"Unseemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mustn't be so shy," said Miss Sellars. "I don't like shy fellows—not too shy. That's silly." And Miss Sellars took my arm with a decided grip, making it clear to me that escape could be obtained only by an unseemly struggle in the street; not being prepared for ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... putting out the fire. Now it happened that in the crowd drawn together by such an unusual occurrence there was an impress officer who was greatly shocked by the exhibition. He considered that the sailors had been guilty of unseemly behaviour, and on that ground had them pressed. Notwithstanding their ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... purchased, for three centenars of gold, a village on the coast named Porphyreon. When Justinian heard of this, he immediately took it from him, only returning him a small portion of the price he had paid for it, at the same time declaring that it was unseemly that such a village should belong to Evangelius the lawyer. But enough of this. It remains to speak of certain innovations introduced by Justinian and Theodora. Formerly, when the senate had audience of the Emperor, it paid him homage in the following manner:—Every patrician ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... all since I became unconscious; so you have had all your long journeys for nothing, my learned friends, and a very good joke too;" at which the Regius Professor of Physiology burst into a roar of laughter and slapped his thigh in a highly indecorous fashion. The audience were so enraged at this unseemly behaviour on the part of their host, that there might have been a considerable disturbance, had it not been for the judicious interference of young Fritz von Hartmann, who had now recovered from his lethargy. Stepping to the front of the platform, the young ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... white as snow. In short, everything, from the single narrow red stripe on her low, black hull to the trucks on her tapering masts, evinced an amount of care and strict discipline that would have done credit to a ship of the Royal Navy. There was nothing lumbering or unseemly about the vessel, excepting, perhaps, a boat, which lay on the deck with its keel up between the fore and main masts. It seemed disproportionately large for the schooner; but when I saw that the crew amounted to between thirty and forty men, I concluded that this boat was ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... pushed back his hat, clapped his hands, and burst out laughing as he had not done before for weeks. Every one looked around surprised, and Sancho regarded him with a mildly inquiring air, as if he said, "Why this unseemly mirth, my friend?" ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... giving," replied Dora, "while it exacts nothing. It is never jealous of its own dignity. It never behaveth itself unseemly; but beareth, hopeth, and endureth all things, even from those who know nothing ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... my will I live in bondage. Ores. Who constrains thee, then? Elec. My mother she is called; and yet in nought Is she what mother should be. Ores. In what acts? By blows and stripes, or this unseemly life? Elec. Both blows, unseemly life, and all vile deeds. Ores. And is there none to help? Not one to check? Elec. No, none. Who was . . . thou buryest him as dust. Ores. O sad one! How I pitied ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... forward, a pocket electric lamp in his hand, then turned angrily, furiously, to find that O'Malley held him fast. There was a most unseemly struggle—for a minute, and it was caused by the younger man's sudden passionate instinct to protect his own from discovery, if not from actual capture ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... overlook that unseemly outburst," he said. "But in light of my responsibilities and under the provisions of the Constitution, I am hereby putting this asteroid under martial law. You will have all personnel aboard the Pallas Castle and at a minimum distance of a thousand kilometers within ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... for they can shut and open it again when they please, as they do their stomachs; they are not troubled with bowels, liver, heart, or any other intestines, neither are they encumbered with clothes, nor is there any part of their bodies unseemly or indecent to exhibit. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... cousin-spouse. And the difference between the manners of the Caliphate and the "respectability" of the nineteenth century may be measured by the Tale called "Al-Maamun and Zubaydah."[FN279] The lady, having won a game of forfeits from her husband, and being vexed with him for imposing unseemly conditions when he had been the winner, condemned him to lie with the foulest and filthiest kitchen-wench in the palace; and thus was begotten the Caliph who succeeded ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the House of Commons. She was there with Mrs. Jerry, and the thing was recorded in the papers of the period in these blasting words: "The Home Secretary was understood to be quoting a passage from 'Letters to a Young Man,' but we failed to catch its drift, owing to an unseemly ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Father Brown knew better than most of us, that every man is dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a pang of incongruity when he was knocked up at daybreak and told that Sir Aaron Armstrong had been murdered. There was something absurd and unseemly about secret violence in connection with so entirely entertaining and popular a figure. For Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to the point of being comic; and popular in such a manner as to be almost legendary. It was like hearing that Sunny Jim had hanged himself; or that Mr. Pickwick had ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... two soldiers are without who held watch in the corridor; they declare that a long, white figure, with a veiled face and black gloves, passed slowly by them the whole length of the corridor, and entered this room; they, believing that some unseemly mask wished to approach your majesty, followed the figure and saw it enter this room. They ran hither to seize the masker, but your majesty knows ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... into a strange country: she pined in her loneliness, deprived of her daughter, receiving no consolation from the pope, and no redress from the emperor. Wounded pride, wronged affection, and a cankering jealousy of the woman preferred to her, (which though it never broke out into unseemly words, is enumerated as one of the causes of her death,) at length wore out a feeble frame. "Thus," says the chronicle, "Queen Katherine fell into her last sickness; and though the king sent to comfort her through Chapuys, the emperor's ambassador, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Frederick Seward in the hall, descended the stairs in three leaps, and was out of the door and upon his horse in an instant. It is stated by a person who saw him mount that, although he leaped upon his horse with most unseemly haste, he trotted away around the corner of the block ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... it is closed to the public. But I have barely seen her party, as I passed it with a double row of gazers interposed, all eager to catch the sunlight of Majesty, appearing to care little how much she might be annoyed or they abased by their unseemly gaping. I hope no Americans contributed to swell these groups, but after what I have seen here I am by no ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... following inquiry—On the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuation—is a descriptive translation of the caption under which he wrote. That such should be the case will not, it is hoped, be accounted either an unseemly presumption or an undue inclination to work under a borrowed light. The aim and compass of any disinterested inquiry in these premises is still the same as it was in Kant's time; such, indeed, as he in great part made it,—viz., a systematic knowledge ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... better than this unseemly haste. Her sweetness and dignity, her adherence to the forms of life, her acquaintance with the elegancies, the dignities and conventions of the best of our society, bespoke for her ceremony more suited to her class and mine. Nothing could excuse these hurly burly ways save only ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... use talking like that. Making a man's house so unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza will hear if we don't mind." (He meant the servant.) "Just think if either of the parsons in this town was to see us now! I hate such eccentricities, Sue. There's no order or regularity in your sentiments! ... But I won't intrude ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... ears. Now that I can coolly weigh the impressions I underwent, I can tell that what I felt above all was anger. I would have liked to be in the farthest depths of the wildest forest in America, so unseemly did I find this curious kindness which haunted me with its attentions. I should have liked to converse a little with myself, to fathom my own emotion somewhat, and, in short, to utter a brief prayer before throwing myself into ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... running about in that mad head of yours, Bab," he said. "Of course if you say so I'll try, but don't count to much on it. I don't beleive she'll have me. But why this unseemly haste?" ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... relentlessness, its perfunctory cheerfulness, closes in upon the life of every child with himself. The dear old-fashioned breathing spell he used to have after getting here—whither has it gone? The rough, strong, ruthless, unseemly, grown-up world crowds to the very edge of every beginning life. It has no patience with trailing clouds of glory. Flocks of infants every year—new-comers to this planet—who can but watch them sadly, huddled closer ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... water-serpent, the stone giants, and many other equally fabulous inventions, bordering so closely upon the truly marvelous, that the truth would suffer wrongfully if related in full; but nevertheless are found among the wild and unseemly ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... sexual matters are discussed with the greatest freedom, but the most venial breaches of morality are punished. The greatest modesty is observed in regard to the exposure of the private parts. Gazing at an undressed woman, for instance, at the bathing place results in a fine. Unseemly insinuations to a woman are visited with a similar punishment, but should such overtures go further, even ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... reason for Owen's presence, but intuitively linked it with Cytherea's seclusion. 'Altogether this is most unseemly,' he said, 'whatever ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Michel Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the Dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior, wrote upon the chair of the Doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man, on being brought before the Forty,[56] confessed that he had thus avenged ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... by at the barber's while he was shaved and his moustaches firmly waxed anew, I saw that he was fit at last for his art studies. The barber this day suggested curling the moustaches with a heated iron, but at this my charge fell into so unseemly a rage that I deemed it wise not to insist. He, indeed, bluntly threatened a nameless violence to the barber if he were so much as touched with the iron, and revealed an altogether shocking gift for profanity, saying loudly: "I'll be—dashed—if you will!" I mean to say, I have written "dashed" ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... stuff of it would bear a real strain, one might address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists somewhat after this fashion:—"Good friends, these differences of opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity, and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning from you what, perhaps, we ought. But, as we read your Book, we, for our part, gather from it that you might, without danger to your own souls, set an undivided example to us, for the benefit of ours. You, both of you, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... the face of it, and that was that Barraclough had been in communication with him. If so, was this by the Prince's desire? And if so again, why had not I heard of it? Our company was so small and our plight so desperate that it was unseemly to confine policy or diplomacy within a narrow circle. Surely, we had all a right to a knowledge of what was forward—at least, all of us who were in positions of responsibility. As I went back I was consumed with annoyance that such an ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... have in English a poetical version from the great trouvere among the poets of our day, the late Mr William Morris. Of yet others, the often-mentioned Voyage a Constantinoble, with its rather unseemly gabz (boasting jests of the peers, which are overheard by the heathen emperor with results which seem like at one time to be awkward), is among the oldest, and is a warning against the tendency to take ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... their clergy limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trinculoes, buffoons, and bawds." "If it be unlawful," he continues, "to sit and behold a mercenary comedian personating that which is least unseemly for a hireling to do, how much more blameful is it to endure the sight of as vile things acted by persons either entered, or presently to enter into the ministry; and how much more foul and ignominious for them ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... the Science mind is an inferior creation. Degrees and privileges are for the man that can score languages, with never so little science; outer darkness is assigned to the man whose forte is science alone. But a war of caste in education is an unseemly thing; and, after all the levelling operations that we have passed through, it is not likely that this distinction will ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... "Carlow events were crowding thick and fast." The congressional representative of the district was to deliver a lecture at the court-house; a circus was approaching the county-seat, and its glories would be exhibited "rain or shine"; the court had cleared up the docket by sitting to unseemly hours of the night, even until ten o'clock—one farmer witness had fallen asleep while deposing that he "had knowed this man Hender some eighteen year"—and, as excitements come indeed when they do come, and it seldom rains but ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... Chief Justice Draper the Anderson case was closed and the fugitive disappears. As a result, however, of the unseemly action of the Brantford magistrate the Canadian law was revised so as to take from the control of ordinary magistrates jurisdiction as regards foreign fugitives from justice, leaving such cases with county judges and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... purely carnal object, unfitting a maiden's eyes to rest upon. The true followers of the Gospel are those who strive to forget the sufferings of our dear Lord as much as possible,—or to think of them only in spirit. The minds of sinners, alas! are easily influenced,—and it is both unseemly and dangerous to gaze freely upon the carven semblance of the Lord's limbs! Yea, truly, it hath oft been considered as damnatory to the soul,—more especially in the cases of women immured as nuns, who encourage themselves ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... "the unseemly hours sped light of foot." He awoke again, between sunset and dark; the owl astir; "the silver gnats yet netting the shadows," and so ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... can instruct an unskilled amateur, can take his ill-guarded wicket, and make him "give chances" all over the field, without bursting into yells of unseemly laughter. But the little caddie cannot restrain his joy when the tyro at golf, after missing his ball some six times, ultimately dashes off the head of his club against the ground. Nor is he less exuberant when his patron's ball is deep in a "bunker," ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... talking to the lady secretary of the Centre. She made a remark, and he smiled, and said something in reply at which they both laughed audibly. It shocked Rhoda in much the same way as it would have done to hear a chief mourner laugh at a funeral. Such levity was most unseemly, yet on the other hand the pictures on the walls were surely unnecessarily depressing! They were oil-coloured portraits of departed worthies, at that gloomy stage of decay when frame, figure, and background have acquired the same dirty hue, and the paint has cracked in ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 'ad 'er month's notice from Sister Tobias upon the morning following the night of the tragedy, another score to the account of the traitor Keyse. Arriving unseemly late, and in an agitated state of mind—and could you wonder, after her young man had been pinched and took away?—she had mechanically accounted for her late return in the well-worn formula of Kentish Town, explaining to the surprised ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... appearing, and their twinkling was answered by responsive gleams in the city below. Against the velvety dusk two tall objects towered in the distance, the beautiful Gothic spire of the cathedral, and the tall, unseemly gas pipe of Clarke's Bottle Factory. Between them, under a haze of smoke ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... not only was her array handsome, but it symbolised the career of one who was neither man nor woman, and yet both. After a while, however, the petticoat seemed too tame for her stalwart temper, and she exchanged it for the great Dutch slop, habited in which unseemly garment she is pictured in the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... them at the appointed time. Tom immediately shoved the noisy thing under his blankets before it could wake up the entire house, and set people wondering what was happening that any one should want to be aroused at such an unseemly hour. ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... place now, the Ministers coming in must oppose their colleagues on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill—an unseemly spectacle, a source of weakness, and probably the beginning of strife, which would not end ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... when given there. Good church music gives us great pleasure, without exciting us to dancing or drinking; the Taj does the same, at least to the sober-minded. [W. H. S.] The regulations now in force prevent any unseemly proceedings. The gardens at the Taj, of Itimad-ud-daula's tomb, of Akbar's mausoleum at Sikandara, and the Ram Bagh, are kept up by means of income derived from crown lands, aided by liberal ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... handsome face. The white-haired minister, with two red spots on his fine scholarly cheeks, stood grave with troubled dignity, as though somehow he meant to hold the little still bride responsible for this unseemly break in his beautiful service. The organ died away with a soft crash of the keys and pedals as if they too leaped up to see; the scent of the lilies swept sickeningly up in a great wave on the top ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... desires of meaner aspirants after personal advantage and distinction. It is a providential blessing, we firmly believe, to a great nation to possess a class, by fortune and station, placed above the unseemly contentions of adventurers in public life: looked up to as men responsible without hire for the public weal, and, without sordid ambitions of their own, solicitous to preserve it: looked up to, moreover, as examples of that refinement of feeling, jealous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... of the lady of the manor had done much to make this household an improvement on many of its neighbours. Although there was always abundance of good things and a liberal hospitality to strangers of all sorts, it was not often that any unseemly roistering disturbed the inmates of Chad. The servants and retainers looked up to their master and mistress with loyalty and devotion, curbed their animal passions and wilder moods out of love and reverence for them, and grew more civilized and cultivated almost ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hast suffered unseemly ills, baulked in thy discretion thou art erring; and like a bad physician, having fallen into a distemper thou art faint-hearted, and, in reference to thyself, thou canst not discover by what manner of medicines thou mayest ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... a paragraph inviting Parliament to approve of the recent dissolution; and what Parliament could be asked to approve of, it manifestly had an equal right to censure. But the most vehement of the censures of the Opposition were directed against what Lord Morpeth called "the most unseemly huddling of offices in the single person of the Duke of Wellington; an unconstitutional concentration of responsibility and power, at which there was hardly an old Whig of the Rockingham school whose hair did not stand on end." He admitted that in the present ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Britain; and the following year the combined fleets of France and Spain were annihilated by Lord Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. Family dissensions in the Spanish royal household at this time were opportune for Napoleon's designs. Carlos and his son Ferdinand were engaged in an unseemly quarrel. Carlos appealed to Napoleon regarding the treasonable conduct and threats of his son. Nothing could have better suited the purposes of the Emperor. The fox had been invited to be umpire! French ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... sober Frank was red and breathless, and Jack lay back, feebly squealing, as he could laugh no more. In a moment Ralph was as meek as a Quaker, and sat looking about him with a mildly astonished air, as if inquiring the cause of such unseemly mirth. A knock at the door produced a lull, and in came a ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... welling up within us of our true social nature; which nothing but our indifference and lack of sympathy could have kept so long repressed. "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own." Love "seeketh not its own" because it has ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... beauty, but one that shrinks from the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that is apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. As others have done, as others will do, he finds in imagination the adventure that progress has decreed unseemly. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... Clotilde had staked her whole soul upon the outcome, a big success was predicted. At the dress rehearsal our young friend had achieved genuine prodigies. There was a moment when the few of us whom curiosity had brought to witness it, rose to our feet electrified, convulsed, making a most unseemly outcry. You have no conception how marvelously she rendered her part. Then and there, all of a sudden, an idea entered my head. Recalling all my observations of Clotilde's love affair, I felt convinced, in view of the evidence, ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... the Honourable Adam of the rising tide against him? Have they asked him to gird up his loins and hire halls and smite the upstart hip and thigh? They have warned him, yes, that the expenses may be a little greater than ordinary. But it is not for him to talk, or to bestir himself in any unseemly manner, for the prize which he was to have was in the nature of a gift. In vain did Mr. Crewe cry out to him four times a week for his political beliefs, for a statement of what he would do if he were elected governor. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. He loved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some other ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... with grapes, let fall a large lump of dirt right in the middle of the cloth. The poor woman was half dead with fright; so great was her despair, she could think of no other way of remedying the thoughtlessness of the fowl then by covering the unseemly patch with a plate in which she put the fine fruits taken at random from her pocket, losing sight altogether of the symmetry of the table. Then, in order that no one should notice it, she ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Whigs railed at him because he would not approve the founding of another United States Bank. The Democrats stormed at him for refusing, until near the end of his term, to sanction the annexation of Texas, which had declared its independence of Mexico in 1836. His entire administration, marked by unseemly wrangling, produced only two measures of importance. The Whigs, flushed by victory, with the aid of a few protectionist Democrats, enacted, in 1842, a new tariff law destroying the compromise which had brought about the truce between the North and the South, in the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... fanatic, secured such a place in their confidence and affection as few even of the most magnetic leaders among men ever managed to obtain. The pet name by which they always spoke of him implied no approach to unseemly familiarity, but betokened the same kind of attachment as the veteran hosts of Napoleon the Great intended to express when they admiringly called their dread master "The Little Corporal." He amply justified ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... appears to think, was treated as a huge joke. One set of members advocated the admission of ladies on the ground, among other reasons, that their presence in the House of Commons would tend to keep the legislators sober, and prevent them from garnishing their speeches with unseemly expressions. Another set stood out against the proposal on the ground that if ladies were allowed to sit in a gallery in sight of the members, the result would be that the representatives would ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... along the terrace and met me at the hall door, where he burst into unseemly laughter. I suppose at the expression of dismay which must have been written upon my countenance. He seized me by both hands and ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... Love? So far as it meant attraction between two persons of the opposite sex who were not man and wife, there was no such word in my native tongue. One loved one's wife, mother, daughter, or sister. To be "in love" with a girl who was an utter stranger to you was something unseemly, something which only Gentiles or "modern" Jews might ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... not on this occasion evoke any unseemly words. On the contrary, Charlie smiled. He glanced at his companion. He glanced behind him and round him. Then, drilling his deep design into the semblance of an uncontrollable impulse, he seized Dora's hand in his and, before she could stir, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... the itunkulu, and beyond reach of the unseemly sounds which issued therefrom, Mapela conducted me to the group of chiefs still gathered round the royal chair and introduced me to them severally and individually; then, discreetly and with a certain air of mystery, he hinted to his fellow indunas that the investiture of the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... slightest feeling of personal elation at the prospect, but rather a sense of injury that such a scurvy trick should be foisted off upon him. It was like going to a funeral and being confronted, suddenly, with the grinning head of the supposed dead projecting through the coffin lid. It was unseemly! ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... sweetheart at home, and she came down to greet him with roses that he had sent her in her bosom. It was not easy for him to do or say anything extravagant, and Emily Vincent, while she might have pardoned unseemly effusiveness to his exceeding love for her, was well content with the deeply earnest though unriotous expression of his passion. When finally he had folded her in his arms she felt that the greatest happiness existence can give was hers, and he knew himself ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... praying me humbly, in our bed as I remember, that for the love of God I would not correct you harshly before strangers nor before our own folk, 'but that I would correct you each night or from day to day in our chamber and show you the unseemly or foolish things done in the day or days past, and chastise you, if it pleased me, and then you would not fail to amend yourself according to my teaching and correction, and would do all in your ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... 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, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... The slave in the door silently beckoned for her to come in. The Vestal informed her bearers that she was likely to be absent some little time, and they must wait quietly without, and not annoy a dying man with unseemly laughter or loud conversation. Then, without hesitancy, Fabia gathered her priestess's cloak about her, and boldly entered the strange atrium. As she did so, the attendant noiselessly closed the door, and what was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... swear, by God's foot, he would never stir his foot to see a hundred such as that is!" The conduct of the gallants, among whom were included those who deemed themselves critics and wits, appears to have usually been of a very unseemly and offensive kind. They sat upon the stage, paying sixpence or a shilling for the hire of a stool, or reclined upon the rushes with which the boards were strewn. Their pages were in attendance to fill their pipes; and they were noted for the capriciousness and severity of their ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Thunder-ten-tronckh, as to have a door at least, if not windows. They are, in short, preserved and protected. So much for the novels. I observed decent children begging here, a thing uncommon in England: and I recollect the same unseemly practice formerly. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Deity-planted law of the emotional soul. In this only the true Quaker, or Friend, has faith; and it is from rigidly, perhaps strainingly carrying it out, that both the Old and New England records of Quakerdom show some unseemly and insane acts. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... for comment, his moral and personal courage compelled the admiration of his enemies. Arraigned before a Virginia court, the authorities hurried through his trial for treason, conspiracy, and murder, with an unseemly precipitancy, almost calculated to make him seem the accuser, and the commonwealth the trembling culprit. He acknowledged his acts with frankness, defended his purpose with a sincerity that betokened honest conviction, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... Longbreeks, so this very day a fellow of Horncastle called, in my hearing, our noble-looking Hungarian friend here, Long-stockings. Oh, I could give you a hundred instances, both ancient and modern, of this unseemly propensity of our illustrious race, though I will only trouble you with a few more ancient ones; they not only nicknamed Regner, but his sons also, who were all kings, and distinguished men; one, whose name was Biorn, they nicknamed Ironsides; another, Sigurd, Snake ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... tall black man, seated on a powerful iron grey horse, who had entered the court with attendants while the Duke of Rothsay was engaged with Louise, and now remained stupefied and almost turned to stone by his surprise and anger at this unseemly spectacle. Even one who had never seen Archibald Earl of Douglas, called the Grim, must have known him by his swart complexion, his gigantic frame, his buff coat of bull's hide, and his air of courage, firmness, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... fully clad and comfortless, or the reverse? The indulgence of my sensations has brought about revolutionary changes of costume and custom. Such changes were bound to react mentally, for are they not merely the symbols of ideas? Once it was unseemly, if not uncleanly, to perspire freely. Now the function is looked upon as necessary, wholesome, and the sign of one's loyalty to the sun. The sun compels thoughts. Daily, hourly does he exact homage and reign supreme over mind, body, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... out laughing, and, in the most unseemly manner, said: "Alas, poor Cummings. He'll lose 35 pounds." At that moment there was a ring at the bell. Lupin said: "I don't want to meet Cummings." If he had gone out of the door he would have met him in the passage, so as quickly as possible Lupin opened the parlour window and got out. ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... into the country, they contrived imperceptibly to fill all places of trust and the magistracy with their own adherents, and to exclude the Catholics. Against the numerous order of the nobles and knights, and the deputies from the towns, the voice of a few prelates was powerless; and the unseemly ridicule and offensive contempt of the former soon drove them entirely from the provincial diets. Thus the whole of the Austrian Diet had imperceptibly become Protestant, and the Reformation was making rapid strides towards ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the Church Mission Society of London, a short time previously, when carrying on their duties at Zanzibar. In this section-map, swallowing up about half of the whole area of the ground included in it, there figured a lake of such portentous size and such unseemly shape, representing a gigantic slug, or, perhaps, even closer still, the ugly salamander, that everybody who looked at it incredulously laughed and shook his head. It was, indeed, phenomenon enough in these days to excite ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... green forest, Underneath a green hollen tree, There sat that lady in red scarlet That unseemly was to see. ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should meet in Switzerland and discuss the whole prison situation. Each Ambassador would be accompanied by representatives of whatever authorities deal with prisoners (here the War Ministry) in the country to which he is accredited. To prevent unseemly discussions the actual talking would be done by the Ambassadors (coached by those representatives). In addition to doing away with many misunderstandings and helping the prisoners, there are great possibilities in ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... be something to that effect in the political platforms. A goose saved Rome; why should not a rooster rescue America? Let the patriot who curses the noisy bird which crows him from his drowsy couch at an unseemly hour think of these things and allay his wrath with reflections upon the well-deserved glories ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... example of former kings, who gave themselves out for sons of Ra, or Phthah, or Mentu, or Horus. But ultimately he surrendered the priestly title to his eldest son, Piankh, and no doubt at the same time devolved upon him the duties which attached to the high-priestly office. There was something unseemly in a priest being a soldier, and Herhor was smitten with the ambition of putting himself at the head of an army, and reasserting the claim of Egypt to a supremacy over Syria. He calls himself "the conqueror ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... never lies; a gintleman never uses unseemly haste; a gintleman is always ready for love and ready for war—for, Ned, me boy, without love and war we'd miss the only two joys of life. Thereto, a gintleman must shoot, fence, ride, dance, and do anny of 'em like a gintleman. For outwardly appar'l, seein' ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... visiting in the evenings, for the tournament insisted on getting horribly mixed up every afternoon owing to the failure of fellows to play when they were supposed to, and it was one of Amy's duties to hunt up the offenders and threaten them with all sorts of awful fates if they didn't arise at some unseemly hour the next morning and play off the postponed match before Chapel. Clint went over to the courts one afternoon before practice in the hope of seeing his room-mate perform. But Amy was dashing around with a score-sheet in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ("though they all at first refused, evidently from modesty") gratified the company in the intervals of the dance, and at which he expresses unbounded delight; but this does not prevent his again launching out into a tirade against the unseemly methods, as they appear to him, used by the English to signify applause or approbation. "The strangest custom is, that the audience clapped their hands in token of satisfaction whenever any of the ladies concluded their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... ended a union between the two Conferences which had (nominally) existed since 1833, and which had promised such happy results, and thus was inaugurated a period of unseemly strife between the two parties from 1840 to 1847, when it happily ceased. What followed in Upper Canada is thus narrated by ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the three, she suddenly broke into a little ripple of laughter, and, upon being questioned severely as to the reason of such unseemly mirth, she said, gaily, "I was just wondering what poor Phil will do with three girls, and ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... all their time before them, ought never to compel or so much as to offer at the feat, if they do not find themselves quite ready: and it is less unseemly to fail of handselling the nuptial sheets, when a man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling, and to await another opportunity at more private and more composed leisure, than to make himself perpetually miserable, for having misbehaved himself and been baffled at the first assault. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... "What—what—what does this unseemly excitement mean?" sternly demanded the Iron King, while Cora arose to shake hands with her uncle and brother; and while Rose, fearful of doing wrong, did nothing ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... great extremes; and as a result both they and their religion lose the respect and confidence of the people. How especially true this is in some of the modern holiness movements! Their adherents give themselves over to unseemly demonstrations, ignore good judgment, and teach things and do things they would not if they stopped to ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... had been ruffled, as well as Manuela's, by being carried about in his cage, at unseemly hours, when he should have been hanging quietly in the verandah, where he belonged. He looked sulky, and only said, "Caramba! ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... we are gradually uprooting that hindrance to conversion, so common among those people, and so difficult to remove, the practice of having several wives. They are easily persuaded that it is impossible and unseemly for them to have more than one wife, accordingly they have forsaken the others, although in doing so the husbands lose their property; for in marrying the women the men give them dowries, and if they leave ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... my word! All this unseemly rage and row about such a—a—Dorcas, I never saw you carry on like this before. You have alarmed the sentry; he thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there's a mutiny, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... who are occupied with charitable and good works elsewhere often overlook under their own roof. It does not mean that the kitchen should be a scene of perpetual revelry and mirth that can by any chance disturb the quiet of the neighborhood or even the family. Unseemly noise is checked at once, much as it would be if young people in the drawing-room became disturbing. Continuous company is not suitable either, and those who abuse privileges naturally must have ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... this Situation without exposing their Body very much, which is often dangerous, as also a very unseemly Posture, this Guard is therefore, with good Reason, condemned by most, if ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... than intimidated, turned to the other masked figure. "If this is a comedy," he said, "you will tell M. Fouquet that I find it unseemly and improper, and that ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... imposed on every one of us a certain charge as to the good conduct of the whole,—making each, as it were, alive to the faults and responsible for the misconduct of our little community. Rude noise, unseemly confusion, the least approach to dissipation at a tavern, or any other violation of propriety on the road, would have been considered as an insult to the college. And thus it happened that we established throughout Switzerland a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... roared the Boy. "O Lord! you don't know my father!" and he fairly curled himself up in convulsions of silent laughter, which the Tenor thought unseemly considering the subject of it, but he said no more. He knew that there was nothing to be done with such a boy but to wait and hope; and that was the attitude into which the Tenor found himself most prone to fall ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a scornful eye, but Miss Kybird, bidding him not to be foolish, punctuated her remarks with the needle, and a struggle, which Mr. Silk regarded as unseemly in the highest degree, took place ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... spirits, and much of his former beauty. His presence was unknown to my neighbors, although it was noticeable that horses invariably "shied" in passing to the windward of my house, and that the baker and milkman had great difficulty in the delivery of their wares in the morning, and indulged in unseemly and ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... should find place among the principles adopted by politicians,—"look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." The "charity that envieth not, that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth"—does it not almost seem as if the portraiture was drawn in view of the contrast often exhibited by men in their political relations?—this charity must be preserved, its ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... are which should not be so much as named among Christian men-those, namely, in which men with men work that which is unseemly, and burn with lust one towards another. It is necessary to refer to these, because their prevalence is said to be increasing. A considerable proportion of men are temperamentally liable to be sexually attracted by members of their own ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... hands or feet, nor catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humor and spasm. Therefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise, or of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness, or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings or from the dry spasm, which they relieve with plenty ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... now; going with one who will degrade you. Do not follow her. Though her outer garments are of purple and fine linen, her spiritual robe is black and unseemly." ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... also perceived that the Whitsun King had made a mistake in answering so rashly, but as it would have been unseemly to have offended the dignity of so considerable a personage, they devoted themselves exclusively to the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... that these two men were exhibiting a very unseemly curiosity. There seemed to be no satiating their desire for information. "It creates a vacuum," ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... operetta, of which he would give them a few passages. He was a skilful pianist. He explained, as his fingers ran up and down the keys, that the scene was in Ratcliffe Highway. A tavern: a hornpipe. Jack ashore. Unseemly squabbles: here there were harsh discords and shrill screams. Drunkenness: the music getting very helpless. Then the daylight comes—the chirping of sparrows—Jack wanders out—the breath of the morning stirs his memories—he thinks of other days. Then comes in Jack's song, which ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... laughed. He was hurt bodily and mentally. There was a feeling of regret, too, uppermost, which made him resent this unseemly mirth as ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... revolting to a people who permit not any image or representation of created things, even in the uses of ordinary life. Still, the sincerity and apparent devotion with which the ceremony of the crucifixion was performed might, in some degree, atone for the unseemly method adopted by the monks to commemorate an event at once so solemn and important. But what shall be said in defence of the manifest fraud which is annually practised in Jerusalem on Easter-eve ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... into their compartment, and fell immediately to quarrelling, a step unseemly in itself and (in this case) highly unfortunate for Morris. Had he lingered a moment longer by the window, this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed (as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a very salutary lesson, he could not say. Also it did not worry him over much. His ideas were centred mainly on Mr. Cumshaw. True, that gentleman had disappeared over the horizon with every mark of unseemly haste, and already he must be well advanced on whatever road he was taking. Not so very far away the car awaited Bryce, and he was sure that, once he reached it, it would be merely a matter of a day or so until he rediscovered Mr. Cumshaw. He repeated the verb. "Re-discovered" ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... recognize His ministers, and baptizes by the hand of the misbeliever. He is with the heathen dramatist in his denunciations of injustice and tyranny, and his auguries of divine vengeance upon crime. Even on the unseemly legends of a popular mythology He casts His shadow, and is dimly discerned in the ode or the epic, as in troubled water or in fantastic dreams. All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it perfect or fragmentary, natural ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... collection for the poor in some Kirks in the Countrey, are taken in the time of Divine Service, which being, a very great and unseemly disturbance of Divine Worship Do therefore hereby Inhibit and discharge the same. And ordains that the Minister and Session appoint some other way and time ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... Agency, and the confirmation given to pressmen by Lord Robert Cecil. The system of reticence and concealment, coupled with the indifference of this or that delegation to questions in which it happened to take no special interest, led to these unseemly air-tight compartments. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... doctor's professional dignity gave way. Dropping into the nearest chair, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed again, while Mr. Baxter grew more and more shamefaced, and Miss Roberts more and more exasperated at his unseemly merriment. When he ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... confronted with his illustrious contemporary. In his aphorisms he says:[4] 'No man hates the ambition, avarice, and effeminacy of the priests more than I do; for these vices, odious in themselves, are most unseemly in men who make a profession of living in special dependence on the Deity. Besides, they are so contradictory that they cannot be combined except in a very extraordinary subject. My position under several Popes has compelled me to desire their aggrandizement for the sake of my own profit.[5] Otherwise, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... suddenly, an ill-dressed, dour-looking individual entered the room without so much as saying, "By your leave," and after having pushed Theodore—who stood by like a lout—most unceremoniously to one side. Before I had time to recover from my surprise at this unseemly intrusion, the uncouth individual thrust Theodore roughly out of the room, slammed the door in his face, and having satisfied himself that he was alone with, me and that the door was too solid to allow of successful eavesdropping, he dragged the best chair forward—the one, sir, which I reserve for ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... But to the prince the brightness and gaiety of the June morning, and the sound of the orchestra playing a gay waltz then in fashion, and above all, the appearance of the healthy attendants, seemed something unseemly and monstrous, in conjunction with these slowly moving, dying figures gathered together from all parts of Europe. In spite of his feeling of pride and, as it were, of the return of youth, with his favorite daughter on ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... one voice and much rebellion, but at last their irate aunt quenched the unseemly levity, and they were fairly set to work at Dr Watts—Frank getting for his share "The little busy bee." But instead of learning it, they got together, and Cyril began drawing pictures of cruet-stands and other impieties, whereby Frank was kept in fits of laughter, and when called up to ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... weighed heavily for the mailed gauntlet that he ware. Pain enough did he make her bear for that she desired not to ride with him. He smote her many a time and oft with his shield as he would revenge himself upon her in unseemly fashion. The maiden ware a robe of green silk, that was rent in many places, 'twas the cruel knight had wrought the mischief. She rode a sorry hack, bare backed, and her matchless hair, which was yellow as silk, hung even to the horse's croup—but in sooth she had lost well ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... on high over all; while weeds were only kept away from the very growth of the flowers and started up everywhere else, and grass grew irregularly where grass should not; and in the midst of it all the poor cripple on her hands and knees in the dirt, more uncared-for, more unseemly and unlovely than her little plot of weeds and flowers. Daisy looked at her, with a new tide of tenderness flowing up in her heart, along with the doubt how her mission should be executed or how it would be received; then she gave up her ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... two sons, who were with Doramin, did not come to harm at the hands of the robbers. Several of the bystanders tried to pull her away, but she struggled and cried, "Let me go. What is this, O Muslims? This laughter is unseemly. Are they not cruel, bloodthirsty robbers bent on killing?" "Let her be," said Jim, and as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly, "Everybody shall be safe." He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud murmurs of satisfaction, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... silly. It's a sweet name, and it answers to it—when it wants to. Then, if there are any unseemly noises in the night, they can be explained succinctly: Derry ...
— Reginald • Saki
... unmarried maidens and widowed mothers too wandered uncared for through the city; no father heeded his daughter ever so little even though he should see her done to death before his eyes at the hands of an insolent step-dame, nor did sons, as before, defend their mother against unseemly outrage; nor did brothers care at heart for their sister. But in their homes, in the dance, in the assembly and the banquet all their thought was only for their captive maidens; until some god put desperate courage in our hearts no more to ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... the young and respectable Superior of the Ursulines tear her bosom with her own hands and grovel in the dust; we have seen the sisters, Agnes, Claire, and others, deviate from the modesty of their sex by impassioned gestures and unseemly laughter. When impious men have inclined to doubt the presence of the demons, and we ourselves felt our convictions shaken, because they refused to answer to unknown questions in Greek or Arabic, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... trusted to do the same. This objection has a serious front to it. It does seem strange that children should not walk in the footsteps of their worthy parents; but the fact is, and facts are stubborn things, the fact is that they do not always act thus. And they might tell you, to justify their unseemly conduct, that the conditions that obtained in life in olden days are not the same as at present; that there were no parochial schools then to offer a choice in matters of education and that kind Providence might ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... friends to sit up all night, and watch the corpse. In my young days this duty was generally undertaken by youths, male and female friends, who volunteered their services; but these watchings were not accompanied by the unseemly revelries which were common in Scotland in earlier times, or as are still practised in Ireland. The company sitting up with the corpse generally numbered from two to six, although I have myself been one of ten. They went to the house about ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without by a frouzy curtaining ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... bills at the end of a month, they often spend it in sake, and that they sometimes get sake in shops and have it put down as rice or tea. "The old, old story!" I looked at the dirt and barbarism, and asked if this were the Japan of which I had read. Yet a woman in this unseemly costume firmly refused to take the 2 or 3 sen which it is usual to leave at a place where you rest, because she said that I had had water and not tea, and after I had forced it on her, she returned it to Ito, and this redeeming incident sent ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... depend on him, did it?" Sharp jealousy of her defense of the American intruder drove Falconer to unseemly curtness. He gave a short laugh. "You and I," he said, "seem to be always tilting ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... follow Mr. Sebright—when a new personage appeared on the scene. Startled in the sanctuary of his study by the noise, the rector himself strutted into the garden, and brought his wife to a sudden standstill, by inquiring in his deepest base notes, "What does this unseemly ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... a bird is dying his notes are sad; when man is dying his words are good. Three branches of the Way are dear to a gentleman: To banish from his bearing violence and disdain; to sort his face to the truth, and to banish from his speech what is low or unseemly. The ritual of chalice and platter[75] has servitors ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... young gentleman," said Mr. Cargill, "lay aside this untimely and unseemly jesting! and tell me if you be not—as I cannot but still believe you to be—that same youth, who, seven years since, left in my deposit a solemn secret, which, if I should unfold to the wrong person, woe would be my own heart, and evil the consequences ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... and lavishing the most profuse promises upon the sycophants and flatterers by whom she was surrounded. The infatuation of the King, whose passion for his arrogant mistress appeared to increase with time, tended, as a natural consequence, to encourage these unseemly demonstrations; nor did the friends of the exiled Queen fail to render her cognizant of every extravagance committed by the woman who aspired to become her successor; upon which Marguerite, who, morally fallen as she ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... life of Vauvenargues his friendships were the main adventure. We have mentioned a name which is too frequently the object of malignity on English lips, the name of Voltaire. No one would pretend that the multiform energy of this giant of literature did not take some unseemly directions and several unlovely shapes. But the qualities of Voltaire must, in the eyes of any unbiassed observer, vastly overtop his defects. If, however, we wish to see Voltaire at his best, we must contemplate ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... slight me, and keep me out of sight. So never met I any that should be like to wise me in this matter. And, the sooth to say, but I would not desire to dwell amongst kin that had set my mother aside, and reckoned her not fit to company with them, not for no wickedness nor unseemly dealing, but only that she came of a trading stock. It seemeth me, had such wist our blessed Lord Himself, they should have bidden Him stand aside, for He was but a carpenter's son. That's the evil of ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... wasn't afraid of prosing, I might tell another story about an old boot in a pieman's loft, contracting there between sun and oven an unseemly, dry-seasoned curl and warp. You've seen such leathery old garretteers, haven't you? Very high, sober, solitary, philosophic, grand, old boots, indeed; but I, for my part, would rather be the pieman's trodden slipper ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... not press thee further, Philip. The time may come when I may prove of service. Farewell, my child; but I pray thee to discontinue thy unseemly labour, for I must send in the neighbours to perform the duties to thy departed mother, whose soul I trust is ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... be proven that in October past, after a bitter quarrel with Miss Stair, the accused espoused in a hasty (and in a person of his rank and station), unseemly manner, his mother's cousin, Miss Isabel Erskine; that since that time he has been little in her presence, leaving her alone at the time when a woman most needs the comfort and support of a husband's presence, and paying marked attentions, both in public and private, ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... separated from the dining "saloon" by a sliding door—which frequently refused to slide at all, or else perversely slid so suddenly as to endanger finger-tips and cause unseemly words to flow. This noble apartment of elegant dimensions (to borrow the undefiled English of the house-agent) could contain four feasters at a pinch. Sabz Ali having cooked the dinner, the cook-boat was laid alongside, and Sabz Ali, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... be thought that unseemly haste was displayed in attending to this affair while Mr. Polymathers still lay in the little next room, I must explain that for special reasons the nature of the funeral arrangements depended upon the result of the conference; and how deeply important such a point would be ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... sorry to hear of your distresses, sends me to say that you have only to make a request and this unseemly scene shall come to an end. In fact, I have authority to act on his behalf—as an unknown friend, you know—and stop these proceedings even at the eleventh hour. Only a word from you—one word—and everything shall ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... found as well among the cooler temperaments of the Teutonic stock, as among us of warmer blood. Do not this placid hill-side, yon lake, and the starry heavens, look as if they regretted their late unseemly violence, and wished to cheat the beholder into forgetfulness of their attack on our safety, as an impetuous but generous nature would repent it of the blow given in anger, or of the cutting speech that had escaped in a moment of spleen? What hast thou to say to my opinion, Signor ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... inconsistent with my constant support of his administration during eight years, and would induce a concentration that would surely defeat me. Upon the second point he was very explicit—that he would not be a candidate under any circumstances, and as far as he could properly, without any unseemly interference, he would favor my election. This was the general tenor of his conversation, which he said he would repeat to General Schurz. This relieves me from some embarrassment, but I still think ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... When I returned from church I was startled to see the inn thrown into the greatest confusion. The reverend fat friar was running round the place bellowing like a bull, calling for his noble mule, and vowing vengeance on the profane thief, which unseemly appellation he was pleased ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio |
