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Undesirable   /ˌəndɪzˈaɪrəbəl/   Listen
Undesirable

adjective
1.
Not wanted.  Synonym: unwanted.  "Legislation excluding undesirable aliens" , "Removed the unwanted vegetation"
2.
Not worthy of being chosen (especially as a spouse).  Synonym: unsuitable.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Undesirable" Quotes from Famous Books



... in turn and lay the contents of your pockets before me here." He indicated a level shelf, which formed apparently part of the casing of one of the wheels. "I must insist upon seeing the linings of your pockets; and I need hardly warn you that it will be extremely undesirable for you to make any movement liable to misconstruction. This toy"—he lifted his pistol—"has a very delicate touch. Now, gentlemen. One at a time, please, and do not wait to discuss the question of precedence. I am quite willing ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... permis de sjour this evening. The expelled Germans will be sent to a remote station near the Spanish frontier. The undesirable Austro-Hungarians will be relegated to Brittany, where perhaps they may be utilized in harvesting the wheat crop. Germans in the domestic service of French citizens are ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... societies become more complex in structure and resources, the need of formal or intentional teaching and learning increases. As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school. This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... move with regard to bonds would take place on Monday, the 23rd, they were very indignant that it should be postponed without supplying them with a good and sufficient reason. The Committee, on its part, feeling that it was undesirable to publish the details of an awkward misunderstanding with a public official, who would not want his name dragged into a matter that he had in no way concerned himself with, refused to furnish the reason. This at once let loose upon them those vials of reportorial wrath which, up to ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble

... received from ship-masters for the supply of men. It was, of course, to their interest to be loyal to the men, and hence they hedged themselves and their houses about with so many safeguards against undesirable intrusion that it became a matter of almost impossibility to approach them except through certain channels. I suspected that my agent was in touch with one or more of these men, and although I thoroughly hated the system, which was nothing ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... the Ambassador, emphatically. "You said they were your friends; so they must have come with you. And I'll tell you what, in order to prevent you from picking up any more undesirable acquaintances, you shall just commence your duties as Umbrella Bearer at once," and, untying the ribbons by which the Little Panjandrum's attendant was attached to His Importance, the Ambassador, bringing forth a heavy pair of chains from his capacious pockets, proceeded ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... court poet called them, when her having a birthday compelled him to official raptures; and because everybody felt sure they were not really anything of the kind the poet's utterance was received with acclamations. Indeed, a princess who should possess such pools would be most undesirable—in Lothen-Kunitz nothing short of a calamity; for had they not had one already? It was what had been the matter with the deceased Grand Duchess; she would think, and no one could stop her, and her life in consequence was a burden to herself and to everybody else at her court. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... circulation. Any system of ventilation, or anything else, that insists on all windows being kept shut is radically wrong. It is only fair to say, however, that most of these systems of ventilation attempt the impossible, as well as the undesirable thing of keeping people shut up too long. No room can be, or ought to be, ventilated so that its occupants can stay in it all day long without discomfort. In ventilating, we ought to ventilate the people in the room, as well as ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... foliage, and the certainty he expresses that a man who attended to general character would in five minutes produce a more faithful representation of a tree, than the unfortunate mechanist in as many years, is thus perfectly true and well founded; but this is not because details are undesirable, but because they are best given by swift execution, and because, individually, they cannot be given at all. But it should be observed (though we shall be better able to insist upon this point in future) ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... necessary to go into these details in order that we might understand as much as possible of the process by which the gods of the Sibylline books were assimilated into the body of Roman religion. We see how in the main they were superfluous and therefore unnecessary and even undesirable because by their presence they robbed old Roman deities of their existence, and how those elements in them which were least in accord with the old Roman spirit were most apt to develop, and how in general their adoption was a purely mechanical ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter

... place on the bill when in committee. The third reading was moved on the 10th of April, when Mr. Goulburn opposed the measure as pregnant with danger to the church, and tending by its renewed agitation to place the two houses of parliament in an undesirable situation. Another long debate ensued, in which the bill was defended by Colonel Thompson, Lords Morpeth and John Russell, and Messrs. Bulwer, Charles Villiers, and O'Connell; and opposed by Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, and Sir Robert Peel. The debate lasted two nights; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... we find parents wise and sensible enough to strengthen the best that is in their children by discreet praise, and at the same time to control the undesirable qualities ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... impossible, his ruin and grief were within, and only his own assistance could avail. He tried to reassure himself, to believe that his torments were a proof of his vocation, that the facility of the novelist who stood six years deep in contracts to produce romances was a thing wholly undesirable, but all the while he longed for but a drop of that inexhaustible fluency which he ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... or that woman with whom they were both acquainted; but so far he had shown no signs of forming any new engagement, though Barry lived in a state of apprehension lest his friend should suddenly announce a more or less undesirable tie. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... much he differed from his illustrious articled-clerk in everything, not excepting humour, of which the delightful, old-world gentleman seems to have had a generous share. He was doubtless puzzled to classify the strange being by whose instrumentality a stream of undesirable people was admitted to his presence, whilst distinguished clients were sternly and rigorously turned away. He probably smiled at the story of the old yeoman and his wife who, in return for some civility shown to them by Borrow, presented him with an old volume of Danish ballads, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... instance, they say the whirr of the propeller when it is revolving about 1450 revolutions per minute, or at the full speed of this one, makes quite a roar; so you see the need of the helmet to shut out all undesirable sounds possible. In ordinary planes the crew cannot talk to each other except by using phones or putting their lips to each other's ears and yelling at the top of their voices, according to what John and Tom tell ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... via Theobald's Road, obliquely toward the region about Titchfield Street. Such apartments as she saw were either scandalously dirty or unaccountably dear, or both. And some were adorned with engravings that struck her as being more vulgar and undesirable than anything she had ever seen in her life. Ann Veronica loved beautiful things, and the beauty of undraped loveliness not least among them; but these were pictures that did but insist coarsely upon ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... any one here to say the women do not want to vote. They displayed as much interest as the men, and, if anything, more.... The result insures Seattle a first-class municipal administration. It is a warning to that undesirable class of the community who subsist upon the weaknesses and vices of society that disregard of law and the decencies of civilization will ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... the Cape and thousands of Englishmen streamed out to Africa to make their fortunes, the Boer at once bristled with resentment. His isolation was menaced. He regarded the Briton as an "Uitlander"—an outsider—and treated him as an undesirable alien. In the Transvaal and the Orange Free State he was denied the rights that are accorded to law-abiding citizens in other countries. Hence the Jameson Raid, which was an ill-starred protest against the narrow, copper-riveted Boer rule, and later the final ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... physicians prescribe opiates in acute cases, where the violence of the disorder would be apt to throw the patient into a fever or delirium? I aver, that my motive for this expedient was mercy; nor could it be any thing else. For a rape, thou knowest, to us rakes, is far from being an undesirable thing. Nothing but the law stands in our way, upon that account; and the opinion of what a modest woman will suffer rather than become a viva voce accuser, lessens much an honest fellow's apprehensions on that score. Then, if these somnivolencies [I hate the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... you have been wondering and fretting a good deal for the last few weeks at not hearing from Dame Shirley. The truth is, that I have been wondering and fretting myself almost into a fever at the dreadful prospect of being compelled to spend the winter here, which, on every account, is undesirable. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... I was just a mite hasty, but I've been feeling bad about this money question. I wanted to offer a big reward for news of Jane some days ago, but your crusted institution of Scotland Yard advised me against it. Said it was undesirable." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... longing to drive his fist into that grinning mask. He turned and ran lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sudden glow of energy. Reaching the floor, he saw the mask making across the hall, in the direction of the outer door. As rapidly as possible, for he could not run, without attracting undesirable attention, Cairn followed. The figure of Set passed out on to the terrace, but when Cairn in turn swung open the door, his ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... purchase of Florida, our government was obliged to relinquish its claim to Texas. At this time the possession of Florida was more desirable and necessary to the peace of our country than the {333} possession of Texas; it was under Spanish rule, overrun with outlaws and a most undesirable neighbor, besides being very necessary to the rounding out ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... extravagance of humility, was a mere bald statement of facts. Since Anna, with a perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding (sanft und nachgiebig), and convinced from what he had seen during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that it was beneath the dignity of ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... less frequented streets, and breaking into a trot wherever such a course was possible, we gradually drew ahead of our undesirable escort, and at length turned into the famous avenue. Throughout the journey I had anxiously scanned the faces of the multitude, hoping to see Raoul, or D'Arcy, or my English friend, John Humphreys. But I had not recognised a single acquaintance, ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... that none of the things which elsewhere occasion strife and rivalry, and prompt men to plot against their neighbours, so much as come in their way at all. Gold, pleasures, distinctions, they never regard as objects of dispute; they have banished them long ago as undesirable elements. Their life is serene and blissful, in the enjoyment of legality, equality, liberty, and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... out of the omnibus I had, however, observed one undesirable result of my absence from home. Eunice and Miss Jillgall—the latter having, no doubt, finely flattered the former—appeared to have taken a ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... was calm obedience to a call from without. "After all," he wrote, "I hope I am not enthusiastic in thinking that a clergyman is, like a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on any service, however remote or undesirable, where the course of his duty leads him, and my destiny (though there are some circumstances attending it which make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of literary ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... ambition, which is not a wholly undesirable quality. He began to wonder how it would feel to own a few of these valuable fellow-creatures. He reached out and touched lightly a young mulatto woman who sat beside him with an infant in her arms. The peculiar ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... foolish to imagine evil where perhaps none was! Why should his thoughts fly to terrible reasons for the postponement of his joy, when in truth they could as well be of the simplest? A sudden call to the city—a descent of some undesirable spying eye—a hundred and one possible things, all much more likely ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... a playful curse at me, he disappeared at once into the tobacco smoke from which I had engendered him. An amusing and cheerful person on the whole, though I will admit his theme was a little undesirable. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... household supplied with literature unerringly adapted to its needs; nor was it possible for any undesirable book to find its way into the house—not that this would have mattered much to Mrs. Pendyce, for as she often said with gentle regret, "My dear, I ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... This is the question that the readers of Science are invited to help in deciding. The difficulties attending a complete revolution in the prevalent system of reckoning are confessedly stupendous; but they do not render undesirable the knowledge that experiment alone can give, whether or not the cost of that system is unreasonably high; nor should they prevent those who accord them the fullest recognition from assisting to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... did," he jested. "I remembered how I was asked to quit here, too. In the days when General Fred Furniss was also looked on as an unruly, rather undesirable member of the student body ... we ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... this. Lycurgus had formed a polity admirably designed for the peace, harmony, and virtuous life of the citizens; and their fall came from their assuming foreign dominion and arbitrary sway, things wholly undesirable, in the judgment of Lycurgus, for a well-conducted ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... had formed to himself a certain ideal standard, above the ordinary level of what the world is contented to call honest, or esteem clever. He admitted into his estimate of life the heroic element, not undesirable even in the most practical point of view, for the world is so in the habit of decrying; of disbelieving in high motives and pure emotions; of daguerreotyping itself with all its ugliest wrinkles, stripped of the true bloom that brightens, of the true expression ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... there's good stuff in you. A young man reading for the Bar in London is none the worse for a few friends. He must often feel pretty lonely on a Sunday, for example. And he may also—now I'm going to be impertinent and paternal again—he may also pick up undesirable acquaintances, male—and female. Don't you get feeling lonely, with your home far away in Wales. Consider yourself free of this place at any rate, and my wife and I can introduce you to some other people you might like to know. I might introduce you to Mark Stansfield the Q.C. Do you know any one ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... trouble to read it, or even to hear it read;[351] but the substance, as related to him by Morone, convinced him that the emperor's accusations were exaggerated: to recall a legate at the instance of a secular sovereign was an undesirable precedent;[352] and the commission was allowed to stand. Julius wrote to Charles, assuring him that he was mistaken in the legate's feelings, leaving the emperor at the same time, however, full power to keep him in Flanders ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... by the fireside. He had preached in Vermont for several years as an itinerant Methodist minister before settling down to farming in Edgewood, only giving up his profession because his quiver was so full of little Grants that a wandering life was difficult and undesirable. When Uncle Bart Cole had remarked that Mis' Grant had a little of everything in the way of baby-stock now,—black, red, an' yaller-haired, dark and light complected, fat an' lean, tall an' short, twins an' singles,—Jed ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... increasing happiness, the tendencies of our progressive civilisation are far from desirable. In short, it cannot be proved that the unknown destination towards which man is advancing is desirable. The movement may be Progress, or it may be in an undesirable direction and therefore not Progress. This is a question of fact, and one which is at present as insoluble as the question of personal immortality. It is a problem which bears on the mystery ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... difficult to determine whether emotional instability, selfishness, and other undesirable traits are due to heredity or environment. At this point we enter a field of great difficulty because a trait may be inborn, but not hereditary. A child may be born with serious handicaps because some ailment due to unfavorable environment prevented its mother from nourishing it properly ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... your decision, Jimmy," he said. "Very sorry, indeed. You will find it a most precarious way of life, and it will bring you into contact with highly undesirable people. I had hoped, we had all hoped, that now you had returned you would settle down to something steady. Personally, I think you will be making a great mistake. But I suppose you know your own business best." He shook his head, as though, in his own ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... matter which you have in your own power," said Paulus. I said many things about death in our first day's disputation, when death was the subject; and not a little the next day, when I treated of pain; which things if you recollect, there can be no danger of your looking upon death as undesirable, or at least it ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... longer felt the joy of living which had been Vao's greatest charm. The old men were sulky and sad, and spoke of leaving Vao for good and settling somewhere far inland. It is not surprising that the whole race has lost the will to live, and that children are considered an undesirable gift, of which one would rather be rid. What hopelessness lies in the words I once heard a woman of Vao say: "Why should we have any more children? Since the white man came they all die." And die they certainly do. Regions that ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... lie as long as possible while we quietly oust them, little by little, by developing the good qualities. Surely the less we use deterrents the better, since they are often the child's first introduction to what is undesirable or wrong. I am quite sure they have something of that effect on grown people. The telling us not to do, and that we cannot, must not, do a certain thing surrounds it with a momentary fascination. If your enemy suggests that there is a pot of Paris green on the piazza, but you must not take a spoonful ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... every mother has to encounter is the presence of undesirable companions in the school. The argument that a child coming from a sheltered home will not be influenced by such companions is only in part true. He may not be influenced, or, again, he may. Among older children, if the wrongdoer be dazzling in ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... has an enormous fortune. He is, as you say, a senile old man in his dotage. As you say again, such a marriage is a travesty. But Elise is incapable of feeling the love which alone renders marriage a holy institution. She has undesirable qualities which ought not to be transmitted to children, and she is absolutely ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... we once more took the road, and for three days followed the course of the river, which carried us through the most undesirable portion of country we had yet seen; even game seemed to have ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... health, Inspector," said the solicitor, "renders it undesirable that I should submit myself to an ordeal so unnecessary—so ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... Harthouse, learning from Louisa's maid—a young woman greatly attached to her mistress—that his attentions were altogether undesirable, and that he would never see Mrs. Bounderby again, decided to throw up politics and leave Coketown ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly. After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... follower of the Jacobin model, I should have least patience with nationalist sentiment whether in Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, and should most rigorously insist on that cast-iron incorporation which, as it happens, in the case of Ireland I believe to be equally hopeless and undesirable. This explanation, therefore, of my favour for Welsh Disestablishment is as absurdly ignorant as it ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... the future, that it may not devour for ever, and that, if the Lord please, you may be happier henceforth than to make one another miserable; and not make your place uncomfortable to your present, and undesirable to any other, minister, and the ministry itself in a great measure unprofitable: and that you may not bring impositions on yourselves by convincing all about you that you cannot, or will not, use your liberty as becomes the gospel." Their ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... though they are nice enough for the places they have to fill in life. If it wasn't for the mother she might pass muster, and you know this is the most select of schools. That is one reason mother sent me here there was no chance of making undesirable acquaintances. For one thing, the terms are too high," and ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... is undesirable and would be futile to attempt to set up a "supernational sovereign authority." The scope of any League—its powers and its objects—should be clearly defined, and the independent sovereign States should bind themselves, as contracting parties, to carry out the terms agreed, ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... streets unveiled. Habits of submission make women, as well as men, servile-minded. The vast population of Asia do not desire or value—probably would not accept—political liberty, nor the savages of the forest civilization; which does not prove that either of these things is undesirable for them, or that they will not, at some future time, enjoy it. Custom hardens human beings to any kind of degradation, by deadening that part of their nature which would resist it. And the case of woman is, in this respect even, a peculiar ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... this vicinity, preferring regions with a pretty numerous human population. The starlings have increased so fast in this limited region since their first permanent settlement in Central Park about 1890 that farmers and suburban dwellers have feared that they might become as undesirable citizens as some other Europeans — the brown rat, the house mouse, and the English sparrow. But a very thorough investigation conducted by the United States Bureau of Biological Survey (Bulletin No. 868, 1921) is most reassuring in ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... after the foregoing conversation, Marcia's rheumatism suddenly became acute. The attack promised, however, to be only temporary, owing to some accidental exposure of herself in making preparations for removal, and as they thought it undesirable to postpone their union for such a reason, Marcia, after being well wrapped up, was wheeled into ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... know of his reputation I think he takes more after my husband's ancestors than my own. Willie, dear, these ladies are friends of mine. Ladies, this young man is one of my most famous descendants. He has been a man of many adventures, and he has been hanged once, which, far from making him undesirable as an acquaintance, has served merely to render him harmless, and therefore a safe person to know. Now, my son, go ahead and speak ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... growing together of some of the altered stamens so as to constitute smaller or larger connate groups. Often two are united, sometimes three, four or more. Flowers with numerous altered stamens are seldom wholly free from this most undesirable secondary anomaly. I call it undesirable with respect to experiments on the variability of the character. For it may easily be seen that while it is feasible to count the stamens even when converted into pistils, it is not possible when ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... The new church was regarded as a necessity; for a great many 'garden houses' had sprung up in and about the Mount Road, in the area that was called the 'Choultry Plain,' and the Directors of the Company agreed with representations from Madras that it was undesirable that English residents within the bounds should be able to stay away from the Church-services on Sunday with the reasonable excuse that the nearest Anglican church—St. Mary's in the Fort—was too far away from their houses for them to be expected to attend. So the new church was ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... him. 'In-law' kinsmen and kinswomen are generally detestable. Look at my brothers-in-law, Mr. Harry Sandal and Mr. Stephen Latrigg; and my sisters-in-law, Mrs. Harry Sandal and Miss Charlotte Sandal; a pretty undesirable quartette I think." ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... sake she would not encourage this new phase of the super-mind which had suddenly come to her. He had considered spiritualism a dangerous and undesirable study. With only his memory to cling to, she would do nothing which would cause him any trouble. Here again was the Lampton ancestor-worship developing ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... another undesirable prospect. The Utes might charge and capture the pit, wiping out the defenders. To prevent this the cowpunchers kept up as lively a fire ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... that was too ready to bloom into beauty and perfection. She would have liked to be able to assert that Jacqueline's health would not permit her to sit up late at night, that fashionable hours would be injurious to her, that it would be undesirable to let her go into society as long as she could be kept from doing so. But Jacqueline persisted in never being ill, and was calculating with impatience how many years it would be before she could go to her first ball—three or four possibly. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... What had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him. Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... Mrs. Professor Ward. Right: Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Ward. Reverend Mr. Beecher is a correct address for a minister; not "Rev. Beecher". If a title of respect is placed before a name (Professor, Dr., Honorable), it is undesirable to place another title after the name (Secretary, ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... afraid," Laverick said kindly, "that we must take it for granted that your brother has got mixed up in some undesirable business or other. He is nervously anxious to keep his whereabouts an entire secret. He has been asking me whether any one has been to the office to inquire for him. Under the circumstances, I think the best thing we can do is to humor him. I shall buy him before to-morrow morning a cheap ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... strongly to Riley Sinclair that Cartwright had not yet fully ascertained whether or not his companion came from that very town. And, although the day before, he had decided that Sour Creek was most undesirable and all that pertained to it, this unasked confirmation of his own opinion ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... the only class who sided with the poor playwrights in asserting that there were more things in man, and more excuses for man, than were dreamt of in Prynne's philosophy, were the Jesuit Casuists, who, by a fatal perverseness, used all their little knowledge of human nature to the same undesirable purpose as the playwrights; namely, to prove how it was possible to commit every conceivable sinful action without sinning. No wonder that in an age in which courtiers and theatre- haunters were turning Romanists by ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... dramatic machinery is hopelessly crippled and that his evident intentions and effects are hopelessly lost unless interpreted in this spirit: then we relegate Plautine drama to a low plane of broad farce, where verisimilitude to life becomes wholly unnecessary because undesirable; where the canons of dramatic art become inoperative; where, contrary to what KArting says, we are not asked to believe that "everything is happening in a perfectly natural manner"; where the poet may stick at nothing provided the laugh be forthcoming; where all the apparently ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... that could be tried!" said Julian. "Methinks I could persuade your father that in ordinary eyes our alliance is not undesirable. My family have fortune, rank, long descent—all that fathers look for when they bestow a ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... should not like to make a guess at their number—who will marry any man, however undesirable and uncongenial, rather than be left 'withering on the stalk.' It is an acutely humiliating fact that there exists no man too ugly, too foolish, too brutal, too conceited and too vile to find a wife. Any man can find some woman to wed him. ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... faults as she developed were largely due to the lack of parental care, which left her training to servants. Thus she grew up with quite a shocking disregard of conventions, running wild like a young filly, and finding her pleasure and her companions in undesirable directions. Strange stories are told of her girlish love affairs, which seem to have been indiscreet if nothing worse, while her beauty drew to her many a high-placed wooer, including the Prince of Orange and Prince George of Darmstadt, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... Starting from the dictum that physical inheritance provides the mechanism of intellect, education and training of any kind prove to be effective as agents for developing hereditary qualities or for suppressing undesirable tendencies. Just as wind-strewn grains of wheat may fall upon rock and stony soil and loam, to grow well or poorly or not at all according to their environmental situations, so children with similar intellectual possibilities would have their growth fostered or hampered or prevented by the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... towards those who received them, and of hatred towards those who exacted them, were no testimonies of love and respect, but of the barbaric pride, luxury, and insolence of those who lavished their wealth in these vain and undesirable displays. But that a man of common rank, dying in a strange country, neither his wife, children, nor kinsmen present, none either asking or compelling it, should be attended, buried, and crowned by so many cities that strove to exceed one another in the demonstrations of their ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... such an undesirable passenger, the lad raised the stick in his hand and brought it down with all his strength on the head of the bear, which acted as though unaware that ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... and done, the fact that a war should put many half-bankrupt concerns on their legs, and make fairly prosperous companies three or four times more prosperous than before the war, is an influence in an undesirable direction. ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... the din, escape being impossible, and also undesirable, Thomas Paine wrote the first part of "The ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... sound struck against the silence with the impact of a blow. Nothing more undesirable could have happened. Again Mack bayed, and the echoing bell tones of his voice took on a strange similarity to a tocsin of warning. Rustling and crackling across the men's fancies the influences of the North moved ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... are you, as to what followed your amazing breach of hospitality? Ran away with a pretty girl, assisted in marrying her to an undesirable son-in-law, and now you want to know how the old folks take it! Oh, Archie, for sheer innocence ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... begged to be sent back to Hobart Town. "I cannot live in this horrible island," she said. "I am getting ill. Let me go to my father for a few months, Maurice." Maurice consented. His wife was looking ill, and Major Vickers was an old man—a rich old man—who loved his only daughter. It was not undesirable that Mrs. Frere should visit her father; indeed, so little sympathy was there between the pair that, the first astonishment over, Maurice felt rather glad to get rid of her for a while. "You can go back in the Lady Franklin if you like, my ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... important that, in designing such a ship as the Flying Fish, every possible mishap should be foreseen and provided against; and while considering this matter it occurred to me that, either by means of treachery, or otherwise, undesirable persons might possibly succeed in gaining possession of the pilot-house, when the ship and all in her would be practically at the mercy of those persons. I therefore included in the design an arrangement, whereby ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... mind a little, their imaginary exodus did not help him in the least. He found himself in the very undesirable position of furnishing a telling example of the utter impossibility of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... this was always annoying and worrying to me. Evidently he was not pleased with me as such a close neighbor to his mother, and it was astonishing how many expedients he proposed in order to rid her of my undesirable proximity. ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... the very mischievous type of young Indian who, having been left to his own devices in England, and without any good introductions, brings back to India and retails there impressions of English society, male and female, gathered from the very undesirable surroundings into which he has drifted in London and other large cities. It is he who is often responsible for one of the most deplorable features in the propaganda of the seditious Press—namely, the scandalous ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... or forty yards away, though others ran back into the mist, and as Harding stood listening with tingling nerves he clearly recognized the difficulty of his enterprise. In the first place, there was nothing to indicate which tent Clarke occupied, and it was highly undesirable that Harding should choose the wrong one and rouse an Indian from his slumbers. Then it was possible that the man shared a tepee with some of his hosts, in which case Harding would place himself at his mercy by entering it. Clarke was a dangerous man, and his Stony friends ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... same with George Eliot. If they had married each other, as Herbert says they might (had Georgie been better-looking), philosophical and imaginative genius would have been lost in getting the meals and bending posterity over the parental knee to make sin seem undesirable. I had always felt that Jim was cut out to get married, and I stood ready to help him through the entire catalogue of crime and conspiracy, for I knew he could not undertake so much alone as well as I knew glue from tallow coming two miles by air line. If Jim wanted to do ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... the universalness, the beautifulness and withal the profound truthfulness of this myth are such as to render it almost as undesirable as it is next to impossible to relegate it to the realm of superstition, to which it should undoubtedly be assigned if a literal ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... that the percentage of moisture and sugar is greater and the undesirable acid lower in those vines subject to electrical influences than in those left to natural conditions. There are also experiments which prove the beneficial effects of electricity on vines attacked ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... would probably be too late. On that homeward way he saw enough of Burleigh to convince him he was a coward, for the major collapsed under the seat of the ambulance at the first sign of the Sioux. Then there came an episode that filled Loring with sudden interest in this new, yet undesirable acquaintance. Men get to know each other better in a week in the Indian country than in a decade in town. They had reached the little cantonment and supply station on the dry fork of the Powder, stiff and weary with their long journey by ambulance, and glad ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... exactly as ordered. For instance, if I tell an Eskimo that if he does a certain thing properly he will get a certain reward, he always gets the reward if he obeys. On the other hand, if I tell him that a certain undesirable thing will happen if he follows a course I have forbidden, that thing ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... undesirable that meals should be served in rooms habitually used for teaching purposes, and that the Regulations of the Board of Education should carry this recommendation ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... to diet herself and to drink the waters of Schleppenheim, and as she did so in company with half the distinguished people in Europe, she was quite content to follow the course prescribed. In these days when everything is called into question, when social codes alter, and an undesirable fusion of human beings takes place in so many directions, it was positively refreshing to turn to Lady Chaloner, who not only did not know, but could not conceive that it mattered, what other people did in any layer of existence beneath her own. She ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... the good time coming, advertising will be relegated to the scrap-heap of outworn social machinery, along with war, race prejudice, millionaires, the lower education of women, and other things of an undesirable nature. This has not been the experience, however, of those "sinister offenders" who have come nearest to the cooeperative ownership of wealth in this country—I refer of course to "The Trusts." When the breakfast food trust was formed, one of the chief reasons for the combination was that ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... and in numbers, does not require great interest of the public; much of the duties of this class, also, can be discharged fairly well by purchased vessels, although such will never have the proportion of fighting power which every type of ship of war should possess. As a rule, it is undesirable that a military force, land or sea, should have to retreat before one of equal size, as auxiliary ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... insatiable and impertinent curiosity combined with an inherent love of mischief. Be that as it may, this desire for knowledge on Master Maurice's part frequently led him into places where, to put it delicately, his presence was undesirable in many ways; his love for investigation taking him especially to certain dangerous localities whither he was peremptorily forbidden to go both by his mother and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... The slightest change was noticeable and its portent dreaded. Following the blizzard, every moderation of the temperature brought more snow or sleet. Unless a general thaw came to the relief of the cattle, any change in the weather was undesirable. ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... a poor young man with a family I could rent no houses at all in this most undesirable region, I next looked for rooms, unfurnished rooms, in which I could store my wife and babies and chattels. There were not many, but I found them, usually in the singular, for one appears to be considered sufficient for a poor ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... a long time ago just after he left West Point—and we've always been in hopes that he would be removed to some post where he could meet other ladies and become interested in some one else. But he never has, and so the affair remains. It's most undesirable they should marry, and in the meantime she won't break it off, and it's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the one pastime which could be practiced without making a noise of any sort to attract undesirable attentions, the boy took to it in self-defence. But before long it had become his passion. He read, by stealth, everything that fell into his hands, a weird melange of newspapers, illustrated Parisian weeklies, magazines, novels: cullings from the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... have filled the place of a daughter to the duchess. But the duchess did not require a daughter; and a daughter with pronounced views, plenty of back-bone of her own, a fine figure, and a plain face, would have seemed to her Grace of Meldrum a peculiarly undesirable acquisition. So Jane was given to understand that she might come whenever she liked, and stay as long as she liked, but on the same footing as other people. This meant liberty to come and go as she pleased; and no responsibility towards her ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... all events, if not of the same party, they had heard of us, and it will readily be believed, that we had been painted in sufficiently terrible and exaggerated colours to render a second interview, in their minds, very undesirable. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then we may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of imitation." "We may," says our author, "be sure of the contrary; for if the object be undesirable in itself, the closer the imitation the less will be the pleasure." Certainly not; for Burke of course implied, and included in his sense of imitation, that it should be consistent with a knowledge in the spectator, that a certain trick of art was put upon him. And our author says the same—"Whenever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... that motor-bombs existed. This disbelief the Syndicate was determined to overcome, not only for the furtherance of its own purposes, but to prevent the downfall of the present British Ministry, and a probable radical change in the Government. That such a political revolution, as undesirable to the Syndicate as to cool-headed and sensible Englishmen, was imminent, there could be no doubt. The growing feeling of disaffection, almost amounting to disloyalty, not only in the opposition party, but among those who had hitherto been firm adherents ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... it is not conceivable that compulsion should be brought to bear in the selection and removal out of the ordinary industrial community of those weaker members whose continued struggle is considered undesirable, it is evident that the industrial colonies must be recruited out of volunteers. It will thus become a large expansion of the present workhouse system. The eternal dilemma of the poor law will be present there. On the one hand, if, as seems likely, the degradation ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... subject the Administration has most earnestly addressed itself, with results, I hope, satisfactory to the country. There has been no hesitation in changing officials in order to secure an efficient execution of the laws, sometimes, too, when, in a mere party view, undesirable political results were likely to follow; nor any hesitation in sustaining efficient officials against remonstrances ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... able to stop with any show of consistency; there would be no reason for stopping anywhere in particular, and we should be led on, step by step, into action or opinions that we all agree to call undesirable or untrue.... ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... floor I will give him my eldest daughter in marriage without charging any bride price."—for he wanted a son-in-law to help him in his work. A common servant in the employ of the village headman heard him and said "I will accept the offer;" the man had not bargained for such an undesirable match but he could not go back from his word; so he agreed and said that he would choose a night; and he waited till it was very cold and windy and then told the headman's servant to sleep out that night. The servant spent the night on the threshing floor without any clothes ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... to my gratified excitement. I entirely acquiesce in your wish. I will go away to whatever place you please, and not come near you but by your own permission, and till you are quite satisfied that my presence and what it may lead to is not undesirable. I entirely give way before you, and will endeavour to make my future devotedness, if ever we meet again, a new ground for ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... neighborhood, and noble needs in friendship, love, and marriage must, in any case, be the main roots of healthy direction and ideal restraint of the sex-instinct. Or they fear enlightenment as a possible stimulus to undesirable imagination and experimentation. Or they dislike, even abhor, it as esthetically repulsive—shocking to an unreasoned but cherished craving for silence about these things—a craving which the customs of our land and time have made an unwritten ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... substantially helped some stationers to pay their rent. Fewer but far more exasperating are the epistles in which people express their hearty agreement with opinions which we have never expressed, and give praise and encouragement to us for attacking institutions that we do not think undesirable or defending conduct really deplored by us. Even ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... love-sick barrister was thus pining in unwelcome obscurity, his old acquaintance, Jacques Rollet, had been acquiring an undesirable notoriety. There was nothing really bad in Jacques; but having been bred up a democrat, with a hatred of the nobility, he could not easily accommodate his rough humor to treat them with civility when it was no longer safe to insult them. The liberties he allowed himself whenever circumstances brought ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... the violet eyes of the girl from Texas were the last words of this letter, read in her room that Sunday morning. But the lines predicting England's early entrance into the war recalled to her mind a most undesirable contingency. On the previous night, when the war extras came out confirming the forecast of his favorite bootblack, her usually calm father had shown signs of panic. He was not a man slow to act. And she knew that, putty though he was in ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... we systematically ignored the most individual features—(cries of dissent)—and that was why we never, or very seldom, agreed that a photograph resembled or rendered justice to us. The explanation was to be found in the fact that we thought it undesirable to have too individual features, just as we thought it undesirable to wear too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... a word, and his son supplied it. 'On my good behaviour, I understand.' With that he walked off, leaving Lord Ormersfield telling Mrs. Ponsonby that it was the first introduction, as he had 'for various reasons' thought it undesirable to bring Fitzjocelyn early to London, and betraying his own anxiety as to the impression he might produce on Sir Miles Oakstead. His own perplexity and despondency showed themselves in his desire to view his son with the eyes of others, and he also ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fantastic and even ugly shape, and which is their real excuse for the flirting with, "geniuses," casting themselves at the feet of directors; which had tempted her to coquette with Elsley, and was now bringing her into "undesirable" intimacy with ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... Mr. March, that this seems a most undesirable engagement for my daughter. What should you say? I ask you to make the case ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... still more, for it so happens that Colonel Fitz-James is known to be an epicure, to be fussy and finical about all things pertaining to the table, and what is worse takes no pains to disguise it, and in consequence is considered an undesirable dinner guest by the most experienced housekeepers in the regiment. All this I had often heard, and recalled every word during the long hours of that night as I was making plans for the coming day. The combination in its entirety could not have been more formidable. There ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... this new move, and infinitely amused as she guessed the motive that prompted it but the more contented she seemed, the more violently Mr. Joe flirted with her rival, till at last weak-minded Miss Clara began to think her absent George the most undesirable of lovers, and to mourn that she ever said "Yes" to a merchant's clerk, when she might have said it to a merchant's son. Aunt Pen watched and approved this stratagem, hoped for the best results, and believed the day won when Debby grew pale and silent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... this danger, she forgot how keen a sportsman Edmund himself was, and spoke as if she thought these amusements wrong altogether, and to be avoided, and this, together with the example of Walter, gave Gerald a very undesirable idea of the dulness of being steady and well conducted. That he spent more money than was good for him, was also an idea of hers gathered from chance observations of her own, and unguarded words of the other boys; but this was one of ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Experience.—The ability to recall and use former experience in the upbuilding of an intelligent new experience is further valuable, in that it enables a person to secure much experience in an indirect rather than in a direct way, and thus avoid the direct experience when such would be undesirable. Under direct experience we include the lessons which may come to us at first hand from our surroundings, as when the child by placing his hand upon a thistle learns that it has sharp prickles, or by tasting quinine learns that it is bitter. ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... not tell anybody. He raised his head and looked at the hills where his cattle would feed, and pictured it cluttered with gold-hunters, greedy, undesirable interlopers doomed to disappointment in the long run. Ward had seen the gold fever sweep through a community and spoil life for the weak ones who took to chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of sudden wealth. Tramps of the pick-and-pan brigade—they should not come swarming into these hills ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... themselves; but meanwhile, as Stanhope points out, they existed "a thousand people of different characters, ranks and habits collected together in one town, without any occupation to divert the tedium of their lives." Nor were there wanting additions to their society of an undesirable character, men who had voluntarily fled across the Channel to escape the consequence of nefarious dealings in horse-racing and gambling. One of these, indeed, was described by the French Minister of War as "the worst monster which England in her wrath has yet vomited across the Channel"; and ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... be deemed the author of his death, he had severed his connection with the party of reform, probably in consequence of the view that the extension of the franchise which had become embedded in their programme was either impracticable or undesirable. He must have proved a welcome ally to the nobility in their struggle with Caius Gracchus, and their appreciation of his value seems proved by the fact that he was elected to the consulship in the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... acknowledgments have been overlooked, I trust the injured person will forgive me when I have had already to quote so many authorities for so small a book. The popular character of the work renders it undesirable to load the pages with footnotes of reference; and scholars will generally see for themselves the source of the information given in ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... I been a writer of love-poetry, it would have been natural for me to write it with a degree of warmth which could hardly have been approved by my principles, and which might have been undesirable for ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... be economical, so I have but this one. You see, sir,—and he went on with elytra and antennae and tarsi and metatarsi and tracheae and stomata and wing-muscles and leg-muscles and ganglions,—all plain enough, I do not doubt, to those accustomed to handling dor-bugs and squash-bugs and such undesirable objects of affection to all ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... which may be fallaciously based on some of the foregoing considerations namely, that they would equally make it appear that the immortality of man in any condition would be undesirable is met. A conclusion drawn from the facts of the present scene of things, of course, will not apply to a scene inconceivably different. Those whose only bodies are their minds may be fetterless, happy, leading a wondrous life, beyond our deepest dream and farthest fancy, and eternally ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... here given of the facts needed is best filled in by a competent trained agent, rather than by the friendly visitor, whose relations with the family render searching inquiry difficult and often undesirable. But the mercifulness of a thorough investigation is that, once well done, it need not be repeated, and by saving endless blundering it also saves a family from much charitable meddling. Its seemingly inquisitorial features are justified by the fact ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... although Bob and his sister had been talking quite loudly before, nothing that they had said had roused their fellow- passenger until now, when, probably, Nellie's hushed voice led to this very undesirable result—just in the same way as a miller is said to sleep soundly amid all the clatter of the grinding wheels of his mill, his repose being only disturbed when the motion of the machinery stops. Poor Nellie hardly knew what to say now on the old gentleman, all at once, sitting bolt upright and ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... four calves disappeared mysteriously from the home ranch just before the calves had reached branding age. Buddy rode the hills and the valleys every spare minute for two weeks in search of them, and finally, away over the ridge where an undesirable neighbor was getting a start in cattle, Buddy found the calves in a fenced field with eight calves belonging—perhaps—to the ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... Redgauntlet; 'I must here interrupt you for your own sake. One word of betraying what you may have seen, or what you may have suspected, and your seclusion is like to have either a very distant or a very brief termination; in either case a most undesirable one. At present, you are sure of being at liberty in a very ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... thief on his horse and rode until daybreak, when we buried him. We could have gotten a big reward for him dead or alive, and we had the evidence of his death, but the manner in which we got it made it undesirable. El Lobo was missed, but the manner of his going was a secret of four men and a Mexican girl. The other two prisoners went over the road, and we even reported to them that he had attempted to strangle her, and we shot him to save her. Something ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... In reading about this Lenin and Stalin must have been inspired to create their Goulags to which not only Russian and Estonian "petit Bourgeois," but also other undesirable national groups ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... (They would hear this talk before making a final estimate.) And Adine's other conferee was old Landy Spencer, a notorious resister of progress, who spoke in the language of other days, whose appearance—from battered hat to narrow bootheels—simply pictured the undesirable past; his associates, when he came to town, were of the rabble—the lower stratum. Very true, in other days, the bank had given him a rating as not needing endorsers if he sought a loan. Very true, ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... acquaintance ripened, though with no very satisfactory results. The detective found himself led into telling stories of his early home-life to keep pace with the man who always had something of moment and solid interest to impart. This was undesirable, for instead of calling out a corresponding confidence from Brotherson, it only seemed to make his conversation more ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... beforehand with the other members of the party," said Spotts, purposely omitting to mention their destination in the presence of their undesirable companion. "It can't be more than a mile or two across country to the Hudson River Railroad, and we'd better make for the nearest station. Do ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... times before he can feel quite certain as to the nature of the disease that is impending, while he may not wish to alarm you by suggesting all the possibilities that are present to his mind. The child after a restless night may be asleep, and it may be most undesirable to wake him; or he may be excessively cross and unmanageable, so that it is impossible to listen to his chest; or it may be very important to ascertain whether the high temperature present in the ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... acquaintance with such accomplishments as music and drawing is useless and undesirable. They should not be attempted unless there is taste, talent, and time enough to attain excellence. I have frequently heard young women of moderate fortune say, 'I have not opened my piano these five years. I wish I had the money expended upon it. If ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... of sixteen proud monarchs of the campus making brick in striped suits, with a cross foreman who used to haul ashes from the college campus lording it over them and tracing their ancestry back through thirty generations of undesirable citizens! Nice, wasn't it? ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... contention in which Lodloe was worsted about his expenses in the nurse-maid affair, and, this matter being settled, the young man declared that having shown what an extremely undesirable person he was to work for others, he must go and attend ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... keeping track of his time and charging John Merrick at the rate of two dollars a day, being firmly resolved to "make hay while the sun was shining" and absorb as much of the money placed in his hands as possible. To let "school-teacher" into this deal and be obliged to pay her wages was an undesirable thing to do; yet he reflected that it might be wise to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... elective legislature for Van Diemen's Land. He furnished Lord Grey with various opinions and suggestions. He had recommended a frame-work, the counterpart of the New South Wales assembly, only, however, that he deemed it undesirable for colonies so contiguous to differ in their institutions. The experience of the Tasmanian legislative council had, he asserted, assisted him in forming an opinion on the character of the people. "When we see," said Sir William, "the low estimate which is placed upon ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... London." Miss Rutledge we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was "hindisposed" and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added. Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. "Of course I'm sorry she isn't well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our table. I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her as I would to an ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... assortments, of texture and finish, of adaptation to one market or another. The profit on a case of goods is often sacrificed by the introduction or omission of one color or figure, the presence or absence of which makes the merchandise desirable or undesirable. Little less than omniscience will suffice to guard against the sometimes sudden, and often most unaccountable, freaks of fashion, whose fiat may doom a thing, in every respect admirably adapted to its intended use, to irretrievable condemnation and loss of value. And when you remember ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... to possess world empire. You also look forward, as I do, to some contract or agreement among the leading nations which shall prevent competitive armaments. I entirely agree with you that it is in the highest degree undesirable that this war should be prolonged to the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... undesirable mind of his that Rusper's head was the most egg-shaped head he had ever seen; the similarity weighed upon him; and when he found an argument growing warm with Rusper he would say: "Boil it some more, O' Man; boil it harder!" or "Six minutes at least," ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... seen how rapidly I had dropped all hope of interesting the frigid British bear. He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at my insistence; I judged he was suffering torments of alarm lest I should prove an undesirable acquaintance; diagnosed him for a shy, dull, vain, unamiable animal, without adequate defence—a sort of dishoused snail; and concluded, rightly enough, that he would consent to anything to bring our interview to a conclusion. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... of running away I remained and tried to give her a truthful picture of border conditions. She understood my words but she could not visualize what the cabins stood for. They were so many humble habitations, undesirable for the town-bred to dwell in, rather than the symbols of many, happy American homes. She pretended to see when she was blind, but her nods and bright glances deceived me none. She had no inkling of what a frontier woman must contend with every day, and could she have glimpsed the stern life, even ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter



Words linked to "Undesirable" :   persona non grata, desirable, unenviable, unwelcome person, ineligible, hateful, undesirability



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