"Undesirable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "supposed," because, to be frank, Miss FOX SMITH'S story, good fun as it is, hardly convinces like her setting. You may, for example, feel that you have met before in fiction the lonely hero who rescues the solitary maiden, his shipmate, from undesirable society, and falls in love with her, only to learn that she is voyaging to meet her betrothed. At this point I suppose most novel-readers would have given fairly long odds against the betrothed in question keeping the appointment, and I may add ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... wholesome as in their natural state, and produce, when heated with starches, a very indigestible mixture. Thus, theoretically, it is bad to use any great amount of lard, butter or other fat in the preparation of breads, and it is likewise undesirable to spread butter on heated breads, as is so often done just before eating biscuits, waffles and batter-cakes. The combination is certainly a seductive one, and pleasing to the taste of most persons, but this in no way invalidates the fact that the ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... Parliament." These words, few as they were, sufficed to deprive the bill of nine tenths of its efficacy, both for good and for evil. It was most desirable that the crowd of subordinate public functionaries should be kept out of the House of Commons. It was most undesirable that the heads of the great executive departments should be kept out of that House. The bill, as altered, left that House open both to those who ought and to those who ought not to have been admitted. It very properly let in the Secretaries of State and the Chancellor ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... historian, Lord Stanhope, while evidently desirous to defend it by implication, passes a slight censure on it in the phrase that "the course pursued by the King was most unusual, and most extreme, and most undesirable to establish as a precedent;"[89] while, on the other hand, so rigid a Whig as Lord Campbell urges in his favor "that if it be ever excusable in a King of England to cabal against his ministers, George III. may well be defended for the course he ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... incident in Solomon's own family circle is connected with one of his daughters. She was of extraordinary beauty, and in the stars he read that she was to marry an extremely poor youth. To prevent the undesirable union, Solomon had a high tower erected in the sea, and to this he sent his daughter. Seventy eunuchs were to guard her, and a huge quantity of food was stored in the tower for ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... so little of it and did not agree with her. James Penhallow, like thousands in that day of grim self-questioning, had been forced to reconsider opinions long held, and was reaching conclusions which he learned by degrees made argument with the simplicity of his wife's political creed more and more undesirable. Leila was too young to be interested. The rector was intensely anti-slavery and saw but one side of the ominous questions which were bewildering the largest minds. The increasing interest in his nephew was, therefore, a source of real relief to the ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Wilkinson started on his first trading voyage to New Orleans, and the district was freed from his very undesirable presence. He was the main-spring of the movement in favor of lawless separation; for the furtive, restless, unscrupulous man had a talent for intrigue which rendered him dangerous at a crisis of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... creation of self-governing institutions in those dependencies whose civilisation is sufficiently advanced to justify the adoption of this course; or by decentralising the executive Government in cases where self-government, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, is impossible or undesirable. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Boleyn did not return with her; she remained in Paris to become accomplished with the graces and elegancies, if she was not contaminated by the vices, of that court, which, even in those days of loyal licentiousness, enjoyed an undesirable pre-eminence in profligacy. In the French capital she could not have failed to see, to hear, and to become familiar with occurrences with which no young girl can be brought in contact with impunity, and this poisonous atmosphere ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... increase, and that there is no present likelihood that the demand for qualified women will remain stationary. On the other hand, the necessary qualifications, personal as well as intellectual, are high; the work is hard, though attractive, and it is in every respect undesirable that those whose talents can better be exerted in other branches of the profession should endeavour to obtain College posts. Roughly speaking such openings ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... correspondence otherwise than through the hands of the censors, the Executive Committee, and that this censorship committee, like the imperialists in the world's war, are holding up the mail of these branches and do not deliver at all the 'undesirable' mail?" ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... remote antiquity, however, it is probably undesirable to follow our subject. It will no doubt be thought sufficient for this essay if we leave altogether out of view the researches which have been made in the older empires of the earth, and confine ourselves to the records of our own country. Of these, ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... be to that occurrence that you are to attribute the change. Let us rather suppose that Lady Flora's attachment to you has become evident to her father and mother; that they naturally think it would be very undesirable to marry their daughter to a man whose family nobody knows, and whose respectability he is forced into fighting in order to support. Suffer me then to call upon Lady Westborough, whom I knew many years ago, and explain your origin, as well as your ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which follow we are concerned not simply with the individual's development, but also with the necessity for inhibitions. There are traits or activities which develop normally, but which are from the social point of view undesirable. It is quite as much the work of the teacher to know how to provide for the inhibition of the type of activity which is socially undesirable, or how to substitute for such reactions other forms of expression which ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... chauffeur a little coupe car was standing, drawn on to the turf. He glanced at the name of the maker and looked once more at the tracks upon the drive. Finally, he decided that his investigations were leading him in a most undesirable direction. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Philippines through a soldier of fortune who had helped out the Chinese government in suppressing the rebellion in the neighborhood of Shanghai. "General" F. T. Ward, from Massachusetts, organized an army of deserters from European ships, but their lack of discipline made them undesirable soldiers, and so he disbanded the force. He then gathered a regiment of Manila men, as the Filipinos usually found as quartermasters on all ships sailing in the East were then called. With the aid of some other Americans these troops were disciplined ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... us and, as people will do, talk about us, we decided that the best way to avoid all gossip was to announce our engagement, and at the end of the usual period, settle down together as man and wife. I don't know that I have ever regretted the step, though I will say that I think it is undesirable for a young girl to enter too hastily into the obligations of matrimony, or to marry the first man that comes along, unless she is absolutely sure that he is the only man she could possibly endure through three meals a day for the balance ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... man. In the network of crooked channels no white man could find his way. White men were strong, but very foolish. It was undesirable to fight them, but deception was easy. They were like silly women—they did not know the use of reason, and he was a match for any of them—went on Babalatchi, with all the confidence of deficient experience. Probably the Dutch would seek Almayer. Maybe they would take ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... I did not doubt. I knew that such men as the late Baron were often compelled, in their own interests, to receive visits from mysterious and often undesirable persons, most of whom were paid for their information. Every giant of finance employs his secret agents, whose duty it is to keep his principal informed of the various political and other secrets in Europe. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... Blakely's mother instantly took my part, and as there were only two women who hadn't been snubbed by her—Mrs. Tudor Carstairs and Mrs. Sanderson-Spear—I was simply overwhelmed with unsolicited advice and undesirable attention. Indeed, it was all I could do to steer a dignified course between that uncompromising Scylla, Blakely's mother, and the compromising Charybdis of my self-elected champions. But I managed it, somehow. Dad bought me a stunning big automobile in Los Angeles, and Blakely taught me how to ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... world began has been called a crank. I admit that there are many undesirable persons allied with the socialists, but because of that the great principles of the party cannot be condemned. The theory of socialism is founded on the rock of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... obdurate pre-judgment that the passing of Humanity out of the Second stage can only mean the entire ABANDONMENT OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS; and this people say—and quite rightly—is both impossible and undesirable. Throughout the preceding chapters I have striven, wherever feasible, to counter this misunderstanding—but I have little hope of success. The DETERMINATION of the world to misunderstand or misinterpret anything a little new or unfamiliar ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... preferred very much not to have a beau. It was something quite unnecessary; but then one hated to be different, and she was the only girl in her class, except Eppie Turner, who was too shy to speak to a boy, who was in a beauless state. Rosie, in her loyalty, felt Elizabeth's undesirable condition and strove ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... than his enemies were pleased to attach to him. The city of Toledo is, as many know, almost surrounded by the rapid Tagus, and entrance to its narrow confine is only to be gained by two gates. To pass either of these barriers in open day would be to court a publicity singularly undesirable at this time, for Esteban Larralde was slipping down the social slope, which gradual progress is the hardest to arrest. If one is mounting there are plenty to help him—those from above seeking to make unto themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... undesirable people, my dear," Mrs. Staggchase responded, without the faintest shadow of the sarcastic intent which her guest yet secretly felt in ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... affections being reserved for cases where moral elevation, and not historic conviction, is the aim. It is, moreover, because the result, in the case under consideration, is deemed desirable that the affections are called upon to back it. If undesirable, they would, with equal right, be called upon to act the other way. Even to the disciplined scientific mind this would be a dangerous doctrine. A favourite theory—the desire to establish or avoid a certain n result—can so warp the mind as to destroy its powers of estimating facts. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... these, it is thought, only where they are largely subsidized by southern patronage, it is not so now. The desertions that are taking place from their ranks will, in a short time, render their position undesirable for any, who aspire to gain, or influence, or reputation in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... The strength and value of the wood depends on the proportion of large and small cells. In a very slow-growing tree you have a large proportion of the big cells. In rapid-growing wood you also have an undesirable result. It is between the very slow and very rapid that you get the best. If you get a rapid growth the cells are thin, even though they may be small. It is the in-between condition that makes for good timber. That is based on ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... recklessness in a man with a temperament. He had seen plenty of life in his own country, in the nine years since he was twenty, and he knew all about roulette and trente et quarante, among other things desirable and undesirable. ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... transport, the practice with the French and British has become well defined. The best type of truck is one of medium weight, and of the best construction obtainable. It should be emphasized that medium-priced or inexpensive trucks are undesirable. It is very distinctly the opinion of French and British transport officers that it is better to have too few trucks, all of which are reliable, than to take "any old truck" and have it break down at critical moments during operation. Inferior trucks break down frequently, ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... order that so and so may happen." Negative magic or taboo says, "Do not do this, lest so and so should happen." The aim of positive magic or sorcery is to produce a desired event; the aim of negative magic or taboo is to avoid an undesirable one. But both consequences, the desirable and the undesirable, are supposed to be brought about in accordance with the laws of similarity and contact. And just as the desired consequence is not really effected by the observance of a magical ceremony, so the dreaded consequence does not really result ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... wholesome," Jurgen submitted, "to speak of Koshchei. It seems especially undesirable in a dark place ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... advice—an admitted privilege of the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was now fully a third smaller ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... things may be both unattainable and undesirable. That's the case with the little thieving god MERCURY, and that big red-skinned Prize-Fighter, MARS. I can't understand, however, why these disreputable deities should he worshipped in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... most effective taunt that can be levelled at inconsistent Christians is that they are unlike their Master. Criticisms of the character of Jesus are now few in number, and usually take the form of declaring that it is impracticable or impossible, not that it is undesirable or imperfect. Some, no doubt, would maintain that perhaps the real Jesus did not answer to the ideal which Christians have formed of Him, but that is another question. Here we are now face to face with the unescapable fact that the greatest ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... speech by a Mr. Glascock in the House of Commons, December 16, 1601, two equally undesirable justices are described— first, the one "who from base stock and lineage by his wealth is gotten to be within the commission"; the other "a gentleman born, virtuous, discreet, and wise, yet poor and needy. And so only for his virtues and ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... the beautifulness and withal the profound truthfulness of this myth are such as to render it almost as undesirable as it is next to impossible to relegate it to the realm of superstition, to which it should undoubtedly be assigned if a literal interpretation ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... Miss Mohun's; and though he is such a musician, it is quite as an amateur. But, Lydia, I do think that if you sing your best, he may very likely be able to put you in a way to make your talent available so as to satisfy your mother, without leading to anything so undesirable and ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and maintain the phosphorescent light, full sunshine is not necessary, but, on the contrary, is undesirable. The illumination is best started by leaving the article or surface exposed for a short time to ordinary daylight or even artificial light, which need not be strong in order to make the illumination continue for many hours, even twenty ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... and his sister had been talking quite loudly before, nothing that they had said had roused their fellow- passenger until now, when, probably, Nellie's hushed voice led to this very undesirable result—just in the same way as a miller is said to sleep soundly amid all the clatter of the grinding wheels of his mill, his repose being only disturbed when the motion of the machinery stops. Poor Nellie ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... (/Frauenkirche/) I saw these pitiable ruins scattered about amid the beautiful order of the city. Here the clerk commended to me the art of the architect, who had already fitted up church and cupola for so undesirable an event, and had built them bomb-proof. The good sacristan then pointed out to me the ruins on all sides, and said doubtfully and laconically, "/The ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... door, we show ourselves timidly, we offer ourselves like undesirable goods. A voice arises among us, "You haven't a bit of a corner, madame, for ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... those who came to Kansas under the auspices of this society were undesirable neighbors, looked at from any standpoint. Their ideas on property rights were very hazy, in many cases. Some of them were let out of Eastern prisons to live down a "past" in a new country. They looked upon a slave owner as legitimate prey, and later ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... announcement, Mme. la Duchesse's indignation and anger would know no bounds. He was quite ready even now with a string of apologies which he would formulate directly she allowed him to speak. He certainly felt very guilty towards her for the undesirable acquaintance which she had made in her brother's own house. Great was his surprise therefore when Madame's wrinkled face wreathed itself into a huge smile, which presently broadened into a merry laugh, as she threw back her head, and said ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... self-conscious in their faith—continually aware that they are not as the rest of men; disposed therefore to be apologetic or aggressive or defensive. Again, the circumstance of their long exclusion from the social and intellectual life of their country is accountable for other undesirable peculiarities which Mrs. Wilfrid Ward sees no reason ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Victory," when I was startled by a wild yell in my ear. Cousin Egbert had leaped to his feet and now danced in the middle of the pavement, waving his stick and hat high in the air and shouting incoherently. At once we attracted the most undesirable attention from the loungers about us, the waiters and the passers-by in the street, many of whom stopped at once to survey my charge with the liveliest interest. It was then I saw that he had merely ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... acquaintances meet me or rather I meet them, in undesirable places; I never visit a prison without coming across one or more of them, and ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... unselfish persons, who are "self-appointed leaders," even when the unions consent to leave these particular matters in their hands. For active cooeperation of the masses in the legal, economic, and political intricacies of such legislation is not only undesirable, but impossible under the present system of society and government. Labor must govern itself through instructed delegates, while such work can be done only by representatives, who must often have ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... two weeks. We're trying to persuade her to come to our home, because her own is undesirable. Both of her parents drink; her older sister has taken the downward course and refuses all our overtures; and her two brothers are constantly in drunken bouts ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... may have introduced you," her companion remarked, "but I feel it my duty to tell you that he is a man whose acquaintance is very undesirable. It is true he belongs to a fine family, but he is their thorn in the flesh. He is a drunkard and a gambler, and his associates are among the most reprobate. Two or three times I have been called to bring him out of a state bordering upon delirium tremens. A physician ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... said the solicitor, "renders it undesirable that I should submit myself to an ordeal so ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... customary heavy duty imposed on them, there was also being smuggled into the innumerable lonely bayous and inlets of the lengthy coast line vast quantities of contraband in violation of the eighteenth amendment, also batches of undesirable aliens like Chinese, anarchists and Bolsheviks, such riffraff as Uncle Sam had been holding off ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... other hand, was in a very undesirable situation. Not only was his front line all the way in full view from our various ground O.P.'s, but a long stretch of flat country several miles broad behind his front line was equally in view. Only a few small folds in the ground ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... that he found in the back of an old magazine, comparing it with his faint memories, until he knew the location of things with relation to one another pretty well. A stranger less versed might have gotten into most undesirable quarters. ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... his own assistance could avail. He tried to reassure himself, to believe that his torments were a proof of his vocation, that the facility of the novelist who stood six years deep in contracts to produce romances was a thing wholly undesirable, but all the while he longed for but a drop of that inexhaustible fluency which ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... identification, could be required at any time or place, and failure to produce it was cause for summary arrest. It therefore became, in unscrupulous hands, a fruitful source of abuse, since any "undesirable" against whom no specific charge could be brought might be put out of the way by ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Mabel?" questioned her mother. "Did you, too, pick up an undesirable acquaintance and march away into the gardens with her? Was your new friend also fresh, delightful ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... lands in search of solitude and space and of a home where they could live their primitive, pastoral lives, undisturbed by any foreign element. These men now found their country the centre of a vast stream of foreign immigration, and of that most undesirable kind of immigration which gold mines invariably promote. Their laws were very backward, but the part which was most oppressive was that connected with the gold-mining industry which was almost entirely in the hands of the immigrants, ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... undesirable places is found to be greater in Northern than in Southern cities. Every large city has its white wards and its black wards, which the politician knows as well as the seaman knows the depths ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... I did," he jested. "I remembered how I was asked to quit here, too. In the days when General Fred Furniss was also looked on as an unruly, rather undesirable member of the student body ... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-two years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in London—at any rate, before his trial, and we haven't the least proof that he was in London after. And why won't Aylmore tell? Clearly because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a sudden, it flashed on me in a moment of—what do you writing fellows call ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... before leaving Paris, a safe-conduct from the prefecture; for the village is, as one might say, on the edge of the zone of war. With such a permit monsieur will find his visit charming; regrettable incidents will not occur; undesirable conjectures about monsieur's identity will not be roused. I should strongly advise that monsieur provide himself with such a credential, though it is ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... It was by weaning her heart from this man that Philip Malbone had earned the thanks of the whole household during his hasty flight through Europe. He possessed some skill in withdrawing the female heart from an undesirable attachment, though it was apt to be done by substituting another. It was fortunate that, in this case, no fears could be entertained. Since his engagement Philip had not permitted himself so much as a flirtation; he and Hope were to be married soon; he loved and ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... become rulers, we shall regard as undesirable the existence of any religion except our own, proclaiming one God with Whom our fate is tied as the Chosen People, and by Whom our fate has been made one with the fate of the world. For this reason we must destroy all other religions. If thereby should emerge contemporary ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... episodes, in those days, had not in the least disheartened him. He had always thought that in the end the girl would "have him." But now he was convinced his chance was gone, his last hope vanished. The "foreigner" had fascinated Madge, made him look cheap and coarse, uncouth and undesirable. ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... stone, and interest from a gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire experience at the office had gone far to sober him, and it was known ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... from Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State. On July 23 Slidell made a similar offer to Thouvenel and left with him a full memorandum of the Southern proposal[709]. He was cautioned that it was undesirable his special offer to France should reach the ears of the British Government—a caution which he transmitted to Mason on July 30, when sending copies of Benjamin's instructions, but still without revealing the full extent of his ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... "Henceforth, Anna," said he, "you will move in a different sphere of life; and though it is possible that you may have the power of showing favour to your relations from time to time, yet much or familiar intercourse will be undesirable, and is what I cannot allow." I felt almost afraid, after this formal speech, of asking my father and Fritz to come and see me; but, when the agony of bidding them farewell overcame all my prudence, I did beg them to pay me a visit ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... give sex-instruction? Sec. 19. The child's first teachers of sex-knowledge. Sec. 20. Selecting teachers for class instruction. Sec. 21. Certain undesirable teachers for special hygienic ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... the Republicans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, of course, all important for the administration. It was not the first nor the last time that the Republicans of this great State, whose Republicanism seems to be much safer than its judgment, have committed themselves to unworthy and undesirable representatives, men who were not fitted to stand for Pennsylvania and who were neither willing nor able to be of any service to the country. The appointment of Cameron had, as appears from the later history, been promised to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in return for the support ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... more highly than when he refrained from all but a droll look, and uttered not one word of the sportive courtship that is so peculiarly unwholesome and undesirable with children. Perhaps she thought her colonel more a gentleman than she had done before, if that were possible; and she took an odd, quaint pleasure in the idea of this match, often when talking to Alison of her views of life and education, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he was a desirable son-in-law, being rather addicted to the belief that men only worship what seems utterly beyond their reach. Ilka, it is needless to say, was not a party to these speculations; to her the Hahns appeared equally undesirable in ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... other Christian country would have done likewise. Nevertheless, I do not think this prohibition was wise. Polygamy is legally permitted in many parts of the world, but is not much practised except by chiefs and potentates. If, as Europeans generally believe, it is an undesirable custom, it is probable that the Mormons would have soon abandoned it, except perhaps for a few men of exceptional position. If, on the other hand, it had proved a successful experiment, the world would have acquired a piece of knowledge which it is now unable to possess. I think in all such cases ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... a pang of apprehension lest her new friend was about to turn out "proper," that acme of undesirable qualities to the girlish mind. If that were so, the future would be robbed of much of its charm; but the discussion of Aunt Margaret and her qualities must be deferred until a greater degree of intimacy ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... moment of passion I renounced my country, swore allegiance to this blawsted country, and everybody hates me here, and I don't dare go home to collect my rent for fear I will be quarantined at Ellis Island and sent back to England as an undesirable emigrant who has committed a crime, and is not welcome in the land where I was born. Old man, have a glass of Milwaukee beer and let's talk of your home and my birthplace, and forget that there is such a country ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... view of the relations between man and woman;—nay, worse than fictitious or idle; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of woman, is, according to our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable. The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even to think for herself. The man is always to be the wiser; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowledge and discretion, as ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Austin! had you not been so blinded, what an Aphorism might have sprung from this point of observation! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between sister and brother, that during the Magnetic Age her daughter's presence at Raynham was undesirable. Instead of nursing offence, her sole thought was the mountain of prejudice she had to contend against. She bowed, and said, Clare wanted sea-air—she had never quite recovered the shock of that dreadful night. How long, Mrs. Doria wished to know, might the Peculiar ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... quality, it is essential with radishes to grow them just as quickly as possible. The soil should be rather sandy and not rich in fresh manure or other nitrogenous fertilizers, as this tends to produce an undesirable amount of leaves at the expense of the root. If the ground is at all dry give a thorough wetting after planting, which may be on the surface, as the seeds germinate so quickly that they will be up before the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... his investigation in the Eure, is stamped with deep discouragement; he did not conceal the fact that the pursuit of d'Ache was a task as deceptive as it was useless. Perhaps he also thought that Le Chevalier's case was a precedent to be followed; d'Ache would have been a very undesirable prisoner to bring before a tribunal, and to get rid of him without scandal would be the best thing for the State. Licquet felt that an excess of zeal, bringing on a spectacular arrest such as that of Georges Cadoudal, would be ill-received in high quarters, and he therefore showed some ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... of the recovery in both durable goods and consumers' goods brought into the picture early in certain highly undesirable practices, which were in large part responsible for the economic decline which began in the later months of that year. Again production ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... to form some new habits which you desire to possess; also to break some undesirable habit, watching carefully what takes place in both cases, and how ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... so sensible, Ruth," Mr. Hamlin went on. "For I have reason to believe that your friend, Barbara Thurston, has proved herself an undesirable guest, since her arrival in Washington, which I very much deplore. She is dishonorable, for she has secretly entered my study and been seen handling my papers, and she has contracted a debt; for I saw the check by means of which she returned the borrowed money to Mrs. Wilson. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... the one pastime which could be practiced without making a noise of any sort to attract undesirable attentions, the boy took to it in self-defence. But before long it had become his passion. He read, by stealth, everything that fell into his hands, a weird melange of newspapers, illustrated ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... is not one, my dear Duchess. I disapprove of tin articles in puddings and pies. It is most undesirable—(especially when people swallow in lumps!)" she added in ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... was reached, and I looked forward to exchanging my undesirable companion for more interesting occupation in seeing over the town with its ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... inhabited by the construction gangs. A large proportion of them were orderly, well-conducted men: industrious immigrants who had seized the first opportunity for getting work, small farmers attracted by high wages, skilled artisans. There were, however, some of a rougher type; and the undesirable element, was, as usual, well represented. On the whole, the camp was sober, largely because no licenses had been issued, though this did not prevent men who came up from other points from bringing liquor in, and the authorities suspected another ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... to be exceedingly undesirable to close an eventful probation of seventy or eighty years, and leave your reputation among posterity suspended upon so doubtful an issue? But what, my dear sir, is a reputation among posterity, who are but worms, compared with a destiny in the world of ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... report on housing conditions in Newark, New Jersey, we are informed that old dilapidated buildings, long closed as undesirable for habitation, were opened and rented to Negroes. These houses were rented out as housekeeping apartments regardless of the fact that there were no facilities for such purposes. Kitchen ranges, lavatories, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... about her is this: She is the daughter of a criminal. Her father was a pickpocket, he died in prison. Now I ask you, Faith, what can you expect from this girl? According to your Bible are not 'the iniquities' of the fathers visited upon the children, and are the innocents to blame for their undesirable inheritance? Furthermore, that girl's mother was what we call an outcast. Can you reasonably look for morality of any sort in the offspring of such an infamous union? You do not answer, because you cannot! I defy any of your Christians to straighten out this matter. The viciousness of most ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... property qualification was abolished. At the hearing before the committee, the other evening, a gentleman asked whether the change of the qualification excluding women did not show that their voting was found to be inconvenient or undesirable. Not at all. It merely showed that the male property-holders out-voted the female. It certainly showed nothing as to the right or expediency of the voting of women. Mr. Douglas, as I said, had a theory that the white male adult squatters in a territory might decide whether the colored ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... were out the Government sent an intimation to the effect that the Congress was not actually prohibited. That it was only deemed undesirable to allow it to be held at Johannesburg, where a strike had taken place; and that even there the Government no longer objected, provided it be held indoors. But this belated reconsideration was unnecessary as the Kimberley preparations were far advanced and some of the delegates were ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... of objurgations as the advocate frantically resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by a glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess leveled a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... watchfulness, secrets easily transpire from one to another; so loquacious is man! Moreover, he had unfortunately from nature a disposition of not appreciating anything within easy reach, but of directing his thought in undesirable quarters, hence sundry ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... that "this impression is often received by persons who hear of the thousands of Negroes who move from one place to another from year to year because of the desire to improve their unhappy condition. In this there is no tendency to migrate but an urgent need to escape undesirable conditions. In fact, one of the American Negroes' greatest shortcomings is that they are not sufficiently pioneering." To the reviewer, this statement, typical of others, seems to be the more reasonable conclusion ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... patience with nationalist sentiment whether in Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, and should most rigorously insist on that cast-iron incorporation which, as it happens, in the case of Ireland I believe to be equally hopeless and undesirable. This explanation, therefore, of my favour for Welsh Disestablishment is as absurdly ignorant as ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... hard-working and of a higher type than the Kaffir and other natives, they throve as a whole. The white population, who had found them at first very useful, began to see in them either dangerous competitors or an undesirable element calculated to complicate the social problems in a country in which the European formed anyhow but a small minority face to face with 6,000,000 natives. Both the old Boer Government in the Transvaal and the Colonial ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... the ointment of this long day's ride, the third party, whose undesirable presence and personal knowledge of Mr. Moffat's past career rather seriously interfered with the latter's flights of imagination, was William McNeil, foreman of the "Bar V" ranch over on Sinsiniwa Creek. McNeil was not much of a talker, having an impediment in his speech, and being ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... her—should not woo and win her for his wife if she cared for him. She was good and sweet and true. Anything of doubt in her antecedents could not touch her. Probably the world would look upon Captain Anthony as a somewhat undesirable father-in-law for a minister, but that aspect of the question did not disturb Alan. As for the trouble of the letter, he felt sure he would easily be able to clear it away. Probably some malicious busybody had become aware of his frequent ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... seems to have perceived at once that the chief source of disaster had been the location of the settlement upon the Jamestown peninsula. The small area which this place afforded for the planting of corn, and the unhealthfulness of the climate rendered it most undesirable as the site for a colony. Former Governors had refused to desert the peninsula because of the ease with which it could be defended against the Indians. But Dale at once began a search for a spot which would afford all the security of Jamestown, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... appear unobjectionable if their circulation is restricted to nudists and persons interested in the nudist cult. They have, however, been appearing in some newsagents' and tobacconists' shops and openly displayed in windows, and we consider circulation in this form to be undesirable. Serious consideration is being given to the prosecution of any one who displays these magazines or sells them to the ...
— Report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee • Ronald Macmillan Algie
... that the ooephorectomy operation (removal of ovaries) may be performed upon a masculine type of woman with "little disturbance of the metabolism..." But he thinks that the degree of masculinity should always be carefully observed before undertaking such operations, which in some cases have most undesirable effects. ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... of undesirable studies—undesirable because of lack of time—there remains ample time for those studies which are necessary for the equipment of a historian; to wit, languages, histories, English, French, and Latin literature, and ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... of this painful but purely fictitious incident he would whisk away the binder on the fireproof building, returning it signed with one and the same movement, and smiling a smile of chastened sorrow over his inability to assist his friend with the undesirable rag offering. Or else the office would see him lean forward impressively, and say, in a hushed whisper, across the counter: "Now, Mr. Charles Webb, you're wasted in the insurance business. If you have the cold nerve to offer me that old skate that's been turned down by every ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... pleasantry that only those who have tried it can understand, for humping timber is one of the most undesirable occupations possible; as many a galled shoulder ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Whenever we looked at ourselves in the glass we systematically ignored the most individual features—(cries of dissent)—and that was why we never, or very seldom, agreed that a photograph resembled or rendered justice to us. The explanation was to be found in the fact that we thought it undesirable to have too individual features, just as we thought it undesirable to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... settled down, renounced all of his undesirable habits and became a new man with such surprising suddenness that his friends marvelled and—derided. A year of happiness followed. He grew accustomed to her frivolous ways, overlooked her merry whimsicalities and gave her the "full length of a free rope," as he called it. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... most undesirable turn; but Honor's first object must be to put the right of heirship out of the little head, and she at once began—'Nurse must have made a mistake, my dear; this place is your home, and will be always so, I hope, while ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fame than fortune—"by every exertion to attain sufficient to make us both independent for the rest of our lives." Not for many years did he come to perceive that a life of leisure was not only impossible, but undesirable for him, and to express it as his fondest wish that he might "die in harness." The profits of the "Tales of a Traveler" went the way of most of his earnings—this time to help develop ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... all the keynote to the breeder's operations. He is aiming at the production of a strain which shall combine the greatest number of desirable properties with the least number of undesirable ones. This good quality he must take from one strain, that from another, and that again from a third, while at the same time avoiding all the poor qualities that these different strains possess. It is evident that the Mendelian conception of ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett |
