"Unconventional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the tone-poet. When the emotions became too intangible for intellectual expression I asked my friend the musician to insert paragraphs in a minor key. The love-scenes I was particularly anxious to have written in musical phrases. But he shrank from so unconventional a form, not being sure he was a genius. I was also disheartened by the disappointing behaviour of the diverse scents with which I had expressed myself on certain blank pages. They would ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... cartoons." Raphael was a bird. We had several of his chromos; one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where he puts in a miracle of his own—puts three men into a canoe which wouldn't have held a dog without upsetting. I always admired to study R.'s art, it was so fresh and unconventional. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Rotten Row. The young girls and young men in flapping panamas, in tunics and jackets of every kind and color, gave certainly an agreeable liveliness to the spectacle, which their elders emulated by expressions of taste as personal and unconventional. A lady in the old-fashioned riding-habit and a black top-hat with a floating veil recalled a former day, but she was obviously riding to lose weight, in a brief emergence from the past to which she belonged. One man similarly hatted, but frock-coated and not veiled, is scarcely worthy of note; ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... interviewing for the daily press. I flatter myself it was a good idea, worthy almost of a genius, though I am perfectly well aware that I am not a genius. I am merely a man of exceptional talent. I have talent enough for a genius, but no taste for the unconventional, and by just so much do I fall short of the realization of the hopes of my friends and fears of my enemies. There are stories I have in mind that are worthy of the most exalted French masters, ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... find ample consolation for the loss of Helen Blantock, and in the end lose interest in her and her titled grocery man, will not surprise the reader. The manner in which it is effected, however, involves some rather unconventional details, worked out, of course, through the agency of a delightful American girl. Anyone who has read "The Heavenly Twins" will doubtless find something to stir reminiscence in the intercourse between Lord Lane and the Boy. In this the chief ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... a stranger to any member of the Sunrise Hill club except to Juliet and Beatrice Field, who were themselves strangers in Woodford. Had Nan been, her reception would have been more cordial, even though appearing at night in so unconventional a fashion. But the newcomer had been a student with most of the girls at the high school the winter before and had been expelled for supposed dishonesty. Her family was impossible, the father, a man of good birth fallen so low that his own people would have nothing to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... dumbfounded to find the machine still in one piece and doubly dumbfounded to discover it was behaving in a most unconventional manner. It was emitting a low steady gurgling sound and an occasional sputter or burp. The legs of the machine seemed unsteady. Its body shifted back and forth in herky-jerky motions like an old-fashioned washing machine. The three little Bell Fruit wheels were spinning at the speed of an airplane ...
— Jubilation, U.S.A. • G. L. Vandenburg
... people, because they discovered in him not only a fine, but a really very eminent talent; on account of the originality of his playing and compositions one might almost attribute to him already some genius, at least, in so far as unconventional forms and pronounced individuality are concerned. His playing, like his compositions—of which we heard on this occasion only variations—has a certain character of modesty which seems to indicate that to shine is not the aim of this young man, although his execution conquered ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... finger passages; a peculiarly crisp, yet veiled staccato; chord playing extraordinary in variety,—tender, mysterious, sinister, heroic; a curiously unconventional yet effective melodic delivery; playing replete with power, vitality, and dramatic significance, always forcing upon the ear the phrase, never the tickling of mere notes; a really marvellous command and use of both pedals,—these were the characteristics of MacDowell's ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... very foolish, if it were a mere outbreak of shallow vanity that ought to be suppressed. She hoped not. Of course this thing that she wanted to do was shockingly unconventional. Anywhere else, under any other circumstances, it would be out of character; but here in Venice everything was different. She tried to shut out the magic city from her thoughts,—to return to a perfectly normal ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... the States and Territories that lay between Oak Forks and the Pacific Coast. Ernest, whose education was decidedly superior to his companion's, was able to give him some information. So they plodded on, enjoying the unconventional life and ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... of other men: they are the genuine expressions of an original and independent mind. His reading and his thinking ran together; there is free quotation, free play of wit and satire, grace of invention too, but always unconventional. The story is always pleasant, although always secondary to the play of thought for which it gives occasion. He quarrelled with verse, whimsically but in all seriousness, in an article on "The Four Ages of Poetry," contributed in 1820 to a short-lived ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... seemed very striking between the ceremonious manner in which he was conducted to the King, and the simple and unconventional manner in which he was received by ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... unconventional greeting, replying, "If I say something fresh it must be a lie. You know, Mrs. Henniker, how hard I'm kept at it, with ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... but whisked back again into the hall, slamming the door after her, and the pen, momentarily grasped, had fallen from Straws' hand. Instead of reaching for the ink-bottle he reached in the cupboard for the other bottle. Again she came near entering through the window—having many unconventional ways of coming into a room!—but after looking in for a moment, changed her mind after her fashion and floated away into thin space like the giddy, volatile mistress that she was. After that she appeared no more—probably making a friendly ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... who put all there was of them into their work, who were personally a disappointment to the intellect and a trial to the flesh. With Eugene Field the man was always a bundle of delightful surprises, an ever unconventional personality of which only the merest suggestion is ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... since; and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find it difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament, —youth or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the nicest observer could not detect the application ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... others. Nor was there effort or any sort of pretense in this. We understand only that to which we are accustomed; the man of peace is amazed by the veteran's nonchalance in presence of danger and horror, of wound and death. To these river wanderers, veterans in the unconventional life, where the unusual is the usual, the unexpected the expected, whatever might happen was the matter of course, to be dealt with and dismissed. Susan naturally took her cue from them. When Tempest said something to her in the course of the careless conversation ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... amazing, their marriage—hers and Jack Dampier's—had been! He, the clever, devil-may-care artist, unconventional in all his ways, very much a Bohemian, knowing little of his native country, England, for he had lived all his youth and working life in France—and she, in everything, save an instinctive love of beauty, which, oddly ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... children gradually disappear as the children take on the speech conventions of the adult. But even though the crassness of the form of expression of the wish disappears with age, there is no reason to suppose that the human organism ever gets to the point where wishes just as unconventional as the above do not rise to trouble it. Such wishes, though, are immediately repressed; we never harbor them nor do we express them clearly to ourselves in ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... eccentric or inexplicable in Smith's chimney-pot picnics or crimson sunflowers than she had in the chemicals of Inglewood or the sardonic speeches of Moon. Courtesy, on the other hand, is a thing that anybody can understand, and Smith's manners were as courteous as they were unconventional. She said he was "a real gentleman," by which she simply meant a kind-hearted man, which is a very different thing. She would sit at the head of the table with fat, folded hands and a fat, folded smile for ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... house. Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of her aunt's friends; though he was handsome and assured and noticeably at his ease, Caroline felt that his manner was subtly different from that of the friends of her own family. But even the most unconventional guest had never collected the sideboard silver, and a little feeling was growing in the air ... doubt and a bit of what might have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the man began to laugh. It was abrupt and it rang harshly at first, but grew with every ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... upon how we look at things." She touched the parrot-cage with her foot, and Rajah hissed. "What would you say if I told you that I was unconventional enough to ask the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... This unconventional but truly religious marriage ceremony was in perfect harmony with the loyal, noble natures of Theodore Weld and Angelina Grimke, exemplifying the simplicity of their lives and the strength of their principles. No grand preparations preceded the event; no wedding ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... Whitehall who opened this unconventional letter passed it up to his chief, who in turn passed it on to the Adjutant-General, who thrust it into a pigeon-hole reserved for such curiosities. Now, as it happened, a week later the Adjutant-General received a visit from a certain Colonel Taubmann of the Royal Artillery, who ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... So utterly unconventional had their proceedings been, so thoroughly had the spirit of the remote little island possessed them, and so all-sufficient had they been to one another, that the thought of an engagement ring had troubled his mind as little as the lack of it had troubled Margaret's. But the absolute necessity of ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... the work of an apprentice, but they have been included because, however faulty in technique, they do serve to illustrate a past that can never come back, and men and women who were outwardly crude and illiterate but at core kind and chivalrous, and nearly always humorously unconventional. The bunch grass, so beloved by the patriarchal pioneers, has been ploughed up and destroyed; the unwritten law of Judge Lynch will soon become an oral tradition; but the Land of Yesterday blooms afresh as the ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Frenchmen of that day, when Voltaire and Rousseau and Fenelon had come into their own, this sage from the primitive forest, already famous as a scientist, this homely preacher of the virtues of frugality, with his unconventional wisdom and his genial tolerance, was the ideal philosopher of that state of nature which they had in imagination set over as a shining contrast to the artificial and corrupt society in which they lived. The enthusiasm of the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... 'Miss,' have you any objections to drop the 'Mister,' and address me by the simple and unconventional name of 'Brooke?' You see, it's very important for us, in our circumstances, to cultivate this seeming familiarity. If you were really a young priest, and I were really your friend and travelling companion, we should address one another ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... might be a tolerable companion for such a woman as Mrs. Oldcastle, and I felt that her companionship would be a thing very delightful to me. After all, she had presumably had her love affair, and was now a fully matured woman. Why then should I not definitely lay aside my plans—which even unconventional Sidney Heron thought fantastic—and ask this altogether charming woman to be my wife? Though I could never play the passionate lover, my aesthetic sense was far from unconscious or unappreciative of all her purely womanly charm, her grace and beauty of person, as apart from her ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... frank to revelation. But for the clear girlish liking for herself she saw in Betty Vanderpoel's, Mary would have known her next speech to be of imbecile bluntness. She had heard that Americans often had a queer, delightful understanding of unconventional things. This ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Tish's enthusiasms have brought us into collision with the law—not that Tish has not every respect for law and order, but that she is apt to be hasty and at times almost unconventional.] ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said. She was a breezy old lady with a military moustache and an unconventional manner with her clientele. 'You come to me an hour a day, and, if you haven't two left feet, we'll make you the pet of society in ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... I have disapproved of her for some time," Juliet spoke thoughtfully. "She is very unconventional, you know. And I—well, at heart I fancy I must be rather a prude. Anyhow, I disapproved, more and more strongly, and at last ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the cliffs and began to perceive the high grey walls of the castle in the distance, Verna and I were faster friends than ever, and anyone seeing us together would have thought we had known each other all our lives. I felt more and more happy to think I had met her first in this unconventional way, for as the castle loomed up closer and we passed gardeners and keepers and jockeys with a string of race-horses out for exercise, I felt that my pretty companion was constrained by the sight of these obsequious ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... the natives of the country intimately, like other unconventional desires I had at times experienced, might have remained a sneaking wish until this day, but for an accident which freed me for a time from English supervision. My people had provided me with introductions to ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Mr. Burton?" she asked. "You're certainly a happy-looking trio—so unconventional! You look as if you had been having such a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... There is needed a sense of community and solidarity, without which the assurance necessary to the work is bound to falter and dwindle out; and there is also needed a degree of popular countenance, not to be had by isolated individuals engaged in an unconventional pursuit of things that are neither to be classed as spendthrift decorum nor as merchantable goods. In this connection an isolated one does not count for one, and more than the critical minimum will count for several per capita. It is a case where ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... after a while, "you are an incorrigible moralist, but certainly a most unconventional one. The orthodox would never accept your philosophy. They would call you a ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... such as one can find at the cabarets and concerts, and he enjoyed the contrast of fresh tones with the faces marked by vice and poverty; Lautrec's two great influences have been the Japanese and Degas. Of the former he retained the love for decorative arabesques and the unconventional grouping; of the other the learned draughtsmanship, expressive in its broad simplification, and one might say that the pupil has often been worthy of the masters. One can only regret that Lautrec should have confined ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... complexion and in the sweetness of her mouth. Above all she was natural—that was indubitable now; more natural than he had supposed at first, perhaps on account of her aesthetic toggery, which was conventionally unconventional, suggesting what he might have called a tortuous spontaneity. He had feared that sort of thing in other cases, and his fears had been justified; for, though he was an artist to the essence, the modern reactionary ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... walking by his side down the smooth marble stairs and out through the grand entrance into Fifth Avenue. The strange part about it was, she was not in the least excited over a very unconventional situation. She had allowed a handsomely groomed, young, red-haired adventurer to pick her up without the formality of an introduction, in the Public Library. She hadn't the remotest idea of his name—nor had ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... should apologize for addressing such thoughts to you, dear Eleanor, for you have still the blessing of a young heart, and certainly do not lack poetry. I speak for myself, and after all I am much disposed to praise these young people for their unconventional behaviour. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... came on purpose! He wanted to see me—what impudence! I am beginning to realise what one has to expect if one—if one takes an unconventional step." ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... her. She was a girl of many moods and tenses. At times she could even be sombre. But when she chose to be gay and fascinating she was irresistible. She was only seventeen, and in several ways she was unconventional, even unworldly. In others, however, she was a perfect woman of the world, and a match for ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... of it is unchangeable; the allegory, subtle and profound and yet simple, is cast into the form of a dramatic narrative, which moves with unconventional freedom to a finely impressive climax; and the reader, who began in idle curiosity, finds his intelligence more and more engaged until, when he turns the last page, he has the feeling of one who has been moving in worlds not realized, and communing ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... we were strangely unanimous as to the desirability of going through in some less risky manner (we accused each other of "funking" afterwards), and accordingly sought the aid of a man, a boy, and a wheelbarrow, and in this unconventional manner conveyed our goods and chattels overland to the ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes
... a delightful picture upon us. Its simplicity makes it superbly graphic. Think of FitzGerald, refined in feature and reserved in manner, a little unconventional in dress, but not sufficiently so to be vulgarly noticeable—think of the man who has given us the most poetical philosophy and the most philosophical poetry, all in the most exquisite English, in our language, sitting probably at Evans's (it sounds like Evans's with the suppers and the music) ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... position to know from personal knowledge of radical people declare that there are still relatively few educated women who deliberately cut loose from monogamic standards; and that they are most commonly found among certain intimate and unconventional groups of students and professional workers, especially those who are united in "Bohemian life" by artistic or literary interests. But while such sexually anarchistic women are not common in America, there is reason for ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... a nice little place here for her work—quiet and unconventional. I hope you think well of her talent, sir? You might go further and fare ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... boxes; no trace remained of the obstinate conspiracy of gloves and veils, handkerchiefs and ribbons, to break the captivity of the drawer. The room was like an unoccupied guest-chamber. Yet in every detail of furniture and decoration it spoke of an unconventional but exacting taste. Trent, as his expert eye noted the various perfection of colour and form amid which the ill-mated lady dreamed her dreams and thought her loneliest thoughts, knew that she had at least the resources of an artistic nature. His interest in this ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... that I didn't find Mr. Bourchier's "Foreword" or Apologia (kindly given away with the programme) rather more entertaining than the play itself. As long as the dramatist (a New Zealander) concerned himself with the delightfully unconventional atmosphere of Antipodean politics he was illuminating and very possibly veracious. But the relations between the Premier and the widow Pretty, which promised, as the title hinted, to be the main attraction, were such as never could have occurred on land or sea. It was impossible, with this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... converted into a monoplane at will. The Lohner Arrow biplane with the Daimler engine was an early German tractor biplane built with a view to inherent stability, and proved very successful. The Pivot monoplane was of somewhat unconventional French construction, chiefly notable for the special spring chassis and pivoted ailerons at the main planes; this pivoting had nothing to do with the name of the machine, which was designed ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... so fresh, so unconventional, and yet so orderly and obedient to common rules, as you at once recognized her to be, was widely in contrast, at that moment, with everything about her. The sordid and ugly luxuriance of gigantic weeds that grew in the angle of the house, and the heavy projection that overshadowed her, and the ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but our situation is so peculiar, so different from what I have been taught was proper." She smiled sadly, her eyes misting. "I am afraid you will not understand. You can scarcely appreciate how strictly I have been brought up, or what such an unconventional meeting as this means to me. I ought ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... think it strange that I should have asked you to meet me here in this unconventional way instead of at the Inn?" she inquired, suddenly serious. Again the shy, pleading expression stole ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... see, plainly time that we should explain our mysterious selections. Confidingly we entrust her with the secret, and lay bare our unconventional plan. At the first she listens unmoved, but the idea of "pique-nique" is soon borne in upon her, and lets in a ray of light. The frost thaws a trifle. "We are with friends," we say; "they are on the bluffs; they have desired to make a luncheon for once without the fork,—to ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... you understand?" she continued, desperately. "You won't see it. You make me come here and tell it to you this way. I may be badly mannered and unconventional, but I have feelings and pride like other women. But what else could ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... her some concern; but after hours of thought she had come to the conclusion that to address, under the circumstance, the recipient of the letter as 'Dear Mr. Everard' would hardly do. The only possible justification of her unconventional act was that there existed already a friendship, an intimacy of years, since childhood; that there were already between them knowledge and understanding of each other; that what she was doing, and ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... barbarian, Miss Willis, but I have a request to make. I am in the mood to-night to be unconventional"—the corners of his serious mouth lifted humorously—"to be what I really am," he illuminated, "and to meet you in the same spirit." He paused with a little shrug. "It is a disappointing reversion to the primitive, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... suffrage. The suffrage movement had need of exactly such an infusion of fresh and ardent blood; so that the new society was warmly welcomed, and met with immediate success, finding recruits alike among the rich and the poor. Its unconventional methods, its eager and militant spirit, were felt to supply a lacking element, and the first picturesque and dashing exploits of the Union were on the whole well received. The obvious sincerity and earnestness of these very fresh recruits covered the rashness of their ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... She was going to the fort to ask shelter, until her errand was accomplished, of the only women in that region who would be likely to take her in. She had a feeling that the thing she was doing was a most wild and unconventional proceeding and would come under the grave condemnation of her aunt, and all her New York friends. She was most thankful that they were far away and could not interfere, for somehow she felt that she must do it anyway. She must put that letter, ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... Avenue hotels in Washington, a few months before the nominating convention. A number of well-known politicians were present, but probably the most prominent was Horace Greeley. The writer had never before seen the great editor, and was considerably amused by his unconventional independence on that occasion. He occupied an easy chair with a high back. Having given his views at considerable length, he laid his head back on its support and peacefully went to sleep; but the half-hour lost in slumber did not prevent him from joining vigorously in the discussion that was going ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... need be whimsical and freakish, though it is perhaps most beautiful when there is something of the child about it, something naive and unconventional. There are men, of whom I think that Cardinal Newman was pre-eminently one, who seem to have had the appeal of a pathetic sort of beauty and even helplessness. Newman seems to have always been surprised to find himself so interesting to others, and perhaps ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was therefore doubly remarkable that on the ground of benevolence, he scarcely discriminated between the claim on him of a woman, and that of a man; and his attitude towards women was in this respect so distinctive as to merit some words of notice. It was large, generous, and unconventional; but, for that very reason, it was not, in the received sense of the word, chivalrous. Chivalry proceeds on the assumption that women not only cannot, but should not, take care of themselves in any active struggle with life; Mr. Browning had no theoretical objection to ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... altogether, it was a domestic scene which would have done Mrs. Arnot's heart good to have witnessed; but poor Mrs. Haldane would have sighed over it as so utterly unconventional as to be another proof of her son's unnatural tastes. In her estimation he should spend social evenings only in aristocratic parlors; and she mourned over the fact that from henceforth he was excluded ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of the Wallencamp youth was not yet prepared for the introduction of new and advanced methods, I examined my pupils preparatory to giving them lessons and arranging them in classes, in the ordinary way. I found that they could not read, but they could write in a truly fluent and unconventional style; they could not commit prosaical facts to memory, but they could sing songs containing any number of irrelevant stanzas. They could not "cipher," but they had witty and salient answers ready for any emergency. There ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... completely off her guard. He checked himself suddenly and caught his hat from his head; and without thinking, before he replaced it, he drew the back of his soft leather glove across his dripping forehead. The unconventional action touched her keenly. She was sensitively subject to outward impressions, and "the plastic" had long been her delight, her ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... young Duc d'Orleans when he suddenly appeared in Paris. The Government was completely bewildered and demoralized by this 'bolt out of the blue.' Instead of quietly reconducting the prince to the frontier with a reprimand for his inconsiderate and unconventional patriotism, it stupidly locked him up in a prison haunted by legends disgraceful to the Republic, proceeded against him with clumsy vehemence, gave him time to show himself to the French people, in the words of the Duc d'Aumale, as a 'pur sang,' a straightforward, dashing young French ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... stroll after nightfall. When I grew calm enough to notice whither my feet had strayed, I found myself on the Mill Road. Instinctively I felt I should not go so far from home in the darkness unattended; but I was naturally courageous as well as unconventional, and the desire was strong on me to tell Mrs. Blake my good news. I got on safely until Daniel Blake's light was in sight, when, just before me, I heard rough voices talking and laughing. I turned and was about fleeing for home, when a similar crowd seemed to have sprung up, as if by magic, just ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... Vogel seated herself, turned up the lamp-wick, and then crossed her long, lean, sinewy hands in her lap. The tall white porcelain stove made the room so warm that she presently rose and set a window open a little way. She was indeed a dangerous, unconventional creature, a Prussian who cared neither for great ladies nor draughts. She stood there, feeling the damp air of early spring blow in her face. From the beer-hall near by came the sound of music; over the pavement rattled a cart drawn by two weary dogs and followed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... rites which imply a belief in them all.[561] Indeed the fusion is so complete that one may justly talk of Chinese religion, meaning the jumble of ceremonies and beliefs accepted by the average man. Yet at the same time it is possible to be an enthusiast for any one of the three without becoming unconventional. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... was a small ugly man of fifty, unconventional to the core, the younger son of a duke, and a clergyman by personal conviction. He had been born in a hurry, and had remained in a hurry ever since. He had neither great administrative capacities, nor profound scholarship, but what powers he had were eked out by a stupendous ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Farrow had never known anyone who could do hair as Pegler could—the woman was in some ways very unconventional, very unlike an ordinary ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... government stern and tight prevented some lapses from the moral code. That is to say, a worse man might have achieved better results, but as it was not in his nature to haunt Poussette's, make friends with the guides and call at unconventional hours upon his parishioners, he missed several revelations that fell to Ringfield's share. Crabbe was not upon his visiting list, nor Pauline of late years; for Henry Clairville he entertained a certain sad respect, as for a gentleman and landed proprietor ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... get used to the delicious thrills of surprise which every turn and every corner and every vista and every night and every morning hold for the beauty-lover. Nothing could be more heterodox, more bizarre, more unconventional than Constantinople scenes. Nothing could be more orthodox than the views of Naples. To be sure, poets have written reams of poetry about it, travellers have sent home pages of rhapsodies about it, tourists ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... author seems to take the most pleasure in depicting is the passionate loyalty of a girl to her lover or of a young wife to her husband, and her portrayal of this trait has feeling, and is set off by an unconventional style and brisk ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... do begin like this," reflected Gideon; "but then it's quite out of the question for me to tackle a full score, and Jimson was so unconventional. A dedication would be found convincing, I believe. 'Dedicated to' (let me see) 'to William Ewart Gladstone, by his obedient servant the composer.' And now some music: I had better avoid the overture; it seems to present difficulties. Let's give an air for the tenor: key—O, something ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over the ridge of the hill, as the old gentleman had done. Was she following him? Was there any connection between those two? Perhaps he was the village clergyman. Could this be his daughter? What an unconventional costume for a young lady to promenade in—for she was a lady down to her finger- nails! And what an ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... perfumes or odors of any kind, save fresh flowers all about. Indeed, she detested Bohemianism, when it meant unconventional dress or manners or loud-voiced jests ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... many instruments of torture, systems of cruelty, whereby the priest becomes master and remains master.... Every one knows this, but nevertheless things remain as before. What has become of the last trace of decent feeling, of self-respect, when our statesmen, otherwise an unconventional class of men and thoroughly anti-Christian in their acts, now call themselves Christians and go to the communion-table?... A prince at the head of his armies, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and arrogance ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... themselves upon the victory-flushed Huns to whom this unconventional kind of fierce onset came as a complete and disconcerting surprise. They fought like demons, with utterly reckless bravery. They paid the price, alas! in heavy losses, but for what they paid they took compensation ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... story. The hero, an independent and vigorous thinker, sees life, and tells about it in a very unconventional way. ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... rooms, though one hardly knew in what; partly from the absence of superfluities; and somehow after many a triumph over the bewilderment of a sulky yet dazzled decorator, Bertha had contrived, in baffling him, to make the house look distinguished without being unconventional; dainty without being artificial; she had made it suit her perfectly and, what was more, the atmosphere was reposeful. Her husband always besought her to do anything on earth she wished in her own home, rather in ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... of the Nineteenth Century."—We are not quite sure that we like the unconventional treatment of the accessories in this picture. It is perfectly true that we find from contemporary records that an invitation to dinner was frequently accompanied by the expressed wish that the guest "was not to dress;" but still such hints at the strange manners ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... This unconventional Son lived obscurely; he never carried weapons, he could not bear to have so much as a human ear cut off in his presence. But see how he figures ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... wrote a letter which so disturbed the Governor that he immediately set about an informal investigation of some of my charges. Despite its prolixity, its unconventional form and what, under other circumstances, would be characterized as almost diabolic impudence and familiarity, my letter, as he said months later when I talked with him, "rang true." The writing of it was an easy matter; in fact, so easy, because ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... The whimsical, unconventional interposition of the reader, and the author's reasoning with him, aSterne device, is employed so constantly in the book as to become a wearying mannerism. Examples have already been cited, additional ones ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... slight lift of the eyebrows. "I had always heard that Americans were unconventional, but hardly that they carried their independence of the conventions so far as to invade ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... their farewells, for people soon grow familiar and unconventional at sea. Blair shouted, "Lennard's a born hospital nurse, but he'll overfeed your patient." Then amid falling shades and hollow moaning of winds the yacht drove slowly away with her foresail still aweather, and the fleet ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... course, to the French Institute), the Institute! with all its authoritative, dictatorial learnedness! v.6. Guizot and Montalembert were both members of the Institute, and being thus in the same boat, Guizot conventionally receives Montalembert. vv. 7 and 8. These two unconventional Bohemian lovers, strolling together at night, at their own sweet will, see down the court along which they are strolling, three lampions flare, which indicate some big place or other where the "respectables" ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... gallery is full of interest and gives one a good suggestion of the great mass of small modern sculpture found throughout the galleries. Mora's Indian figures are particularly interesting from their originality of theme. Mora tries hard to be unconventional, without going into the bizarre, and succeeds ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... He had had the training of a missionary station in a Robinson Crusoe-like variety of functions. A knight-errant to the core, the atmosphere of Williams under Hopkins gave him his consecration. His comrades recognized him as an intellectual leader, essentially religious but often startlingly unconventional, "under great terrestrial headway," "the most strenuous man I ever saw." He said of himself: "missionary ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Mrs. Stanton—smiling, serene, and motherly—just the woman whose hand laid upon a young man's arm, whose voice speaking to him, could do so much to hold him back from evil. There was Susan Anthony—anxious, earnest and importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional as ever. Among all the company, "Susan" is the most violently and the most unjustly abused. To be sure, she can be very provocative of such speech. She sometimes has a lawless way of talking and acting, which men think wonderfully fascinating in a belle, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the tension, the greater the pleasure and the more insignificant the object or event that will bring relief and cause laughter. The perennial comic pleasure in the risque is derived from this source. There is an element of comic pleasure in the perpetration of any mischievous or unconventional act. Those things which men take most seriously, Schopenhauer has said, namely, love and religion, and we might add, morality, are the most abundant sources of the comic, because they involve the most strain and therefore ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... course, the name of a country in Germany, but it is also used figuratively to describe the region or community in which "Bohemian" or unconventional people live. ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... wake up to the fact that of all times daughters most need their strongest warnings and their most devoted care during the season of Summer silliness, of vacations and excursions, of unconventional meetings with young men under the easy familiarity of fun and frolic and a general "good time." And to the girl who has no mother at hand thus to warn her; take it from us that as your own chaperone you must ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... black canon below. Then the journey proceeds through the Firehole Valley, and through leafy forests and open glades, until the narrow and tortuous canon of Spring Creek is reached. The scenery here is decidedly unconventional ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... cigar, and gave me one. In looks he was young; in behavior he had the self-possession and poise of maturity. He wore a long mackintosh which sparkled with mist. His slouch hat looked new and was carefully dinted. His dress was almost natty in an unconventional way, and his manners accorded with his garb. He acted as if for years we had casually met daily. His tone and attitude evinced respect, was entirely free from presumption, equally devoid of reserve, carried with it no hint of familiarity, but assumed a perfect ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... cried she. "'To the man she loves!' But you are not the man I love, Mr. Lindsay. I suppose it's one of the things I ought not to do—one of the unconventional and so unchristian things—to own that I love a man who doesn't love me. But I do. Now, you know who it is, and everybody knows; but, for all that, you mustn't tell; you must keep it as a secret that Doreen Wedmore—proud, stuck-up ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... sister sitting next stopped her. Judging from the glimpses I had as the party spoke together and leaned to look, it was quite a sensation. But apparently by common consent they left whatever move was to be made to the bride; and to my surprise this move was most unconventional. She got up with an abrupt gesture and started over to our table—alone. This, for a girl of her sort, was going some. I glanced doubtfully at Worth. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... from the beds to get ready. In the officers' quarters the captain rose regretfully from after-dinner digestion, and the three lieutenants sought their helmets with a sigh. Lieutenant Balwin had been dining an unconventional and impressive guest at the mess, and he now interrupted the anecdote which the guest was achieving with ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... an impermissible letter for a philosopher to write? By modern standards it would be about the border-line. And again, suppose it is a definite love-letter, what means have we of deciding whether Epicurus—or for that matter Zeno or Plato or any unconventional philosopher of this period—would have thought it blameworthy, or would merely have called our attention to the legal difficulties of contracting marriage with one who had been a Hetaira, and asked us how we expect men and women to live. Curiously ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... little surprise. The Government it was thought contemplated something in the shape of a railway policy in Ireland, and had spotted Robertson as the man for the job; it was certainly said that someone in high authority, taken greatly by his sturdy independence, his unconventional ways, and his enormous energy, had determined to try the novel experiment which such an appointment meant. I do not think that Robertson himself ever really enjoyed the change. He liked variety it is true, but governmental ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Lake City, to investigate Mormonism. He would be gone nine months and then he was to come back, to see if she would marry him. He returned about Christmas, 1860. In the later part of January they were married, the details of the affair being appropriately unconventional, not to say exciting. The marriage was, practically, an elopement. Lady Burton's description of the event, and of every event in their lives, ever after, discloses an idolatry of the man that was almost an insanity. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... not certain how much of this information Lisette repeated to Pomponnet, but Pomponnet, having a will of his own, refused to entertain monsieur Tricotrin at any price at all. More-over, he found it unconventional that she should desire the poet's company, considering the attentions that he had paid her; and she was forced to listen, with an air of humility which she was far from feeling, to a lecture on the responsibilities ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... January, 1837, after a short but prosperous reign of seven years, much lamented by the nation. He was a frank, patriotic, and unconventional king, who accepted the reforms which made his reign an epoch. At his death there were more distinguished men in all departments of politics, literature, science, and art in Great Britain than at any previous period, and the condition of the people was more ameliorated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... was his turn, and this day of household affairs, of little domestic commotions, appeared to him to be infinitely more desirous than the pomp and formality of evening dress and opera boxes. This morning the relations between himself and Laura seemed charming, intimate, unconventional, and full of opportunities. Never had she appeared prettier to him. She wore a little pink flannel dressing-sack with full sleeves, and her hair, carelessly twisted into great piles, was in a beautiful disarray, curling about her cheeks ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... travel in mail and lumber wagons over rough roads, through mud and rain, to the remotest settlements, far from the railroads. Because it was a necessity, traveling alone with a gentleman whom she hardly knew troubled her not at all, unconventional though it was. ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... those old writings might be presented to make a graphic picture of that era of horror and bloodshed. No one, no matter what his family, his manner of living, his standing in the community, was safe. Women feared to do the least thing unconventional; for it was an easy task to obtain witnesses, and the most paltry evidence might cause most unfounded charges. And the only way to escape death, be it remembered, was through confession. Otherwise the witch or wizard was still in the possession ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... life, 1715-1778, was a continual protest against the formalism, affectation, pedantry and despotism of the age of the Bourbons. His ideal of man was the unconventional, unconstrained, solitary, but harmless and easy-going savage. Hobbes was the growth of a sterner and more serious age. The only reality to him in heaven and on earth was force: his one idea in philosophy was coercion. Human nature to him was an embodiment of brute violence ever in need of violent ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... was missing, but the hour fixed had already passed, so they sat down happily to the tables. Juanito was always unconventional. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... uneasiness, Sylvia Graham experienced a distinct satisfaction when, late that afternoon, she beheld her unconventional acquaintance mounting the steps with a buoyant and assured step. Upon being admitted, he ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the States and Territories that lay between Oak Forks and the Pacific coast. Ernest, whose education was decidedly superior to his companion's, was able to give him some information. So they plodded on, making slow progress, but enjoying the unconventional life, and the scenery on ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... came to Solong; he had landed a living skeleton, he said, but he filled out later on. The democratic atmosphere soothed his mind and he soon loved the place for its unconventional hospitality. He worked hard and seemed to have plenty of energy—he said he got it in Australia. He said that another year of the struggle in London would have driven him mad. He fished in the river on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and, perhaps for the first month or so, he thought that ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... on Pollyanna talked. Pollyanna was in her element now. Pollyanna loved to talk. That there was anything strange or unwise or even unconventional in this intimate telling of her thoughts and her history to a total stranger on a Boston park bench did not once occur to Pollyanna. To Pollyanna all men, women, and children were friends, either known or unknown; and ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... for Men. Utter Humility. His Simplicity and Informality. Keen Sense of Humor. His Unconventional Methods of Work. Power as a Leader. His ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... speaking his own lines, acting his own creations, and there is, for that reason, an intimate note in his interpretations, an indescribable sympathy, and an underscoring of his meanings that even a much superior actor might miss. He is so absolutely unconventional in his bearing and speech as to seem amateurish, yet he secures with his naturalism some poignant effects. I shan't soon forget his ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... nevertheless the young man appeared out of harmony with it. His face wore a feverish flush; his eyes had a restless gleam. He had only a short time before come to town, entering in unconventional fashion. As the train had slackened at a siding on the outskirts he had quietly, and unperceived, slipped off the back platform of the rear car; then made his way by devious and little frequented ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... curt; embittered. For he was an energetic young man, and he loathed his job. He wanted to be in the west, where fighting of a highly unconventional nature was taking place daily. He did not enjoy this business of watching an unthreatened coast-line simply for the maintenance of civilian confidence and morale. He ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... brought up and taken care of by Mrs. Carruthers, although she had not approved of her views. And having done her best for me at this juncture, saving me from staying alone with Mr. Carruthers, she felt it was all she was called upon to do. She thought my position would become too unconventional for their circle in future! Lady Ver told me all this with great glee. She was sure it would amuse me, it so amused her, but it made me a teeny bit remember the story of the ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... supposed that all, nor any considerable number of the Pony Express men were saintly, nor that they all took their pledge too seriously. Judged by present-day standards, most of these fellows were rough and unconventional; some of them were bad. Yet one thing is certain: in loyalty and blind devotion to duty, no group of employees will ever surpass the men who conducted the Pony Express. During the sixteen months of its existence, the riders of this wonderful enterprise, nobly assisted by the faithful station-keepers, ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... of letters—the vulgar and patent misfortunes, I mean—arise mainly from the want of harmony between their impulsiveness and volatility, and the staid unmercurial world with which they are brought into conflict. They are unconventional in a world of conventions; they are fanciful, and are constantly misunderstood in prosaic relations. They are wise enough in their books, for there they are sovereigns, and can shape everything to their own likings; out of their books, they are not unfrequently extremely foolish, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... ticket-of-leave on other than professional and official ground. Who had brought Michaelis there one afternoon the Assistant Commissioner did not remember very well. He had a notion it must have been a certain Member of Parliament of illustrious parentage and unconventional sympathies, which were the standing joke of the comic papers. The notabilities and even the simple notorieties of the day brought each other freely to that temple of an old woman's not ignoble curiosity. You never could guess whom you were likely to come upon being received in semi-privacy within ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... the beauties of every country from the poles to the equator, and went into raptures over the unconventional customs of such nations as the Chinese or the Laplanders; but they came to the conclusion that the most beautiful land in the world is France, with her temperate climate—cool in summer and warm in winter—her fertile fields, her green forests, her ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... as it has to be packed up and moved about nearly every day, and it has to be carried on the backs of the reindeer in summer, or drawn by them in sleighs in the winter. So it is nothing more than a most unconventional form of tent, not altogether unlike the wigwam of the Red Indian, or the dwelling of many other nomadic people. A few long poles are stuck up on a circle, with their ends fastened together to form a sort of cone, and over this framework is stretched ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... anybody when I made my poems?—of living a little like a disembodied spirit, and caring less for suppositious criticism than for the black fly buzzing in the pane?—That made me what dear Mr. Kenyon calls 'insolent,'—untimid, and unconventional in my degree; and not so much by strength, you see, as by separation. You touch your greater ends by mere strength; breaking with your own hands the hampering threads which, in your ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Nellie with his attentions. There! I must speak plainly. He has gone to extremes that can no longer be misinterpreted. In our small community, Mr. Brett," she explained, "though we dearly love a little gossip, we are slow to believe that a man married to such a charming if somewhat unconventional woman as Margaret Hume-Frazer—I cannot train my tongue to call her Mrs. Capella—would deliberately neglect his wife and dare to demonstrate his unlawful affection for another woman, especially such ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... Cappy murmured to himself. "He has a sense of humor, thank God! Ah, poor old narrow-gauge Skinner! If that fellow ever gets a new or unconventional thought in his stodgy head, it'll kill him overnight. He's hopping mad right now, because he can't say a word in his own defense, but if he doesn't make hell look like a summer holiday for Mr. Bill Peck, I'm due to be mercifully chloroformed. Good Lord, how empty life ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... You are young, amiable, unconventional; you suit me and will save me from the tediousness ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... Lecture on the Mormons at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, was a great success. His humour was so entirely fresh, new, and unconventional, it took his hearers by surprise, and charmed them. His failing health compelled him to abandon the lecture after about eight or ten weeks. Indeed, during that brief period he was once or twice compelled to dismiss ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... his business if, in addition to stocking the Royal Academy works, upon which he relies for his bread-and-butter, in the front window, he devotes a little space at the back to the unconventional efforts of the true artists. To do this costs him nothing, and he may even make money by ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... and solely by way of expression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitably forfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticism and the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, it may often gain something through the habit of freedom and the unconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of the present author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter; she must write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit, literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the doorstep, and many more years during which her walks ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... quite unconventional," Sir Claude went on—"I mean the little household we three should make together; but things have got beyond that, don't you see? They got beyond that long ago. We shall stay abroad at any rate—it's ever so much ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... too, the whole place began to be scandalised by her vagaries, her mysterious expeditions on the big brown horse, and her constant appearance in public with a coterie of young men about her. At a time when anything unconventional in a girl was clear evidence of vice to all the men and most of the women who knew of it, Beth's reputation was bound to suffer, and it became so bad at last that Dr. Hardy forbade Charlotte to associate with her. Charlotte told her with tears, and begged to be allowed to meet her in the Secret Service ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... gave himself to intensest listening and questioning, and presently followed his questions with suggestions which showed that unconventional ways of working were not ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... them. If I throw bread pellets at the girls, they will call me unmannerly. If I don't they will call me stiff. You may have noticed that those pseudo-intellectuals who like to think themselves Bohemian are always terrified when they are brought up against anything that really is unconventional. On the other hand, your true Bohemian is disgusted if anybody describes him by that word; if there is one word that he detests more than Belgravia, it is Bohemia. No, I ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... on the popular theme, "Make Germany Pay!" was initiated by Col. CLAUDE LOWTHER, who not long ago produced a specific scheme for extracting twenty-five thousand millions from the enemy—a scheme which by its unconventional handling of the rules of arithmetic excited the amazed admiration of professional financiers. Possibly Mr. BONAR LAW, as ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, was jealous because he had not thought of it first. At any rate he subjected the plan to so much caustic criticism ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... way, is a democrat. He does not urge a thing merely because to his fancy it should be done; but, because (in his own admirable republican formula) "Everybody does it." The conventional authority does claim some popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan who forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing Puritan opinion; not merely his own opinion. He is not a despot; he is a democracy, a tyrannical democracy, a dingy and local democracy perhaps; but one that could do and ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... THE unconventional has ever a morbid attraction for a certain class of mind. There is always a small coterie of highly intellectual men and women eager to give welcome to whatever is eccentric, obscure, or chaotic. Worshipers at the shrine of the Unpopular, they tingle ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... rest—did as Damaris bade him. Standing in the conflicting gaslight and moonlight, the haunted quiet of the small hours broken only by the trample and wash of the sea, he read Darcy Faircloth's letter from its unconventional opening, to its equally ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... correct and high-minded. They're a little unconventional, maybe, but they're interesting ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... unconventional meeting," he said. "I received your letter, Charles, and I am bound to say the contents would have astonished me exceedingly had they been written by anybody but an Evors. But our race has always been a law unto itself, with more or less ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... were drawn up like a regiment, and waited for the College to go by. The girls sailed past with well-bred unconsciousness, their eyes fixed discreetly upon the Prayer Books and hymn-books that they carried—all except poor impulsive, unconventional Honor, who made a sudden dart out of the line, and snatched rapturously at a brown-faced, curly-headed ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... unconventional guest in a country house. My father had rented a deer-forest on a long lease from Cluny Macpherson, and had built a large house there, on Loch Laggan. As that was before the days of railways, the interior of the house at Ardverikie was necessarily ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... spectacles; but his keen, clever face, and the benevolent and kindly air that distinguished him, always attracted people to him. At times he was a little absent and whimsical; and those who knew them both well declared that Audrey had got all her original ideas and unconventional ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Mr. Greatson," she said quietly. "At present I am feeling my way through my thoughts. There is rash blood in Isobel's veins, and I should like her life to be happier than her mother's. She is unconventional and a lover of freedom. The etiquette of our Court at Illghera will chafe her continually. I wonder, Mr. Greatson, if she would not be happier—married to some one of humbler birth, perhaps, but who can give her the sort ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her glance, for, contrary to her expectation, she did not find Mr. Johnsen shy, awkward, and impressed with the strange surroundings. It was plain, however, that he was conscious that his behaviour was unconventional, but he did not therefore desist. This caused Rachel to lose ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... began in that pleasantly unconventional vein which appeared to afford his vigorous reflections the readiest outlet, "this must seem a bit odd and so on, but why the deuce should we go on quarreling just because we've once begun? We're above ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... trained instinct for sound work, but a deep sympathy with the latest effort of the human spirit to express itself in new forms. So deep and real will be his feeling for life that he will be eager to understand and possess every fresh manifestation of that life. However novel and unconventional the new form may be, it will not make its appeal ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... have gone wrong. The infanta answered his eager words with a few cold, common-place sentences; a sense of constraint and uneasiness appeared to haunt the apartment; the interview was at an end. English ideas of love-making had proved much too unconventional ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... glowing under the soft brown of her cheeks—Willard Holmes felt her rich personality as distinctly as one senses the presence of the ocean, the atmosphere of the woods or the air of meadows and fields. But by all his conventional gods, this was the unconventional limit! that this girl, the daughter of a banker, should openly seek out a total stranger to introduce herself to him on the public street before a crowd of hotel loungers! And the way she spoke of those rough men in the saloon, one would think ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... in London had dulled her cheeks. Her smile had the fresh innocence of a child's and she possessed a curious felicity of manner which was delightful though a little puzzling. Her view of strikes and the important work of the Ministry was fresh and quite unconventional. Sir James, who had all his life moved among serious and earnest people, found Miss Molly's easy cheerfulness very fascinating. Even portentous words like syndicalism, which rang in other people's ears like the passing bells of our social ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... tendency to scream, she thus secured space for second thought, and, being a shrewd woman of the world, ended by making up her mind to tell no one about the matter. Evidently, Jennie had been having some decidedly unconventional experience, and the less publicity given to all such passages in young ladies' lives, the better for their prospects. It so happened that in the bustle attending the approach to the terminus and the prospective change of ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy |
