"Indelicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... letters found after years of happy union creates no sense of insecurity in the present; and yet it will pain a man sharply. The two people entertain no vulgar doubt of each other: but this pre-existence of both occurs to the mind as something indelicate. To be altogether right, they should have had twin birth together, at the same moment with the feeling that unites them. Then indeed it would be simple and perfect and without reserve or afterthought. Then they would understand each other with a fulness impossible otherwise. There would be no ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the law of association in his own mind and in the minds of others knows that whatever is constantly presented to the imagination in connection with what is attractive will itself become attractive. There is undoubtedly a great deal of indelicate writing in Fletcher and Massinger, and more than might be wished even in Ben Jonson and Shakspeare, who are comparatively pure. But it is impossible to trace in their plays any systematic attempt to associate ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was extremely fond of his brother, and grieved to the heart to find that he spoke so discouragingly of his health. Nor did the squire for a moment hesitate at accepting the proposal to join his distinguished relative at Bath. Lucy also—who had for her uncle, possibly from his profuse yet not indelicate flattery, a very great regard and interest, though she had seen but little of him—urged the squire to lose no time in arranging matters for their departure, so as to precede the barrister, and prepare ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... what were really confessors, appointed for every block, to inquire of all—young and old—concerning the most intimate details of their lives. The printed catechism given to these confessors was so indelicate that it was suppressed in later years. These prying inquisitors found opportunity to gain information for their superiors about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one use they made of their visitations was to urge ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... snapped. "It's indelicate it's indecent, that's what it is. Didn't I get my clothes, and weren't we to have been married by the Reverend Dwight Johnstone, out in Salem, Ohio? And didn't he go out there and have old Johnstone marry him to somebody else? The wretch! If I ever ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... deeds of the Scotch nation; cow- stealing, for example, which is very little better than drabbing baulor; whilst the softer part is mostly about the slips of its females among the broom, so that no upholder of Scotch poetry could censure Ursula's song as indelicate, even if he understood it. What do ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... think, dear Hopkins, that this allusion to bas-bleus, if not indelicate, is a little rococo, and out of date? Editors will think so, I fear. Besides, I don't like "Fairy gold that cannot stay." If Fairy Gold were a horse, it would be all very well to write that it "cannot stay." 'Tis the style of the stable, unsuited ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... indelicate. Phoebe picked a last oyster out of its shell, and kept her eyes modestly fixed on her plate. Observing that the second glass of gin-and-water was fast becoming empty, Jervy risked the first advances, on his ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... meat with his hands."[B] At the close of the sixteenth century were our ancestors eating as the Turkish noblesse at present do, with only the free use of their fingers, steadying their meat and conveying it to their mouths by their mere manual dexterity. They were, indeed, most indelicate in their habits, scattering on the table-cloth all their bones and parings. To purify their tables, the servant bore a long wooden "voiding-knife," by which he scraped the fragments from the table into a basket, called "a ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... you feel constrained to act in this indelicate manner; but I cannot, on my honor and conscience, violate my orders, and I must respectfully decline to produce the envelope," replied Christy, feeling that he had come to a crisis in ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of painted shepherdesses: poor weak hobbling lines, eked out by 'eds and expletives, often terminated by false rhymes, and made lamer by triplets and dreary Alexandrines; ill-selected subjects, laboured, indelicate, or impossible similes, passions frigid as Diana, wit's weapons dull as lead. Yet these (many exceptions doubtless there were, and many redeeming morceaux even in the worst, charitable reader, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... O fye Seignior, how can you make use of so indelicate an Expression. A Lady's Nudities, why, you might as well have said— I vow it is almost plain English, I protest such an Expression is enough to get your Farce hiss'd off ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... I have my own views in the matter.— Besides, there's something else. You have been exceedingly indelicate. You took advantage of my ignorance. You let me think you were a rose-beetle and yesterday the snail told me you are a tumble-bug. A considerable difference! He saw you engaged in—well, doing something I don't care to ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... condition; so that you see, madam, I have made this digression for the sole purpose of setting your mind at ease on the score of Isabella's gowns, frocks, hose, and those other articles of the "inner temple" whose names I dare not even think of, or whose existence it would be impolite and indelicate to hint at. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the variety of circumstances under which our emotions may be excited. A man may smile at his own misfortunes after they are over—sometimes our laughter seems scarcely directed against anyone, and in the most profane and indelicate humour ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... is so indelicate, so heartless! A young widow who ought to be mourning beside her husband's grave, and a wild young man who has just escaped the penitentiary. Hasn't suffering ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... are my friend, own honestly—don't you think there is something forward, something indelicate, in this haste to forgive? Women should never sue for reconciliation: that should always come from us. They should retain their coldness till wooed to kindness; and their pardon, like their love, ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... hear and tremble." Now, to apply. Conshy has been nudging me for this half hour to hold my tongue regarding Aaron Bang's sea—sickness.—"It is absolutely indecent," quoth he. "Can't help it, Conshy; no more than the extra tumbler; those who are delicate need not read it; those who are indelicate won't be the worse of it."—"But," persists Conshy—"I have other hairs in your neck, Master Tommy—you are growing a bit of a buffoon on us, and sorry am I to say it, sometimes not altogether, as a man with a rank imagination may construe you, a very decent one. Now, my good boy, I would have ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Darrin. He was disgusted enough over the action of the first class cadets, but, being in the service himself, he felt it indelicate in him to criticise the action of the cadets of the United ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... this as the reading of the older editions. It may be so; but who can doubt that it is a mistake for 'my father's child,' meaning herself? According to Theobald's note, a most indelicate anticipation is put into the mouth of Rosalind without reason;—and besides, what a strange thought, and how out of ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... in those days, when the ladies of the court left so little to the imagination of the amorous monarch on whose heart so many of them had designs, must have impaired the effect meant to have been achieved by the indelicate exposure; for—hear it ye fair dames, with whose snowy busts and dimpled shoulders the eyes of your male acquaintance are as familiar as with your faces!—the charms of nature, however beautiful, fall short of the ideal perfection accorded to ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... pen poised in her hand. There was rather an awkward pause. The question seemed at first blush a little indelicate. Sinclair ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... Mostowski, together with those of Kochanowski, Simonides, and other classical poets; and Wenceslaus Potocki, the author of novels, poetry, and more especially epigrams, not without merit, but frequently licentious and indelicate. Among the poets of this age, who are in some measure distinguished by Polish critics, we find also a lady. Elizabeth Druzbacka, a poetess of high rank, but without a literary education or a knowledge of foreign languages, though not without natural gifts. Satires were written by Dzwonowski and ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... the beans, and in indicating snakes (both desirable and indeed essential articles of food), the "calloo-calloo" performs such valuable service that it is highly commended. Those who are familiar with the unreflective omnivority of the blacks and their indelicate appetites generally, may with difficulty credit the fact that in those districts in which the bird is recognised as a trustworthy guide it is honoured, and under no circumstances will they kill it. Of course, the blacks of North Queensland in native worth have not much art in the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... Mary is indifferent to poetry—she holds sonnets upon hopeless love in utter contempt—entertains no higher opinion of the writers of them—and considers publishing any thing of the kind as a downright ungentlemanly act; bringing, as she says it does, a lady's name before the public in the most indelicate and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... same way, and their marriages had gone off in regular sequence to their engagements. There had never been any secret with them about their affairs. On this matter the practice is very various among different people. There are families who think it almost indelicate to talk about marriage as a thing actually in prospect for any of their own community. An ordinary acquaintance would be considered to be impertinent in even hinting at such a thing, although the thing were an established fact. The engaged ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... a creature so charming, at once deformed by a crooked back and an excrescent shoulder.' Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents. 'The bitterest consciousness of his deformity was derived from their indelicate, though, perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct.... Of his person he continued to speak as of an abhorrent enemy.... "Were a blessing submitted to my choice, I would say, [said Arnaud] be it my immediate dissolution." "I think," said his mother, ... "that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Lionel's proud heart, in which ungrateful anger could not long find room, had smitten him for so ill a return to well-meant and not indelicate kindness. And, his wounded egotism appeased by its very outburst, he had called to mind Fairthorn's allusions to Darrell's secret griefs,—griefs that must have been indeed stormy so to have revulsed the currents ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... intelligent how intellectual, they all looked! And presently they took to dancing the Mazurka, and I think it was the figure V. who performed the most to my satisfaction. She was evidently a lady of breeding. None of your swaggerers, and nothing at all indelicate in her motions. She did the pirouette to admiration—whirling round upon her apex. I made an endeavor to hand her a chair, for I saw that she appeared fatigued with her exertions—and it was not until then that I fully perceived my lamentable situation. Lamentable indeed! ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... be relieved," continued Atherton, "of the sense I've had that it was indelicate in me to keep it, while I felt as I've grown to feel—towards you." He stopped: "If I take it back, you must come with it!" he ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the family responsible for civil order, no inferences were drawn to the detriment of the mother's position in the household. Nepos once aptly remarked: "Many things are considered entirely proper here which the Greeks hold to be indelicate. No Roman ever hesitates to take his wife with him to a social dinner. In fact, our women invariably have the seat of honor at temples and large gatherings. In such matters we ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... with a jest but passed her days in a fire of indelicate allusions, however, which did not bring a flush to her cheek. So long as he was not rough and brutal, she objected to nothing, but one day she was very angry when he, in trying to steal a kiss, tore out a lock of ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... no!" he gasped. "Don't be indelicate, Ham! Why, she might never forgive me, dear old thing! Suppose she walked out of the office in a huff? Great Scotland! Great Jehoshaphat! It's ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... have embraced the unsightly boor. His indelicate communication seemed to me the happiest compliment and the gladdest tidings that I could have expected from him. He could not know that his brutal rudeness, which he in Dutch fashion seemed to take for lusty candor, something ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... to the danger of being annihilated by the first stroke of adverse fortune. But this inconsistence was not regarded; nor was it material to the views for precipitating the treaty, which was pressed on the young Nabob at the first interview, in so earnest and indelicate a manner as highly disgusted him and chagrined his ministers; while not a single rupee was stipulated for the Company, whose interests were sacrificed, that their servants might revel in the spoils of a treasury before ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I find that Dalcastle has actually refused to say prayers with you when you ordered him; an' has guidit you in a rude indelicate manner, outstepping the respect due to my daughter—as my daughter. But, wi' regard to what is due to his own wife, of that he's a better judge nor me. However, since he has behaved in that manner to MY DAUGHTER, I shall be revenged on him for aince; for I shall return the obligation ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... hurried tone, "it would be an idle compliment to say that you are not likely to love in vain; perhaps it is indelicate in me to apply a general remark; and yet—yet I cannot but fancy that I have discovered your secret, and that you are not insensible to the charms ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... wound, though he did manage to get out the bullet. It was dressed, however, and Kitty used to say that I was the doctor. I know that I went every day into the cabin with her and Dick, and that we used to put lotions and plaster on his poor shoulder. Mrs Podgers declared that it was very indelicate in her to do so, but Kitty replied that if women were on board ship, it was their duty to ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... Your Greataunt Susannah, one of the most modest women of her time, has often told me that once, having unfortunately crossed her knees in the parlour after supper, she suffered untold tortures from "budges" for three mortal hours rather than be seen to do anything so indelicate as to uncross them. Well, well, ladies were ladies in those days, and now Lila tells me it is quite customary for them to sit like men. My blindness has spared me many painful sights, I ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... feel that it is more delicate to neglect the care of the bowels than to attend to a daily evacuation, but if they would remember that it is just as indelicate to carry effete or dead matter about in the bowels as it would be to carry it upon the person in any other way, they would realize that it is only politeness and refinement to see that this part of their ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... as his eye travelled over the beach, "anything more indelicate—Why, Miss Limpenny might be rowing this way for anything ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... would check all extravagance in dancing, and would not waste much time on music unless one has a talent for it. She thinks that the excessive cultivation of the arts has contributed to the decline of States. She is severe on that style of dress which permits an indelicate exposure of the person, and on all forms of senseless extravagance. She despises children's balls, and ridicules children's rights and "Liliputian coquetry" with ribbons and feathers. She would educate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... by law," was "explicitly rejected." Mr. Madison said a day or two after, that, while he did not doubt "the case to be as stated, he had no recollection of it." Of the message itself, he said that it was "as unexpected as its tone and tenor are improper and indelicate." But Hamilton, he thought, wrote it, and the President was, as usual, lamented over for having been taken in. A resolution, however, was finally passed in favor of the treaty, though by a majority of three only. The debate upon ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Blake, and of course your wishes must be obeyed. But as regards this will, do not think me indelicate for mentioning it, but ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... coffee with milk and sugar at dinner. Without professing temperance, he drank sparingly in a community where alcoholic stimulation was a custom. With neither refinement nor an extended vocabulary, he was seldom profane, and never indelicate. With nothing of the Puritan in his manner or conversation, he seemed to be as strange to the vices of civilization as he was to its virtues. That such a man should offer little to and receive little from the companionship ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... short pause, marking an automatic close of the subject. Deeply as I admired both women, I shrank from the idea of their meeting. It seemed curiously indelicate, in view both of my former engagement to Eleanor and of Lola's frank avowal of her feelings towards me before what I shall always regard as my death. It is true that we had never alluded to it since my resurrection; but what of that? Lola's feelings, I was sure, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... to himself as one who knows the reason for a gentleman's prying. Montaiglon caught that smile once: his chagrin at its irony was blended with a pleasing delusion that the frank and genial domestic might proffer a solution without indelicate questioning. But he was soon undeceived: the discreet retainer knew but three things in this world—the grandeur of war, the ancient splendour of the house of Doom, and the excellent art of absent-mindedness. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... question," the stranger replied. "The problem actually before us is, how am I to get out? For, of course, Princess, I shall not be so indelicate as to prolong my visit unduly, too happy only if you will permit me to repeat it on some other evening soon." He turned his head, and plunging his hand into the bath in the most natural manner possible, took out the thermometer which was floating on the perfumed water. "Thirty degrees, centigrade, ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... but felt that it would be indelicate just then to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon did not proffer, and she turned to the window to admire the view. The sun had lately pierced the gray, and the avenue of limes ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... careless about their personal appearance, and their style of conversation; but Friend Hopper was remarkably free from such faults. He was exceedingly pure in his mind, and in his personal habits. He never alluded to any subject that was unclean, never made any indelicate remark, or used any unseemly expression. There was never the slightest occasion for young people to feel uneasy concerning what he might say. However lively his mood might be, his fun was always sure to be restrained by the nicest sense of natural propriety. He ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... The German caricaturist seemed unable to represent his enemies except in extremely tight trousers or in none; he was equally unable to represent them without thrusting a sword or bayonet, spluttering blood, into the more indelicate parts of their persons. This was the leit-motif of the war as the German humorists presented it. "But," said Mr. Britling, "these things can't represent anything like the general state of mind ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... the winter in Paris, away from them; from time to time—as the custom of the city dictated—he would be taken for perfunctory little walks in the Bois and would be told to "run and play" if he asked indelicate questions concerning ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... of the fair bride's dowry. She is attended by her mother, and five or six young ladies, who act as bridesmaids. According to their mode of salutation, we must gallop up to them repeatedly. See! the ladies cover their faces, and scream their thanks; and as it is extremely indelicate to gaze upon the bride, we must cast our eyes on the ground, wheel our horses round, and gallop back again. You will ask, 'Is that all; and where is the bridegroom?' Ah! poor fellow! he has been parading the streets all the day, with a crowd after him, dressed in all the finery he could buy or borrow, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... variety of subjects. He thought portrait-painting an improper employment for a woman. 'Publick practice of any art, (he observed,) and staring in men's faces, is very indelicate in a female.' I happened to start a question, whether, when a man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house of another friend, with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join them without an invitation. JOHNSON. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... words with one common term, and are introduced to prevent a repetition in writing or printing."—Ib., p. 283. (11.) "Two or three asterisks generally denote the omission of some letters in a word, or of some bold or indelicate expression, or some defect in the manuscript."—Ib., 283. (12.) "An Ellipsis —— is also used, when some letters in a word, or some words in a verse, are omitted."—Ib., 283. (13.) "An Obelisk, which ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the swarthy brow and curly hair, and felt that even yesterday at the moment of intense hatred and anger he could not have shot a man. Fearing that the bullet might somehow hit Von Koren by accident, he raised the pistol higher and higher, and felt that this too obvious magnanimity was indelicate and anything but magnanimous, but he did not know how else to do and could do nothing else. Looking at the pale, ironically smiling face of Von Koren, who evidently had been convinced from the beginning that his opponent would fire in the air, Laevsky thought that, thank God, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... she and Sir Nigel were infuriated by the simplicity which made Rosalie slow in comprehending that it was proper that the money her father allowed her should be placed in her husband's hands, and left there with no indelicate questioning. If she had been an English girl matters would have been made plain to her from the first and arranged satisfactorily before her marriage. Sir Nigel's mother considered that he had played the fool, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unjust, this is cruel," I exclaimed; "Alice herself is not more pure than I am from an indelicate thought, or an evil design. You wrong me; I do not deserve such language; and even from you I will not endure it. Forgive me, dearest uncle, forgive me; but indeed you do me a grievous injustice." I seized his hand and pressed it to ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... a mighty passion from the substratum of sexual life, has, under the repressing influence of centuries of habits and customs, taken on an entirely new, supersensual, ethereal character, so that to a lover every thought of naturalia seems indelicate and improper." "I feel it deeply that love ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... purpose of punishment which the courts of law are not equal to, and history shows, that, in England, impeachment has been an engine more of passion than justice. A great ball is to be given here on the 22nd, and in other great towns of the Union. This is, at least, very indelicate, and probably excites uneasy sensations in some. I see in it, however, this useful deduction, that the birth-days which have been kept, have been, not those of the President, but of the General. I enclose, with the newspapers, the two ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... lazy workman, railing at the capitalist by whose desertion, when you have frightened away his capital, you starve—rioting and shedding blood and torturing and poisoning by way of answer to exaction and by way of exaction; you foul anarchists, applauding with indelicate palms when one of your coward kind hurls a bomb amongst powerless and helpless women and children; you imbecile politicians with a plague of remedial legislation for the irremediable; you writers and thinkers unread in history, with as many "solutions ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... saucy, impertinent, impudent, insolent. Importance, consequence, moment. Impostor, pretender, charlatan, masquerader, mountebank, deceiver, humbug, cheat, quack, shyster, empiric. Imprison, incarcerate, immure. Improper, indecent, indecorous, unseemly, unbecoming, indelicate. Impure, tainted, contaminated, polluted, defiled, vitiated. Inborn, innate, inbred, congenital. Incite, instigate, stimulate, impel, arouse, goad, spur, promote. Inclose, surround, encircle, circumscribe, encompass. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... uttered so ingenuously, so frankly, that it seemed not in the least indelicate or forward, while it thrilled the young ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... offensive to his feelings, and so as not to have the appearance of officiousness nor obtrusion on my part. I hope you will be able to do this, as I should be very sorry to do any thing by him that may be deemed indelicate. The sum Murray offered and offers was and is one thousand and fifty pounds:—this I refused before, because I thought it more than the two things were worth to Murray, and from other objections, which are of no consequence. I have, however, closed with M., in consequence of Sir J.'s and your ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... is the mikweh, the name of which it is indelicate to mention in the hearing of men. It is a large pool of standing water, its depth graded by means of a flight of steps. Every married woman must perform here certain ceremonious ablutions at regular intervals. Cleanliness is ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... limitations of Victorian delicacy, and all of us, from princesses and prime-ministers' wives downward, talk of topics that would have been considered quite gravely improper in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, some topics have, if anything, become more indelicate than they were, and this is especially true of the discussion of income, of any discussion that tends, however remotely, to inquire, Who is it at the base of everything who really pays in blood and muscle and involuntary submissions for your freedom and magnificence? ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... was startled by this bold assertion, which was so unprecedented in her experience that for a moment she could not utter a word; and when she did speak she avoided a direct reply, because she thought any discussion on the subject of marriage, except from the sentimental point of view, was indelicate. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... observe, that, whatever objections may be made to the Quaker apparel, it is estimable, as far as it gives this appearance of modesty to the females who wear it, or rather as far as it hinders them from wearing the loose and indelicate garments, which are frequently worn, without any scruple, by many of the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... then, that my aunt Legge listens to any such unworthy gossip!" I indignantly cried. "My life on it, Anneke Mordaunt never contemplated so indelicate a thing!" ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... cloud, that can leave no lasting impression on his great mind," said I; "while this statue will for ever remain, a memorial of his great deeds; and yet the complaint is general that the statue is indelicate—as if, forsooth, this was the first statue exhibited in 'puris naturalibus' in England. I really regard it as the ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... passionate appeal for pardon and intercession to a statuet of the Virgin Mother, of whom he was a very devout adorer. He had always regarded himself as her especial champion in the Church of England; and now he had been faithless to her, and indelicate into the bargain. And yet, in spite of his contrition, he felt that he was having a tremendous spiritual experience, which he would not for worlds have missed. The climax of it was the composition of his Sunday sermon, the labor of which secured ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... gentlewoman had too profound a knowledge of the human heart not to realize that she was completely vanquished. For where in this world is not refinement instantly beaten by coarseness, gentleness by rudeness, all delicacy by all that is indelicate? What can the finest consideration avail against no consideration? the sweetest forbearance against intrusiveness? the beak of the dove against the beak of the hawk? And yet all these may have their victory; for when the finer and the baser ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the unconsciously indelicate ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... We have solved the labour question with discrimination polished, So poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished - (They are going to abolish it in England.) The Chamberlain our native stage has purged, beyond a question, Of "risky" situation and indelicate suggestion; No piece is tolerated if it's costumed indiscreetly - In short, this happy country has been Anglicised completely! It really is surprising What a thorough Anglicising We've brought about - Utopia's quite another land; In ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... plumed cap; and his 'Leonora,' in the costume of a bride, generally serves me with Havanas in a cigar store. When Leonora removed her gloves I recognized her at once by her large chilblained hands. Here is my haberdasher promenading in an indelicate costume as Bacchus; also a Diana, dressed up atrociously, who is really a ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... later legends. Notwithstanding the attempts of Keim to associate the narratives of the infancy in the canonical and apocryphal gospels, a great gulf separates them: on the one side there is a reverent and beautiful reserve, on the other indelicate, unlovely, ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... scepticism; while others have considered it as a jeu d'esprit, &c.[1] The author does not, however, design to entertain his readers with accounts of the mistakes which, have arisen respecting it; because many of them, he is convinced, would be received with incredulity; and he could not, without an indelicate exposure of individuals, ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... bedroom that madame will spend most of her time. Here, too, she will receive friends of either sex, and, the French being far less prudish than ourselves, nobody considers that there is anything wrong or indelicate ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... bashfulness about these things we talk an abominable lot of nonsense; all this uproar one hears about the Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit and the future of the lower races takes on an entirely different complexion directly we face known, if indelicate, facts. Most of the human types, that by civilized standards are undesirable, are quite willing to die out through such suppressions if the world will only encourage them a little. They multiply in sheer ignorance, but they do not desire multiplication even now, and they can easily ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... which they are most unmathematically working on the floor. Working and twisting,—now staggering, and again giving utterance to the coarsest language,—one of the gentry—they belong to the sporting world-calls loudly for the colonel's little 'oman. Regaining his feet, he makes indelicate advances towards the female servant, who, nearly pale with fright—a negro can look pale—runs to her mistress at ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... when the hospitable custom of the antient Aegyptians will be revived; then a conveniency will be placed behind every chair in company, with a proper provision of waste paper, that individuals may make themselves easy without parting company. I insist upon it, that this practice would not be more indelicate than that which is now in use. What then, you will say, must a man sit with his chops and fingers up to the ears and knuckles in grease? No; let those who cannot eat without defiling themselves, step into another room, provided with basons and towels: but I think it ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... having any respect for your father-in-law under such unpleasant circumstances—think of his having been "viewed" by jurors, and "sat upon" by coroners, and of his very doubtful position in the family ever afterwards. It seems to me such an indelicate sort of thing that I really think the girl ought to have been put to death by the state to prevent its happening. But I tease you perhaps. You would rather be alone? My dear Ned, most willingly. God bless you. I shall be going out presently, but we shall meet to-night, or if not ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... surplice. Being a cavalier in sentiment, he was ejected from his vicarage in 1648, and went to London, where he assumed the lay habit. In 1647 he published Hesperides, a collection of small poems of great lyric beauty, Anacreontic, pastoral, and amatory, but containing much that is coarse and indelicate. In 1648 he in part atoned for these by publishing his Noble Numbers, a collection of pious pieces, in the beginning of which he asks God's forgiveness for his "unbaptized rhymes," "writ in my wild, unhallowed times." The best comment upon his works may be found in ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... gigantic in its proportions, had its purposes. He there assembled his supporters; there, for a short time, he entertained his constituents and coadjutors with a magnificent, jovial hospitality, of which he, with his gay spirits, his humourous, indelicate jokes, and his unbounded good-nature, was the very soul. Free conversation, hard-drinking, were the features of every day's ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... to manifold temptations which he rather sought than fled. He had figured on the stool of repentance, for once fulfilling to the letter the tradition of his hero and model. His humorous verses to Mr. Torrance on that occasion - "Kenspeckle here my lane I stand" - unfortunately too indelicate for further citation, ran through the country like a fiery cross - they were recited, quoted, paraphrased, and laughed over as far away as Dumfries on the one hand and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have not always been unstained; nor are statements of a mythical nature confined to the lips of the clergy. The poet was anxious that freedom should "broaden down," but "slowly," not with indelicate haste. Persons who are more in a hurry will never care for the political poems, and it is certain that Tennyson did not feel sympathetically inclined towards the Iberian patriot who said that his darling desire was "to cut the throats of all the cures," ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... the beginning of which is not translated amiss by our author. The principal object of his fourth satire, Gallio, would correspond with a modern Fribble, but that he supposes him capable of hunting and hawking, which are exercises rather too coarse and indelicate for ours: this may intimate perhaps, that the reign of the great Elizabeth had no character quite so unmanly as our age. In advising him to wed, however, we have no bad portrait of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... does Homer's genius half-unconsciously purify materials like those which Hesiod presents in the crudest form? Mr. Grote says: "How far these stories are the invention of Hesiod himself it is impossible to determine. They bring us down to a cast of fancy more coarse and indelicate than the Homeric, and more nearly resemble some of the holy chapters ((Greek text omitted)) of the more recent mysteries, such, for example, as the tale of Dionysus Zagreus. There is evidence in the Theogony itself that the author ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... is a severe but grossly indelicate satire upon the profligacy of Brahmans assuming the character of religious mendicants. It satirizes also the encouragement given to vice by princes, the inefficacy of ministers, and the ignorance of physicians ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... a thing like this and she tried to argue with herself without avail. It seemed to her that if she went about in neglige like that she would lower herself. How? There was nothing unwomanly in flowing hair, there was nothing indelicate. No, but women of her class never appeared before men in that fashion, she ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... which was very wrong, he tells the boys, and never to be imitated of course, but which he cannot help letting them know was very pleasant too—especially when he kissed the master's niece. This last, however, is a point on which the old lady is very tender, for she considers it a shocking and indelicate thing to talk about, and always says so whenever it is mentioned, never failing to observe that he ought to be very penitent for having been so sinful. So the old gentleman gets no further, and what the schoolmaster's niece said afterwards (which he is always going to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... man to sleep with me." Nevertheless, the women still display intense curiosity in seeing "The Christian," and will declare, "By G—d, you are beautiful, more handsome than our men." They admire the most trifling thing I have, and add, "God alone brought you amongst us." Their language, though indelicate to us, is not so to them. It is the undisguised ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Princess hated me; but what did I care? She knew I knew all: and indeed, I believe, so strong was her prejudice against me, that she thought I was an indelicate villain, capable of betraying a lady, which I would scorn to do; so that she trembled before me as a child before its schoolmaster. She would, in her woman's way, too, make all sorts of jokes and sneers at me on reception days; ask about my palace in ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to declare. But, even before the time for such decision arrived the boy had begun to understand he must see to all that unaided. For his mother was ill, how deeply and in what manner he could not tell. He shrank, indeed, from all clear thought, let alone speech, on the subject, as from something indelicate, in a way irreverent. Her beauty remained to her, notwithstanding a gradual wasting as of fever. A peculiar, very individual grace of dress and of bearing remained to her likewise. But she was uncertain in mood, the victim of strange fancies, a being almost alarmingly far removed from the interests ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... breakfast. As for Sir Hercules, he didn't know what to do; he did nothing but storm at everybody, for my lady, with her head under the clothes, was serving him out at no small rate. She wouldn't, she declared, allow any man to come into the cabin to hoist her up again. So indecent, so indelicate, so shocking—she was ashamed of Sir Hercules—to send for the men; if they didn't leave the cabin immediately, she'd scream and she'd faint—that she would—there was no saying what she wouldn't do! Well, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... taste, Censured, like other things, though good, Because they are not understood. 280 To higher subjects now she soars, And talks of politics and whores; (If to your nice and chaster ears That term indelicate appears, Scripture politely shall refine, And melt it into concubine) In the same breath spreads Bourbon's league;[224] And publishes the grand intrigue; In Brussels or our own Gazette[225] Makes armies fight which ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... POLITE TO WOMEN.—So far from being in the least gross or indelicate, its proper exercise is pure, chaste, virtuous, and even an ingredient in good manners. It is this which renders men always more polite towards women than to one another, and more refined in their society, and which makes women more kind, grateful, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... it!" replied Celeste. "Too high a regard! Truly, she behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate in a woman, you know!" with sublime unconsciousness of ever having indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! "Such an old creature, too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and stockings! ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... very indelicate and inconsiderate of Fred to tell any one that it was my fault that he was doing anything so foolish," she said, with true feminine deceit, "but he has taken the very worst possible means to make me care for him. Everybody has ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... their comradeship sharply home to him. It was as if she understood his weariness and knew that the fire was infinitely comforting. Anthony frowned; he did not wish to be understood. It was irritating—indelicate. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... unseemly. This negative description of one of the characteristics of charity is sufficiently comprehensive, if exhibited in all its details, to fill a volume. It conveys the idea of an exquisite propriety of deportment, free from everything indelicate, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... impracticable, Julia resorted to the course of committing her inquiries to paper, most solemnly enjoining her friend never to expose her weakness to Mr. Stanley. This, thought Julia, she never could do; it would be unjust to me, and indelicate in her. So Julia wrote as follows, first seeking her own apartment, and carefully locking the door, that she might devote her whole attention ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she has been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition, and to glory in her own degradation... Such was the prejudice against a liberal education for woman, that the first public examination of a girl in geometry (1829) created as bitter a storm ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... very uncomfortable. She had a guilty feeling that the whole situation, with Natalie pouring out her woes beside her, was indelicate, unbearable. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who had since held marvellously little conversation, now sitting hand in hand, their soft palms pressed close together, and every pulse of the mental and physical natures of both thrilling at the touch! Exceedingly improper!—exceedingly hurried!—exceedingly indelicate! Modesty, where were you about this time? If we have gone so fast already, how fast may we go by-and-bye? Alas, they are living people whom we have before us—not cherubim and seraphim; and they do as they please, and act very humanly, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... drama shrouded in secrecy. Seguin, hard up and in debt, cast off by Nora, who divined his approaching ruin, and preyed upon by other voracious creatures, had ended by committing, on the turf, one of those indelicate actions which honest people call thefts. Du Hordel, on being apprised of the matter, had hastened forward and had paid what was due in order to avoid a frightful scandal. And he was so upset by the extraordinary muddle in which he ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... dignity sought wives. Even if Shen Yi graciously overlooked the absence of polite formality, would not the romantic imagination of Melodious Vision be distressed when she learned that she had been approached with so indelicate an absence of ceremony? "Here, again," said Chang Tao's self-reproach accusingly, "you have, as usual, gone on in advance of both your feet and of your head. 'It is one thing to ignore the Rites: it is quite another to expect the gods ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... two new lunar inequalities, the most remarkable discovery, I think, in Physical Astronomy.'—In discussing points relating to the discovery of Neptune, I made an unfortunate blunder. In a paper hastily sent to the Athenaeum (Feb. 18th) I said that Arago's conduct had been indelicate. I perceived instantly that I had used a wrong expression, and by the very next post I sent an altered expression. This altered expression was not received in time, and the original expression was printed, to ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... space left by a balcony-window. The floor was paved with tiles, and the window-panes were round and small, and set in lead—like the floors and window-panes of all the other rooms. A gaudy fresco, representing some indelicate female deity, adorned the front of the fire-place, which sloped expanding from the ceiling and terminated at the mouth without a mantel-piece. The chimney was deep, and told of the cold winters in the hills, of which, afterward, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... author of Clarissa replied by writing a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the "dear Ladies," and minutely justifying his foregone conclusions from the expressions they had used. He refers to Fielding again as "a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spirited Man;" and he also trusts to be able to "bestow a Reading" on Tom Jones; but by a letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed in Barbauld, and dated December 1749, it seems that even at that date he had not, or pretended he had not, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London—I don't always live in trees—for weeks; and I gave it them for ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... "Nothin' so indelicate, sir. Your revered an' lovely relative—God bless her jolly old heart!—expressed her doubt in re leopards an' buffaloes. I'm goin' out, sir, into the wilds—amidst dangers, Ham, old feller, that only seasoned veterans like you an' me can imagine—to bring proof that ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... are far from being indelicate or unchaste. On the banks of the Niger, they are tolerably industrious, have a considerable share of vivacity, and at the same time a female reserve, which would do no discredit to a politer country. They are modest, affable, and faithful; an air of innocence appears in their looks and ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... cousin, Lady Muskerry; to confuse and expose a stupid court beauty, a Miss Blaque; and at the same time to produce on the Count de Grammont a still more powerful effect than even her charms had done. Her success in hoaxing—which we should now think both perilous and indelicate—seems to have only riveted the chain, which was drawn around him ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... before the idol, and to sing hymns in his praise; and it is difficult to say whether they trespass most against decency by the gestures they exhibit, or by the verses which they recite. The walls of the pagodas were covered with paintings in a style no less indelicate." (Others of the deities of the East are of an austere and gloomy character, to be propitiated by victims, sometimes by human sacrifices, and by voluntary torments of the most excruciating kind. Voyage de Gentil. vol. i. p. 244—260. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... soon as Reardon sought for it, was obvious. Biffen had no ordinary coat beneath the other. To have referred to this fact would have been indelicate; the novelist of course understood it, and smiled, ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Bridges they had lunch, in an old-fashioned hotel called the George. Muchross cut the sirloin, filling the plates so full of juicy meat that the ladies protested. Snowdown paid for champagne, and in conjunction with the wine, the indelicate stories which he narrated made some small invasion upon the reserve of the bar-girls; for their admirers did not dare forbid them the wine, and could not prevent them from smiling. After lunch the gang was photographed in the garden, and Muchross gave ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... compact without the sanction of her parent, her present agitation too clearly indicated her keen sense that she had not conducted herself towards him in her accustomed spirit of unswerving and immaculate duty; that, if not absolutely indelicate, her behaviour must appear to him very inconsiderate, very rash, perhaps even unfeeling. Unfeeling! What, to that father, that fond and widowed father, of whom she was the only and cherished child! ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... term which came to us from our forefathers is more seemly to our mind than the modern Latin importation. Nowadays any word is better than one drawn from our old English tongue. We may not speak of anything so indelicate as a belly, but we can mention an abdomen in the politest society. Provided we denote them by their Latin or Greek names, we may even mention any parts of our viscera (I may not say bowels) without raising a blush. Mention them in English, and we are at once boors and churls. But the husbandman's ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... bound, and in whose family I lived, was a tall, thin, sallow-faced man. He had a nervous manner, but he was not unkind to me. He clothed and fed me well. He chewed tobacco and was brimming over with funny stories, funny and usually indelicate. I heard much swearing, too, and I began to think it the proper thing to try to be wicked myself. I was greatly attached to the two clerks, and they were my models in everything. One of them was also the bookkeeper of the establishment as well as ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... a five-dollar bill would Bob have removed his coat, though there had never been a time in his young life when he would have welcomed more a greenback. He did not intend to be indelicate while alone with a young woman in a bedroom. The very thought of it made him scarlet to the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... "I do not see how my husband can be so silly. One would think I was a matchmaker, and no one detests anything of that sort as I do,—no one! Fall in love, indeed! I think the expression is positively indelicate, Henry. Of course, if Lois should be well married, I should be grateful; and if it should be Mr. Forsythe, I should only feel I had done my duty in urging Arabella to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... those in Germany as in England, who saw in Sterne's works only a mine of vulgar suggestion, arelation sometimes delicate and clever, sometimes bald and ugly, of the indelicate and sensual, is a foregone conclusion. Undoubtedly some found in the general approbation which was accorded Sterne's books a sanction for forcing upon the public the products ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... particular—very well done. Mr. Leigh Hunt has not failed in the Manciple's Tale, which I myself modernised many years ago; but though I much admire the genius of Chaucer as displayed in this performance, I could not place my version at the disposal of the editor, as I deemed the subject somewhat too indelicate for pure taste to be offered to the world at this time of day. Mr. Horne has much hurt this publication by not abstaining from the Reve's Tale. This, after making all allowance for the rude manners of Chaucer's age, is intolerable; and by indispensably softening down the incidents, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... to the Wedgewoods, which you recommend, would be indelicate and unmeaning. If, after four or five years, I shall have finished some work of importance, which could not have been written, but in an unanxious seclusion, to them I will dedicate it; for the public will have owed the work to them who gave me the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... to me, 'This is only a temple; I am trying to find a house.' And then he told me with indelicate haste that the lamp outside his house was green, and that there was a red post at the ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... she would prefer not to take any part in the discussion, and everybody suddenly remembered that Mrs. Bird had thought of naming the baby Lucy, for Grandma herself; and, while it would be indelicate for her to favor that name, it would be against human nature for her to suggest any other, under ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... hours. No detail of the joust or hunt was unfamiliar or unwelcome to these readers; no subtle arguments concerning the art of love were too abstruse to delight a generation steeped in amorous casuistry and allegories. And if some scenes seem to us indelicate, yet after comparison with other authors of his times, Chretien must be let off with a light sentence. It is certain he intended to avoid what was indecent, as did the writers of narrative poetry in general. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... have to admit that she had been personally wrong,—some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could be called unfeminine, indelicate, or undutiful. But she had high ideas of what was due to herself, and conceived that she would be wronged by her father, should her father take advantage of her sense of duty to crush her heart. She had her own rights and her own privileges, with which grievous and cruel ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... me that enables me to face anything; and so when I had confronted the bull for a little time I felt inclined to carry the war into the enemy's country, and advance upon him. But of course all this is very indelicate and unfeminine; and it would have been far more virtuous and lady-like to have run shrieking away like Miss Molasses, or laid down and given in at once like poor Lady Scapegrace, who was quite resigned to being tossed and trampled ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... scion of poets, Proud with humility's pride, spoiling a passage from Keats)— Vainly your voice on the ears of impregnable Laureate-makers, Rang as the sinuous sea rings on a petrified coast; Vainly your voice with a subtle and slightly indelicate largess, Broke on an obdurate world hymning the advent of Me; When from the 'commune of air,' from 'the exquisite fabric of Silence,' I, a superior orb, burst into ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... practise it in your Essays? An undergraduate brings me an essay on Byron. In an essay on Byron, Byron is (or ought to be) mentioned many times. I expect, nay exact, that Bryon shall be mentioned again and again. But my undergraduate has a blushing sense that to call Byron Byron twice on one page is indelicate. So Byron, after starting bravely as Byron, in the second sentence turns into 'that great but unequal poet' and thenceforward I have as much trouble with Byron as ever Telemachus with Proteus to hold and pin him back to his proper self. Half-way down the page he becomes 'the gloomy master ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... hour after that young person's shameless forgetfulness of the claims of modesty, duty and gratitude had been first communicated to her. To say that this was the act of an inconsiderate woman, culpably indiscreet and, I had almost added, culpably indelicate, is only to say what she has deserved. On the next occasion to which I feel bound to advert, her conduct was even more deserving of censure. She herself appears to have placed the temptation under which he fell in her husband's way, and so (in some degree at least) to have provoked ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... ludicrous prescriptions (for the book contains 400 pages), but the most curious unfortunately happen to be the most indelicate. Besides this, I am afraid the subject is scarcely worthy of much space in such an important and useful work as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... far-off days there will, let us hope, be no more tragedy of the undesired. It seems almost indelicate to apply this phrase to the noble army of British spinsters, for the most part dignified, worthy women, comprising ratepayers, householders, philanthropists, mothers-in-all-but-fact—working parochially, among the poor, in hospitals, schools, homes, offices, ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... as an artist is blamed, is perfectly appropriate to the theme. A vain, ill-mannered, and untrustworthy egotist, defending his own sordid doings with his own cheap and weather-beaten philosophy, is very likely to express himself best in a language flexible and pungent, but indelicate and without dignity. But the peculiarity of these loose and almost slangy soliloquies is that every now and then in them there occur bursts of pure poetry which are like a burst of birds singing. Browning does ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... crowded to the window, alarmed by the fierce flare of the shop-front. When my aunt Lisa came back from the kitchen she was quite frightened, and thought I'd set the fat in the shop on fire; and she considered the appearance of the turkey so indelicate that she turned me out of the place while Auguste re-arranged the window after his own idiotic fashion. Such brutes will never understand the language of a red splotch by the side of a grey one. Ah, well! that was my masterpiece. I ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... lady! vastly fine and independent! You chasser Mr. Wylder without one moment's notice, and without deigning to consult me, or any other person capable of advising you. You are about to commit as gross and indelicate a breach of faith as I recollect anywhere to have heard of. What will be thought?—what will the world say?—what will your friends say? Will you be good enough to explain yourself? I'll not undertake ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Indian warriors repose from their exertions, after the termination of one of these wild dances, the women of the tribe will occupy their place; but in general their postures and movements are indelicate in the extreme. But modesty is hardly to be looked for in the amusements of ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... sketch showing Pitt as Adam conducting Eve to the nuptial bower in the garden of Eden, while behind it squatted Satan as a toad, leering hatred through the features of Fox. It is to be hoped that Auckland did not know of this indelicate cartoon when he replied to Pitt. That letter has very properly been destroyed. But we have Pitt's second letter to Auckland, in which he again assures him how deeply he is affected by hearing of "the sentiments ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... connections, does not forbid jesting in the abstract; but jesting on immodest subjects—which are often designated in the New Testament by the phraseology there employed. I should give the sense of it—neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor indelicate jests. The kind of sprightly and amusing conversation to which I referred, I should not denominate foolish, by any means, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... extensive, extended, vast, wide-reaching, comprehensive; liberal, tolerant, catholic; indelicate, gross, questionable. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... received a plentiful and regular supply of provisions; mead instead of wine, millet in the place of bread, and a certain liquor named camus, which, according to the report of Priscus, was distilled from barley.[21] Such fare might appear coarse and indelicate to men who had tasted the luxury of Constantinople; but, in their accidental distress, they were relieved by the gentleness and hospitality of the same Barbarians, so terrible and so merciless in war. The ambassadors had encamped on the edge of a large morass. A violent tempest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... expressing her very decided disapproval of the conduct of her daughter, as both inexpedient and indelicate, in entering into such friendly relations with utter strangers, of whose ulterior designs she could know nothing. This message, greatly increased the desire of De Soto to have an interview with the queen mother, that he might conciliate her friendship. He therefore ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... "There is something excessively indelicate in a young lady's moving about a room without having a gentleman's arm to lean on! I always feel as if such a person was out of her place, and ought to be in ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... break-fastes, and toastesses, and running their heads against the postasses to avoid the wild beastesses. These female orators, brought up at the bar of Billingsgate, have a peculiar way of expressing themselves, which, however indelicate it may seem to more civilized ears, is exactly conformable to the way of ancient oratory. The difference between ancient and modern oratory consists in saying something or nothing to the purpose. Some people talk without saying any thing; some people {52}don't care what they say; some ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... these last two days. At every house that we approached, the dwellers thereof, themselves absent, perhaps unable to endure a meeting that would have been painful, had left warm pies, freshly baked, upon the tables. This touching attention to our tastes was appreciated. Some individuals were indelicate enough to hint that the pies were intended to propitiate us and prevent the plunder of ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke |
