of this poet. {547} Many think that his so-called ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... cabinets, for while she was alive I was never permitted to enter them, thanks to Madame de Maintenon's interference; the Dauphine objected to it; the King would willingly have had it so; but he dare not assert his will for fear of displeasing the Dauphine and the old woman. I was not therefore suffered to enter until after the death of the Dauphine, and then only because the King wished to have some one who would talk to him in the evening, to dissipate his melancholy thoughts, in which I did my best. He was dissatisfied with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... him. Nearly all his fortune had descended to him in cash on deposit, and payable either to my order or to his. He had therefore saved nothing for himself that had been available for the satisfaction of his good impulses. Instead of displeasing me, however, as he feared, his action only increased my love for him, if that ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... Noir drew his chair to the fire, seated himself and entered into an easy conversation with Clara and her guest. Whenever he addressed Clara there was a deference and tenderness in his tone and glance that seemed very displeasing to the fair girl, who received all these delicate attentions with coldness and reserve. These things did not escape the notice of Capitola, who mentally concluded that Craven Le Noir was a lover of Clara Day, but a most ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... same way as it does when it flows into things flavorsome and fragrant, lush and living. Who does not see that the cause is not in the heat but in the recipient subject? The same light gives pleasing colors in one object and displeasing colors in another; indeed, it grows brighter in white objects and becomes dazzling, and dims in those verging ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... said, that tho you were engaged in different interests, yet he had the greatest respect for your good sense and address. When one of these has a little cunning, he passes his time in the utmost satisfaction to himself and his friends; for his position is never to report or speak a displeasing thing to his friend. As for letting him go on in an error, he knows advice against them is the office of persons of greater talents ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... at present the French, having licenses, in order to secure greater profit surreptitiously, pass all the 'Ottawas and savages of Missilimakinak in order to go themselves to seek the most distant tribes, which is very displeasing to the former. It is they, also, who have made excellent discoveries; and four or five hundred young men, the best men of Canada, are engaged in this business.... They have given us knowledge of many names of savages that we did not know; and ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner

... responded, as it were, to the jolts she received from her impressions. She became filled with a zealous greed for work. This was her condition to-day; and, therefore, Sofya's question was all the more displeasing ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... after that Fraech was called into the house of conversation, and it is asked of him what brought him. "A visit with you," said he, "is pleasing to me." "Your company is indeed not displeasing with the household," said Ailill, "your addition is better ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... who have taken the oaths to his Majesty, and pray heartily for him: Yet because they may perhaps be stigmatized as quondam Tories by Pistorides and his gang; his Excellency must be forced to banish them under the pain and peril of displeasing the zealots of his own party; and thereby be put into a worse condition than every common good-fellow; who may be a sincere Protestant, and a loyal subject, and yet rather choose to drink fine ale at the Pope's head, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... the Spirit of truth, she was thus cultivating her intellect, that same Spirit was also sanctifying and purifying her heart. She loathed sin both in herself and others, and strove to avoid it, not from the fear of hell, but from fear of displeasing her ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... Sir John Malyoe was so displeasing to our hero's taste, why, the granddaughter, even this first time he beheld her, seemed to him to be the most beautiful, lovely young lady that ever he saw. She had a thin, fair skin, red lips, and yellow hair—though it was ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... 'My little child is dead, and your happiness is all I care about now. Your marriage with me is displeasing to your family, and I would be a burden to you, and in your way in the fine places, and among the great friends where you must be. You ought, therefore, to break the marriage, and I will sign whatever ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... fine exaltation. I am myself inclined to think, however, that this is not so much an exaltation that arises from the beauty of the hour, as from a feeling of superiority over their sleeping and inferior comrades. It is akin to the displeasing vanity of those persons who walk upon a boat with easy stomach while their companions lie below. I would discourage, therefore, persons that lean toward conceit from putting a foot out of bed until the second call. On the other hand, those who are of a self-depreciative nature should get ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks



Words linked to "Displeasing" :   vexing, maddening, exasperating, disconcerting, pleasing, unpleasant, off-putting



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