"Uncomely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I made acquaintance. She was eighteen, tall, lithe and as straight as an arrow. She had not one of the physical traits that so often make her race uncomely to our eyes; even her nose was good; her very feet were well made, her hands were slim and shapely, the fingers long and neatly jointed, and there was nothing inky in her amazing blackness, her red blood so enriched it. Yet she ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... had she known the meaning of utter stillness. She saw a bird, a poor brown, unkempt little being; it had no song to offer the silence, and in a little flew away listlessly. She had seen a rabbit, a big, gaunt, uncomely wretch, disappearing silently among the clumps ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... round that childish figure, and illumined it with a radiation of concealed light. But having thus spoken, Manuel turned and went on once more,—and faithfully, in a mental ravishment which to himself was inexplicable, the venerable Felix followed. And presently they came to the plain and uncomely wooden edifice where Aubrey Leigh and his bride had plighted their vows that morning. The door was open—Aubrey would always have it so, lest any poor suffering creature might need a moment's rest, and resting thankfully, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... this is successfully achieved. At Economy no such precautions are taken; the women wear the honest dress of German peasants, with a kind of Norman cap, and the dress is sensible, convenient, and by no means uncomely. At Oneida the short dress, with trousers, and the clipped locks, though convenient, are certainly ugly. Elsewhere dress is not much thought of. But in all the societies stuffs of good quality are used; and none ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... (1) squint on N.; (2) rough piscina in chancel; (3) monument to the Clarkes of Chipley (1679) in N. chapel. In the beautifully-kept churchyard is the base of a fine cross, now prettily overgrown with ferns and lichen. In close proximity to the church is a large but uncomely-looking manor house. ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... grace, elegance, and physical beauty, had led her also to the adoration of moral beauty; for if the expression of a low and bad passion render uncomely the most beautiful countenances, those which are in themselves the most ugly are ennobled, on the contrary, by the expression of good feelings and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... cousin, and I—had disposed our uncomely, useful, middle-aged bodies in the big wicker chairs and left them there while our young souls wandered abroad in the sweet, dark glory of the night. At least Paul and I were doing this, as we sat, hand in hand, thinking of a May night twenty years ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... and symmetry of figure Queen Crucha yields neither to Semiramis of Babylon nor to Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons; nor to Salome, the daughter of Herodias. But she offers in her person certain singularities that will appear beautiful or uncomely according to the contradictory opinions of men and the varying judgments of the world. She has on her forehead two small horns which she conceals in the abundant folds of her golden hair; one of her eyes is blue and one is black; her neck is bent towards the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... and of the people, than of Theobald's sermon. Even now I can see the men in blue smock frocks reaching to their heels, and more than one old woman in a scarlet cloak; the row of stolid, dull, vacant plough-boys, ungainly in build, uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic, a race a good deal more like the pre-revolution French peasant as described by Carlyle than is pleasant to reflect upon—a race now supplanted by a smarter, comelier and more hopeful generation, which has discovered ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... be covered with the small handiwork of Nature; that careful mother lets nothing go naked there, and if she cannot provide clothing, gives at least embroidery. No sooner is the fence built than she adopts and adorns it as a part of her original plan, treating the hard, uncomely construction as if it had all along been a favorite idea of her own. A little sprig of ivy may be seen creeping up the side of the low wall and clinging fast with its many feet to the rough surface; a tuft of grass roots itself between two of the ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... like Donatello's Wooden Statue of the same penitent in the Baptistery, seems a female Robinson Crusoe,—hirsute, cadaverous, fleshless, uncombed and uncomely,—certainly a more edifying spectacle than the voluptuous, Titianesque exhibitions of fair frailty which became ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... fierce spark in the whitening roll of her eyes under her flame-coloured turban made one think of a tiger-cat, and roused that knowledge of danger which adds a tingle to interest. A man could scarce take his eyes from her, though there were other women there and not uncomely ones. Another black wench there was, clad as gayly, but sunk in a languorous calm like a great cat, with Nick Barry, now his song was done, lolling against her, and two white women, one young and well favoured, and the other harshly handsome, both with their husbands present, and I doubt ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... attachment to the almost universal clerical pipe,—but, observing a delicate woman once nauseated by coming into the atmosphere which he and his brethren had polluted, he set himself gravely to reflect that that which could so offend a woman must needs be uncomely and unworthy a Christian man; wherefore he laid his pipe on the mantelpiece, and never afterwards resumed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... subject, was not the equal of her great-niece in beauty, her portraits being rendered uncomely by a portentously long nose, longer even than Mrs. Siddons's, and by a very curious expression of the eyes, going near to slyness. But the face is one which can be imagined as much more beautiful than it seems in the not very attractive portraiture of ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... of the uncomely - those Amidst whose tall battalions goes Her pretty person out and in All day with an endearing din, Of censure and encouragement; And when all else is tried in vain See her sit down and weep again. She weeps to conquer; She varies on her ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a windy day! No sunny spot is bare; Dull vapours, in uncomely play, Go weltering through the air: If through the windows of my mind I let them come and go, My thoughts will also in the wind ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... is something which is at once "weird and wanting," as the admirable Captain Mayne Reid says at the beginning of The Headless Horseman, though one cannot say here, as there, "By Heavens! it is 'the head!'" There is head enough of a kind—a not at all unkempt or uncomely headpiece, very well filled with brains. But it has no aureole, as the other preferred persons cited in the last sentence and earlier have. This aureole may be larger or smaller, brighter or less ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... to whom she was affianced, was a poor, bilious, degenerate weakling, stunted in figure, uncomely of face. He was shy and timid, shunning active exercises, and though at the time of his marriage (1558) he was too young to have been actively engaged in the vices of the outwardly devout court, he appears to have been fully alive to the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... how huge I am. Not Jove, in heaven, is greater than this body; for thou art wont to tell how one Jupiter reigns, who he is I know not. Plenty of hair hangs over my grisly features, and, like a grove, overshadows my shoulders; nor think it uncomely that my body is rough, thick set with stiff bristles. A tree without leaves is unseemly; a horse is unseemly, unless a mane covers his tawny neck. Feathers cover the birds; their wool is an ornament to the sheep; a beard and rough hair upon their body is becoming to men. I have ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... and its appointments duly exhibited, Sidi Boubikir led the way to a diwan in a well-cushioned room that opened on to the garden. He clapped his hands and a small regiment of women-servants, black and for the most part uncomely, arrived to prepare dinner. One brought a ewer, another a basin, a third a towel, and water was poured out over our hands. Then a large earthenware bowl encased in strong basketwork was brought by a fourth servant, and a tray of flat loaves ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... the mode in which the women of these people wear their hair, cut off in front on a line with the mouth and carelessly parted or hanging over the face, the back hair rolled up in a compact queue at the nape of the neck. This uncomely fashion prevails with both matron, and maid, while among the other Tusayan the matron parts her hair evenly down the head and wears it hanging in a straight queue on either side, the maidens wearing theirs in a curious discoid arrangement ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... Colonial Office. Early in the following year they gave utterance to rank treason in consequence of the threatened disallowance by the Imperial Government of certain Bank Charter Acts passed by the Provincial Parliament.[159] A pearl is proverbially uncomely in the snout of a swine; and truly the word "loyalty" was never more absurdly out of place than when pronounced by ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... a wench uncomely, When, near to-night, She proudly stalked a-past the maids so homely, In bodice tight And collar old as reign of wicked Julian, By fiend beguiled— Oh! this chill ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... short as she was, would, said she, have sufficed to clothe her. But her nose was long, her face deviated to the left, and her chin was pointed. Her thin, witty, and malicious lips bespoke all the rancour and perverse anger stored in the heart of this uncomely creature, whom the thought of her uncomeliness enraged. However, the one whom she most hated in the whole world was her own mother, that amorosa who was so little fitted to be a mother, who had never loved her, never paid attention to her, but ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... flesh could brook no more, and like a born natural, I made answer that Nan Boleyn was no mistress of mine to bid me hold a tongue that had spoken sooth to her betters. Thereupon, what think you, boy? The grooms came and soundly flogged me for uncomely speech of my Lady Anne! I that was eighteen years with my Lord Cardinal, and none laid hand on me! Yea, I was beaten; and then shut up in a dog-hole for three days on bread and water, with none to speak to, but the other fools jeering at me like ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... streaming from the Sun, underwent a kind of hardening and drying up process. When the Sun period again drew near, the old bodies decayed; they fell away from the human being, and as though from the grave of his old bodily form, the rejuvenated human being appeared, who even in this new form, was still uncomely. ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry description of the philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and yet uncomely, the page scoffed and said, "That he doubted the philosopher of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic." But, above all the rest, this gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... and the seal which was then made continued in use until 1380, the fourth of Richard II., when, to quote Stow, "it was by common consent agreed and ordained that the old seal being very small, old, unapt and uncomely for the honour of the city, should be broken up, and one other new should be had." Of this first seal no copy seems to have survived, and we are left to conjecture what arms, if any, it displayed. From the first, the simple cross of St. George appears to have been the only bearing ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... He said he would show her some plans. He took a book from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... their beds and offices of ease, Placed north and south for these clean purposes; That man's uncomely froth might not molest God's ways and walks, which lie ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... at all, Mr. Gray. Ever ready to do anything for you, sir." And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant, who glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough, uncomely face. He had ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... great tree. But more she saw—and clapped her hand upon her mouth to stifle the cry that would have otherwise risen in spite of her—that notwithstanding his fair locks were thrust out of sight beneath his hat, and he looked strange and almost uncomely, it was the face of Sir John Oxon, the moon, bursting through the jagged clouds, ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... predominant Humor to Ballance his Choler, it was Sanguine, which made his Mirth Witty. His Beard was scattering on the Chin, and very thin; and though his Clothes were seldome fashioned to the Vulgar garb, yet in the whole man he was not uncomely. He was a King in understanding, and was content to have his Subjects ignorant in many things; As in curing the Kings Evil, which he knew a Device, to ingrandize the Vertue of Kings, when Miracles were in fashion; but he let ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... had yet to be sent for. But it has been decided to do without them: the inside is complete. There may be some wisdom in this style of thing; but a well-lined inside, whether it appertains to men or churches, is a matter worthy of consideration. There is an uncomely, fantastical plainness about the interior walls of St. Mark's, a want of tone and elegance all over them, which may be very interesting to some, but which the bulk of people will not be able to appreciate. If they were whitewashed, in even the commonest ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Brooklyn. It was just after six o'clock, and tired New York was going home. Street cars and ferries all crowded. Going home! Some to bright places; to be lovingly greeted and warmed and fed and rested. Others to places dark and uncomely; but as I sat down in my own home I could not help thinking of the three spectacles. I had seen during the day Sin, in its shame; Art, in its beauty; Religion, in its work of love. God give repentance to the first, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... This uncomely being had the unhealthy complexion, hollow eyes, slouching mien, and straggling beard common to his tribe. His yellow hair, cut closely at the back of the head, as if to save the trouble of brushing, was long in front and at the sides; being plastered down over his forehead and ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... risen above all his arrogance of manner, and is as gentle, simple, ruddy, and meek as all geniuses should be; and now his great blue eyes fairly outshine and put into shade a nose which I thought must make him uncomely forever." ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... asked d'Aguilar slowly, yet as one who expected some such answer. "In age we are not unsuited, nor perhaps in fortune, while of rank I have enough, more than you guess perhaps. I vaunt not myself, yet women have thought me not uncomely. I should be a good friend to the house whence I took a wife, where perchance a day may come when friends will be needed; and lastly, I desire her not for what she may bring with her, though wealth is always welcome, but—I pray you to ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... course of a minute, the voice of her sister was heard, and light footsteps on the timber stair. The door was then opened, and Marion swirled in with an uncomely bravery. Elspa started from her seat. The guilty and convicted creature uttered a shriek; but in the same moment her pious sister clasped her with loving-kindness in her arms, and bursting into tears, wept bitterly, with sore ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... seemed to be painted. A copy of her confession was sold for twenty guineas. Two days before her execution she dressed in scarlet, and sat to Hogarth for a sketch, which Horace Walpole bought for L5. The portrait represents a cruel, thin-lipped woman, not uncomely, sitting at a table. The Duke of Roxburghe purchased a perfect impression of this print, Mr. Timbs says, for L8 5s. Its original price was sixpence. After her execution the corpse was taken to an undertaker's on Snow Hill, and there exhibited for money. Among the rest, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... hungrily and bloodthirstily the mammoth's calf, had crept the great cave tiger. The monster cave bear had shambled through the high grass, seeking some small food in default of that which might follow the conquest of a beast of size. The uncomely hyenas had gone slinking here and there and had found something worthy their foul appetite. All this change had come because the two boys, being boys and full of importance, had neglected their undertaking for about a week and had talked each in his own ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... among the things Uncomely to your sight; But by and by on splendid wings You'll see me high ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... empty of truth and honour. A month or two before I came to the Throne, I was beginning to think that women were viler than vermin,—I had grown utterly weary of their beauty,—weary—ay, sick to death of their alluring eyes, sensual lips, and too freely-offered caresses; the uncomely, hard-worked woman, earning bread for her half-starved children, seemed the only kind of feminine creature for which I could have any respect—but now—I am learning that there are good women who are fair ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... reveals itself chiefly at the extremities, and it was precisely here that they all drooped and achieved this hint of goblin distortion—in the growth, that is, of the last few years. What ought to have been fairy, joyful, natural, was instead uncomely to the verge of the grotesque. Spontaneous expression was arrested. My mind perceived a goblin garden, and was caught in it. The place ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... the Reformer, we must remember, must have been no uncomely wooer. His conversation must have been remarkably vivid: he had adventures enough to tell, by land and sea; while such a voice as he raised withal in the pulpit, like Edward Irving, has always been potent with women, as Sir Walter Scott remarks in Irving's own case. His expression, says ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... shone on his features and betrayed that he was smiling. In this mood his face lost the air of affected refinement—which was then the mode, and went perfectly with a wig and ruffles—and appeared in its true cast, plain and strong, yet not uncomely. His features lacked the insipid regularity which, where all shaved, passed for masculine beauty; the nose ended largely, the cheek-bones were high, and the chin projected. But from the risk and even the edge of ugliness it was saved by a pair of grey eyes, keen, humorous, and kindly, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... changed so that you would hardly know the country to-day. A new era has come over everything, especially over the other sex. Well do I remember the women of the old King's time, how monstrous uncomely they were, how little they knew how to walk or carry themselves, how painfully barbaric was their notion of dress. I dare swear that your ladies here in Yucatan are not so provincial to-day as ours were then. But you should see them now at home. They are delicious. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the musical sound is not transmitted, only the harsh material noise. In air the noise is heard very near, the musical sounds only are transmitted. Be thankful, poets and prophets, when you live in an element such that your uncomely features are known only ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... at thy possessions." "Thou wilt do well," he answered. "And I believe that thou didst never hear a lady discourse better than she, and when she was in her prime none was ever fairer. Even now her aspect is not uncomely." {62c} They set forth, and, however long the journey, they came at length to Dyved, and a feast was prepared for them against their coming to Narberth, which Rhiannon and Kicva had provided. Then began Manawyddan and Rhiannon to sit and to talk together, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... touched with compassion for this uncomely woman alone among these gallant and handsome knights, a woman so helpless and ill-favoured, and he said: "Peace, churl Kay, the lady cannot help herself; and you are not so noble and courteous that you have the right to jeer at any maiden; such deeds do not ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... lassitude of Rome; and the air was made cheerful with the talk and laughter of hundreds of voices. I think the women are prettier than the Roman maids and matrons, who, as I think I have said before, have chosen to be very uncomely since the rape of their ancestresses, by way of wreaking ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nothing lovely, there was nothing unpleasant or uncomely in Miss Balquidder. Her large figure, in its plain black silk dress; her neat white cap, from under which peeped the little round curls of flaxen hair, neither gray nor snowy, but real "lint-white locks" still; and her good-humored, motherly look—motherly rather than old-maidish—gave an ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... was she not capable! Even the skirt of his garment would minister to such a faith. It should be as she would. Through the garment of his Son, the Father would cure her who believed enough to put forth her hand and touch it. The kernel-faith was none the worse that it was closed in the uncomely shell of ignorance and mistake. The Lord was satisfied with it. When did he ever quench the smoking flax? See how he praises her. He is never slow to commend. The first quiver of the upturning eyelid is to him faith. He welcomes the sign, and acknowledges it; commends the feeblest faith in the ignorant ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... pronouncement upon Sir Oliver, and I am encouraged in this belief by the pen-portrait which he himself appends to it. "He was," he says, "a tall, powerful fellow of a good shape, if we except that his arms were too long and that his feet and hands were of an uncomely bigness. In face he was swarthy, with black hair and a black forked beard; his nose was big and very high in the bridge, and his eyes sunk deep under beetling eyebrows were very pale-coloured and very cruel and sinister. He had—and this I have ever remarked ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... "It is an uncomely couple, By Christ! as me thinketh, To give a young wench To an old feeble, Or wedden any widow For wealth of her goods, That never shall bairn bear But if it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... author of "John Halifax," illustrated by Henry Warren, President of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours (now the R.I.) is remarkable for the extremely uncomely type of children it depicts; yet that its charm is still vivid, despite its "severe" illustrations, you have but to lend it to a ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... handsome woman to attend a lecture upon some simple subject?"—an opinion that v. Sybel evidently shares and even expresses: "Some men there are who have rarely been able to refuse their assistance and help to a female pupil, greedy of knowledge and not uncomely." ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... prose is distinctly better than English; and French verse, above all while Hugo lives, it will not do to place upon one side. What is more to our purpose, a phrase or a verse in French is easily distinguishable as comely or uncomely. There is then another element of comeliness hitherto overlooked in this analysis: the contents of the phrase. Each phrase in literature is built of sounds, as each phrase in music consists of notes. One sound suggests, echoes, demands, and harmonises with another; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made halt, the Maid had done her hair very uncomely upon her head, and had lookt slyly to see whether I did note; but truly, I took no heed; so that in the end she had it again in a pretty fashion, and did sing naughtily and with an heart of mischief, as she did shape it loose and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... sixteen, showed promise of great beauty, and her eyes sparkled with the insolence of the spoiled child who already knew the power of wealth. The girl she addressed had only a pair of dark intelligent eyes to reclaim an uncomely face. Her skin was swarthy, her nose crude, her mouth wide. The outline of her head was fine, and she wore her black hair parted and banded closely below her ears. Her forehead was large, her expression sad and thoughtful. Don Roberto Yorba was many times more a millionaire than "Jack" Belmont, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Mantuan? Look to your wives, my lords, When such a gallant comes to Padua. Thou dost well to laugh, Count Bardi; I have noted How merry is that husband by whose hearth Sits an uncomely wife. ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... The Apostle says (1 Cor. 12:23, 24): "Those that are our uncomely (inhonesta) parts, have more abundant comeliness (honestatem), but our comely (honesta) parts have no need." Now by uncomely parts he means the baser members, and by comely parts the beautiful members. Therefore the honest and the beautiful ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... translucent atmosphere like a ruby; and the russet defaced column, as it comes out against its vivid light, becomes luminous like a pillar of gold. Brick and marble are of equal aesthetic value in this magic city, in which the uncomely parts and materials have a more abundant comeliness by reason of the medium through which they are seen. Over all things lingers permanently the transfiguring glow that comes to northern lands only in the afternoon. In that land it is always afternoon; the ruins bathe as it were in a perpetual ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... private office was brusquely opened. Mr. Waddington, the only existing member of the firm, entered—-a large, untidy-looking man, also dressed in most uncomely fashion, and wearing an ill-brushed silk hat on the back of his head. He turned at once ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a ladie faire he saw, Standing alone on foote in foule array; To whom himself he hastily did draw, To weet the cause of so uncomely fray, And to depart them, if so be ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... mixed with the smaller china ware. And, when George entered the shop, the hunchback's wife was behind the counter. Like Mrs. Lake, he paused to think where he could have seen her before; the not uncomely face marred by an ugly mouth, in which the upper lip was long and cleft, and the lower lip large and heavy, seemed familiar to him. He was still beating his brains when the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... power by giving it small majorities in a large number of districts, and coop up the opposing party with overwhelming majorities in a large number of districts. This may involve a very distortionate and uncomely "scientific" boundary, and the joining together of distant and unrelated localities into a single district; such was the case in the famous original act of Governor Gerry, of Massachusetts, whence the practice obtained ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... her veil, and indeed she did have two ghastly looking scars, but she had exaggerated her disfigurement, for despite the scars hers was not an uncomely face to look upon. Her eyes were beautiful, and the detective was led to say with chivalrous ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... that the tears stand in your eyes, which is as unseemly as the gentlewoman who pretended to have as little a stomach as she had a mouth, and therefore would not swallow her pease by spoonfuls; but took them one by one, and cut them in two before she would eat them. It is very uncomely to drink so large a draught that your breath is almost gone—and are forced to blow strongly to recover yourself—throwing down your liquor as into a funnel is an action fitter for a juggler than a gentlewoman: ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... unconsciousness of the ludicrous effect of her little indulgences, and the pleasure she took in them was certainly of the most harmless kind. The world would be a far better and more enjoyable place than it is, if all people who are old and uncomely could find amusement as innocent and Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive thread-case collection of ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... display of quantity. In her decollete costume she appeared as if composed of bones and diamonds. The diamonds represented the bulk of Miss Norsham's wealth, and she used them not only for the adornment of her uncomely person, but for the deception of any possible suitor into the belief that she was well dowered. She affected gauzy fabrics and fluttering baby ribbons, so that her dress was as the fleecy flakes of snow clinging to ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... uncomely broad face assuming a strange expression of determined fierceness. At that moment an assistant rapped at the door with a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... fascinated by the notion that the fate of each prisoner had first passed through my hands. At last I made an effort, and went out into the corridor. There I passed a woman whose figure seemed familiar. She was sitting with her hands in her lap looking straight before her, pale-faced and not uncomely, with thickish mouth and nose—the woman whose bill we had thrown out. Why was she sitting there? Had she not then realised that we had quashed her claim; or was she, like myself, kept here by mere attraction of the Law? Following I know not what impulse, I said: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... photographer's and have their likenesses taken. The operator asked a chief to look at his squaw (sitting for her phiz) through the camera. It looks as though one was sitting, or rather standing on his head,—reversing one's position. The chief was very angry at seeing his squaw in such an uncomely attitude, and he walked over and beat her. She denied it, but he saw it. He looked again, and again she was turned upside down. He said it was the white man's medicine, and would have nothing ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... by little, into chronic invalidism, spending much of her time in bed. She was uncomely to any eyes but mine, and I would not subject her to unkind criticism. Her case was made hopeless by the officious kindness of Argus, a Newfoundland puppy, in bringing her to the playhouse one day after I had purposely left her ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... him that she had heard. He arose, holding the lantern high; and stared, shaking, into a face which no uncomely linen swathings could disguise from him—into eyes which death only ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... piled in a heap and burnt, kindling a huge pyre, lest the foul stench of the filthy carcases might spread in pestilent vapour and hurt those who came nigh with its taint of corruption. This done, she won the throne of Sweden for Ragnar, and Ragnar for her husband. And though he deemed it uncomely to inaugurate his first campaign with a wedding, yet, moved by gratitude for the preservation of his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a fair example of the well-bred, well-fed Englishman—tall, brawny, limber, not uncomely, with a red neck, a powerful jaw, and a keen eye. Something more of repose, of self-possession, and a slightly more intellectual brow, would have made him the best type of conquering, civilising Briton. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... beautiful. They practice it, because it is heroic. They do not abstain from the gratification of an intemperate wish under the belief that it is sinful, but in obedience to their reason, which rejects the commission of a vicious act because it is uncomely. In the first case, God is their judge; in the latter, themselves. The comparison need only be proposed, to humble the pride that made it necessary. How do these systematizers refine and subtilize? How ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... and the new King were pleased to honour me with jewels off their pictures, and a gift of copper, I having bestowed my horses (of more worth) on them and whom they appointed, and which I refused to sell, as a thing uncomely for my condition in ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... him that, like the others of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... be inferred from the foregoing description that Miss Tyler was a young and ardent damsel in her teens; whereas she was considerably nearer forty than thirty, and possessed an uncomely aspect unpleasing to male eyes. Her own were of a cold grey, her lips were thin, her waist pinched in, and—as the natural consequence of tight lacing—her nose was red. Her scanty hair was drawn off her high forehead very tightly, and screwed into a cast-iron knob at the nape of her ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... so difficult," she murmured, in a perplexed tone. "The man has all my affairs in his hands. Up till now, although he is uncomely, and a brute in many ways, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... row, built to hold as many laborers' families all the year round and as many Bohemian summer artists as can crowd therein, we caught glimpses of tapestries worth their weight in gold. One well-known artist has taken possession of the end of this uncomely row, intended for a supply-shop to the neighborhood. This shop is his studio, which he has filled with treasures of Japanese art. As a Cookhamite assured us, "Mr. C—— goes in for the Japanesque;" and he screens ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... abusing a companion, with whom she had previously started a dispute. She and the other were sisters, and, as it happened, daughters of old Moineaud. Euphrasie, the younger one, she who was shouting, was a skinny creature of seventeen, light-haired, with a long, lean, pointed face, uncomely and malignant; whereas the elder, Norine, barely nineteen, was a pretty girl, a blonde like her sister, but having a milky skin, and withal plump and sturdy, showing real shoulders, arms, and hips, and one of those bright sunshiny faces, with wild hair ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... hoofs or wheels coming near; and her eyes served her to see nothing but what was out of her field of vision. The scenery grew by degrees rough and wild; cultivation and civilisation seemed as they went on to fall into the rear. A village, or hamlet, of miserable, dirty, uncomely houses and people, was passed by; and at last, just as the morning was wakening up into fervour, Mrs. Starling drew rein in a desolate rough spot at the edge of a woodland. The regular road had been left some time before, since when ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... horsemen, gaily caparisoned, appeared, and in the midst, with equal numbers of his guard preceding and following, rode Ethelred the king. He was of middle stature and not uncomely, but there was a look of vacillation about his face, which would have struck even an indifferent physiognomist, while his thin lips, which he was constantly biting (when he was not biting his nails), seemed to ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... painted a garish yellow, having staring windows, and devoid of a front porch, or slightest attempt at shade to render its uncomely front less unattractive. Hampton could scarcely refrain from forming a mental picture of the woman who would most naturally preside within so unpolished an abode—an angular, hard-featured, vinegar-tempered creature, firm settled in her prejudices and narrowed by her creed. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... bird's, and on the bashful little streets, whose lights chime on the darkness like the rounding of a verse. Strange streets they are, where beauty is unknown and love but a grisly phantom; streets peopled, at this hour, with loose-lipped and uncomely girls—mostly the fruit of a yellow-and-white union—and with other things not good to be talked of. I was philosophizing to my friend about these things, and he was rhapsodizing to me about the ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... painters of the epoch have preserved her face to posterity; the grief-stricken face of a hard-featured but commanding and not uncomely woman, the fountains of whose tears seem exhausted; a face of austere and noble despair. A decorous veil should be thrown over the form of that aged matron, for whose long life and prosperity Fate took such ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the poor. They consist of fancies that have illumined the hard facts of life. They find animals, trees, flowers, and the stars friendly. They speak of victory. In them the child is master even of dragons. He can live like a prince, in disguise, or, if he be uncomely, he may hope to win Beauty after he is ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... both with a smile which diffused such an extraordinary light over the uncomely face that Agatha was quite startled and began to reconsider her first impression regarding it,—"Duke" Dugdale turned to walk on; but just as the horse was starting, came ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... no encouragement to go on, so young Robert sat and pondered till his father, chafing under the silent rebuke personified in every line of the son's uncomely face, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... companionable, intelligent in converse, yet never forward in giving an opinion; too studious, rather, to efface herself; in household management economical without being penurious; a notable cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as well as person so scrupulously neat that her unobtrusive presence, her noiseless circumspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... group of the Salvation Army stood on the curb. One of them was a fat, uncomely woman, and she was singing, accompanying herself upon a guitar. The music was that of a popular ballad, and the verses were of ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. (22)Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary; (23)and those which we think to be less honorable parts of the body, on these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. (24)And our comely parts have no need; but God attempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that which lacked; (25)that there may be no division in the body, but that ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... care most most troublesomly perverse; and when things are most sweet they are next to loathsome and many times degenerate: Therefore as in Weomen a careless dress becomes some extreamly. Thus Pastoral, that it might not be uncomely, ought sometimes to be negligent, or the finess of its ornaments ought not to appear and lye open to every bodies view: so that it ought to affect a studied carelessness, and design'd negligence: And that this may be, all gawdiness of Dress, such as Paint ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... he was unworthy and failed to make her happy, but because he stood in his—Richard's—way. Hating the man all the more fiercely because, whatever the uncomeliness of his moral constitution, he was physically very far from uncomely. And so, along with nobler incitements to hatred, went the fiend envy, which just now plucked at poor Dickie's vitals as the vulture at those of the chained Titan of old. Whereupon he fell into a meditation somewhat morbid. For, contemplating in pictured ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet |
