"Unhandsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Curiosities of each or the nicest Palate; and according to that old Saw in the Regiment of Health, Incipe cum Liquido, &c. The Liquids premitted to the Solids. These being so Excellent in their kinde, so beneficial and so well ordered, I think it unhandsome, if not injurious, by the trouble of any further Discourse, to detain thee any longer from falling to; Fall to therefore, and much good may ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... they have a particular unaptness to describe any good thing, or commend any worthy person; being destitute of right ideas, and proper terms answerable to such purposes: their representations of that kind are absurd and unhandsome; their eulogies (to use their own way of speaking) are in effect satires, and they can hardly more abuse a man than by attempting to commend him; like those in the prophet, who were wise to do ill, but to do ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... any mode in which to make it. Most of the methods he had come in contact with, except that of manual labour, in which work was done and money paid immediately for it, repelled him, as having elements of the unhandsome where not the dishonest: he was not yet able to distinguish between substance and mode in such matters. The only way in which he ever dreamed of coming into possession of money—it was another of his favourite ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... judged), to wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib in theory, and bold in practice—and it had been mutually agreed between them that "stomach" was the cause of these unhandsome symptoms; acridity of the gastric juice, consequent indigestion and spasm, and generally a hypochondriacal habit of body. Mr. Jennings must take certain draughts thrice a day, be very careful of his diet, and keep his mind at ease. As to Simon ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... his face—to the black hair flecked here and there with gray; to the bright, deep-set eyes, ambushed under heavy brows; to the full lips, which the carefully arranged mustache did not at all conceal; to the projecting chin, with its little plume of an imperial. A strong face and a not unhandsome one, with a certain look of ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... ought to be mentioned that no sooner had my old lady found out John, than John made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon a thankless person by the name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the punishment of which Wegg, by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhanded game that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so many of together (and, by-the-by, my dear, he wasn't Blackberry Jones, but Blewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was the Case indeed. But tho' I am chiefly grieved at the ill Circumstances of I——d, my next trouble is, that the World seems resolved they shall never mend; and, I think so, by their treating all true Patriots in the most unhandsome Manner. This is as mad a Measure, as imprisoning the Physicians in an epidemical Sickness would be. Yet such Men, who only could heal our Distempers, are treated almost as common Poisoners, and watch'd as if they were Incendiaries and the Enemies of Society. It ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... apprehension into his even-featured, not unhandsome face. Evidently she found it hard to meet his eyes,—eyes wholly lacking in humor and kindliness, but unquestionably vivid and compelling under his heavy, dark brows. "I'm going home," she told him at last. "I guess, if you're going up to see Pop, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... prostrated himself. His mantle partly falling off from his shoulders as he knelt, revealed a form of Herculean strength; a stiletto and pistol glittered in his belt, and the light falling on his countenance showed features not unhandsome, but strongly and fiercely charactered. As he prayed he became vehemently agitated; his lips quivered; sighs and murmurs, almost groans burst from him; he beat his breast with violence, then clasped his hands and wrung them convulsively as he extended ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... to myself." Certainly, the French king, after such profuse and voluntary pledges, to confirm which he, moreover, offered his two sons and other great individuals as hostages, could not, without utterly disgracing himself, have taken any unhandsome advantage of the Emperor's presence in his dominions. The reflections often made concerning the high-minded chivalry of Francis, and the subtle knowledge of human nature displayed by Charles upon the occasion, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... our fair readers who may have occasion to defend their rights at the point of the lance, that the days of chivalry or the cavaliers of chivalry will be very unhandsome in applying to them the rules of the tourney. Amadis, it will be observed here, does not condescend to use his sword against a woman. And this is not from tenderness, but from contempt. For when the Queen saw that he only took the broken truncheon of his lance to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... she said, "ought to have remembered, brother, that the barony of Tillietudlem has the baronial privilege of pit and gallows; and therefore, if the lad was to be executed on my estate, (which I consider as an unhandsome thing, seeing it is in the possession of females, to whom such tragedies cannot be acceptable,) he ought, at common law, to have been delivered up to my bailie, and justified ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was seen to creep into the tunnel. Standing up when inside, he proved to be a tall, powerful Eskimo, with a not unhandsome but stern countenance, which was somewhat marred by a deep ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... swear he hasn't been near our shanty for weeks," or the retort, "He was last seen comin' out of YOUR cabin," expressed the eagerness with which Rattlers Ridge washed its hands of any responsibility. Yet he was by no means a common dog, nor even an unhandsome dog; and it was a singular fact that his severest critics vied with each other in narrating instances of his sagacity, insight, and agility which they ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the indiscreet and quarrelsome. His dress was perfect. Ethel could find no fault in it, except the monocle which he did not use once during the evening, and which she therefore decided was a quite idle and unhandsome adjunct. ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... tendency of all he had written was morally good,[451] and we can well believe that he was pleased by the enthusiastic tribute of his young critic, J.L. Adolphus, who said of his books: "There is not an unhandsome action or degrading sentiment recorded of any person who is recommended to the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... the finish of his work is one of the principal notes of his versification. How this finish comports with the excessive ease of his prosody remains his own peculiar secret. Ease, in him, does not mean that he has any unhandsome slovenly ways. On the contrary, he resembles rather the warrior with the pouncet box. It is the man of "neath cliffs" who will not be at the trouble of making a place for so much as a definite article. Tennyson certainly worked, ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... looks like a leaning towards the Whigs; but then Trench and Lord Edward Somerset are put into the Ordnance; George Bankes goes back to the India Board, and Government supports him in his contest at Cambridge against William Cavendish. This conduct is considered very unhandsome, and Tierney, who was well disposed towards the Government, told me yesterday that if the Duke did not take care he thought he would get swamped with such doings, that the way he went on was neither fish nor flesh, and he would offend more people than he would conciliate. At present there is no ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... traffic, not looking overmuch at the present forms of the thousands he passed, but seeing with the eyes of faith the forms he desired to see. Near St. Paul's he stopped in front of an old book-shop. His grave, pallid, not unhandsome face, was well-known to William Rimall, its small proprietor, who at once brought out his latest acquisition—a Mores 'Utopia.' That particular edition (he assured Miltoun) was quite unprocurable—he had never sold ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with giant grace— That wild, tho' not unhandsome face; That voice which sometimes in its tone Is softer than the wood-dove's moan, At others, louder than the storm Which beats the side of old Cairn Gorm; That hand, as white as falling snow, Which yet can fell the stoutest foe; ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... one in whose living presence one would have blushed to own them." A Catholic money-lender, when about to cheat, was wont to draw a veil over the picture of his favourite saint. So Hazlitt has said of the portrait of a beautiful female, that it seemed as if an unhandsome action would be impossible in its presence. "It does one good to look upon his manly honest face," said a poor German woman, pointing to a portrait of the great Reformer hung upon the wall of her ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... at this time was Hugleik, who, though he had a well-filled treasury, was yet so prone to avarice, that once, when he gave a pair of shoes which had been adorned by the hand of a careful craftsman, he took off the ties, and by thus removing the latches turned his present into a slight. This unhandsome act blemished his gift so much that he seemed to reap hatred for it instead of thanks. Thus he used never to be generous to any respectable man, but to spend all his bounty upon mimes and jugglers. For so base ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... who had expected that his brother, after what he had said, would go to the forest, had declined going himself that day, for fear of giving him any umbrage; therefore told her, without any reflection upon her husband's unhandsome behaviour, that she need not frighten herself, for that certainly Cassim would not think it proper to come into the town till the night should be pretty ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... sat silent, disgraced, unable to explain a thing. It was unhandsome of Sarah Schuyler, she felt, though no more than she might have expected of her, she told herself. She had never liked her. Well, wait until her opportunity came. If they did not wish her to say the truth she must say something. She could at least tell what she thought. And ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Night. Shakspeare, it is well known, in very early youth, married a girl a good deal older than himself, and there is at least no evidence to shew that, as usual, he did not repent his choice. Now, we will admit that it was unhandsome in the poet at the beginning of the Dream to make Hermia and Lysander discourse upon this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... the same material, embroidered and fringed with gold, drooped in heavy folds above him. Attired in the usual white,—white cassock, white skull cap, and white sash ornamented with the emblematic keys of St. Peter, embroidered in gold thread at the ends,—his unhandsome features, pallid as marble, and seemingly as cold,—bloodless everywhere, even to the lips,—suggested with dreadful exactitude a corpse in burial clothes just lifted from its coffin and placed stiffly ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... fellow of the wonderful days of four or five years ago away down in the sunny Ohio valley where he had courted the Girl and where they lived before they moved to the farm in Canada. He tried to impress upon Little Jim's mind what it meant for a great big, unhandsome fellow like himself to be loved by a tender slip of a girl whose hair was like gold and whose eyes were as blue as the wood-violets. One evening he fumbled for a minute under his bunk and came back to the table with a worn and finger-marked manila envelope, from which he drew tenderly ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... really very annoying to have to reply to unhandsome and unjust accusations. The REV. MR. ARROWSMITH first transposes two lines of Shakspeare, and then, by notes of admiration, holds me up as a mere simpleton; and then A. E. B. charges me with having pirated ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... of the long-service soldier of those days; a not unhandsome man, with a certain undemonstrative dignity, which some might have said to be partly owing to the stiffness of his uniform about his neck, the high stock being still worn. He was much stouter than when Selina had parted from him. Although ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... Samminiato, deg. deg.150 Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded. Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... have been performed, when Ramm and Punto came to me in the greatest rage to ask me why my sinfonie concertante was not to be given. "I don't know. This is the first I hear of it. I cannot tell." Ramm was frantic, and abused Le Gros in the music-room in French, saying how very unhandsome it was on his part, etc. I alone was to be kept in the dark! If he had even made an excuse—that the time was too short, or something of the kind!—but he never said a syllable. I believe the real cause to be Cambini, an Italian maestro; for at our first meeting at Le Gros's, I unwittingly ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... Mythologische Forschungen (1884), the work from which Mr. Max Muller cites the letter to Mullenhoff, Mannhardt discusses Demeter Erinnys. She is the Arcadian goddess, who, in the form of a mare, became mother of Despoina and the horse Arion, by Poseidon. {51a} Her anger at the unhandsome behaviour of Poseidon caused Demeter to be called Erinnys—'to be angry' being [Greek] in Arcadian—a folk-etymology, clearly. Mannhardt first dives deep into the sources for this fable. {51b} Arion, he decides, is no mythological personification, but a poetical ideal (Bezeichnung) ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... nerves, and a most un-mulelike willingness to obey orders. He was far from the ideal cavalry mount, but he took his rider there and back, safely. He was sure-footed, with a cat's ability to move at night, and in scout circles he had already made a favorable impression. But he certainly was an unhandsome creature. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... woman) by his often frequenting of a house, bold unseemly gestures, may make a breach, and by his over-familiarity, if he be inclined to yellowness, colour him quite out. If he be poor, basely born, saith Beneditto Varchi, and otherwise unhandsome, he suspects him the less; but if a proper man, such as was Alcibiades in Greece, and Castruccius Castrucanus in Italy, well descended, commendable for his good parts, he taketh on the more, and watcheth his doings. [6113]Theodosius the emperor gave his wife Eudoxia ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... unfortunate and painful Spanish business; but in justice to myself I must make a few observations. You say that the King thinks me resentful; this is extraordinary, for I have no such feeling; my feelings were and are deeply wounded at the unhandsome and secret manner (so totally, in letter and in meaning, contrary to an entente cordiale) in which this affair was settled, and in which ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... therefore, set forth this comedy; but so, that my enforced absence must much rely upon the printer's discretion: but I shall entreat slight errors in orthography may be as slightly overpassed, and that the unhandsome shape which this trifle in reading presents, may be pardoned for the pleasure it once afforded you when it was presented with ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... dirty street toward the bank. Mr. Hooker wore somewhat shabby clothes for a banker; in fact, he never could recover from certain personal habits formed during a penurious boyhood. He had a thin hatchet face which just at this moment was shining though from some inward glow. Although he was an unhandsome little man, his expression was that of one at peace with man and God and was pleasant to see. He had been so excited by the minister that he was constrained to say something even to two negroes. So as he unlocked the little one-story bank, he told Tump and Peter that he had ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... my lord, but it seems to me that without the cistern there would be no need for the engine. How should you want or how could you use the unhandsome thing? Then how should the cistern be necessary ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... where by wise kindness the black fellow has been kept from the vices of civilization he is a most engaging savage. Tall, thin, muscular, with fine black beard and hair and a curiously wide and impressive forehead, he is not at all unhandsome. He is capable of great devotion to a white master, and is very plucky by daylight, though his courage usually goes with the fall of night. He takes to a horse naturally, and some of the finest riders in Australia ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... of Sir Roger fixed upon mine. He has turned his face quite toward me, and a ray from the candles falls full upon it. Blear! Well, if his eyes are blear, then henceforth blear must bear a different signification from the unhandsome one it has hitherto worn. Henceforth it must mean blue as steel: it must mean clear as a glass of spring water; keen as a well-tempered knife; ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... were in attendance: one to present to him his stockings, another to proffer on bended knee the royal garters, a third to perform the ceremony of handing him his wig, and so on until the toilette of his plump, not unhandsome person was complete. You miss the incense, you feel that some noble thurifer should have fumigated him at each stage. Perhaps he never thought ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... white shawl. She is just in range of a window, and the man watching her feels that Floyd Grandon has more than his share of this world's favors. What has life done for him? asks Jasper Wilmarth with bitter scorn. Given him a crooked, unhandsome body, a lowering face, with its heavy brows and square, rugged features. No woman has ever cared for him, no woman would ever worship him, while dozens no doubt would allow Grandon to ride rough-shod over them if he only smiled ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... literature has so much increased, and the slothfulness to learning so much abounded, very many, fools and ignorant persons, have ofttimes, lest they should perish from the memory of the faithful, written the lives of the saints, certainly with a pious intent, but in a most unhandsome style. Wherefore, in reading the lives and acts of the saints composed in a rude manner or barbarous dialect, disgust is often excited, and not seldom tardiness of belief. And hence it is that the life of the most glorious priest Patrick, the patron ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... they'll talk of his "ha'porth of sack," On his weights make unhandsome reflection; But little he'll reck, as fines fall on our back, And he's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... ancient-youth, extraordinarily unhandsome if not positively ugly. He had a weak pimply grey face, was clad in a brownish uniform, puttees (on pipestem calves), and a regular Messenger Boy cap. Upon securing a place he instantly went to the card-table, seated himself hurriedly, pulled out a batch of blanks, and wrote ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... for there is no night there. Then everyone will come home with a new experience, which is the best thing one can come home with, and the rarest nowadays; and with a pocketful of Alaskan garnets, which are about the worst he can come home with, being as they are utterly valueless, and unhandsome even ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... toward all this time is this: the first critic that ever had occasion to describe my personal appearance littered his description with foolish and inexcusable errors whose aggregate furnished the result that I was distinctly and distressingly unhandsome. That description floated around the country in the papers, and was in constant use and wear for a quarter of a century. It seems strange to me that apparently no critic in the country could be found who ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... grew steadily wetter and rougher and more disagreeable. The lower stretch of a glacier is an unhandsome sight in summer: all sorts of rock debris and ugly black shale, with discolored melting ice and snow, intersected everywhere with streams of dirty water—this was what it had degenerated into as we reached the pass. The snow was entirely gone ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... of the door, is he?" said Allan, as soon as his merriment left him breath enough to speak. "That's a devilish unhandsome action, Master Midwinter, on the part of your ghost. The least I can do, after that, is to let mine out of the cabin, and give him ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... regretted that, under the circumstances, they felt no inclination to accept your offer. Their threat of further proceedings against you unless you take immediate steps to remove your machine, though, perhaps, to be expected, is certainly a little unhandsome. Perhaps your best plan will be to try and start your Steam-roller as a "Suburban Omnibus Company," as you propose. Certainly secure that Duke you mention for Chairman, and, with one or two good City names on the Directorate, it is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... of the short-haired black sort familiar to the shepherd of the north, and to David himself in his farm days—which would haunt the shop and kitchen. Whereupon David felt all his heart melt towards the squalid, unhandsome creature. He fed and cherished it; it slept on his bed by night and followed him by day, he all the while protecting it from Louie with a strong hand. And the more evil was the eye she cast upon the dog, who, according to her, possessed all the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have justice but in doing it for oneself, and the King being Sovereign enough for such a duty,—he intends to make the Prince of Liege feel how far he was in the wrong to abuse such moderation so unworthily. But in spite of so much unhandsome behavior on the part of this Prince, the King will not be inflexible; satisfied with having shown the said Prince that he can punish him, and too just to overwhelm him. FREDERIC. "WESEL, September 11th, 1740." [Helden-Geschichte, ii. 77. Said to be by Friedrich ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... unhandsome conduct towards him, Warwick found an ally in Clarence, the king's brother, gave him one of his daughters in marriage, and even encouraged him to hope for the succession to the crown. Edward's extravagant ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... so far from seeming to resent it, he will be the first to commend it; but notwithstanding that, he will remember it as a trait of malice, when the whole company shall have forgotten it as a stroke of wit. Women are so far from being privileged by their sex to say unhandsome or cruel things, that it is this very circumstance which renders them more intolerable. When the arrow is lodged in the heart, it is no relief to him who is wounded to reflect, that the hand which shot it ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... act of merit that has been insisted upon by his counsel is the Mahratta peace. They have stated to you the distresses of the Company to justify the unhandsome and improper means that he took of making this peace. Mr. Hastings himself has laid hold of the same opportunity of magnifying the difficulties which, during his government, he had to contend with. Here he displays all his tactics. He spreads all his sails, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... hand-writing must be well known in that town;—but to this he observed, that there was not a Moor in Spain who could not write Spanish;—he further remarked, that if I was Mr. Thicknesse, I had, in a publication of my travels, spoke of Sir John Lambert, a Parisian Banker, in very unhandsome terms, and, for aught he knew, I might take the same liberty with his name, in future. I acknowledged that his charge was very true, and that his suggestion might be so; that I should always speak and publish such truths as I thought proper, either for the ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... low-minded, low-thoughted[obs3]; base-minded. undignified, indign|; unbecoming, unbeseeming[obs3], unbefitting; derogatory, degrading; infra dignitatem [Latin: beneath one's dignity]; ungentlemanly, ungentlemanlike; unknightly[obs3], unchivalric[obs3], unmanly, unhandsome; recreant, inglorious. corrupt, venal; debased, mongrel. faithless, of bad faith, false, unfaithful, disloyal; untrustworthy; trustless, trothless[obs3]; lost to shame, dead to honor; barratrous. Adv. dishonestly &c. adj.; mala fide[Lat], like a thief in the night, by crooked ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... country Plays of children are not performed in play Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit Pleasure of telling (a pleasure little inferior to that of doing Poets Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play Preachers very often work more upon their auditory than reasons Preface to bribe the benevolence of the courteous reader Prefer in bed, beauty before goodness Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... seem to have seen anything very unhandsome in this broad refusal to throw the handkerchief; but though not unhandsome, it could not be considered satisfactory to the heart. So M. de Cressy despatches this private note to Adelaide ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... hero of the occasion, the centre of all this enthusiasm—thus carried as if in triumph into this assembly in evening dress, in white tulle and whiter kid, odorous of delicate sachets and scarce-perceptible perfumes—was a figure unhandsome and unkempt beyond description. His hair was long, and hanging over his eyes. A thick, uncared-for beard concealed the mouth and chin. He was dressed in a Chinaman's blouse and jeans—the latter thrust into slashed and tattered boots. The tan and weatherbeatings of nearly half a year of the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took't away again; Who therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff: and still he smiled and talk'd; And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, Out of my grief and my impatience To ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... small. Such rooms for him, the greatest sage of Greece! 'I ask,' said he, 'no greater bliss Than real friends to fill e'en this.' And reason had good Socrates To think his house too large for these. A crowd to be your friends will claim, Till some unhandsome test you bring. There's nothing plentier than the name; There's nothing rarer ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the meaning or beauty that is to be found in Linton's woodcut of Rafaelle's Madonna, which may be had for twopence. The head reminds one of the observation made by Hazlitt upon a picture, that it seems as if an unhandsome act would be impossible in its presence. It embodies the ideas of mother's love, womanly beauty, and earnest piety. As some one said of the picture: "It looks as if a bit of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... younger man—he of the unhandsome mouth—P. Sybarite was content to hold him in reserve, to be dealt with later, at his leisure. For the present, his business pressed ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... imagery; but when thou hast rifled and discomposed them with enjoying their false beauties, and that they begin to go off, then behold them in their nakedness and weariness. See what a sigh and sorrow, what naked and unhandsome proportions and a filthy carcass they discover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already discovered, and be no ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... and yet, after having received and entertained you as well as possibly we could, you make no scruple to break your promise. It is true that our easy temper has occasioned this, but that shall not excuse you, for your proceedings are very unhandsome. As she spoke these words, she gave three hard knocks with her foot, and, clapping her hands as often together, cried, Come quick! Upon this a door flew open, and seven strong sturdy black slaves, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... sought counsel of the landscape which once again had changed in character. For here civilisation began to trail her skirts very visibly, and the edges of those skirts were torn and frayed, notably unhandsome. The open moorland had given place to flat market-gardens and leafless orchards sloppy with wet. Innumerable cabbages, innumerable stunted, black-branched apple and pear trees, avenues of dilapidated pea and bean sticks, reeled away ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... denotes its possessor to be far in advance, in spirit, even of his still active and powerful frame. With these must be connected a snub nose—a double chin, adorned with grisly honors, which are borne, like the fleece of the lamb, only occasionally to the shears of the shearer—and a small, and not unhandsome, mouth, at certain periods pursed into an expression of irresistible humour, but more frequently expressing a sense of lofty independence. The grisly neck, little more or less bared, as the season may demand—a kerchief loosely tied around the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... hearing what she was hearing, eye to eye, open soul to open soul, with one who could make words—words at any rate—happen between himself and Gideon Hayle. She looked this time not alone into his eyes but on all his unhandsome countenance, and in a surviving upflare of her younger days' extravagance thought whether, among all time's heroes of the world's waters, there had ever been one too great for Hugh Courteney's face. So looking she thrilled with the belief that there was nothing such men had ever ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... cottage, and before three o'clock Phineas found himself mounted on a shaggy steed, which, in sober truth, was not much bigger than a large dog. "If Mr. Kennedy is really my rival," said Phineas to himself, as he trotted along, "I almost think that I am doing an unhandsome ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... in an age of iron and have all we can do to keep the iron from entering our souls. Our vast industries have their root in the geologic history of the globe as in no other past age. We delve for our power, and it is all barbarous and unhandsome. When the coal and oil are all gone and we come to the surface and above the surface for the white coal, for the smokeless oil, for the winds and the sunshine, how much more attractive life will be! Our very minds ought to be cleaner. We may never hitch ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now and then to look at him. Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance. To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and mentally. He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on this day no ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... years of age, a natural born bachelor and art connoisseur. He was of medium height, of stout build, with curly black hair and a curly black beard, a swarthy complexion, a bullet head, a bull neck, a huge chest and plump arms and legs. He was by no means unhandsome in appearance and very jovial, good-humored, and good-natured; manifestly fond of all the good things of life and able to discriminate ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... double bereavement as best she could. The vast mansion in which she had hitherto lived, with all its historic contents, had gone to her father's successor in the title; but her own was no unhandsome one. Around lay the undulating park, studded with trees a dozen times her own age; beyond it, the wood; beyond the wood, the farms. All this fair and quiet scene was hers. She nevertheless remained a lonely, repentant, depressed being, who would have given the greater part of everything she possessed ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... more lightly than we do the credit which Mr. Collier thought of consequence enough for him to do an unhandsome, not to say dishonorable, act to deprive an opponent of it. By referring to White's edition of Shakespeare, Vol. II. p. lx., another instance may be found of the same discourtesy on the part of Mr. Collier to Chalmers, with regard to a matter yet more trifling.] and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Like a beaten puppy's tail. (A beaten puppy drops his tail and drags it weakly behind him. The feather drooped down behind him and dragged limply along. The figure gives a vivid picture of the wet feather, limp and unhandsome. The figure is a comparison in the form of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... tendency to make us undervalue money. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money is not health; riches cannot purchase every thing: the metaphor which makes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces fine clothing to the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsome excretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which imputes dirt to acres—a sophistry so barefaced, that even the literal sense of it is true only in a wet season. This, and abundance of similar sage saws assuming to inculcate ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... for me to be under the necessity of entering into a detail of this sort; but the unhandsome representation Monsieur Las Cases has made to your Lordship of my conduct, has obliged me to produce proofs of the light in which the transaction was viewed by Buonaparte as well ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... of grace, by making them orderly, regular, temperate, subordinate, and profitable to ends beyond their own proper efficacy. And let no pride or self-seeking, no covetousness or revenge, no impure mixtures or unhandsome purposes, no little ends and low imaginations, pollute my spirit or unhallow any of my words or actions. But let my body be the servant of my spirit, and both soul and body servants of my Lord, that, doing all things for Thy glory here, I may be made a partaker of Thy glory hereafter; ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... Fables, was then at the court of this prince, by whom he was very kindly entertained. He was concerned at the unhandsome treatment Solon received, and said to him by way of advice: "Solon, we must either not come near princes at all, or speak things that are agreeable to them." "Say rather," replied Solon, "that we should either never come near them at all, or else speak such things ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... weeks over that diabolical trap that opens downward. He's a strong man, but he's got enough on his nerves as it is. No, I won't tell him. He is going to do the handsome thing by us, and it would be mean for me to do the unhandsome thing by him. By George! I don't believe he could sleep for two or three nights if he knew what I know! No, sir! You just keep your mouth shut until we are safe and sound in some civilized spot, with the whole business settled, and Shirley ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... appearance I have not sought to describe so far, his stature was certainly a splendid one. He stood not less than six feet two inches high; his chest was full, and his neck and limbs such as a sculptor might take as a model for a Hercules. His face was not unhandsome, but it was marred by an all-prevading expression of cruelty. In his eye there was no room for pity or remorse; nor was there a feature in his face that could harbour a generous or kindly impulse; or one of honour. His hair was dark, ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... responded John, "though I think it's perhaps the merest trifle unhandsome of you to fling it in my face. I have eaten a great deal, and I am still eating. That is what I come to table for. In an orderly life like mine there is a place for everything. I come to table to eat, just as I go to bed to sleep and to church to say my prayers. Would you have me sleep at table, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... woman,—far past youth—on the very confines of middle age, with iron-gray hair banded across a stern, much-lined brow. Colorless features of a strong, large, not unhandsome type from which all liveliness and vivacity had long since fled. A stern mouth—steady, lusterless, severe eyes, a dignity—yes, even a majesty of mien which she did not attempt to soften into graciousness; black, trailing draperies; a haughty pride ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... reverence—and inquiring if we had any desire to see the nuns, went up to an opening in which there was a revolving frame, and asked for the Lady Superior. The lady mother soon presented her round and not unhandsome form at a door to the right, and in choice Italian demanded our business. With much nonchalance Don C. expressed a desire to pay his respects to the ladies under her charge, especially to the one just admitted. His coolness somewhat disconcerted the supreme lady Abbess, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... admirably. After the lapse of a few years he had charge of the business. His position was getting better; he was making fifteen thousand francs per annum, but that was nothing compared to his dreams. He was then twenty-eight years of age. He felt ready to do anything to succeed, except something unhandsome, for this lover of money would have died rather than enrich himself ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... do nothing with her, and loth to use any unhandsome pressure towards one whom he loved as the Apple of his Eye, the Esquire began to think it might divert her mind to more cheerful thoughts if she quitted for a season that part of the country (for it was at Home that she had received the dreadful news of her misfortune); and, Sir Fortunatus Geddings ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... ends at the commencement of the Esplanade, in a large building, wooden-fronted, of a circular form, and not unhandsome, which is decorated with a flag upon the roof, and is called "The Sailors' Home." Its verandahs and open windows often display our jovial tars enjoying themselves in an asylum which, though evil has been spoken against it, is said to be well-conducted, and ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... gaze took in the scene. We lay crooked up upon a ridge of rock and sand; beyond, to the right, the cliffs rose in a cloud of gulls, and nearer and leftwards the long rollers broke upon a little beach which sloped up to the verdure of a tiny valley. It was a solitary but a not unhandsome prospect, and my eyes devoured it with inward satisfaction, even with longing. Far away a little hill was crowned with trees, and the sun was shining warmly on the gray sand ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Signs upon earth! signs everywhere! your Priests Gross, worldly, simoniacal, unlearn'd! They scarce can read their Psalter; and your churches Uncouth, unhandsome, while in Normanland God speaks thro' abler voices, as He dwells In statelier shrines. I say not this, as being Half Norman-blooded, nor as some have held, Because I love the Norman better—no, But dreading God's revenge ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... place has the attraction of a park for the holiday schoolboy, of a granary for mice. We must add the yet more lively allurement of a haunted house, for over these empty and silent miles there broods the fear of the negrito cannibal. For the Samoan besides, there is something barbaric, unhandsome, and absurd in the idea of thus growing food only to send it from the land and sell it. A man at home who should turn all Yorkshire into one wheatfield, and annually burn his harvest on the altar of Mumbo-Jumbo, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eye fell on the postscript. "Oh, damn it," cried Spendquick, "but that's too bad,—employing you to get me to pay him! Such horrid treachery. Make yourself easy, my dear Frank; I could never suspect you of anything so unhandsome. I could as soon suspect ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... miscreant was facing Sally as he bent over the table and fumbled with the lock of the jewel-case, and she made good use of this chance to memorise a countenance of mildly sardonic cast, not unhandsome—the face of a conventional modern voluptuary, self-conscious, self-satisfied, selfish—rather attractive withal in the eyes ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... creation than ill-nurtured bears,—bears that have been ill-licked,—those great, fierce, sullen, cross-grained and ill-tempered beasts, that are, unhappily, to be found in every part of this various world; but when all these unhandsome qualities are found in one individual of the species, and that one happens to have a sore head into the bargain, it is easy to believe the at home which he honours or dishonours with his presence can neither be ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... feeling somewhat "mugwumpish" myself that morning, for it was pretty plain that I never could lead the Republican party in that house, as long as Addison was about. Still, I did not like the idea of being a "copperhead;"—for that was the unhandsome designation which Addison applied to all lukewarm or doubtful citizens. On the whole, I decided that I had better be a quiet, not very talkative Unionist, and not mix too freely in politics. I had some idea, however, of being a "War ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... and yet were quite unable to do them the least harm. In order that I might know their character, some of them let themselves down from on high, where they were thundering; and, strange to say, one carried another on his back, and the two thus approached me. Their faces appeared not unhandsome, but longer than those of other spirits. In stature they were like boys of seven years old, but of more robust frame; so that they were dwarfs. I was told by the angels that they were from the Moon. The one who ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... confederates are either forgotten, or exist only to furnish proofs, that the same conclusion, which one man had deduced scientifically, may be brought out by another in consequence of errors that luckily chanced to neutralize each other. It would be unhandsome as a conjecture, even were it not, as it actually is, false in point of fact to attribute this difference to the deficiency of talent on the part of Burke's friends, or of experience, or of historical knowledge. The satisfactory ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Mark, irritably, 'anything you please. I'm a reformed character; I'll take the pledge to abstain from ink in all forms if you like.' It was not a very gracious way of accepting what was by no means an unhandsome offer; but he was jarred and worried, and scarcely knew what ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... friendship I had contemplated matrimony with our amiable Marchioness, but, I confess, 'twas the lady's property rather than her person which was the allure. And reflection dissuaded me; a legal union left me, a young and not unhandsome man, irrevocably fettered to an old woman; whereas a mock-marriage afforded an eternal option to compound the match—for a consideration—with the lady's relatives, to whom, I had instinctively divined, her alliance ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... He had heard that unhappy Kirkland possessed unknown disease of the heart, and had unhappily died before receiving his allotted punishment. His duty was to comfort Kirkland's soul; he had nothing to do with Kirkland's slovenly unhandsome body, and so he went for a walk on the pier, that the breeze might blow his momentary sickness away from him. On the pier he saw North talking to Father Flaherty, the Roman Catholic chaplain. Meekin had been taught to look upon a priest as a shepherd might look upon a wolf, and passed with a distant ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... picnics and parties and dances to which the Mayor's wife or the mothers of some of the pupils would invite or chaperon her, her vivid, delicate, fragile beauty would draw, first men's eyes, and then their owners, not all unhandsome or undesirable; while showier girls looked in vain for partners or companions. The little triumph, the consciousness of being admired and sought after, would quicken Lynette's pulses, and heighten the radiance of her eyes, and lend animation to her girlish chatter ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... we owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall round about the paddock; ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... had come forward, against their apparent interest, to serve the cause of humanity and justice, were looked upon as mercenaries and culprits, or as men of doubtful and suspicious character; they were brow-beaten; unhandsome questions were put to them; some were kept for four days under examination. It was however highly to their honour that they were found in no one instance to prevaricate, nor to waver as to the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... convinced Madam Liberality in the end that his way was a wrong one, but she had her doubts many times in her life whether there were not something unhandsome in her own decided talent for economy. Not that economy was always pleasant to her. When people are very poor for their position in life, they can only keep out of debt by stinting on many occasions when stinting is very painful to a liberal spirit. And it requires ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... young friend, her dress would not. Once, I dropped a pickled oyster in the lap of my Prue, who wore, on the occasion, her sea-green silk gown. I did not love my Prue the less; but there certainly was a very unhandsome spot upon her dress. And although I know my Prue to be spotless, yet, whenever I recall that day, I see her in a spotted gown, and I would prefer never to have been obliged to think of her ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... happy without making any sacrifice of our feelings," cried Clarence. And, transported at regaining his own freedom, Virginia's simplicity never appeared to him so charming as at this moment. "Dearest Virginia, forgive me for suspecting you for one instant of any thing unhandsome. Mrs. Ormond, with the very best intentions possible, has led us both to the brink of misery. But I find you such as I always ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... allow, was a very unhandsome way of treating an ex-martyr, but at the time Monti wrote he was in Milan, in the midst of most revolutionary spirits, and he felt obliged to be rude to the memory of the unhappy king. After all, probably it did not hurt the king so ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells |
