"Seemliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was, still more incongruous showed there the relation of mistress and maid. The punctilious Gorringe was plainly horrified at the proximity to her mistress of these canaille, and the mistress was not so absorbed it would seem but what she felt the affront to seemliness in a servant's seeing her pushed and shoved aside—treated with slight regard or none. Necessary either to leave the scene with lofty disapproval, or else make light ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays. With no restraint, save such as springs From quick and eager visitings Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach Of thy few words of English speech. A bondage sweetly ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... low spirits in this panic is just to promote suicide, if ye like the responsibeelity of that," said the doctor to Master Swift, who had confided his doubts as to the seemliness of the entertainment. "I tell ye there's a lairge proportion of folk dies just because their neighbors have died before them, for the want of their attention being directed to something else. Away wi' ye, schoolmaster, and take your tuning-fork to ask the blessing wi'. What says the Scripture, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... expected to serve. The object of public worship must ever be kept in view, and no forms, however attractive, are to be admitted by which that object may be hidden or obscured: on the other hand, order and seemliness demand a due attention, and it is an error, only less mischievous than the former, to have regard to the spirit of worship alone, and thus to neglect whatever suitable forms and methods may best secure the orderly and appropriate performance ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... bounty, lowliness, and courtesy, And seemliness, and faithful company, And dread of shame that will not do amiss; For he that faithfully Love's servant is, Rather than be disgraced, would ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... strict sense an example;—while those who regard him as a mere man, the chief of the Jewish Prophets, both in the pulpit and from the press ground their moral persuasions chiefly on arguments drawn from the propriety and seemliness—or the contrary—of the action itself, or from the will of God known by the light of reason? To make St. Paul prophesy that all Christians will owe their holiness to their exclusive and conscious ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... wear a uniform suitable to her rank and the position in which she finds herself. That is no coquetry, it is only decency—seemliness." ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... beautiful living creature which leaped under our feet and spread her wings above us? For a sailing-ship was more inspiring from within than from without, especially a ship of war, which, as usually ordered, permitted no slovenliness; abounded in the perpetual seemliness that enhances beauty yet takes naught from grace. Viewed from without, undeniably a ship under sail possesses attraction; but it is from within that you feel the "very pulse of the machine." No canvas looks so lofty, speaks so eloquently, as ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... of having tea with Francis Sales and breaking the bonds of which he had tired. She made it easy for him. That was necessary for her dignity, but beyond the desire for as much seemliness as could be saved from the general ugliness of their mistake, she had no feeling; yet she thought it would be good to be in the open air, on horseback, free. If there had been anything still owing, she had paid her debt with generosity. She gave him the chance ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... doings and passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled[54] savage nature; out of terrible Druids[55] and Berserkers[56] come at last Alfred[57] ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... have come a long way since the man of the swamps hunted the hairy elephant and burrowed in caves; that very structure in which the anarchists have taken to meeting represents sixty thousand years of slow progression from savagery towards seemliness and refinement and wisdom; and therefore, bitterly as we may feel the suffering of the poor orator, we say to him, "Wait a little, and talk to us. I do not touch politics—I loathe place-hunters and talkers as much as you do; but you are speaking about reversing the course of the ages, and you ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... He had always put his God before the War Office, but the result had not been objectionable; he looked upon his men with fatherly affection, and the regiment, under his command, was almost a model of propriety and seemliness. His influence was invariably for good, and his subordinates knew that in him they had always a trusty friend; few men had gained more love. He was a mild, even-tempered fellow, and in no circumstance of life ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... full of promise, were lost in that warfare which even the sacred name of duty could not save from being ungrateful and inglorious! Italians who have lost their children in their country's battles have never been heard to complain; nowhere was the seemliness of death for native land better understood than it has been in the Italy of this century, but to lose son or brother in a brigand ambush by the hand of an escaped galley-slave—this was hard. The thrust was sharpened by the knowledge that the fomenter of the mischief ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... memory, and oftentimes, besides the unseemliness, drives the man either to stammering, a non-plus, or harping on that which should follow; whereas a slow speech confirmeth the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers, besides a seemliness of speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell |
