"Unamiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many persons thus imprudent are by no means utterly foolish at other times; yet, in the moment of temptation from their besetting sin, they do not observe how inevitable it is that the stranger so replied to should immediately detect their unamiable motives, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures,' replied I; 'for you ladies lavish so many ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... animal. Her teeth, utterly unacquainted with the action of a brush, were prominent, so that her lip seldom covered them, and her uncombed hair hung rough and shaggy around her unattractive face. Agnes at once guessed that this poor child was deficient in intellect, and unamiable in temper. ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... was never considered an unamiable person; she was well spoken of by her friends and relations, for she was rich, and gave away a great deal of money to various charities and benevolent institutions. But if ever any one expected her to depart in the smallest particular from her own way they were vastly mistaken. ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... winning his way by gentleness and persuasion—he was more anxious as to say pointed and stinging things, than solicitous about their accuracy; and he had much pleasure in mortifying his brethren of the easel with his wit, and over whelming them with his knowledge. He was too often morose and unamiable—habitually despising those who were not his friends, and not unapt to dislike even his best friends, if they retorted his wit, or defended themselves successfully against his satire. In dispute he was eager, fierce, unsparing, and often precipitated himself into angry discussions ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... were very painful. No longer battling with the disease, he seemed as it were to place himself [118] at the disposal of the victorious foe, dying passively, like some dumb creature, in hopeless acquiescence at last. That old, half-pleading petulance, unamiable, yet, as it might seem, only needing conditions of life a little happier than they had actually been, to become refinement of affection, a delicate grace in its demand on the sympathy of others, had changed in those moments of full intelligence ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... "You unamiable boy! is that the affection which is due from a brother to his sister? O Hugh! Hugh! I wish you had more love and less selfishness in ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... Not like those of former days)—Ver. 524. Syrus, by showing himself an admirer of the good old times, a "laudator temporis acti," is wishful to flatter the vanity of Chremes, as it is a feeling common to old age, perhaps by no means an unamiable one, to think former times better than the present. Aged people feel grateful to those happy hours when their hopes were bright, and every thing was viewed from the sunny side ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... came up with his Lugger last Friday, with a lot of torn nets, and went off again on Sunday. I thought he was wrong to come up, and not to transmit his nets by Rail, as is often done at 6d. a net. But I did not say so to him—it is no unamiable point in him to love home: but I think he won't make a fortune by it. However, I may be very wrong in thinking he had better not have come. He has made about the average fishing, I believe: about 250 pounds. Some boats have ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... the pittance he allowed for our subsistence; and the Misses Erminstoun never noticed Gabrielle on her refusal to part with the child. "She was not fit," they bruited about, "to bring up their poor brother's daughter. She was ignorant, uneducated, and unamiable, besides being basely ungrateful for kindness lavished; she had a cold heart and repellant manner, which had steeled their sympathies toward her." They thought themselves ill-used at Erminstoun Hall; and the five Misses Erminstoun regarded Gabrielle and her poor ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... subsistence or that of any one else. I intend to work, but at my own will and pleasure, and even to do nothing, if it happens to suit me, without any one finding fault except my stomach."[251] We may call this unamiable, if we please, but in a frivolous world amiability can hardly go with firm resolve to live an independent life after your own fashion. The many distasteful sides of Rousseau's character ought not to hinder us from admiring his steadfastness in refusing to sacrifice his existence ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... impression at the first glance. And this is in no way dispersed by studying Elsbeth's traits. But the painting itself is a tour-de-force. By sheer Quality Holbein has invested these portraits,—a middle-aged, coarse-figured, unamiable-looking woman, a very commonplace infant, and a bright-faced boy,—with the prestige inseparable from an achievement of ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... article was displayed, commented upon, and admired, to the wonder of May, who declared, "she didna think the queen had mair or better claise," and somewhat to the envy of the northern Cowslip. This unamiable, but not very unnatural, disposition of mind, broke forth in sundry unfounded criticisms to the disparagement of the articles, as they were severally exhibited. But it assumed a more direct character, when, at the bottom of all, was found a dress of white silk, very plainly made, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and magnifying the loss of his pleasure, perhaps in a sort of secret hope that the temptation would so far increase as to form in his eyes an excuse for yielding to it. Seldom had he shown himself so unamiable towards her, and with great relief and satisfaction she beheld her cousin descending the steep slippery path from the height above, and while the cloud began to lighten on his brow, she thought to herself, "It will be all right now, he is always ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been obliged to discharge three chauffeurs because Pat did not get on well with them, and he had found it quite impossible to keep a dog for the simple reason that Mary insisted on keeping a cat—a most unamiable, belligerent cat at that. He would have made home a hell ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... a parlor lamp fell upon Ida's face, and Van Berg saw at once that it was clouded and unamiable in its expression. Stanton had ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... man but little disposed to multiply his relations, his points of contact, with society. If we read the six volumes of Note-Books with an eye to the evidence of this unsocial side of his life, we find it in sufficient abundance. But we find at the same time that there was nothing unamiable or invidious in his shyness, and above all that there was nothing preponderantly gloomy. The qualities to which the Note-Books most testify are, on the whole, his serenity and amenity of mind. They reveal these characteristics indeed ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... fortunes of his house. Another zemindar, named Ganesh, dwelt in the Haripur district; he had one unmarried daughter, Hembati, who was given to Debendra in marriage. Hembati had many virtues; she was ugly, ill-tempered, unamiable, selfish. Up to the time of his marriage with her, Debendra's character had been without stain. He had been very studious, and was by nature steady and truth-loving. But that marriage had been fatal to him. When Debendra came to years of discretion he perceived that on account of his wife's ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... answered, in his most unamiable manner (he applies that word to me with increasing frequency); "is that what you've waked me up for? Why, the Quackenbosses left Lake George on Tuesday morning, and I had the dispatch-box in my own hands ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... a very moderate share of personal charms, if her countenance is expressive of intellect and kind feelings, her figure buoyant with health, and her attire distinguished by a tasteful simplicity, she cannot fail to be eminently attractive, while ill health—a silly or unamiable expression, and a vulgar taste—will mar the effect of form and features the most symetrical. A clever writer has said, "Beauty is but another name for that expression of the countenance which is indicative of sound health, intelligence, and good feeling." If so, how much of ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... parish schoolmaster there," said the gentleman, "for twelve years; and for six of these I attended his school. I cannot help respecting him; but no one ever loved him. Never surely was there a man at once so unequivocally honest and so thoroughly unamiable." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the Terrier. Some are large, weighing forty or fifty pounds, rough-haired, and savage looking. There is the bull-terrier, of less size, not a kindly, well-disposed creature to strangers; but irascibly inclined, and unamiable in his deportment; still useful as a watch-dog, and a determined enemy to all vermin, whatever. Then, again, are the small rat-terriers, as they are termed, weighing from a dozen to twenty pounds; some with rough, long, wiry hair; a fierce, whiskered ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... said Charles Larkyns, "which always contained a full, true, and particular account of his Wheatley doings. He used to go over there, Verdant, to indulge in the noble sport of cock-fighting, for which he had a most unamiable and unenviable weakness; that was the reason why he was called 'Cocky' Palmer. His elder brother - who was a Pembroke man - was distinguished by the pronomen 'Snuffy,' to express his excessive partiality for that ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... good. He shall lose nothing in the end. But he will find that Graustark is not a toy, nor the people puppets. More than all that, I am not a bargain sale prince with Christmas tree aspirations, but a very unamiable devil who cultivates an ambition to throw stones at the conventions. Not only do I intend to choose my wife but also the court grandfather. And now let us forget the folly of Mr. Blithers and discuss his methods of business. What does he expect to ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... The backwoodsmen were no sentimentalists; they were grim, hard, matter-of-fact men, engaged all their lives long in an unending struggle with hostile forces, both human and natural; men who in this struggle had acquired many unamiable qualities, but who had learned likewise to appreciate at their full value the inestimable virtues of courage and common-sense. The crisis demanded that they should be both strong and good; but, above all things, it demanded that they should be strong. Weakness would have ruined them. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... have been an unamiable man—certainly a very queer Christian. But his controversial works, on which he doubtless prided himself most, are dead and very rotten, while those devoted to the more peaceful science of bibliography are of ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... the window. From his present perch near the top of the chimney, he could hear some of the conversation in front of the house; and he even ventured to take a look at his enemies below. To his intense satisfaction, he saw them mount their horses: and he was not much disturbed by the unamiable reflections ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... of view they are open to grave criticism. For their international programme there is, to my mind, nothing to be said. But as a national Government, stripped of their camouflage, regarded as the successors of Peter the Great, they are performing a necessary though unamiable task. They are introducing, as far as they can, American efficiency among a lazy and undisciplined population. They are preparing to develop the natural resources of their country by the methods of State Socialism, for which, in Russia, there is much to be said. In the ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... all for self, is as unsuccessful as it is unamiable: it cannot succeed. The man who should hoard in his own granary all the corn of Egypt, could not eat more of it than a poor labourer—probably not so much. It is only a very small portion of their wealth that the rich can spend directly on their own personal comfort and pleasure: ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... eye-sight no longer permitted him to read, his principal relief from the wearisomeness of unoccupied time was in the society of his friends and near relatives. All who knew him well were strongly attached to him, and none but those who were ignorant of his true character believed him unamiable ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Church and to embarrass its adherents more than anything which their enemies could possibly attempt. Philip, in his youth (1523) had taken to wife a daughter of Duke George of Saxony, but soon repented of his ill-considered resolve, on the ground that she was of an unamiable disposition and was afflicted with bodily infirmities, and accordingly proceeded to look elsewhere for a mistress, after the fashion only too common at that time with emperors and princes, but scarcely commented ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the lot of that animal who should repose any degree of confidence in good to be derived from such a temper and disposition! As day by day developed some new feature which helped to betray a character singularly unamiable and unattractive, so day by day did Herr Schwein's habitation resound with growls and grunts of anger, where formerly reigned the completest calm. Bruin's performances also lacking novelty, began to pall upon the public taste; and though Tom trudged about with his placards more vigorously ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... returned to the army. General Grant referred the question to General Sherman. In consideration of our quarrel, and knowing the unamiable character of the latter officer, I should have been greatly surprised had he given any thing else than a refusal. I had fully expected to return immediately when I left St. Louis, but, like most persons in a controversy, wished to ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... leave her out," said Cyrilla decisively. "Of course, she's a bit queer and unamiable, but, girls, think of thirty years of boarding-house life, even with the best of Plunketts. Wouldn't that sour anybody? You know it would. You'd be cranky and grumbly and disagreeable too, I dare ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in her disposition, that none of her attendants were sure of a moment's quiet, neither day nor night. She grew up, I am sorry to say, a very unamiable person, ill-tempered, proud, stubborn, and, in short, unfit to make those around her happy, or to be happy herself. Let every little girl, who has been taught self-control, and a due regard for the rights of others, thank heaven that she has had better instruction than ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... unamiable, and what probably happened was that I felt humiliated at seeing other persons deeply beguiled by an experiment that had brought me only chagrin. I was out in the cold while, by the evening fire, under the lamp, they followed the chase for which I myself had sounded the horn. They did ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... cross-purposes even in the three-act farce. The more we saw in the Irishman a sort of warm and weak fidelity, the more he regarded us with a sort of icy anger. The more the oppressor looked down with an amiable pity, the more did the oppressed look down with a somewhat unamiable contempt. But, indeed, it is needless to say that such comic cross-purposes could be put into a play; they have been put into a play. They have been put into what is perhaps the most real of Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays, ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... worthy of remark that many of the qualities of mind which seem most unamiable in private life often conduce with a singular felicity to the ends of public; and thus the stony firmness characteristic of Brandon was a main cause which made him admirable as a judge,—for men in office err no less from their feelings than ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are no little sins. The least transgression is sufficient to condemn the soul forever. "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Especially avoid the indulgence of a selfish disposition. It is both unamiable and unchristian. Be always ready to sacrifice your own feelings, when by so doing you can give pleasure to others. Study the wishes and feelings of others, and prefer them to your own. Manifest a disinterestedness of feeling. Strive to be ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... you to confess that I shall have more than balanced it. A ball-room is an epitome of all that is most worthless and unamiable in the great sphere of human life. Every petty and malignant passion is called into play. Coquetry is perpetually on the alert to captivate, caprice to mortify, and vanity to take offence. One amiable ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Measure is the single exception to the delightfulness of Shakspeare's plays. It is a hateful work, although Shakspearian throughout. Our feelings of justice are grossly wounded in Angelo's escape. Isabella herself contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Female Suppliants, so called from the mothers of the fallen heroes, is by far the richest in poetical merit; the Heraclidae appears, as it were, but a faint impression of the other. In the former piece, it is true, Theseus appears at first in a somewhat unamiable light, upbraiding, as he does, the unfortunate Adrastus with his errors at such great length, and perhaps with so little justice, before he condescends to assist him; again the disputation between Theseus and the Argive herald, as to the superiority of a monarchical or a democratical ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... respect even to the works of Nature, and the dispensations of Providence, they are more ready to see and to point out evils, than to acknowledge advantages. This temper—this habit of disparagement—is certainly very unamiable; and justly offensive, not only to those who are run down by it as its immediate objects, but to all who witness it. A man who consults his own comfort, or the comfort of those with whom he associates, ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... made her his wife. This may lead one to think that there is something to be said for the woman in morganatic marriages. The men who do these things are not always, not even generally, philosophic men in search of an unsophisticated life, but unamiable, defiant persons, who only hate society either because it has failed to appreciate their qualities, or because they cannot be at the trouble to go through the ordinary amount ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... us be graciously endowed by Thee with knowledge, understanding, and discernment. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, gracious Giver of Knowledge.' The intellect was to be turned to the service of the God from whom intelligence emanated. The Jewish estimate of intellect and learning led to some unamiable contempt of the fool and the ignoramus. But the evil tendency of identifying learning with religion was more than mitigated by the encouragement which this concept gave to education. The ideal was that every Jew must be a scholar, or at all events a student. Obscurantism could not for any lengthy ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... the name of Dickens must figure very largely. The last knocker of our collection is the most remarkable one of all, inasmuch as Dickens derived his idea of Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" from its hideous lineaments. Look at our photograph and then read Dickens' own description of the unamiable Scrooge: ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... dangling spectres hung and the place was almost dark. It was a shabby pawnshop, and the man lounging behind the counter was a shabby man with an unshaven, unamiable face. ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mother and son had considerable food for thought until the midnight car carried them back to Annapolis, where Paul "clomb" the wall at the water's edge and "snoke" into quarters (in Bancroft's vernacular) in the wee, sma' hours, a weary, disgusted and unamiable youth. Perhaps had he suspected what was happening back at Columbia Heights his prompt oblivion in slumber would not have taken place, though Paul was a philosopher in his way. Helen was with friends ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... posture not unlike that in the famous picture of Farragut ascending Mobile Bay. His leather case was swung over his shoulder, and with his glasses he swept the lake in search of the Scimitar and other vessels of a like unamiable character. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... auspicious occasion and on her being left a rich young widow, if Gervase Norgate did for himself smartly. This was discomfiting even to a man who piqued himself on his resources in conversation. Die had uttered twice as many of these abrupt, unamiable, unanswerable rejoinders within these twenty-four hours, since she had accepted ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... is simply saying that she is very disobliging and unamiable in her disposition. If your companions do not love you, it is your own fault. They cannot help loving you if you will be kind and friendly. If you are not loved, it is good evidence that you do not deserve ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... she called it, at Lyon, and was now on her way to Avignon, where a very important object called her. This was no other than to save her niece Marie from a distasteful marriage, which her parents, very good people, but dazzled by the wealth of the unamiable suitor, wished ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... when he saw his uncle and aunt. He had never noticed before that they were quite old people. The Vicar received him with his usual, not unamiable indifference. He was a little stouter, a little balder, a little grayer. Philip saw how insignificant he was. His face was weak and self-indulgent. Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him; and tears of happiness flowed down her cheeks. Philip was touched and embarrassed; ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... on to considerable length, acknowledging the good qualities of the poor woman, but killing each by setting against it some peculiarly unamiable trait. I confess that my feeling is quite turned in her favour by the unmanly assault which her brother (the author of the inscription) has thus made upon the poor dead woman. If you cannot honestly say good of a human being on his grave-stone, then say nothing at all. There are ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... what an unamiable trait is envy! By the way, was that your frock-coat I wore yesterday ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Country are not so ignorant as those of England were in the Time of the Interregnum Parliament. They are better educated: they will not easily be prevailed upon to believe that a Republican is "as unamiable as a Witch, a Blasphemer, a Rebel, or a Tyrant." They are charmed with their forms of Government, in which is admitted a mixture of Powers to check the human passions, and controul them from rushing into exorbitances. So well assured ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... fact, Hannah quite unintentionally gave the glove a scornful toss, which caused it to fall into the fireplace, and down between two oak logs, where it shrivelled instantaneously. Unfortunately science is not chivalric, and divulges the unamiable and ungraceful truth, that perverted female natures from even the lower beastly types are more implacably vindictive, more subtly malicious, more ingeniously cruel than the stronger sex; and when a woman essays to track, to capture, or to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... owners, having received nothing for their product but Confederate money which the result of the war had made worthless, manifested an unamiable reluctance to give it up, for if they could market it for themselves it would more than recoup them for all their losses in the war. They had therefore exercised a considerable ingenuity in effacing all record of its transfer to the Confederate ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... how amiable she looked even then; not that a bride on her way out of church should look unamiable, of course, but we all know how brides do look, as a rule, on such occasions—looks difficult of analysis, but strangely suggestive of determined timidity, if there can be such a quality expressed in the human face. It is the natural expression of one who knows that she has taken the ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... malevolent, unbenevolent; unbenign; ill-disposed, ill-intentioned, ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived; evil-minded, evil- disposed; black-browed^. malicious; malign, malignant; rancorous; despiteful, spiteful; mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent; unamiable, uncharitable; maleficent, venomous, grinding, galling. harsh, disobliging; unkind, unfriendly, ungracious; inofficious^; invidious; uncandid; churlish &c (discourteous) 895; surly, sullen &c 901.1. cold, cold-blooded, cold-hearted; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... at all unamiable she might have dressed their heads all awry, for such unkindness; but she returned good for evil, and did it ...
— Little Cinderella • Anonymous
... see, is devoted to the fair. I hope you are very well, sir." All this was gallantly and heartily said and done. Mr. Adams took the General's hand, and said, with chilling coldness: "Very well, sir; I hope General Jackson is well!" The military hero was genial and gracious, while the unamiable diplomat was ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... in a weak moment given his consent to the ball, repays himself by being as unamiable afterward as ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... to such overgrown and unlimited powers, and the disgust, satiety, and contempt which his experiences engendered, we can not wonder that his character should change for the worse. And when we see a man rendered uninteresting and unamiable by cares, temptations, and bursts of passion or folly, yet who still governs vigilantly and ably, our indignation should be modified, when the lower propensities are indulged. It is not pleasant to palliate injustices, tyrannies, and lusts. But human ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... train for Black Harbour. There were a good many passengers going northwards, a good many alighting at Ullerton; and in the hurry and confusion I had some difficulty in finding a place in a second-class carriage, the passengers therein blocking up the windows with that unamiable exclusiveness peculiar to railway travellers. I found a place at last, however; but in hurrying from carriage to carriage I was startled by an occurrence which I have since pondered ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... regency, in composing the dissensions in Scotland, his talents shone out more eminently in the beginning than in the end of his life. His manners were rough and austere; and he possessed not that perfect integrity which frequently accompanies, and can alone atone for, that unamiable character. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... dressing itself, but in opinions and conduct; yet as nothing is so exasperating and so unlovable as an uppish child, it is useless to expect parents and schoolmasters to inculcate this uppishness. Such unamiable precepts as Always contradict an authoritative statement, Always return a blow, Never lose a chance of a good fight, When you are scolded for a mistake ask the person who scolds you whether he or she supposes you did it on purpose, and follow the question with a blow or an insult or ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... is generally unamiable in his season of life, was, in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he existed a proof, manifest at least to me, that it is not out of the power of age to please, if it lays out to please, and if, making just allowance, those in that class do not forget, that ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... life with his father now was life with an unamiable hornet. Careless as he affected to be of his father's vagaries, he was tried almost to madness, and fled away at every moment to Kenmuir; for, as he told Maggie, "I'd sooner put up wi' your h'airs and h'imperences, miss, than wi' him, the wemon that ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... losing his head. He was up and kicking the door and bellowing unamiable proposals and invitations, so that a strategist emerging silently by the tap door could locate him without difficulty, steal upon ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... mediocrity to have its superiors brought within range, so to speak; and if the ablest of them will only live long enough, and keep on writing, there is no pop-gun that cannot reach him. But I fear that this is an unamiable reflection, and I am at this time ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher. Who does not see that heresies have some time prevailed, that reforms have already taken place? All this worldly wisdom might be regarded as the once unamiable heresy of some wise man. Some interests have got a footing on the earth which we have not made sufficient allowance for. Even they who first built these barns and cleared the land thus, had some valor. The abrupt epochs and ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... of him. So in the eyes of the judicious there were ragged holes in his shining veneer long before his career in New York came to a close. The preparation of "Siegfried" for performance led to an encounter between him and Mr. Seidl, in which the unamiable side of his disposition, and the shallowness of his artistic nature were disclosed. At the dress rehearsal, when alone on the stage, he started in to go through his part in dumbshow. Seidl requested ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... friendship, or even a mutual liking. Berkley was gay, cold, and satirical; his cousin—for cousins they were—was jealous, haughty, and relentless. Their negative disinclination to one another's society, not unnaturally engendered by uncongenial and unamiable dispositions, had for a time given place to actual hostility, while the two young men were at Oxford. In some intrigue, Marston discovered in his cousin a too-successful rival; the consequence was, a bitter and furious quarrel, ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... not handsome, Janet; Nellie is the beauty of the house," and Maude shook her head mournfully, for on the subject of beauty she was a little sensitive, her sister always pronouncing her "a fright," and manifesting a most unamiable spirit if anyone complimented ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... innocent sufferers, rather than to those who are the cause of the suffering, I never could understand. This kind of diversion betrays a want of humane consideration in the contriver. It is infinitely more cruel and unamiable than Spanish bull-baitings, or the gladiatorial shows of the ancients, inasmuch as a shock to the finest feelings of human nature is harder to bear, and longer in duration, than the momentary pang induced by witnessing a merely ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... degree of attention to the fashion of society in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessary departures from the commonly received practices of good society in the matter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate rather an unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow beings, if we were not willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to be agreeable in the disposition of our ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... father in the eyes of his child. Lord Byron is a young man, and from the tenor of his writings, has, we fear, adopted principles very contrary to those of Christianity. But as a man of honour and of feeling, which latter character he affects outrageously, he ought never to have been guilty of so unamiable and so unprovoked an attack. Should so gross an insult to her Royal Father ever meet the eyes of the illustrious young Lady, for whose perusal it was intended, we trust her own good sense and good heart will teach her to consider it with the contempt and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the money and goods he had brought with him to the lagoons. He informed us that, if we had seen all we considered necessary to the successful issue of our projected expedition, he would be off again at daybreak next morning, as Giuseppe was in a most unamiable, and indeed dangerous temper, having been badly mauled a week previously by a British frigate—most probably the one which had manifested such a very marked interest in the Pinta's movements—and that ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... concealing the mighty matters in his own bosom, soon waited upon Raymond and found him in a sulky humour. The claret was not to his liking and he ordered spirits. He began to smoke and drink, and from an unamiable mood soon thawed and became talkative. He bade Job stay ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... wishes, and during the first few days succeeding the incident of that night Maggie often found herself wishing Arthur Carrollton had never come to Hillsdale, he made her so wretched, so unhappy. Insensibly, too, she became a very little unamiable, speaking pettishly to her grandmother, disrespectfully to Mrs. Jeffrey, haughtily to Anna, and rarely to Mr. Carrollton, who after the lapse of two or three weeks began to talk of returning home in the same vessel with ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... or three litters of puppies, with their mothers, in it, and have heard them all in tumult together, may form a good idea of the confused noise of the seals at Cone Point. The sailors killed as many of these harmless, and not unamiable creatures, as they were able to skin during the time necessary for me to take the requisite angles; and we then left the poor affrighted multitude to recover from the effect of our ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... wife saddened Borrow, and assisted to transform him into the unamiable creature of Norfolk tradition. But it is well to bear in mind, when we are considering Borrow on his domestic and personal side, that he was unquestionably a good and devoted husband throughout his married life of twenty-nine years. It was in the year 1832 that Borrow and his wife first met. He ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... which very few of the eighteenth century wits and authors possessed according to more modern notions; and she abounded in vanity, which, if not necessarily a baneful or unamiable quality, is a fruitful source of folly and peculiarly calculated to provoke censure or ridicule. In her, fortunately, its effects were a good deal modified by the frankness of its avowal and display, by her habits ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... prepared to risk his crown, possibly his head, for any Pope who ever lived; nor did the project of providing a French bride for his successor, the Duke of York, promise much better. Louis proposed the Duchess of Guise, his own cousin; but James had heard too much of this unamiable and unattractive Princess from his sister, Henrietta, to relish the venture. The Duchess herself suggested a Princess of Lorraine, as a suitable bride, but Louis, who had no love for the d'Elboeuf ladies, nipped this project in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... in Parthia. The young lady had other attractions besides those of youth and beauty; for she was highly educated, played well upon the lute, understood geometry, and had been accustomed to listen with profit to lectures on philosophy; all this, too, without in any degree becoming unamiable or pretentious, as sometimes young women do when they pursue such studies. Nor could any fault be found either with her father's family or reputation. The disparity of their ages was however not liked by everybody; Cornelia being in this respect ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... providing women with the only possible ingredient for a corset; and for three hundred years, brave seamen of the Dutch, British and Basque nations had gone to a watery grave to procure for women this indispensable aid to correct clothing. But these filaments of horny palatal processes are unamiable. Though sheathed in silk or cotton, they, after the violent movements of a Suffragette or a charwoman, break through the restraining sheath and run into the body under the fifth rib, or press forward on to the thigh. Which is why you often see a woman's face in an omnibus ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... French law and French police can eradicate revenge from the Corsican heart. They are a curious subtle people, not at all like the French or the Italians. And, to speak the truth, they have some more unamiable characteristics than these, which lead them to hereditary blood feuds. It is said, I know not with what accuracy, that most of the mouchards, or spies, and the agents provocateurs of the French police, are Corsican by birth. But certainly Corsica has produced more than ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... included a jailer with a bandaged head and a look of vengeful satisfaction on his face, and no less than three guards who had been given baths by a high-pressure hose when Bron Hoddan departed from his cell. They wore unamiable expressions. ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... a glorious full moon in the sky, and the garden, with its deep shadows and brilliant avenues of light, looked lovely. But Maggie was not thinking of the scenery. Her thoughts were busy with those ideas which were always running riot in her busy little head. She was not unamiable; she was in reality a good-hearted girl, but she was very ambitious, and she sighed, above all things ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... The profusion of maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural advantages,—for such he seems to have thought them,—he had improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of rage, could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate upon his brow. The ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... would have led no easy life. But it is evident he could practise very generous self-denial; and probably the married portion of his existence, supposing Alessandra's sweet countenance not to have belied her, was happy on both sides. He was beloved by his family, which is never the case with the unamiable. Among his friends were most Of the great names of the age, including a world of ladies, and the whole graceful court of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, for which Catiglione wrote his book of the Gentleman (Il Cortegiano). ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... in return, though their hands were full of the presents which I had just made them. Selfishness is, in fact, almost without exception, their universal characteristic, and the mainspring of all their actions, and that, too, of a kind the most direct and unamiable that ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... had stood leaning on the back of his chair, fearing that he had been too abrupt in what he had said, cast a lingering look at Dora, as her father spoke about White Connal, and as she replied; but there was something so unfeminine, so unamiable, so decided and bold, he thought, in the tone of her voice, as she pronounced the word marriage, that he then, without reluctance, and with a feeling of disgust, quitted the room, and left her "to manage her own affairs, and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... with respect to the argument and to reason ; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred. What pity that he will not curb the vehemence of his ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... than Byron, when troublesome boys try to annoy you whilst you are performing your duties; but employ gentle words instead of duckings to silence them. Drown the yelping curs—bad thoughts, unamiable tempers, temptations, and such like—which assault you ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... the whole system was a war and a cheat. If the universe were entirely composed of knaves, he would be sure to have made his way. Now this bias of mind, alike shrewd and unamiable, might be safe enough if accompanied by a lethargic temper; but it threatened to become terrible and dangerous in one who, in default of imagination, possessed abundance of passion: and this was the case with ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... arrived at the town office next morning in a frame of mind distinctly unamiable. Though his house was far out of the village, the unearthly racket of the night had floated up to him—squawking horns, and clanging bells, and exploding powder. The hundred cannons at sunrise brought a vigorous word for each reverberation. At an early hour ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... youthful brother. There were men, too, of a sturdier texture of mind than his, and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd, hard iron, or granite understanding; which, duly mingled with a fair proportion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly respectable, efficacious, and unamiable variety of the clerical species. There were others again, true saintly fathers, whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among their books, and by patient thought, and etherealised, moreover, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... every thing of an irritating character in the punishments inflicted, for to irritate frequently the mind of a child tends, of course, to form within him an irritable and unamiable temper. It is true, perhaps, that it is not possible absolutely to avoid this effect of punishment in all cases; but a great deal may be done to diminish the evil by the exercise of a little tact and ingenuity on the part of the mother whose attention ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... I was right in asking the ruffian what he meant. Consider the abruptness, Sir, of this question—this selfish question, as it turned out, after a grim and gruff silence of an hour and a quarter. Could not this unamiable person (called a man), have prepared me for it by a few moments' affable conversation? Why should he dare intrude his "Is this ELIZABETH?" with such brutal abruptness? Not a sudden proposal from one of my numerous suitors could have ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... oppression, if that were what kept her silent, took the form of aggression, when she disagreed with Colville about things he was saying, or attacked him for this or that thing which he had said in times past. It was an unhappy and unamiable self-assertion, which he was not able to compassionate so much when she resisted or defied Mrs. Bowen, as she seemed seeking to do at every point. Perhaps another would not have felt it so; it must have been largely in his consciousness; the young ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... notice, or that pecuniary bribes have made the honest editor his tool? Verily, my public, thou art not generous here; ay, and thou art grievously deceived, as well as sordid: for by careless praise, causeless censure, credit given for corrupt bribery, and no allowance made for unamiable criticisms, poor maltreated authors speak to many wrongs: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... slopes so rugged and irregular, until it glides into the valley of Simbamwenni a formidable body of water, opposing a serious obstacle to caravans without means to build bridges; added to which was an incessant downfall of rain—such a rain as shuts people in-doors and renders them miserable and unamiable—a real London rain—an eternal drizzle accompanied with mist and fog. When the sun shone it appeared but a pale image of itself, and old pagazis, wise in their traditions as old whaling captains, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... front door with rather more force than was necessary. "I don't see what does make father and mother so particular." Then, entering the parlor, he took the first book that came to hand from the table, and, taking a seat very far from the light, looked exceedingly unamiable. ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... no response to this kind speech from the unamiable girl; and with the somewhat painful feeling on the part of Miss Livesay that she was going to introduce into her hitherto peaceful household the apple of discord, she rose to take leave, with the promise, however, of renewing her visit ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... persisting in personal peculiarities which they know are unpleasant to those around them. Harmless these habits maybe in themselves, perhaps; but inasmuch as they are teasing, annoying, and irritating to others, they are not harmless. Nay, they are criminal, because they are accompanied by a most unamiable disregard to the feelings ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... cut off is somewhat mitigated to me by the circumstance that the Pope should have sent him, of all things in the world, a cardinal's hat after that incapacitation. Theology herself becomes less unamiable to me when I find the Supreme Pontiff writing to the Council of Trent that "they should begin with original sin, maintaining yet a due respect for the Emperor." That infallibility should thus courtesy to decorum, shall make me think better of it while I live. I shall ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... light, the censure of the lady infers such a tribute to the Poet, that I half suspect the author meant it as such. In reference to the subject, however, my judgment goes much rather with that of other critics: That in the unamiable passages of their deportment Benedick and Beatrice are playing a part; that their playing is rather to conceal than to disclose their real feelings; that it is the very strength of their feelings which puts them upon this mode of disguise; and that the pointing ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Cat furnished Materials for a Seventh Species of Women, who are of a melancholy, froward, unamiable Nature, and so repugnant to the Offers of Love, that they fly in the Face of their Husband when he approaches them with conjugal Endearments. This Species of Women are likewise subject to little ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... thing in life his mind had been much made up to, but on this question he had never wavered: he would get on, to the utmost, in his profession. That was a point on which it was perfectly lawful to be unamiable to others—to be vigilant, eager, suspicious, selfish. He had not in fact been unamiable to others, for his affairs had not required it: he had got on well enough without hardening his heart. Fortune had been kind to him and he had passed so many competitors on the way ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... long ago," murmured M. Renard, as if to himself. It was quite human that he should slightly resent being classed with an unamiable grenadier of seventy. ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she had dwelt so much on the misfortunes and talents of the sisters. The last evening Jane spent in Edinburgh was passed at the Rennies'; Mr. Brandon was asked to meet the girls he had been of such service to, and though Mr. Hogarth was rather dull, and Laura Wilson in a particularly unamiable mood, the liveliness of the Australian settler made ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... this hour, had I thought of women as objects of a possible interest or of a reverential love. I had known them either in their infirmities and their unamiable aspects, or else in those sterner relations which made them objects of ungenial and uncompanionable feelings. Now first it struck me that life might owe half its attractions and all its graces to female ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... will be shocked to learn that the head of the viscacha family, probably copying a bad example from the ostrich, his neighbor, is also very unamiable with his "better half," and inhabits bachelor's quarters, which he keeps all to himself, away from his family. The food of this strange dog-rabbit is roots, and his powerful teeth are well fitted to root them up. At the mouth of their burrows may often ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... accounted for, that the Malays have so bad a character with the public, and yet that the few who have had opportunities of knowing them well speak of them as a simple and not unamiable people? With the vulgar, the idea of a Malay—and by the Malay they mean the entire Polynesian race, with the exception of the Javanese—is that of a treacherous, blood-thirsty villain; and I believe the reason to ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... impression upon Bentham. "In order to love mankind," he writes, "we must expect little from them." This might, on the lips of a cynic, serve for a formula of that kind of misanthropy which is not more unamiable than it is unscientific. But in the mouth of Helvetius it was a plea for considerateness, for indulgence, and, above all, it was meant for an inducement to patience and sustained endeavour in all dealings with masses of men in society. "Every man," ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... abilities," said Lancelot, with the whimsical expression that sometimes flashed across his face even in his most unamiable moments. "You must deduct the Thalers I made in exhibitions. As for living in cheap lodgings, I am not at all certain it's an economy, for every now and again it occurs to you that you are saving an awful lot, and you take a hansom ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... are thoroughly unamiable?" said she, in a voice which had reproach in it, "or are all English girls so touchy that they receive a compliment upon their good looks as if it ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill |
