"Distasteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fine collation, pitied our poor father who would not partake of it, and pressed our mother to call him in; but she, more prudent than we, well knew how distasteful such gifts would be to him. In the mean time she had prepared some supper, and would readily have sent a portion up to his room; but he never tolerated such an irregularity, even in the most extreme cases: and, after the sweet things were removed, we endeavored to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... and behind the arm the relentless pale face and the even lips, that just tightened upon each other as the deathblows went out, one by one, each to its place in a life. The Italian destroyed men skilfully and quickly, yet as if it were distasteful to him. The Norman slew like a bright destroying angel, breathing the swift and silent wrath ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... consideration is, that the alternatives of the disjunctive conclusion of a Complex Dilemma should both point the same way, should be equally distasteful or paradoxical. 'Either inconsistent or unpatriotic': horrid words to a politician! 'Either no reality or no possible knowledge of it': very disappointing to an anxious inquirer! Thus the disjunctive conclusion is as bad for an opponent ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... ground would a member of Congress, who is opposed to slavery in the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as I would deem it my duty to do? Because there is a constitutional right which needs legislation to enforce it. And although it is distasteful to me, I have sworn to support the Constitution; and having so sworn, I cannot conceive that I do support it if I withhold from that right any necessary legislation to make it practical. And if that is true in regard to a Fugitive Slave law, is the right ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... those men mentioned in an earlier chapter, who applied for Bettesworth's work during his last illness. They came, however, believing the place to be vacant; and one and all, with a sincerity I never doubted, deprecated the idea of desiring to take it away from him. In fact, the application was distasteful to them. Nothing, I believe, would have prevailed upon them to make it, short of that hunger for constant employment which many of the men feel now, under their new competitive thrift. That they should have been scrupulous at all was to their credit. All their circumstances constrain ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... old gentleman is really a dear—only he doesn't know it," continued Cecile. "He thinks he hates women, and the idea of marriage is as distasteful to him as a red rag ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... faint for want of a breakfast which was cooling on the table. Meanwhile a "humming in the head," to which she was subject, rendered Maria mercifully indifferent to the proposal to add an extra half-hour to her distasteful labours; and Miss Blomfield corrugated her eyebrows, and was conscientiously distressed and really puzzled that Mother Nature should give different gifts to her children, when their mother and teachers according ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... during which process that lady delivered a long harangue, setting forth the rival merits of plum-pudding and black draught, and ingeniously establishing a connexion between them, which has rendered the former nearly as distasteful to me as the latter ever since. Thence glancing slightly at the overstarched night-cap, and delicately referring to the anti-teetotal propensities of the laundress's sposo, she contrived so thoroughly to confuse and interlace ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... blew, and Lieutenant Ferrers hastened away to another duty, which was not now so distasteful, since there was soon to be an end of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... come to any sort of general agreement in these matters, their arrangements will be a matter of secondary importance to the Western Allies—saving our duty to Serbia and Montenegro and their rulers. Russia may not find the German idea of a Polish plus Bohemian border State so very distasteful, provided that the ruler is not a German; Germany may find the idea still tolerable if the ruler is not ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... said Simontault. "In giving me your vote you have all but told me that I am a jester. It is a name that is extremely distasteful to me, and in revenge I will show you that there are women who with certain persons, or for a certain time, make a great pretence of being chaste, but the end shows them in their real colours, as you will ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of some unexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiled entirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. The home supper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its commonplace fare—hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and apple sauce, and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and politics, and small home events, and music. As it happened, the quartet had the lack of intuition ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... leaves of the season rose and fell like wounded birds; heavy clouds gathered in the sky, and the night was coming on apace. Claudet was grateful for the sudden darkness, which would blot out a view now so distasteful to him. Shortly, on the Auberive side, along the winding Aubette, feeble lights became visible, as if inviting the young man to profit by their guidance. He arose, took the path indicated, and went to supper, or rather, to a pretence of supper, in the same inn where he had ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... of that," I replied. "But it is a woman's privilege to repel those attentions if distasteful to her. You seem disinclined to ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... bright side. They had come to the point where they must borrow money from their friends, and that, though there were many who would have opened their safes to them, they had agreed was the one thing they would not do, or they must starve. The alternative was equally distasteful. ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... of Guy was obviously distasteful to him, yet her whole life during the past five years had been so closely linked to the thought of that absent lover of hers that it was impossible to speak of the one without the other. She told him all ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... lieutenant, Dominique You, and his rabble of Baratarians, caused New Orleans a great deal of annoyance, but like many other doubtful characters, they have, since their death, become entirely picturesque, and the very idea that Lafitte was not a first-class blood-and-thunder pirate is as distasteful to the people of New Orleans to-day, as his being any kind of a near-pirate at all, used to be to their ancestors. Nevertheless Frank R. Stockton, who made a great specialty of pirates, says of Lafitte: ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... he could find was with a leather dresser in the village of St. Martin's, and though it was very hard and distasteful to him, he felt that he must keep at it, as he could thus earn a few pennies more each day than he could as colour-grinder at the Abbey. And yet, with all his hard toil, the little sum he brought home at night was far from enough to keep them all from ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... I see," began the Baron, with a casual air intended for any witnesses of the interview. "Work," he added, cautiously lowering his voice, "which, if I may be allowed to say so, Sire, can hardly be other than distasteful to his Royal Highness ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... conceived the idea of suppressing the system of Abbanship, thinking that, as the Somali had access to Aden without any impost, Englishmen ought to enjoy a corresponding freedom to travel in Somali Land. This perhaps was scarcely the right time to dictate a policy which would be distasteful as well as injurious (in a monetary sense) to the people among whom we were about to travel, and with whom it was highly essential to our interest to be on the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... that cotton, tobacco and slavemonger, at the best is somewhat polished, varnished; the varnish covers all kinds of barbarity and of rottenness. It is to be regretted that our army contains officers modelled on the Southern pattern, to whom human rights and civilization are as distasteful as they are to any high-toned ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... the very instances in which lack of king and nobility made departure from the English model a matter of necessity. Moreover, any avowed attempt to provide an effective substitute for the hereditary branches of the English model would have been distasteful to the people generally and for that reason would have ensured the rejection of the Constitution. Theoretically, the nearest approach to the English system possible would have been life tenure, and there were not wanting those who, like Hamilton, ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... Pinshon's taking my hand and leading me home all the rest of the way. It was not that I wanted to talk to Preston, for I was not ready to talk to him; but this holding me like a little child was excessively distasteful to my habit of freedom. My governess would not loose her clasp when we got to the house; but kept fast hold and led me upstairs to ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the French Consul-General, and to promise restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him again to quit his court,—this time peremptorily,—adding, that the United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... of gentility, but not to procure any serious secondary education for her children, much less give the boy a profession. A clerkship at thirty shillings a week was beneath Freddy's dignity, and extremely distasteful to him besides. His prospects consisted of a hope that if he kept up appearances somebody would do something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as a private secretaryship or a sinecure of ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... proceeds for the moment on the flattering illusory assumption that it is moving in an ethereal atmosphere and breathing the air of the gods. All vehemence, all natural expression, all real suffering, all careless familiarity, or any frank sign of passion, are startling and distasteful in this delicate milieu; they at once destroy the common work, the cloud palace, the magical architectural whole, which has been raised by the general consent and effort. It is like the sharp cock-crow which breaks ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... professional performers, were either single amateurs, or whole orchestras of them, organized into a corporate Academy. Many artists in other branches were at home in music, and often masters of the art. People of position were averse to wind instruments, for the same reason which made them distasteful to Alcibiades and Pallas Athene. In good society singing, either alone or accompanied with the violin, was usual; but quartettes of string instruments were also common, and the 'clavicembalo' was liked on account of its varied effects. In singing, the solo only was permitted, 'for ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... spoke his voice rattled so in his throat that it made one wish to clear one's own throat to listen to him. So, what with a pair of fat, white hands, and that hoarse voice, and his swollen face, and his thick lips sticking out, it seemed to Barnaby True he had never seen a countenance so distasteful to him as that one into ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... the game of life. It is a wise, cheerful manly, and warm-hearted discourse on the words of Bacon,—"He that is wise, let him pursue some desire or other: for he that doth not affect some one thing in chief, unto him all things are distasteful and tedious." We will not spoil this little volume by giving any account of it. Let our readers get it, and read it. The extracts from his Thesis, De Mentis Exercitatione et Felicitate exinde derivanda, are very curious—showing the native vigor and bent of his mind, and indicating ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Julia Vivian gave herself up almost entirely to reading amusing books, fishing, riding, and making one in any little party of pleasure which could be got up for her. She saw her children just for a few minutes night and morning, but evidently felt it rather a distasteful toil than a pleasure if anything obliged her now and then to give them a little extra attention. Indeed, she seemed to have got the idea firmly fixed in her mind that she was now to get all the enjoyment she could to make up for past years of ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... parlour, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer, and no trials ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... subject was distasteful to the old man, we said no more, but after the table was cleared away, we lighted our pipes and planned the business which was to occupy us early the next morning. Our arrangements were soon completed and agreed upon. We readily came to the conclusion to unload all of our baggage excepting what ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... of such outbursts as we have quoted will always be distasteful to an Englishman. It is to be remembered that they came from Madame Sand under the pressure and anguish of the terrible calamities of 1870. But what we are most concerned with, and what Englishmen in general regard too little, is the degree of truth contained in these allegations ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... and future needs; of ways and means for keeping my friends utterly in the dark concerning her presence in the abandoned east wing; and of what we were pleased to allude to as "separate maintenance," employing a phrase that might have been considered distasteful and even ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... by the familiar atmosphere of skins and dried flowers and general "stock in trade" which pervaded the place. No sooner did his eye fall upon Marietta coming towards him, however, than he recalled the distasteful part of adviser which had been forced upon him on the occasion of his last visit. He tried to think that he had washed his hands of the whole matter, but, "Mrs. Jim," he found himself saying; "did you go into ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... genuine interpretation of a very perfect piece of humanity; but his knowledge compared with that of his successors was empiric. Leonardo's subtle skill was based upon dissection. Michael Angelo likewise studied from the human corpse, distasteful as he found the process. Donatello had no such scientific training: he had no help from the surgeon or the hospital, hence mistakes; his doubt, for instance, about the connection between ribs and pectoral bones was never resolved. But, notwithstanding this lack of ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... not distasteful to the great body of the citizens, whose national sentiment had, in a measure, given way before the obvious advantages to their individual interests of having a settled authority established over them, with the additional privilege of English ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... agitation, the project of a Continental Congress, to consider the best ways and means of redressing the grievances of the colonists, was exceedingly distasteful to Governor Martin, for he regarded it as a most efficient way to organize rebellion. He resolved that he would prevent North Carolina from participating in such a Congress, as Governor Tryon had prevented her from participating in a similar one in 1765. To this end he determined that ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... It is of no interest to us to inquire, as did the Christian philosopher, Dick, into the locality of heaven and hell. Such ideas as those recently put forth by a preacher, not of our Church, thank God! that hell is in one of the spots on the sun, and heaven in the chromosphere are distasteful to the last degree to those who believe that "God is a Spirit," and that "flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God." Such feel that heaven may be anywhere and everywhere; that the gulf which separates ...
— The Things Which Remain - An Address To Young Ministers • Daniel A. Goodsell
... the minister. She called him a Bible-banger, that he made the dust fly from the pulpit cushions too much to suit her; besides, he denounced sinners with vituperation, larding his piety with a grim wit which was distasteful. He was resentful toward me, especially after he had seen her. It was needful, he said, from my influence in Surrey, that I should become an example, and asked me if I did not think my escape from sudden death in Rosville ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... cool," she said, "the moonlight peaceful and poetic, and the garden inviting. Will you not stay in it awhile; the hour is not yet late, or is my company so distasteful to you, that you are in a hurry to rid ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... distasteful news could have come to the Pitkins than to learn that Philip and their poor cousin had secured a firm place in the good graces of Uncle Oliver. Yet they did not dare to show their resentment. They had found that Uncle Oliver had a will of his own, and ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... uttered Miss Pratt's name, demanding loosely to be presented to her, regardless of the well-known law that a lady must first express some wish in such matters—these were indications of a coarse nature sure to be more than uncongenial to Miss Pratt. Its presence might make the whole occasion distasteful to her—might spoil her day. Both William and Joe Bullitt began to wonder why on earth Johnnie Watson didn't have any more sense than to invite such a big, fat lummox of ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... school generally rides in a chimney-pot hat; but, in this particular, the younger brethren of the plough are leaving their old habits, and running into caps, net hats, and other innovations which, I own, are somewhat distasteful to me. And there is, too, the ostentatious farmer, who rides in scarlet, signifying thereby that he subscribes his ten or fifteen guineas to the hunt fund. But here, in this paper, it is not of him I speak. He is a man who is so much less the farmer, in that he is the more an ordinary ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... were less strangely exaggerated. If they joined the nonjuring communion, and forsook the familiar parish church, they did so sadly and reluctantly, and looked forward in hope to some change of circumstances which might remove their scruples and end the schism. It was thoroughly distasteful to men like Ken, Nelson, and Dodwell, to break away from a communion to which they were deeply attached, and which they were quite persuaded was the purest and best in Christendom. When the new Government was fairly established, when the heat of feeling ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... like the malevolent fairy in the old story, but she had a look and air which told everyone that this marriage was distasteful to her. ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... selecting associates—continue in the treadmill round of an uncongenial social circle! To escape from this may require the special exercise of will, and the incurring of criticism, but these ought to be assumed. However, in most cases, a woman may gradually escape from the distasteful circle and form new and more ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... store had been visited. This work was continued daily, and during the week union prayer-meetings were held every night. One drug store responded to the appeal; one hotel closed its bar; the visits became distasteful to one dealer, and he locked ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... minutes." He not only disliked, but openly ridiculed all signs of a special pietistic bearing. It was said of him that he had been heard to swear. There can be no doubt that he made himself wilfully distasteful to many of his stricter brethren. Then it came to pass that there was a correspondence between him and the bishop as to that outspoken desire of his for a curate without the grace of godliness. But even here Dr. Wortle was successful. The management of his parish was pre-eminently good. ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... Buckley allowed him to talk a little on the subject, but Jack felt the work to be very distasteful. Eventually he gave it up, consoling himself with the reflection that at all events he had brought the man away on an expedition where nothing stronger than cold water and hot tea was to be had ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... was so distasteful to Pierre that he had at first thought of sending Sophie in his place. All his old prejudices were reviving; it was as if he were going to some ogre's den. How many times had he not heard his mother say "that creature!" ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... much, he gave forth a very accurate definition of the conduct which that prelate would rejoice to see in the clergymen now brought under his jurisdiction. It is only necessary to say that the peculiar points insisted upon were exactly those which were most distasteful to the clergy of the diocese, and most averse to their practice and opinions, and that all those peculiar habits and privileges which have always been dear to High Church priests, to that party which is now scandalously called ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... shake off our sluggishness and exert ourselves in discriminating our terms, we shall use work as a general word for effort, physical or mental, to some purposive end; labor for hard, physical work; toil for wearying or exhaustive work; and drudgery for tedious, monotonous, or distasteful work, especially of a low ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well afford the knowledge, how to play poker-patience; secondly, the Bastable catering was of the kind that is classified as a rude plenty, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... without a hope, without a refuge—he could not realize that this was what awaited him then; this was the fate that must within so short a space be his. Life had gone so smoothly with him, and his world was a world from whose surface every distasteful thought was so habitually excluded, that he could no more understand this desolation lying in wait for him than one in the fullness and elasticity of health can believe the doom that tells him he will be a dead man before the sun ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Ord said, "Colonel, the commandant desires an officers' conference in the chapel, now." Ord was somewhat annoyed. He had not realized he would find these Americans so—distasteful. Hardly preferable to Mexicans, really. Not at all ...
— Remember the Alamo • R. R. Fehrenbach
... which Missionary Finley had been playing. The preliminary conversation had been aimed to bring The Panther to see that the only way he could save himself from the charge of cowardice was by meeting Kenton in mortal combat. Such an issue, in which one of the contestants must fall, was extremely distasteful to the man of peace. There could be only one combination of circumstances that would justify, in his judgment, that supreme test; ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... well. But Hugues d'Arques, coming suddenly out of a pleached walk, at this juncture, stumbled upon them and found their postures distasteful. He bent black brows ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... highest promotions to base subservience. After the Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and general view) might be described as a body of supine persons, known to the public only as a dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the Government. In the last century and a half, the nation was often afflicted with sensual royalty, bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies, bribery and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading all ranks, and insinuating ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... returned the captain with decision. "It would only put mischief into her head and rob her of her child-like simplicity. She is still too young to know her own mind on that subject and might fancy that she had given her heart to one who would, a few years later, be entirely distasteful to her. But I trust you, Chester, not to breathe a word to her of your—what shall I call it?—admiration until you ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... Civil War but a few Negro soldiers were admitted on returning home from the front in their uniforms and members of the race were thereafter welcomed at Berea. In the course of time, however, this coeducation of the races became very distasteful to the State of Kentucky with its decided increase in race prejudice necessitating in their economy a thorough proscription of the Negro race. In 1904, therefore, the State of Kentucky enacted a law against ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... no reply. I had just recollected that I had in my pocket a seal ring—a trifle too large to wear—which had been my father's. I fumbled for it, hoping to put an end to a controversy that was distasteful to me. But before I could find and produce it there were hurried steps outside the house and the door was thrown open ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... found with the motherly carefulness and attention of Madame C——. It was charmingly polite and French. But the sight of her preparing the child's food, or coaxing him with unaccustomed delicacies and bonbons, grew to be utterly distasteful,—an infliction so nervously annoying that I could not overcome it. A secret antipathy which I had nourished against Madame seemed to be germinating; every action of hers irritated me, every sound of her sharp, yet well-modulated voice gave me a tremor. The truth was, that plunge into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... readings—to arrange the programmes and apportion the parts, unless she appoints a stage-manager amongst her guests. The performers should seek to aid her by perfect good-nature in accepting her arrangements, and by willingness to accept any allotted part, even if distasteful or obscure. All cannot be first, and the performer who good-naturedly accepts a small part, and performs it well, will probably be invited to a more conspicuous position on the next occasion. The hostess or host must never take conspicuous ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... First—and Third. In the light of the new time we see the emperor-god for the guy he is." Generalissimo JOFFRE, on the other hand, he found to be a decent most capable man, without fuss and flummery, doing a distasteful job of work singularly well. There is some particularly interesting matter about aeroplane work, and the writer betrays a keen distress lest the cavalry notions of the soldiers of the old school should make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... one and then another face swiftly emerged from the gloom, and then vanished. Sanine, frowning, regarded the dead birds, and, turning away, suddenly rose. The sight of these beautiful creatures lying there in blood and dust, with broken wings, was distasteful to him. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... dragged through as if carrying them away were an agreeable privilege. Even a muddy passage ends in time, and at last we gained a standing point and after a short climb were in Fairies' Palace, a marvel of dainty beauty, and worthy of the distasteful trip just taken. We stood in a narrow passage that divided the small chamber like the central aisle of a cathedral, above which the white roof formed a Gothic arch from which depended countless little stalactites and draperies, while on either side, six feet above the passage, was a floor ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... chaperon without entirely resigning all pretensions to youth. But for one remark, "that the coachman was driving very badly," I think she travelled in stately silence as far as Kew. Not so the other occupants of the barouche. Maud, desirous of forgetting much that was distasteful to her in the events of the morning, and indeed, in the course of her daily life, resolved to accept the tangible advantages of the present, nor scrupled to show that she enjoyed fresh air, fine ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... not alone in my quest, for the girl in blue was just ahead of me. Car by car she preceded me through the train, unconscious that I was behind her, looking at each passenger as she passed. I fancied the proceeding was distasteful, but that she had determined on a course and was carrying it through. We reached the end of the train almost together—empty-handed, both ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained "mute and inglorious?" I believe that the world has never seen—and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never see—that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of art, of which the human nature ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... resolved to give up the business that was so distasteful to him. Unable to give a satisfactory reason for so doing, or to say what he meant to attempt next, and unwilling or ashamed to incur the remonstrances and rebut the arguments of his patron, the bold descendant of the ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... between the two others, impatient and curious. It was easy to see how distasteful the conversation was to the Marchese Loria. He answered Sir Roger's questions only by an effort; and as for her cousin, even he was moved out of the imperturbable sang-froid which sometimes pleased, sometimes irritated Virginia, according to ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... misfortunes which had followed upon the non-delivery of her father's letter, he could not help congratulating himself that it had not been sent to the care of that man Newcombe. He had not had time to formulate the reasons why this proceeding would have been so distasteful to him, but he wanted Martin Newcombe to have nothing to do with the good or bad fortune of Mistress Kate, whose champion he had become and whose father he had found, and to whom he was ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... as your representative, do me the justice to remember considerations of that kind. To nobody in this world, by habit, by education, by experience, by views expressed in political affairs for a great many years past, to nobody is exceptional repression, more distasteful than it is to me. After all, gentlemen, you would not have me see men try to set the prairie on fire without arresting the hand. You would not blame me when I saw men smoking their pipes near powder magazines, you would not blame me, you would not ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... wrote not to guide the hand of future official historiographers, or to make virtue distasteful to some sixty odd grand-children, bored to death by the recital of the late "Mrs. John Brown's" sublime goodness:—Louise wrote for her own amusement, even as Pepys did when he diarized the peccadilloes of the Second Charles' English and French "hures" (which ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... ground, and his feet and hands describe only lines in sinuous curves. The other sex, which is essentially in possession of true grace, is also that one which is more frequently culpable of affected grace, but this affectation is never more distasteful than when used as a bait to desire. The smile of true grace thus gives place to the most repulsive grimace; the fine play of look, so ravishing when it displays a true sentiment, is only contortion; the melodious ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... than could have been expected, with such a distasteful enterprise before them, they resumed their way. It was disagreeable under foot and they presented an odd appearance, each one with a light. Mrs. Adams, old campaigner that she was, led the way for the ladies, elastic and chatty as though promenading down Broadway on a spring ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... town became distasteful to him. He bought a cheap revolver—for there was a talk of bushrangers in the neighborhood—and started to walk to George Fielding's farm. He reached it ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Ferdinand, gave a nod and a smile to Reuben (who nodded back rather gloomily), and passed like a sunbeam into the shadow of the porch. Fuller took up his 'cello in a big armful, and followed, with the brethren in his rear. Ferdinand, feeling Reuben's company to be distasteful, lingered in it with a perverse hope that the young man might address him, and Reuben stood rather sullenly by to mark his own sense of social contrast by allowing the ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... distasteful and unlawful in a free government were flagrantly flaunted in the face of the people, and were followed by other slow, but sure, approaches to the usurpation of the liberties of the Nation. He urged the Government to double his salary as President, ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... sake of argument I want to grant for the moment a thing which I have never done before, even in a private letter, and which is very distasteful to me, and that is, that I am the leader of the colored people. Do you think it will ever be possible for one man to be set up as the leader of ten millions of people, meaning a population nearly twice as large as that of the Dominion of Canada ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... its anti-republican spirit. This is our crowning absurdity. We are good democrats—in theory. It is a pity that our practice does not bear out our theory, for the sake of the homely virtue of consistency. To a great many otherwise sensible people our simple republican ways are distasteful, and they are apt to look with, admiring, envious eyes on the conventional life of foreign lords, not considering how burdened with forms it is, and full of the selfishness, the pride and arrogance of the privileged and titled few, at the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... son for a portion of the patrimony even during his father's lifetime, is an instance of deliberate and unfilial desertion; the duties of family cooperation had grown distasteful to him, and the wholesome discipline of the home had become irksome. He was determined to break away from all home ties, forgetful of what home had done for him and the debt of gratitude and duty by which he was morally bound. He went into a far country, and, as he thought, beyond the reach of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... will watch over the lady with the jealous scrutiny of a BROTHER—an elderly brother too, and therefore one more likely to be a model of propriety. Though I frankly admit it is a task I am not specially fitted for, and one that is rather distasteful to me, still, I would do much to please you, and enable you to leave Naples with an easy mind I promise you"—here I took his hand and shook it warmly—"that I will be worthy of your trust and true to it, with exactly the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... change, China dislikes it, and will only adopt it when it is clearly demonstrated to her that change is absolutely necessary. To the Japanese change appears to be a delightful excitement, to the Chinese a distasteful necessity; to the former whatever is must be wrong, to the latter whatever is is right. As a consequence of this difference between the two peoples, when China once makes a step forward it is generally after much deliberation, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... however, still continued, and they planned a division of the empire, a measure which was then distasteful to all the Romans, and which was only prevented from taking place by the tears and entreaties of their mother, Julia Domna. Geta, the younger son, who was of a gentle disposition, soon after, in A.D. 212, February 27th, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... thirty. He was a Harvard graduate, and now went in two days each week for teaching classes. His father had left some business interests in Salem, rather distasteful to him, but he was a strictly conscientious person and attended to them, if with a sort of mental protest. For the rest, he was a bookworm ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I detest red stockings; and I really cannot see why I should be compelled to wear any thing that is so distasteful to me." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... lover, Betty, seventeen years old, romantic, clever, would have walked over flint to give her hand to him. That was ten years ago. Now, when Jasper came into her room, she drew her quick brows together, puffed at her cigarette, and blinked as though she was looking at something distasteful and at the same ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... knew it. The curses which had been heaped upon us for disobedience were about to bear fruit. Now, strange, rough-looking men came to see my husband—persons whom I had not seen before. They seemed familiar with him; it was evident, however, that their presence was distasteful to him; he tried to keep them at a distance, he shrank from them. I said I did not like these acquaintances; he replied that they were commercial friends, and must be treated with respect. They had long and mysterious ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... It must have grown distasteful to him, my foolish hanging on to him as though he were a hitching-post, for he finally said in a remote voice: "I guess we've had about enough of this." He led me rather ceremoniously to a chair, and slowly let me down ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... G.; he was from Tennessee, the son of a widow, a neighbor of the President, on which account the old hero had a kind feeling for him, and always got him out of difficulties with some of the higher officials, to whom his singular interference was distasteful. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... successful walker of any of the other recognized brands—track, cake, sleep or floor. He doesn't make a popular waiter. Nobody wants a fat waiter on a hot day. True, you may make him bring your order under covered dishes, but even so, there is still that suggestion of rain on a tin roof that is distasteful to so many. ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... wedding to be distasteful to you, and most particularly do I know it is distasteful to Flora; so, if you do not mind playing a trick upon the old man, I can very easily put you in the way of cheating ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... her I was going?" Ruth asked, quickly. It was utterly distasteful to her to think of having Mrs. Smythe's company. She did not stop to analyze her feelings; she simply shrank from contact with Mrs. Smythe and from others who were sure to ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Greek, Latin, and French (Spanish was his mother-tongue), and had also got well on with Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic'; but in 1833, the East India Company having lost their Charter, his father removed him from the school and took him into his business. Office-work proving distasteful to him, he travelled for some years on the Continent and in America, rejoining his father's firm as partner in 1849. From his early years Mr. Henry Huth had been a collector of books, and on his return home he set energetically to work ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... my boy. However, you make a little mistake. If I care for anything on earth, I do care for that old fortress of my forefathers. I respect so little among the living that all my reverence is for my own dead. But manoeuvring, even for my own, as you call it, is not in my line. It is distasteful—it is positively ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... asked, dropping the off-hand masterful tone he had hitherto spoken in, and becoming earnest; still holding her arm, however, as if she were his chattel to be taken up or put down at will. 'It is never too late to break off a marriage that's distasteful to you. Now I'll say one thing; and it is truth: I wish you would marry me instead of him, even now, at the last moment, though you have served me ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... her, however, or at least he seemed to return to her, actuated, perhaps, by that inexplicable sentiment that impels us sometimes to do that which is most distasteful to us, and by a feeling of discouragement and despair, knowing that Marie-Anne was ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... relished these stories almost as much as the boys and girls for whom they were written. They were really refreshing, even to us. There is much in them which is calculated to inspire a generous, healthy ambition, and to make distasteful all reading tending to stimulate base ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... pursued by the government. It is even likely that he was indiscreet in some of his expressions regarding the governor and his actions. His bluff, unconventional, easygoing manners, natural to men brought up in new countries and intensified by his early association with the buccaneers, may have been distasteful to a courtier accustomed to the urbanities of Whitehall. It is also clear, however, that Lord Vaughan from the first conceived a violent prejudice against his lieutenant, and allowed this prejudice to colour the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... The farm life was distasteful to me from my earliest recollection. I cannot remember ever having done an hour's work in this capacity except ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... the path which the cavalcade was to tread; and garlands, in which cabbage stalks supplied the place of laurels, were offered to the royal hand. The women insisted on kissing his Majesty; but it should seem that they bore little resemblance to their posterity; for this compliment was so distasteful to him that he ordered his retinue to keep them at a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that would have led to it. All that she did perceive was, that much of Bernard's irritation was at the endeavour to keep him out of mischief, and that her own gentle persuasions were almost as distasteful as Lance's jests. She sat on, arguing, talking, entreating, till it had long been quite dark; and Wilmet at last came up to say that she must not stay any longer in the cold, and to ask Bernard whether he would say ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no place in his present situation. He had to think of Savina as removed from whatever had described and touched other special women. The words which had always been the indispensable property of such affairs were now distasteful to him. They seemed to have a smoothly false, a brassy, ring; while he was fully, even gaily, committed, he had a necessity to make his relationship with Savina Grove wholly honest. As he paid the account she asked him if ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... was not distasteful, and I felt that I was qualified to undertake it, for the accounts to be audited belonged exclusively to the Quartermaster and Subsistence departments, and by recent experience I had become familiar with the class of papers that pertained to those branches of the army. Indeed, it was my ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan |
