"Unpleasing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be tedious. What Washington and Jefferson really thought of him we shall never know. He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and Paine was voted an estate of 277 acres, more or less, and a sum of money. This ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... time at Coonoor must be well acquainted with the notes of this species. A common call is a loud ko-ko-ko-e-e-e. Sometimes one bird calls ko-ko-ko, and another answers ko-ee. When the birds are feeding in company, they keep up a continual chatter, which is not unpleasing to the ear. When alarmed they give vent to a harsh cry of a kind characteristic of the babbler tribe. The scimitar-babbler is a bird nearly as big as a myna. It is of brownish hue and has a tail of moderate ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... Le Guast, finding himself foiled in this quarter, applied to the King, who was well inclined to listen to the tale, on account of his dislike to my brother and me, whose friendship for each other was unpleasing to him. ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... enemies, and was anxious, not without reason, to have some additional support in the family. Her influence, from this time, appears to have remained unshaken; though her extravagance and incurable habit of contracting debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between her and ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... this writer, who appears to have possessed much more industry than genius, and cannot at present be read with much pleasure. Yet it should be remembered that even such a writer as Robert de Brunne, uncouth and unpleasing as he naturally seems, and chiefly employed in turning the theology of his age into rhyme, contributed to form a style, to teach expression, and to polish his native tongue. In the infancy of language and composition, nothing ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... shook his head, though the subject was by no means an unpleasing one, at least judging from his animated countenance, and the rapt attention which he paid ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... be pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately set it a-singing; or, in other ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... not a true story, I should have liked to have made him a model of manly beauty; but a regard for veracity compels me to confess that he was not what would be generally considered handsome; that is, not in figure, for his face was by no means unpleasing. ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... place at the Church of Saint Giles Cripplegate, in August [it was in the first year of Queen Mary; exact date unknown]. Bessy Lake, the bride, proved a very gentle, amiable-looking woman, not pretty, but not unpleasing, and by at least ten years the senior of her bridegroom. After the ceremony, the wedding party repaired to Mr Holland's house. Mr Rose was present, with his wife and Thekla; and Mr Ferris; and Mr Ive and Helen, who brought Mrs Underhill's three elder little girls, Anne, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... back on the events of the preceding day, was, to Isabella, a very unpleasing retrospect. She owed her life, and that of her father, to the very person by whom, of all others, she wished least to be obliged, because she could hardly even express common gratitude towards him without encouraging hopes which might be injurious to them both. "Why should it be my fate to receive ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... than that which now covers the earth, there was less agriculture and more of waste and unkempt places not yet reduced to the service of mankind. Solitudes were vaster and more complete. In a country so well cared for as England is to-day, it is difficult to imagine how unpleasing can be the aspect of land over which Nature still has the upper hand, how desolate and dreadful the great mountain areas which men now have to seek at the ends of the earth, where the smoke rises not and even the lone goatherd has not penetrated. ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... approaching, down which the black burnt stems of the stringy bark were agreeably relieved by the white stems of the red and blue gum, growing in the moister and more open space near the creek. In front of them was a slab hut of rich mahogany colour, by no means an unpleasing object among the dull unbroken green of the forest. In front of it was a trodden space littered with the chips of firewood. A pile of the last article lay a few yards in front of the door. And against the walls of the tenement was a long bench, on ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... people notice about German servants is, that they are allowed to dress anyhow, and that the results are most unpleasing. In Hamburg, the city that gives you ox-tail soup for dinner and has sirloins of beef much like English sirloins, the maids used to wear clean crackling, light print gowns with elbow sleeves. This was their full dress in which they waited at table, and fresh looking ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... dark background of the books before him. He watched it for a moment, and as its owner, with an absent air, slowly passed from the bright sunlight into the shade of the arch, it struck the astute George that there was something familiar about this particular and by no means unpleasing shadow. Waiting till it had vanished and the footsteps gone past him, he turned round and at a glance recognized Hilda von Holtzhausen, Miss Lee's beautiful companion, who was supposed to have departed into the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... "never has maiden pleased me as thou dost. Hence, as I saw thee at the moment when I was firmly resolved to take a helpmate, I think I see a special providence in our meeting, and if I am not unpleasing in thine eyes, I pray thee to accept ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... sensation of burning, Ever afterward reluctant to approach stove. Wherefore, as this person once accepted an invitation, In words as affable and polished as yours, Mister, To drink rice-spirit at The Blue Lantern, And was there subjected to a custom of this country Of an entirely disturbing and unpleasing nature, Known as Ceremony of Confidence, He has, since that day, viewed The Blue Lantern With a feeling of most ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... are to become economically independent, instead of being "parasitic on the male," our author's unpleasing way of recognizing that fatherhood has reached high and responsible estate amongst mankind. Now if Mrs. Gilman's solution be feasible, we must return to our fundamentals and see whether they are compatible with it. She has no ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the features of the great lady, the Lady Mallerden herself. In each hand she led a young person, in her left my daughter Waller, and I will not deny that at the sight my heart leapt up with strange but not unpleasing emotion, as, remembering the habitudes of the noble Viscount Lessingholm, I thought there was a possibility of a double wedding; and in her other hand, dressed as for a journey, with close fitting riding-coat, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... not suppose there was one of you ladies in the room that did not think so too; but yet the matter was all passed over with smiles, and with not a single insinuation that he had said any thing unpleasing ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and three quarters. It is, however, somewhat choked in the binding, (in blue morocco) as too many of Bozerian's performances usually are.[83] Close to this book is the Giunta reprint of 1515—ALSO UPON VELLUM: but of a foxy and unpleasing tint. Now for a few LARGE PAPER ALDUSES—of a variety of forms and of characters. But I must premise that the ensuing list of those upon vellum, is very far indeed from ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... had been on his first introduction to this palace of delight. George loved music much more than Harry ever did; he heard a full orchestra for the first time, and a piece of Mr. Handel satisfactorily performed; and a not unpleasing instance of Harry's humility and regard for his elder brother was, that he could even hold George's love of music in respect at a time when fiddling was voted effeminate and unmanly in England, and Britons were, every day, called upon by ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Venus and Adonis is unpleasing; but the poem itself is for that very reason the more illustrative of Shakspeare. There are men who can write passages of deepest pathos and even sublimity on circumstances personal to themselves and stimulative of their own passions; but they are not, therefore, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... learn all these things accurately will be very tiresome. Let me simply say that piety or holiness is learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices. Such piety is the salvation of families and states, just as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, ...
— Euthyphro • Plato
... Wartburg, the third to his death and the beginning of the Schmalkaldic War. It is not the purpose of this sketch to give his entire biography, but to tell briefly how he developed and what he was. Much in his nature appears strange and unpleasing so long as he is viewed from afar; but this historic figure has the remarkable quality of becoming greater and more attractive the more closely it is approached, and from beginning to end it would inspire a good biographer ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... which possesses all the solemnity of feeling attached to a burial-ground, without exciting those of a more unpleasing description. Having been very little used for many years, the few hillocks which rise above the level plain are covered with the same short velvet turf. The monuments, of which there are not above seven or eight, are half sunk in the ground, and overgrown ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... thickly built up and perfectly safe. The evening glow was almost gone, the stars faintly gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must manage it ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... was fairly big. I had a look at it no more than a dozen years ago. The house, too, was and is a not unpleasing one, situated within a stone's throw of Russell Square, Bloomsbury. Its spaces are ample, its fittings solidly good, and its area less subterranean than many. Near by is a select livery stable and mews ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... shore," he says, "I heard what appeared to be wind instruments, the tones now harmonious, now discordant, yet never unpleasing. These harmonious and distinct sounds appeared to come from a distance, and I imagined the natives were making music some six or seven miles beyond the roadstead. But my ear deceived me, for I found that I was not a hundred yards from ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... operation of the mind. And he failed. It was gone before he could properly seize or name it. Approximate description, even, seems to have been difficult, for it was unlike any smell he knew. Acrid rather, not unlike the odor of a lion, he thinks, yet softer and not wholly unpleasing, with something almost sweet in it that reminded him of the scent of decaying garden leaves, earth, and the myriad, nameless perfumes that make up the odor of a big forest. Yet the "odor of lions" is the phrase with which he usually ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... obtaining these, however, seemed each day to diminish. The favour with which the Count regarded him had lasted but during the first days of their acquaintance, and had since been materially impaired by the discovery of various unpleasing traits in Don Baltasar's character, and particularly by his endeavours to urge the death of Herrera in opposition to the wishes of his kinsman. Moreover, there could be little sympathy or durable friendship ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... with ease and interest. She could speak in several languages, her paintings were worthy of admiration, as they were skillful and well executed; she could play with brilliancy on various instruments. She had also been taught to sing, but her voice was metallic and unpleasing. But she could discuss scientific and philosophical subjects with the sages of her father's kingdom ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... moment, Betty, the awkward Welsh serving lass, with a fore-arm about as shapely as the hind leg of an elephant, and a most unpleasing habit of snorting audibly as she moved, shuffled in with the tea-tray. In her wake came the slim Elizabeth, to whom ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside. It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a voyage —beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... black and curly; he had thick lips and beautiful white teeth, which he was fond of showing. His eyes were large and black but deeply sunken; now bright and sparkling, again dull and glassy. His features, to me at least, were harsh and unpleasing; but he was evidently a man of great energy, to whom action was as the breath ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... this Suit Complete, only thirty-seven and sixpence!" The landlady glanced out at him with a friendly nod. He turned and smiled at her, but did not see me; for I stood in the shade behind the half-open door. He had a short black moustache and a not unpleasing, careless face. His features, I thought, were better ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... proposes that none should be suffered to become obsolete. But what makes a word obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and unpleasing by unfamiliarity? ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... idea that Major Benjy was feeling lonely and missing the quarrelsome society of his debauched friend was not entirely unpleasing to her. It was odd that there should be anybody who missed Captain Puffin. Who would not sooner play golf all alone (if that was possible) than with him, or spend an evening alone rather than with his companionship? But if Captain Puffin had to be missed, she ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... running off on a tangent, one after the other, and ending in a windowless closet and an open cistern. But the Agency gloried in its irregularities, and defied criticism. The original idea of its architect—if there was any—had vanished; but his work remained a not unpleasing variety to summer visitors accustomed to city houses, all built with a definite ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... long a subject of anxiety to her; and though she had determined to do so, the thought of him had affected her mind still more keenly. She had hitherto rarely visited the Court, where he was residing; for her visits might be unpleasing to the feelings of her rival, the other ex-Empress, and ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... unprovided babes (so Mrs Quiverful had described her own family, the eldest of which was a stout young woman of three-and-twenty) should be put up to heaven morning and evening for the munificent friend whom God had sent to them. Such incense as this was not unpleasing to Mrs Proudie, and she made the most of it. She offered her general assistance to the fourteen unprovided babes, if, as she had no doubt, she should find them worthy; expressed a hope that the eldest of them would be fit to undertake tuition in her Sabbath ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... matter of negotiation for several days, and (the Lord knows why) the Government pertinaciously insisted on it. Public opinion has declared against it, and now they begin to see that they have done a very foolish thing, odious to the Corps Diplomatique and unpleasing to ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to yield to their theatrical taste; and, after much argument and delay, the unpalatable demand was reluctantly assented to. Cooke, however, whose nature it was, when opposed, only to become more exigent, was not himself appeased; for, as the notes "unpleasing to a Yankee ear" were sounded, with a majestic wave of his hand he silenced the unwilling music, and, "Standing, if you please," was as dictatorially as fearlessly pronounced, to the consternation of the audience. So much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... merry-faced lads were always on the look-out for a bit of fun with him. One evening a tea-drinking was given in the hall in honour of us. The Mota boys sung in twilight the story of the first arrival of the Mission vessel and of their wonder at it. The air, with a monotonous, not unpleasing refrain, reminded us of some old French Canadian ditties. I remember well the excitement when the Bishop sent up a fire balloon. It sailed slowly towards the sea, and down rushed the whole Melanesian party, shrieking with delight after it. Our dear friend's own quarters ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Joseph did not die—not just then, anyhow. He lived to learn to speak, and to talk, and to put out his tongue at visitors, let alone interrupting his parents with unpleasing remarks and telling lies. It was early observed that he did all these things with a je-ne-scais-quoy and a verve quite different from the manner of his little playmates. When one day he moulded out, flattened and unshaped the waxen nose of a doll of his, it was apparent to all ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... and unpleasing voice, however, she was so beautiful, that—being also heir to the throne of a large kingdom—many princes sought her hand in marriage. But the Snarling Princess was resolved to reign alone, and she refused every suitor ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... over-grown with fern, and rough With prickly gorse, that shapeless and deformed And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom And decks itself with ornaments of gold, Yields no unpleasing ramble. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... service. His manner had been extremely reverent and devout, but Malcolm found his delivery unpleasing. The peculiarity in his speech was very noticeable in the reading-desk, and there was no clearness ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... is based on unpleasing associations connected with the days proscribed. Who can wonder if, in times less enlightened than our own, undue importance were attached to the strange coincidence which marked the deaths of Henry VIII. and his posterity. They all died on a Tuesday; himself on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... was that Colombo took leave of Thyrston, and the tale tells how on Walburga's Eve he came to the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel. And as he entered one met him who was not unpleasing to the eye, and she was weeping. And, as it was somewhat dark, Colombo decided to ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... being complimented on the ballet we had just seen. I then went to look at the musicians and their instruments, the latter consisting chiefly of coffee canes struck by a sort of gong-sticks. The sound at a distance was bell-like and not unpleasing. I was informed that the Regent had paid L500 for his set of instruments. After this I returned to my inn in my carriage. How I got to this place I shall tell later. I must now go to bed, as we start at 5 A.M. on an expedition to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... hill-top, but close Environed with a ring of branching elms That overhang the thatch, itself unseen Peeps at the vale below; so thick beset With foliage of such dark redundant growth, I called the low-roofed lodge the PEASANT'S NEST. And hidden as it is, and far remote From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear In village or in town, the bay of curs Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels, And infants clamorous whether pleased or pained, Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine. Here, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... a clumsy boat, some standing and some sitting on the wet seats, and paddled off to the steamer which stood off; our baggage strewn on the pier, to be transported hereafter, if the captain chose to wait. And in this unpleasing state of uncertainty, at six o'clock in the morning, in a pouring rain, we were put on board the vessel which was to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... full daylight, she seemed to be at least thirty-five years of age, and her features, though not unpleasing, were coarse and large, especially the nose. Her hair was black, her complexion dark, and the hands, which lay folded upon her bosom, showed marks of toil, for they were rough and unshapely, though smaller in proportion than ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... time to return homewards. The sun was setting. The lengthened shadows of the cliffs, and of the hills towering again far above them, cast a brown but not unpleasing tint over the waters of the bay. Further on the beams of the sun still maintained their splendour. Some of the sails of the distant ships, enlivened by its rays, appeared like white spots in the blue horizon, and seemed to attract my notice, as if ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... little further into the light. He was attired in an ill-fitting dinner suit, a soft-fronted shirt of unpleasing design, a collar of the wrong shape, and a badly arranged tie. He seemed, nevertheless, very ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... may each domestic bliss be thine! Be no unpleasing melancholy mine: Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 410 Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... prints commence as early as 1781 ("The Village Doctor," published in June of that year by Humphrey), and are followed up (November 27, same year and publisher) by "Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins," and that unpleasing subject (published by Fores, 1783) of "The Amputation"; but it is in his political cartoons of 1784—such as "Britannia roused, or the Coalition Monster destroyed"—that we begin to recognise the distinctive touch of Thomas Rowlandson. This vigorous print shows a half-draped female figure ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... still retain their beautiful Corinthian capitals, and the architrave and part of the frieze resting on these twelve capitals. Everything is of granite except the capitals and bases which are of white marble; but instead of the orthodox twenty-four flutes each column has only twelve, with a distinctly unpleasing result. The temple seems to have been hexastyle peripteral, but all trace of the cella has disappeared. Nothing is known of the temple or who it was that built it, but in Roman times Evora was one of the chief cities of Lusitania; nothing else is left but ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... me a very unpleasing sight; and I hardly ever take a beast alive that I do not presently turn out again. Pythagoras bought them of fishermen and fowlers to do ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... dog to death, letting it lie City to be burned, and the Papists to cut our throats Disorder in the pit by its raining in, from the cupola Down to the Whey house and drank some and eat some curds Eat some butter and radishes Little company there, which made it very unpleasing So time do alter, and do doubtless the like in myself There setting a poor man to keep my place Whom I find in bed, and pretended a little ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... for aught I knew, exposed to hidden dangers, it appeared to me scarcely less objectionable than the former proposition; and yet I feared that with one or other I must comply, unless I was prepared to come to an actual breach with Lord Glenfallen; full of these unpleasing doubts and perplexities, I retired to rest. I was wakened, after having slept uneasily for some hours, by some person shaking me rudely by the shoulder; a small lamp burned in my room, and by its light, to my horror and amazement, I discovered that my visitant was the self-same ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... and anxiety were on this subject, I felt it a superior consideration not to intrude any unpleasing or agitating discussions upon Your Majesty's attention, during an excursion devoted to the ease and amusement necessary for the re-establishment of Your Majesty's health. I determined to sacrifice my own feelings, and to wait with ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... attention to the fact that it was really a facsimile, rather than a copy, and he seemed pleased at the perfect reproduction of the injured points, which were few, and of the stains, which were faint and not unpleasing. But he never showed it to an artist or ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... love to," rejoiced the boy. And in the fascination of the marvel of finding one fantastic bit that fitted another, David apparently forgot all about Mr. Jack—which seemed not unpleasing to ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... and women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous Saint Clair, the spiritual sister of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... recognising her rather by the tone of her voice than by her face, said with a feeble voice, like one in pain, "Say on, senor, what you please, for I am not so far gone but that I can listen to you; nor is that voice of yours so harsh and unpleasing that I ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... have not thorough acquaintance with him; for he is best abroad; near home, he is ugly enough. Your saying that he is a pretty man, brings to my mind what I have observed in the work of the painter, whose pictures show best at a distance, but, very near, more unpleasing. ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... qualified godfather for the ceremony of dubbing—he had no armour of his own to wake; but, on the very threshold of chivalry, which is the perfection of justice, had unjustly purloined the arms of another knight. That this was a mere mockery of a religious institution, and therefore unpleasing in the sight of Heaven; witness the demons and hobgoblins that were permitted to disturb and torment him in ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... her toilet she entered the sitting-room. Mrs. Warren, in her morning deshabille, looked a more unpleasing object than ever. Her hair was in tight curl-papers, and she wore a very loose and very dirty dressing-gown, which was made of a sort of pattern chintz, and gave her the effect of being a huge pyramid of coarse, ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... loved her, but, it may be asked, did she love him? and that is the more difficult question to answer. Candidly speaking, Bell had an affection for Gabriel. She liked his good looks, his refined voice, his very weakness of character was not unpleasing to her. But she did not love him sufficiently to marry him for himself alone. What she wished to marry was the gentleman, the clergyman, the son of the Bishop of Beorminster, and unless Gabriel could give ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... comparison with Vence and Grasse, of small architectural interest. The facade, and the double archway which connects the church and the tower, are of the unfortunate XVIII century, the older exterior is monotonous, and the interior, an unpleasing confusion of forms. ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... way you will, there is no fine country nor any agreeable views. All its alleys and gardens are flat and formal, and all in the midst of the town itself, surrounded by colossal houses, and only bounded by a thick clayey river, which it is unpleasing for the eye ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife to-morrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that there is nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-morrow I shall ardently wish for a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... hadn't she envied the girl at his lodgings? "But I," she said, "wanted only to serve you in meekness. The idea of ever being pert to you didn't enter into my head. You show a side of your character as unpleasing as it ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of untidiness about the streets of the settlement which is unpleasing. There is a piece of water, which might easily be made very pretty, but it is allowed to turn into a quagmire. But few of the door-yards are neatly kept. The village seems to have been laid out at haphazard. Moreover, their stock is of poor ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... hard, open-air life. There was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... It is founded on a rock which rises boldly from the river. It is a noble pillar, and admirably placed. I seated myself on the opposite rock, and indulged the emotions which, with a melancholy not unpleasing, filled my bosom, while I reflected on the consequences that had sprung from the victory here obtained. Liberty was then triumphant. May the virtues of our posterity secure that prize which the bravery of their ancestors won! Peace to the ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... afterward, on a Friday, Schrotter and Wilhelm were summoned to appear in the Stadtvogtei [Footnote: A certain prison in Berlin.] before the magistrate, a disagreeable person with a bilious complexion, venomous eyes behind his spectacles, and the unpleasing habit of continually scooping out his ear with the little finger of his left hand. The two friends, the informer, and the policeman were present. The magistrate could not have received them differently if they had been accused of robbing and murdering their parents. To be sure, he behaved ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... applied the switch lightly to the Brownie's heels, enough to annoy without hurting him. The Brownie showed signs of uneasiness, quitted his quiet pace, and took to little starts and springs and whiskey motions, most unpleasing to his rider. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... my bed, if you please. I fear I must bid you good night, one way or the other. You will be welcome here none the less, if you care to remain. I trust you did not find our little repast to-night unpleasing? Believe me, our breakfast shall be as good. Threlka is expert in omelets, and our coffee is such as perhaps you may not find general in ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... corpulency and unskilfully powdered face and arms made an unpleasing contrast with a badly fitting robe of black and yellow. She ran up to Frau Clara and squeezed her hand in her wobbly fingers, expressing joy at the invitation. To the gentlemen who sidled up to her one after the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... landscape is unpleasing and monotonous, if one excepts the marvellous effects of the rising and setting sun and the beautiful moonlight. Apart from these the road is wearisome and abounding with dangers. Karghil is the principal place of the district, where the governor of the country resides. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... was on the whole so unjust. The greatest man of letters of the next generation, Scott (whose attitude to Fielding was rather undecided, and seems to speak a mixture of intellectual admiration and moral dislike, or at least failure in sympathy), pronounces it "on the whole unpleasing," and regards it chiefly as a sequel to Tom Jones, showing what is to be expected of a libertine and thoughtless husband. But he too is enthusiastic over the heroine. Thackeray (whom in this special connection at any rate it is scarcely ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... irregular, that he may appear to walk at ease, without reeling or tottering. He will not be at the pains to cement word to word with a scrupulous exactness: for those breaks which are made by a collision of vowels, have now and then an agreeable effect, and betray the not unpleasing negligence of a man who is more felicitous about things than words. But though he is not to labour at a measured flow, and a masterly arrangement of his words, he must be careful in other respects. For even these limited and unaspiring ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Hunt, with more originality—more of the quality men call genius, but a less correct perception of what is really wanted—has done the same thing for the great Italian poets; and in his sparkling pages Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, and the rest of the tuneful train, appear unfettered by the more unpleasing peculiarities of their mortal time. But the criticism by which their steps are attended, though full of grace and acuteness, is absolute, not relative. They are judged by a standard of taste and feeling existing in the author's mind: ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... scarce left any soap, an' I don't believe thar's 'nother bit in the house." Eudora's accent was but faintly reminiscent of her mother's strong Smoky Mountain dialect, as a crude feature is sometimes softened in the second generation. It was not unpleasing on her full, rosy mouth. The girl had the seductiveness of her half-sister, Judith, without a hint ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... pleasure in all the little cares and details which the well-being of a house really requires, nor that I have memory for these things; more especially is the daily caring for dinner irksome to me. I myself have but little appetite; and it is so unpleasing to me to go to sleep at night, and to get up in the morning with my head full of schemes for cooking. By this means, it happens that sometimes my husband's domestic comforts are not such as he has a right ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... defend and secure myself from savages and wild beasts, if any such were in the island. At one time I thought of digging a cave, at another I was for erecting a tent; and, at length, I resolved to do both: The manner or form of which will not, I hope, be unpleasing to describe. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... "Aye,—death is an unpleasing suggestion!" suddenly said Zabastes, who had gradually moved up nearer and nearer till he made one of the group immediately round Sah-luma—"'Tis a word that should never be mentioned in the presence of Kings! Yet, . . notwithstanding ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... philosophy of the complex vision to that modern tendency of thought which calls itself "pragmatism" and which also finds in personality its starting-point and centre? The philosophy of the complex vision seems to detect in the pragmatic attitude something which is profoundly unpleasing to its taste. Its own view of the art of life is that it is before everything else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help discerning in "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell-mell and "hand-to-mouth." It seems conscious of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... melody of the hymn, the sweet notes of the younger ones carried high on the stronger tones of the elder Sisters, while the three old nuns droned on in a sort of patient, nasal, half-mannish counter-tenor, scarcely pronouncing the words they sang, but making an accompaniment that was not wholly unpleasing. ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... holidays this year, his uncle took him to the Opera for the first time, where he heard the Mercato di Malmantile. The music produced a most extraordinary effect upon him, and for several weeks afterwards he remained immersed in a strange but not unpleasing melancholy, followed by an absolute loathing of his usual studies. Music all through life affected him most powerfully, and he states that his tragedies were almost invariably planned by him when under its influence. It was about this time that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... by the voices of the girls—not unpleasing voices, but loud and unsubdued, and with a slight tone of provincialism, which seemed to hurt Mr. Kendal's ears, for he said, 'I hope you will tune those voices to something less unlike ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who feeds his thoughts upon the segment of the world which surrounds him cannot avoid being an egotist; but then his egotism is not unpleasing. If he be without taint of boastfulness, of self-sufficiency, of hungry vanity, the world will not press the charge home. If a man discourses continually of his wines, his plate, his titled acquaintances, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... adventures of the past day. The unwelcome daybreak seemed to come too soon, and when Juliet heard the morning song of the lark, she would have persuaded herself that it was the nightingale, which sings by night, but it was too truly the lark which sang, and a discordant and unpleasing note it seemed to her; and the streaks of day in the east too certainly pointed out that it was time for these lovers to part. Romeo took his leave of his dear wife with a heavy heart, promising to write to her from Mantua every hour in the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... commented on and fought over, and I cannot undertake to summarise the criticism of others. Among the greater memorabilia of the subject is that wonderful Johnsonism, the description of Lycidas as "harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing;" among the minor, the fact that critics have gravely quarrelled among themselves over the epithet "monumental" applied to the oak in Il Penseroso, when Spenser's "Builder Oak" (Milton was a passionate student of Spenser) would have given ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... human can deny Old Honest Tom the tribute of a sigh? Deaf is that ear which caught the opening sound; Dumb that tongue which cheer'd the hills around. Unpleasing truth: Death hunts us from our birth In view, and men, like foxes, take ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... most solemn poetry. It is what Virgil, Catullus, Theocritus, Milton, Landor, all did. Some persons grow angry with him for a certain tone of half-gay, half-sad, allusive tenderness, when he speaks of Oxford and the country round Oxford. I do not think there is anything unpleasing in this. So did Catullus talk of Sirmio; Horace of his Farm; Milton of "Deva's wizard-stream"; Landor of Sorrento ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... of soft drawl, not unpleasing to the ear at first, but irritating if too long continued. It seemed to irritate his sister now. She tapped impatiently on the floor with her toe as ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... highly of her sense, discretion, and good feeling; but what seem to distinguish her above everything are caution and prudence, the former to a degree which is almost unnatural in one so young, and unpleasing, because it suppresses the youthful impulses which are ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... advantageous to us, considering the dispositions of the two nations towards us. The preference which our shipping will obtain on this account, may counterpoise the discouragements it experiences from the aggravated dangers of the Barbary States. Nor is the idea unpleasing which shows itself in various parts of these papers, of naturalizing American bottoms, and American citizens in France and in its foreign possessions. Once established here, and in their eastern settlements, they may revolt less at the proposition ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... large hat had landed, they began immediately to get their anchor up, and called to the other boats to do the same. In a few minutes they were all at work, and every person in the boats joined in repeating the two words "ho ya, ho ya," the effect of which, from a great many voices, was not unpleasing. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... with English in her conversation, for she used both languages with equal facility. She spoke them with a singing accent which was not unpleasing. You felt that a bird would speak in these tones ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... storied stream of the Bacchiglione sweeps through the grounds, and now, swollen by the rainfall, it roared, a yellow torrent, under a corner of the prisons. The towers rise from masses of foliage, and form no unpleasing feature of what must be, in spite of Signor P——, a delightful Italian garden in sunny weather. The ground is not so flat as elsewhere in Padua, and this inequality gives an additional picturesqueness to the place. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... truth? Apocryphal is, no doubt, that which has evolved itself from the internal evidence supplied by the Baptism of Christ of Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci; but a stronger substructure of fact supports the unpleasing anecdotes as to Titian and Tintoretto, as to Watteau and Pater, as to our own Hudson and Reynolds, and, alas! as to very many others. How touching, on the other hand, is that simple entry in Francesco Francia's day-book, made when his chief journeyman, Timoteo Viti, leaves him: ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... (Treadwell) so different from his light- complexioned wife, who smiled all over her face and indulged in a merry laugh so easily. And John (Orvis) was there—surnamed "the Almighty"— for certain eyes projected their glances on him, which was not unpleasing to his senses. And Chiswell, the man who desired to be chief of the Amusement Group, was there, of course; and Miss Ripley, "her perpendicular Majesty," came to look on because she enjoyed doing so; and ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... this standard, we must admit that Miss Ingelow's prose, though possessing many merits, has not quite the charm of her verses. With a good deal of skill in depicting character, and with a style that is not unpleasing, though rather formal and old-fashioned, she has no serious drawback except a very prominent and unpleasant moral tendency, which is, indeed, made so conspicuous that one rather resents it, and feels a slight reaction in favor of vice. One is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... mean COUNTENANCE; for she has given you a very pleasing one; but you beg to be excused, you will not accept it; but on the contrary, take singular pains to put on the most 'funeste', forbidding, and unpleasing one that can possibly be imagined. This one would think impossible; but you know it to be true. If you imagine that it gives you a manly, thoughtful, and decisive air, as some, though very few of your countrymen do, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... snatch up, huddled into clothes-bags and pillow-cases. I am reminded, too, of Mr. Galton's composite portraits; a thousand glimpses, as one passes through the long halls lined with paintings, all blending in one not unpleasing general effect, out of which emerges from time to time some ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... 13 gives us an instance of grasping animal affection—if indeed such a feeling as this be deemed worthy of the august name of affection at all. Several colours bear their share in the production of its dull unpleasing hue, tinged as it is with the lurid gleam of sensuality, as well as deadened with the heavy tint indicative of selfishness. Especially characteristic is its form, for those curving hooks are never seen except when ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... man, carrying in both hands a funny little flat-topped derby hat, and took his seat timidly at the bar of justice beside Mr. Tutt, who smiled down at him affectionately and put his arm about the threadbare shoulders as if to protect him from the evils of the world. They made a quaint and far from unpleasing picture, thought Bently Gibson, the ideal juror, and he wondered what the poor old devil ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... a white ostrich boa. He had noted with disgust, however, the stooped shoulders and white imperial of the silk-hatted man beside her, and the senescent line of his back. McKann described to his wife this unpleasing picture only last night, while he was undressing, when he was making every possible effort to avert this concert party. But Bessie only looked superior and said she wished to hear Kitty Ayrshire sing, and that her "private ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Between him and the dark Moor who walked near him, there was the difference between light and darkness. It was not a difference in physical beauty, altogether, although Alyrus bore not only the disfiguring scar on his face, but smallpox scars, he was not altogether unpleasing in appearance. The difference lay chiefly in the expression of eyes and mouth. Alyrus was satirical, sneering, critical; Alexis was gentle, yet commanding; ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... leave of you, Sir, without assuring you, that in whatever light my agency in this unpleasing affair may be received, I never was influenced through the whole of it by sanguinary motives, but by what I conceived a sense of my duty, which loudly called upon me to take measures, however disagreeable, to prevent a repetition ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... from their common, were forced to look to wage-earning as their sole means of living. That the conditions were ideal it would be foolish to suppose; but that, for villagers at least, they had certain advantages over present conditions is not to be denied. Especially we may note two unpleasing features of modern wage-earning which had not ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... in other things, at least I am right in this, that Jesus must be obeyed, and at once obeyed, in the things he did say: it will not long imagine to obey him in things he did not say. If a man do what is unpleasing to Christ, believing it his will, he shall yet gain thereby, for it gives the Lord a hold of him, which he will use; but before he can reach liberty, he must be delivered from that falsehood. For him who does not ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... Pyrrhus marched straight to Tarentum, where Cineas, being informed of his arrival, led out the troops to meet him. Entering the town, he did nothing unpleasing to the Tarentines, nor put any force upon them, till his ships were all in harbor, and the greatest part of the army got together; but then perceiving that the people, unless some strong compulsion was used to them, were not capable either of saving others or being saved themselves, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... remaining knee-deep in the kingdom of the nebulous. It must be confessed modern composers have retaliated. Musical impressionism is having its vogue, while poets are desperately pictorial. Soul landscapes and etched sonnets are not unpleasing to the ear. What if they do not mean much? There was a time when to say a "sweet voice" would arouse a smile. What has sugar to do with sound? It may be erratic symbolism, this confusing of terminologies; yet, once in a while, it strikes sparks. There is ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... this leaves to night, I must not write more now; but I intend teasing you with letters every week till you write to me, if you are not well, in the sincere wish to arouse you and draw your thoughts from what may be unpleasing subjects: and if you are idle, to spur you to your task. Adieu, my ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... kind, a power the earth has as the earth. That it also produces evil fruits does not do away with its capability of producing good fruits; it would if it could only produce evil fruits. Or, again, man is like an object which variegates the rays of light in it. If the object gives only unpleasing colors, the light is not the cause, for its rays can be variegated to ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... I should have liked the notion, that we ourselves were to have some more active share in the liberation of Irishmen than the mere act of heralding another and more successful expedition; but even in this thought there was romantic self-devotion, not unpleasing to the mind of a boy; but, after all, I was the only one who ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... provided a further train of speculation when he remembered that he had never seen a servant in the house, and that the steps had struck him as dirty, and the doctor's waste-paper basket as very full. Pocket determined to make his own bed next morning. He had meanwhile an unpleasing suspicion that the young girl was clearing away, for the doctor took him back into the drawing-room after supper; and later, when they returned for a game of billiards on the toy board, which they placed between them on the dining-table, both Phillida and the fragments ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... caught sight of a lady whom hitherto he had overlooked, but who, with Manilov, was now bowing to him in the doorway. Not wholly of unpleasing exterior, she was dressed in a well-fitting, high-necked morning dress of pale-coloured silk; and as the visitor entered the room her small white hands threw something upon the table and clutched her embroidered ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... it becomes necessary to make a statement about a person that may be unpleasing to him, the writer should give the name of the one making the charge or assertion, or else avoid making a specific charge by inserting it is alleged, it is rumored, it is charged, or some such limiting phrase. Note the following story of the arrest of two shop-girls and how ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... have popes in their bellys. Contrary to I. Peter v. 2. 3. Aunt says, when she saw Dr P. roll up the pulpit stairs, the figure of Parson Trulliber, recorded by Mr Fielding occur'd to her mind & she was really sorry a congregational divine, should, by any instance whatever, give her so unpleasing ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... be inferred from the foregoing description that Miss Tyler was a young and ardent damsel in her teens; whereas she was considerably nearer forty than thirty, and possessed an uncomely aspect unpleasing to male eyes. Her own were of a cold grey, her lips were thin, her waist pinched in, and—as the natural consequence of tight lacing—her nose was red. Her scanty hair was drawn off her high forehead ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... has been bestowed on me by several Christian gentlemen as a reproach, but to my ears it has a quaint and not unpleasing sound. ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... in which all complaisance is included, and from which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized nations, is, That no man shall give any preference to himself.' In the same paper, he says that 'unnecessarily to obtrude unpleasing ideas is a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... curiosities, both dressed in masculine habits, and both frightfully ugly. These portraits, it seems, were taken by an amateur, by stealth, as neither of 'The Ladies of Llangollen' would consent to sit, and a lamentable record is it which creates most unpleasing sensations to the lover of ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... person of Bromley, Whose ways were not cheerful or comely; He sate in the dust, eating spiders and crust, That unpleasing old person of Bromley. ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... reasonableness of design. It is interesting to notice that in the intermediate field of furniture-design some of the best French productions recall the style of Louis XV., modified by Japanese ideas and spirit. This singular but not unpleasing combination is less surprising when we reflect that the style of Louis XV. was itself a protest against the formalism of the heavy classic architecture of preceding reigns, and achieved its highest successes in the domain ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... numbers, much as at the present day. More free in form was the motet, in which religious subjects were treated in contrapuntal fashion. The madrigal differed from this only in dealing with secular subjects. That these old madrigals, with their flowing parts and melodic imitations, are not unpleasing to modern ears, has been often proven. Their progressions are at times strange to us, but on repeated hearing often become imbued with remarkable ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... of other parts, with the red, green, and white of the vaulting ribs, is more bizarre than beautiful. In regarding traces of mediaeval colouring one often forgets that time has blended harmoniously a scheme otherwise entirely crude, and to modern taste unpleasing. How far in English instances this is emphasized by the absence of rich hangings, carpets, vestments, and pictures, it is not within our subject to inquire; but since such restoration of the primitive colouring offends one less in churches that still preserve the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... groves of the Muses, where with unspeakable variety of flowers, we may make garlands to ourselves, not to adorn us only, but with their pleasant smell and juice to nourish our souls, and fill our minds desirous of knowledge," &c. After a harsh and unpleasing discourse of melancholy, which hath hitherto molested your patience, and tired the author, give him leave with [4428]Godefridus the lawyer, and Laurentius (cap. 5.) to recreate himself in this kind after his laborious studies, "since so many grave divines and worthy men have without offence ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... congregation that waited for his word. The people were fully prepared for a sermon that would shake them to their souls' depths. The younger portion shivered and shrank from the ordeal; the older and more experienced shivered and waited with not unpleasing anticipations; it did them good, that remorseless examination of their hearts' secret depravities. To some it was a kind of satisfaction offered to conscience, after which they could more easily come to peace. With others it was an honest, heroic effort to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... age was exactly thirty-five years and a half. He was a short, compact figure, and a little inclined to a localised embonpoint. His face was not unpleasing; the features fine, but a trifle too pointed about the nose to be classically perfect. The corners of his sensitive mouth were depressed. His eyes were ruddy brown and troubled, and the left one was round with more of wonder in it than its fellow. His complexion ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... on the mind, prey on the mind, weigh on the spirits, prey on the spirits; bring one's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; add a nail to one's coffin. Adj. causing pain, hurting &c v.; hurtful &c (bad) 649; painful; dolorific^, dolorous; unpleasant; unpleasing, displeasing; disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful; uninviting; unwelcome; undesirable, undesired; obnoxious; unacceptable, unpopular, thankless. unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable. distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Inequality of Mankind, which I had procured to be printed in Holland, by the bookseller Rey, with whom I had just become acquainted at Geneva. This work was dedicated to the republic; but as the publication might be unpleasing to the council, I wished to wait until it had taken its effect at Geneva before I returned thither. This effect was not favorable to me; and the dedication, which the most pure patriotism had dictated, created ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Blanche put out a frank hand and looked him over keenly. She was a fair-featured, blondish woman, originally not unpleasing of appearance, but now with lines all deepened and hardened as on the faces of men who have endured ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... were not in appearance different from newly arrived and respectable Irish immigrants. They wore a white cap with long frills over the forehead, and a black handkerchief thrown over it and hanging down the neck,—a quaint and not unpleasing disguise. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... in color, and seemed capable of flashing with anger or melting with affection; his complexion was clear and bright, but his mouth was large and with an expression of sternness which detracted from the pleasing expression of his face; while his teeth, which were somewhat decayed, added to the unpleasing effect thus produced. He was, however, rather a good-looking fellow, with the erect carriage and jaunty air of the soldier, and it was a matter of surprise to many, that a young man of his appearance should occupy so subservient a position, and ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... Whatever his skill in reproduction, Charles Graham had the eye, the mind, and the heart of the portrait-painter; and now he read the little actress's behavior with a good measure of precision. Her restlessness, her chattering, the high, unpleasing pitch of her naturally lovely low voice, her assumption of the manner and speech of the blase young person of the stage, he saw to be primarily the cover of nervousness. He understood that the girl was troubled about something, was ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... depths (he had before remarked them, that day, as indicating a nature a little weak, purposeless and not prone to self-examination)—in their depths, clear enough now, there lay a dark, sombre, but not unpleasing shadow, such as only shows itself in eyes that have been turned inward. We usually say of a man whose eyes show the same expression: "That man has studied much," or, "he has suffered much," or, "he is a spiritualist." ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... of the same hue. Father Mendez, on the other hand, was thin in the extreme, with sallow complexion, and sharp features, but his countenance showed that he possessed a peculiarly intelligent and acute intellect. It could not be said that there was anything unpleasing in the expression of his features; it was rather the total want of expression which they mechanically assumed when he was conversing, or when he was aware that he was observed, of which any one would complain. It ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Paris this artificial style of gardening is not altogether unpleasing; it is in unison, in some measure, with the regular character of the buildings with which it is surrounded; and the profusion of statues and marble vases continues the impression which the character of their ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Europe, and Italy especially, desolated by the direst pestilence which history has recorded, accursed alike by the numbers and the celebrity of its victims, and yet strangely connected with some not unpleasing images by the grace of Boccaccio and the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he leads is not unpleasing. Blue-stockings, beginners in every walk of life, actresses at the outset or the close of a career, publishers and authors, all make much of these writers of the ready pen. Lousteau, a thorough man about town, lived at scarcely any expense beyond paying ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... debate, nor these nor those will yield, Aeneas draws his forces to the field, And moves his camp. The scouts with flying speed Return, and thro' the frighted city spread Th' unpleasing news, the Trojans are descried, In battle marching by the river side, And bending to the town. They take th' alarm: Some tremble, some are bold; all in confusion arm. Th' impetuous youth press forward to the field; They ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... my meaning, when I refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals, That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this,—that there is not a single image from nature in ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Wind woollen muffler round neck and case hands in thick dogskin gloves with gauntlets. Look like Nansen going to discover North Pole. Or Tweedledum about to join battle with Tweedledee. Effect on the whole unpleasing. ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... at their best. Warmed by the sight of such a friend to her son, and regulated by the wish of appearing to advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude—artless, maternal gratitude—which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out, which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to feel that she could not regret it; for to her many other sources of uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the home in which he found her. She might ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
