"Unprepared" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the race with an indescribable vehemence that fairly threw the beets into the shade. They trod so delicately at first that I was quite unprepared for such enthusiasm. Lacking the red veining, I could not distinguish them even from the weeds with any certainty, and was forced to let both grow together till the harvest. So both grew together, a perfect jungle. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... fully the little that you wish to tell me. Do you mean that you were unprepared for the demand, because the mother had forfeited the conditions under which ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... is satisfactorily arranged, Mr.—" he began smiling and rubbing his hands. He was so utterly unprepared for the severity of the interruption that the smile was still in process of congealing as I stepped out ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... bishop, having called the parties together, dictated terms of peace; they assented and were reconciled to one another, security was given on both sides, and peace was established; and so he dismissed them. But one party, seeing that their enemies had become careless and were unprepared, because peace having been made they suspected no harm, said among themselves, each man to his neighbour,[727] "What are we minded to do? Victory and vengeance on our foes is in our grasp"; and they began to attack them. What was happening became known to the bishop, and hastening ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... all, he was unprepared for what happened. Fectnor leaned forward as if to deposit his coat on the sidewalk. Then he seemed to stumble, and in two swift leaps he had gained the inner side of the walk and had darted into the inset of the saloon. He was out of sight in ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... time of trial had come: he was quite unprepared for the story old Betty told him. Mr. Evans had wished it might for the present be kept from him. He fell down like one struck with death when ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... the housewife should work out carefully which she can use to greater advantage, prepared or unprepared cereals. If she finds that unprepared cereals are the more economical and if she can depend on their food value as being as high as that of the prepared ones, she should by all means give them the preference. Of course, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... even as they set out, the bishop was returning from a visit to a remote part of his diocese; and being wholly unprepared to cope with a gang of desperadoes like these, he fell an easy prey to their attack. But the Church in medieval days did not take acts of this sort passively, and the matter being investigated, and it transpiring that The Mount ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... delivered himself of any such high-sounding speech he was always rewarded by signs of a deep impression made upon his hearers. He had come to look for such results; but he was totally unprepared for the expression of aghast wonder that his words produced in the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... seize the last chance of seeing her lost love once again. Might she not tend him as she nursed the other wounded, without adding to the weight of her sin? If she ever entertained such an idea, her punishment may well have atoned for her offense, when she came suddenly and unprepared into that sick-chamber, and looked upon the mangled wreck ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... he regards this as the best and speediest way of reforming mankind. But institutions cannot thus be artificially created, nor can the external authority of a ruler impose laws for which a nation is unprepared. The greatest power, the highest wisdom, can only proceed one or two steps in advance of public opinion. In all stages of civilization human nature, after all our efforts, remains intractable,—not like ...
— Statesman • Plato
... So utterly unprepared were the fellows for the onset, and so mauled were they in the very first rush, that a general alarm was raised. In the darkening they imagined themselves surrounded by a strong reinforcement of the Fairburn ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin passenger might do so, however, and he sought among ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... her head with a gasp. Unexpected as was the whole turn of events, she was utterly unprepared for ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Scott answered that he had sworn a solemn oath to defend the Constitution and the country, and made himself an outcast that he might be true to God and the Union. But the cry "On to Richmond" became the cry of an unreasoning multitude of editors and their readers. All unprepared, the advance was ordered and Bull Run was the result. Greeley, being the leading editor of the land, was made the scapegoat—the target of universal criticism. The barbed arrows found his brain, and becoming excited, sleepless and overwrought, Greeley ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and Ghazi-Fazil the same night went to Gouroudjouk and took ship to make a reconnaissance in the environs of Tzympe, situated a league and a half from Gallipoli, opposite Gouroudjouk. A Greek prisoner whom they brought with them to Asia informed Suleiman of the abandoned and unprepared state of the place, and offered himself as a guide to surprise the garrison. Suleiman immediately had two rafts constructed of trees united by thongs of bull skins, and made the attempt the following night, with thirty-nine ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... incredible things that this war will reveal. Two months from now we shall all have forgotten it in the face of new revelations far more unbelievable." He sighed. "If these men about us realized the terrible ordeal that lies ahead! Misgoverned; unprepared—I shudder at the thought of the sacrifices we must make, many of them in vain. But I suppose that somehow, some day, we shall ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... in the publication of 'The Prelude'. They show that what led Wordsworth to write so much about himself was not self-conceit, but self-diffidence. He felt unprepared as yet for the more arduous task he had set before himself. He saw its faults as clearly, or more clearly, than the critics who condemned him. He knew that its length was excessive. He tried to condense it; he kept it beside ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... I was unprepared for the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she would have fainted then and there. It's awful to hear a woman moan, and clench her teeth, and ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... else, she may be sure, her story once out of the mouth, goes off dead as the spirits of a vapour that has performed the stroke of energy. She holds a surprising event in the history of 'the wealthiest nobleman of his time,' and she would launch it upon readers unprepared, with the reference to our mysterious and unfathomable nature for an explanation of the stunning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen—who foreknew not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects—these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combining wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly dropping astern, but still ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... on the stand appears at his worst. If any one from real life were suddenly thrust unprepared and unlearned in theatrical art upon a stage the incongruity of the situation would be appalling. Yet the witness is thrown into new and strange surroundings. It is a portion of the reality of life shown vividly against a conventionalized background. The ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... cried the Marquess, rather unprepared for such a catechism, and looking around him until the outstretched neck and the eager attention of Caroline Harris caught his eye, when he added with an air of great simplicity—"about the height ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... Turinese were unprepared for the blow. They had been told again and again that till the seat of government was established on the Tiber, it should abide under the shadow of the Alps—white guardian angels of Italy—in the custody of the hardy ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... sick. What was the matter with it? Lacking an education, I was unprepared to say. When I left school my theory was that every boy should learn a trade as soon as possible. Now I saw that a trade was not enough. A worker needs an education, also. The trade comes first, perhaps, but the education ought to follow on ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... colour in her cheeks invaded her temples. It was the given moment; long enough delayed in all conscience. Yet it found her palpitating—unprepared. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... action. I am told that, even before the publication of the Tract, rumours of its contents had got into the hostile camp in an exaggerated form; and not a moment was lost in proceeding to action, when I was actually fallen into the hands of the Philistines. I was quite unprepared for the outbreak, and was startled at its violence. I do not think I had any fear. Nay, I will add, I am not sure that it was not in one point of ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... he was greatly enamoured of this damsel; so he toyed with her and pulled her to him, whereupon her girdle fell down and her trousers were unloosed and he besought her of amorous dalliance. But she said to him, 'O Commander of the Faithful, wait till to-morrow night, for I am unprepared for thee, knowing not of thy coming.' So he left ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... he may have had a worried and troubled week, full of personal anxiety and sorrow. He has not had full time to study—he feels quite unprepared, and enters the pulpit with a halting step, and a choking fear of failure ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... so well guarded the secret, was entirely unprepared to hear the Montfort parentage thus publicly avowed; and the bride, who had as little known of her father's intentions, sat with downcast eyes, blushing and tearful, while the beggar's recitative went briefly and somewhat tremulously over his resuscitation, under the hands of the fair ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he had known that some day this thing would happen, that some day this isolation would be broken, that some day great hordes of men would overrun this unknown land, bringing with them that which he feared to meet, that which had made him what he was. And now that the time had come, he was unprepared. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... had received a shock for which it was unprepared. Her severe sufferings at sea had, strange to say, reduced her in appearance less than could have been believed; for her physical endurance proved greater than that of the strong men around her. But the food which the island supplied was not suited to restore her strength, and the nervous ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... unpretentious apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary's first letter. The announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were, had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical. He remembered, it is true, hearing his father once speak of a cousin who had remained a bachelor and who owned a fine piece of property in some corner of the Haute Marne; but, as all intercourse had long been broken off between the two families, M. de Buxieres ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Hamilton know that a visit was imminent? Pardieu (with many shrugs and outward gestures of the palms), Governor Hamilton had said if the Long Knives had wings or fins they might reach him now—he was all unprepared. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... arm, the back, and so on till he reached the ladder again. Then for the first time the thrush changed his position and rose to his feet, when, without the least warning, the mocker flung himself madly after him, and the thrush, unprepared, ran, with a sharp cry. Obviously the mocking-bird, finding the first method of attack, which was probably his usual one, a failure, decided to try another, as the event proved, successfully. The excitement of this ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... river, and at this moment Johnston heard that McDowell's arrival need not be feared. The course of the battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks (q.v.) bore some resemblance to that of Shiloh; a sharp attack found the Unionists unprepared, and only after severe losses and many partial defeats could McClellan check the rebel advance. Here also fortune was against the Confederates. J. E. Johnston fell severely wounded, and in the end a properly connected and combined advance of the Army ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... strangest stories; and what is more, the stories are all true. Some of them are sad stories, and this is one of the saddest: Of those unfortunates who, out of despair and disgust of the world, jump from bridges, or take arsenic, or hang themselves, or in other ways rush unbidden and unprepared before the great Judge of all, nearly two-thirds are unmarried, and in some years nearly three-fourths. And of those other sad cases—dead, yet living—who people the madhouses and asylums, what of them? Driven crazy by their brutal husbands, do ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... Uncle," I said, in a firm but temperate tone of voice, "there must be some limit to ambition here below. It is utterly useless to struggle against the impossible. Pray listen to reason. We are utterly unprepared for a sea voyage; it is simply madness to think of performing a journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a tempest ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... from there, is certainly a very questionable policy. It could operate no worse against us, if it were gotten up by a traitor to draw our men off on purpose to give the Missourians a chance when we are unprepared. (cont.)] ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... before the gases began to affect him, then to draw back a few yards, take a few deep inspirations, so as to fully inflate his lungs, and then rush straight through; for he argued to himself, if he could pass through once unprepared and taken by surprise, he could certainly reverse ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... morning as he passed. Perhaps she knew she did not deserve politeness; anyhow she took Clare's for impudence, and came swooping upon him. He stopped and waited her approach, perplexed as to the cause of it; and was so unprepared for the box on the ear she dealt him, that it almost threw him down. Her ankle was instantly in Abdiel's sharp teeth. She gave a frightful screech, and Clare, coming to himself, though still stupid from her blow and his own surprise, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... had all come on so suddenly that poor Elspie was quite unprepared for it. She turned as if to fly, but Daniel put his arm round her waist and ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... eyes he could not repress a slight start. He had not noticed before that they had passed through a small gateway on diverging from the road, and was quite unprepared to find himself on the edge of a gentle slope leading to a beautiful valley, and before him a long vista of tombs, white head-stones and low crosses, edged by drooping cypress and trailing feathery vines. Some vines had fallen and been caught in long loops from bough ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her vagrant thoughts might be, she was entirely unprepared to see a human head, made sleek by sea water, emerge from the floating weeds almost ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... likelihood, have prevailed in the end had they kept their position. But William feigned a retreat, and the English crossed their vallum in pursuit. The Normans at once turned their horses and pursued and butchered the unprepared enemy singly in the open country. A complete rout followed. The false ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Aunt Caroline know as soon as the act is irrevocable and shall inform you at the same time so that you may not be unprepared. You realize, I suppose, that you will be accused of being accessory? Didn't you tell me that a trip would do ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... and scurry and confusion of the initial attacks, when everything and everybody was unprepared and upset, this state of things escaped attention. Now all the fighting line is becoming openly discontented. There is favouritism and incompetency in everything that is being done. Two days ago a young Scotch volunteer got killed almost on purpose, because ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... would have justified Emory in taking an hour or more for the issue of the rations; but Emory, whose nature it was to forecast danger, had from the first hour of the campaign been apprehensive of some sudden attack that should find the army unprepared; and thus it was that, merely stopping to take a double ration of hard bread, twelve minutes later the head of his column filed into the road and marched to the front. At this hour the battle was just beginning, and the ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... obvious, the wife has recourse to cunning to undermine the habitual affection, which she is afraid openly to oppose; and neither tears nor caresses are spared till the spy is worked out of her home, and thrown on the world, unprepared for its difficulties; or sent, as a great effort of generosity, or from some regard to propriety, with a small stipend, and an uncultivated mind into ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... exceeded her strength that he had often feared a collapse. Although she detested the sight of a pen, she was so elated with her recovered health that she wrote to him weekly. Suddenly, and without explanation, the letters stopped. Still, he was quite unprepared for what was to follow, and on the first of October, his health improved by a short sojourn in the country, he went to the wharf to meet the packet-boat which invariably brought his family; his pockets full of sweets, and not a ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... la Molle started when he heard this most unexpected bit of news, for which he was totally unprepared. He had always found it possible to borrow money, and it had never occurred to him that a time might perhaps come in this country, when the land, which he held in almost superstitious veneration, would be so valueless a form of property that ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... elbow, so much outcry of fictitious thirst, here at last was enough drinking for a lifetime. Truly, of our pleasant vices, the gods make whips to scourge us. And secondly he was condemned to be hanged. A man may have been expecting a catastrophe for years, and yet find himself unprepared when it arrives. Certainly, Villon found, in this legitimate issue of his career, a very staggering and grave consideration. Every beast, as he says, clings bitterly to a whole skin. If everything is lost, and even honour, life ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from above, the fire-extinguishing apparatus was got ready. But the bells continued to ring on all sides, and the crashing blows that shook the ship continually became worse and worse. On top of this came the perfectly incomprehensible news that, unprepared as they were, they were confronted by the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... systems and families, and, above all, from her principal delight, setting the two ladies together by the ears, by appealing to her governess to support her abuse of Linnaeus as an old 'dictionary-maker,' or for some bold geological theory that poor Honor was utterly unprepared to swallow. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their actions seem to be guided by the belief in their breasts that such cases would eventually be 'amicably arranged.' These words seem never to be out of their thoughts: hence, when matters do come to a crisis, they, of course, find themselves utterly unprepared to resist any hostile aggressions on the part of the foreigner. We, indeed, consider this the most serious failure in the duty which the highest provincial authorities owe to the throne, and we now find it incumbent upon ourselves to censure such conduct in ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... yet a passage like this from Bolingbroke makes certain that when it was written the word 'isolated' did not exist in our language: "The events we are witnesses of in the course of the longest life, appear to us very often original, unprepared, signal and unrelative: if I may use such a word for want of a better in English. In French I would say isoles" (Notes and Queries, No. 226). Compare Lord Chesterfield in a letter to Bishop Chenevix, of date March 12, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... went to her bed. Hour after hour she heard the clock strike. The faint cold light of the new day found her still waking and thinking, and still unprepared with a safe plan for meeting the demand on her, when the note became due. As to resources of her own, the value of the few jewels and dresses that she possessed did not represent half the amount of ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... unprepared for such a passionate outburst. It was like a rift in a cloud, through which he had a glimpse of her real life. Words of eager protest sprang to his lips, but, before they could be uttered, either her mood had changed or pride had come to the rescue, for she said: ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... direst extremity. Hour after hour I sat there racking my brains in quest of some practicable plan offering a reasonable prospect of success; but could think of nothing; the scheme upon which I finally settled being only one degree less mad than that of venturing to sea in the unprepared longboat. Such as it was, however, I determined to submit it to Gurney's consideration, and hear what he thought ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... precautions are taken in a manner so slow and deliberate that they would hardly catch the observation of a passenger. It might also seem as if the different parties were afraid to let out the secret of their own lurking apprehension, but yet were resolved not to be caught unprepared. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... before the captain, received a nod, and minced away. With suspended breath the girl stared an instant on her brother, then on the captain, and then on his father; but as her eyes came round to Hugh his solemnity caught her unprepared, and, with every curl shaking, she broke out in a tinkling laugh so straight from the heart, so innocent, and so helpless that even the frightened old woman chuckled. Ramsey wheeled, snatched the nurse round, and hurried her off to a stair, hanging to her arm, tiptoeing, dancing, and carolling ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the slightest doubt that the letter before him must contain the same confession which had been conveyed to Arthur and to Mr. Galloway. He thought it better that she should hear it from him, than read it unprepared. He bent towards her, and spoke in a low ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... aid in effecting, claims the earnest attention of parents. Every father, at least, is bound to see that his sons have the means of acquiring a good political education. He can not innocently suffer them to pass from under his guardianship unprepared to discharge ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... wordlessness she took fresh grip on the sharpened bone with her spare hand, and lunged with it desperately through the arrow-slit. With the hand that clutched mine she drew me towards her, so as to give the blows the surer chance, and so unprepared was I for such an attack, and with such fierce suddenness did she deliver it, that the first blow was near giving me my quietus. But I grappled with the poor frantic creature as gently as might be—the stone of the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... She was utterly unprepared for the effect of her words. Baroni's face darkened like a stormy sky, and his eyes literally blazed at her from beneath their penthouse of ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... arm-chair the day before he died. A pathetic incident of the latter date was the bearing of the well-known purple and gold colours to victory at Kempton Park Races by "The Witch of the Air." When the news came it was hard to believe. People throughout the Empire were entirely unprepared. In Britain, Canada, Australia, etc., public functions and social arrangements were at once cancelled; black and purple drapings rapidly covered the important buildings—and many that were even more important as representing individual and spontaneous feeling—of the British world; ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... the Federal Army moved by its left flank, seeking to find its adversary unprepared, but the Army of Northern Virginia steadily confronted it, ever ready to receive any attack. At Cold Harbour they paused, facing each other, and General Grant, having received sixteen thousand men from Butler by way of Yorktown on June 1st, made an ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... all the parties principally concerned. Fortunately, at their first interview Marie Antoinette herself made a most favorable impression on him. She had been but a child when he had last seen her. She was now a woman, and he was wholly unprepared for the matured and queenly beauty at which she had arrived. He was not a man to flatter any one, but almost his first words to her were that, had she not been his sister, he could not have refrained from seeking her hand that ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... was the result? I mixed with every one, was pampered and flattered far beyond what was good for me, derived a false notion of my own importance, and when I came to man's estate was, to all intents and purposes, quite unprepared and unfitted to undertake the duties and ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... such a bill of broken-glass to pay for meddling in neighbors, elections before. The year was not yet ended, when Villars and the Sardinian Majesty had done their stroke on Lombardy; taken Milan Citadel, taken Pizzighetone, the Milanese in whole, and appropriated it; swept the poor unprepared Kaiser clear out of those parts. Baby Carlos and the Spaniards are to do the Two Sicilies, Naples or the land one to begin with, were the Winter gone. For the present, Louis XV. "sings TE DEUM, at Paris, 23d December, 1733" [Fastes du Regne de Louis XV.] Villars, now above ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... now awaited the appearance of Mars. There occurred to me question alter question that seemed of sufficient importance to prompt immediate inquiry, only to be forgotten as others came into my mind; until the presence of the increasing faint glow on my instrument found me unprepared with any single question of actual importance. Consequently I decided to allow my distant informant to continue with the account of Martian observations of Earth, as being at once the most instructive and surest ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... with growing desperation. He knew the inefficiency of his fleet, that it had left Spain unprepared because public opinion demanded immediate action, that its guns were lacking and its morale low, that if it stayed at anchor in the harbor it would be taken by the army, and that if it went to sea it would be annihilated by Sampson. His only chance was to rush out, scatter in flight, and trust to ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... gray, unprepared for the crash of a tree that was being felled on the edge of Halsell wood, took fright, and caused a worse fright to Rosamond, leading finally to the loss of her baby. Lydgate could not show his anger towards her, but he was rather bearish ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... rising as if it had sounded to her still stranger than he had intended. He had perceived on the spot that any SERIOUS discussion of veracity, of loyalty, or rather of the want of them, practically took her unprepared, as if it were quite new to her. He had noticed it before: it was the English, the American sign that duplicity, like "love," had to be joked about. It couldn't be "gone into." So the note of his inquiry was—well, to call it nothing else— premature; a mistake ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... to myself he was standing over me, counting my pulse. 'I have startled you,' he said. 'A difficulty unforeseen—the impossibility of obtaining a certain drug in its full purity—has forced me to resort to London unprepared. I regret that I should have shown myself once more without those poor attractions which are much, perhaps, to you, but to me are no more considerable than rain that falls into the sea. Youth is but a state, as passing as that syncope from which you are but just awakened, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... of a sailor's career, and my brother's sudden call to his last account, in the awful perils of a storm at sea, taught me to reflect with painful solemnity on the many thousand instances, in which our naval protectors are summoned in a moment, prepared or unprepared, to stand before the throne of the Eternal. Often have I asked myself and others, Can nothing be done to elevate the hopes, and to place the fortitude of these men on a firmer foundation than that of mere animal courage, or the instinct of discipline? The present is an opportunity ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... way Madame du Val-Noble, unable to foresee the downfall of one of the richest and cleverest of stockbrokers, was left quite unprepared. She had spent Falleix's money on her whims, and trusted to him for all necessaries and to provide ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... could, and did, smack princes, with a mind untroubled by the sense of their sacrosanctity. Moreover he felt a sad prescience that his young charge, careless of the magnificent blood that flowed in his veins, would play with these children, who were neither high nor well-born. But he was quite unprepared for the actual group of children his young charge chose for playmates. He passed no less than four animated and excited groups before he arrived at that adorned ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... perceived the approach of the lion, which they had not at first, they all seized their guns; but being wholly unprepared for such a sudden attack, there was a great deal of confusion; the Major crying out, "Let no one fire till I tell him," only produced more alarm among the Hottentots, all of whom, except Bremen, appeared to be at their wits' ends. When ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... But fear'd him as a man he did not know. 70 But as it has been said of ancient years, That fields are full of eyes, and woods have ears; For this the wise are ever on their guard, For, unforeseen, they say, is unprepared. Uncautious Arcite thought himself alone, And less than all suspected Palamon, Who, listening, heard him, while he search'd the grove, And loudly sung his roundelay of love: But on the sudden stopp'd, and silent stood, As lovers ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... in the corporation and test acts. This had been concerted by the ministry in private meetings with the most eminent dissenters. The tory lords were astonished at this motion, for which they were altogether unprepared. Nevertheless they were strenuous in their opposition. They alleged that the bill, instead of strengthening, would certainly weaken the church of England, by plucking off her best feathers, investing her enemies with power, and sharing with churchmen the civil and military employments ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... unprepared for any show of resistance; and is a little startled to find that Colombe defies him, and that one of her courtiers (not choosing to be outdone by Valence) has the courage to tell him so; but he treats the Duchess and her adviser with all the courtesy of a man whose ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Capt. Noah, coming in from deck and closing the door as quickly as possible. "My hands are almost frozen. This is as bad as a trip to the North Pole. Perhaps worse, for we are totally unprepared for this kind ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... anything twice; but Martha has been as clumsy as a calf," said the precise mistress of the house. "I have been afraid sometimes that I never could teach her anything. I was quite ashamed to have you come just now, and find me so unprepared ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... large section crashed to the ground, it was a complete surprise, and caught the inhabitants unprepared. Soon the air was mixing with the poison gases from outside. People tried to escape, and most of them did. All except those that ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... Corinthian baseness of the American reporter or the Parisian chroniquear, both so lightly readable, must exercise an incalculable influence for ill; they touch upon all subjects, and on all with the same ungenerous hand; they begin the consideration of all, in young and unprepared minds, in an unworthy spirit; on all, they supply some pungency for dull people to quote. The mere body of this ugly matter overwhelms the rare utterances of good men; the sneering, the selfish, and the cowardly are scattered in broad sheets ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... three, when work ceased, everybody seeking shelter from the heat. I could reckon on my guards being sleepy and sluggish then; and, moreover, seeing that during several days I had given them no trouble, they would be quite unprepared for any violent outbreak. True, my door was always locked, but looking at it, I did not doubt that if I threw myself upon it with all my strength it would give way. And if Uncle Moses had the courage at ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... disturbance, or the evident effort with which he at last bowed to her. That this unexpected double meeting with the daughter of the man he had wronged, and the man who had espoused the quarrel, should be confounding to him appeared only natural. But he was unprepared to understand the feverish alacrity with which he accepted Dona Maria's invitation to chocolate, or the equally animated way in which Clementina threw herself into her hostess's Spanish levity. He knew it was an awkward situation, that must be surmounted ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... not recognize me until I grasped him by the hand. He greeted me warmly, seizing me by the waist, and almost raising me from the ground. I at once noticed several changes in his appearance; changes for which I was wholly unprepared. He had aged very much since I had last seen him, and the lines about his mouth had deepened considerably. The iron-grey hair which I remembered so well had disappeared; its place being supplied with a new and rather dandified-looking wig. The ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... Japan as the dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never believed to be possible. Continental Europe was unprepared to admit that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions in all ways. The great Hohenzollern spoke of the Japanese as the "scourge ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... doesn't want anything," Selah remarked, giving no apparent attention to his wife. It was a part of his attitude in life never to appear to be indebted to another person for a suggestion, never to be surprised or unprepared. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... case for a whole day, on sandbanks, from which we got off with great difficulty. The most memorable incident of the voyage was a storm, which came on us one evening as we were nearing Dinapore. There was so little warning of its approach that we, who knew not the climate, were quite unprepared for its coming. Before breaking on us we were brought to a standstill, the flat was separated from the steamer, and both flat and steamer were brought to anchor. The sky suddenly became dark, we heard puffs ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... and fortune are guilty in encouraging these shocking practices; and they are little better than murderers, who goad their fellow-men on to fight by the offer of money. Such persons are frequently instruments of sending sinners, the most unprepared, into the presence of a righteous God. What an account will they have to give when they meet the victims of their amusement at the bar ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... been explained, a servant was sent after the counsellor, who came home in a more serious and susceptible mood than was his wont. How great was his astonishment at having to embrace his lost son, reformed and become a reasonable being! He was quite unprepared for so joyful a shock. His wife too received him with more confidence and affection: the death of the beloved of her youth had ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... by Robinson it appeared that the blacks had approached Hyde in silence while his back was turned to them. The sight of them gave a sudden shock to his system. He was totally unprepared for such an emergency. If he had had time to recall to memory some historical examples, he might have summoned up his sinking courage, and have done a deed worthy of record. There was David, the youthful shepherd of Israel, who slew a lion and a bear, and killed Goliath, the ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... wall of rock behind him, lowering his haunches, and rearing his head in a strange manner. The idea flashed on me that he would certainly turn, and then—what could happen? More horses were advancing, and two beasts could not possibly pass each other on that narrow ledge! But I was totally unprepared for the ghastly thing that actually did happen. The miserable horse had been seized with the awful mountain-madness that sometimes overtakes men on stupendous heights,—the madness of suicide. With a frightful scream, that sounded partly like a cry ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... He was all unprepared for the effect of his words. Indeed, he was fain to hold hard to the gunwales. For the negro, with a sudden galvanic start, let slip the paddle from his hand, recovering it only by a mighty lunge in a mechanical impulse ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... having no money with which to pay for my supper, I went to the Royal Arms Hotel and offered my services as porter for the night, having noted that a rich cavalcade from London, en route to Kenilworth, had arrived unexpectedly at the Royal Arms. Taken by surprise, and, therefore, unprepared to accommodate so many guests, the landlord was glad to avail himself of my services, and I was assigned to the position of boots. Among others whom I served was Walter Raleigh, who, noting my ragged condition and hearing what a roisterer ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Academy upon the ability of the professors, speaks with diffidence of his power as a writer, (the world has in this respect done him justice;) but that he had come not unprepared upon the subject of art, having reflected much upon his own and the opinions of others. He found in the art many precepts and rules, not reconcilable with each other. "To clear away those difficulties ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... utterance was deliberate and spaced with not infrequent slight delays. Exactly at the end of the hour the lecture stopped. Suddenly, abruptly, but quietly, without peroration of any sort, always with "a gentle shock of mild surprise" to the unprepared listener. He had weighed out the full measure to his audience with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 'Stop, Henry!' he exclaimed, 'You have no right to suggest such a thing. If I took a gentle unsuspecting woman unawares, then I am willing to stand by the consequences of my rash act. Never for one moment, I can assure you, did such a thought enter Mrs. Warrington's head. She was wholly unprepared——' ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... the people always are, were unprepared for war. Their entire energies had been concentrated for forty years in organizing the gigantic victory of peace which they had just achieved. When they woke up to the idea that there was yet another battle to be fought before the aristocracy would subside, they began to learn ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... they were married in June, 1784. A painful correspondence followed. Mrs. Thrale announced her marriage in a friendly letter to Johnson, excusing her previous silence on the ground that discussion could only have caused them pain. The revelation, though Johnson could not have been quite unprepared, produced one of his bursts of fury. "Madam, if I interpret your letter rightly," wrote the old man, "you are ignominiously married. If it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have abandoned ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... state of mind which might be called the refraction of an idea by the presence of another idea. An example is the habit of saying, "Unprepared, as I have—'' before beginning a speech. The speaker means to say that he has not prepared himself, but, as he really has prepared himself, both expressions come out together. This habitual concurrence ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... are of cedar and alder and puckerbush and osier; their waters are slightly colored by the juices of the swampland; following lines of minimum resistance, they twist gently or sharply every little way, and always to the voyager's delight, for the eye is unprepared for a beautiful vista, as the ear for a sudden and exquisite ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... the Littlebathians; and Bertram longed, therefore, to surprise his eyes and astound his intellect with a view of her charms and a near knowledge of her attributes. Nothing should be said of her beauty, and the blaze of it should fall upon him altogether unprepared. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... mind her," replied Anne, "only I'm afraid she'll catch me unprepared, some day, and then I will get it ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... 'I was completely unprepared for this. I could only mutter and shake my head vaguely. Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty. From that moment, however, the old nakhoda became taciturn. He was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I had ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... if he, Geoffrey, told the court that he was absolutely unprepared to go on with the case, It would have no option ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... the bottom of the vehicle. He swung this into the unconscious girl's face as he thrust her upon the seat. He had expected to see one of the servants of the mansion—a seamstress, or one of the maids, perhaps—but he was totally unprepared for the vision of girlish loveliness that met ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... perfectly silent. She trembled a little— wondering what she was going to hear. It must be something dreadful, she thought,—something for which she was unprepared,— something that might, perhaps, like a sudden change in the currents of the air, create darkness where there had been sunshine, storm instead of calm. His grip on her hand was strong enough to hurt her, but she was not conscious of it. She only wished he would tell her the worst at once ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... to the shore, the pinnace and the ship's boat were ready to receive them, and they all got safe on board, not a man of them having received the least hurt, except two, one of whom strained his foot, and the other burnt his hand a little; for they met with no resistance, the poor Indians being unprepared, amazed, and confounded. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... the line of the ancient canal from Rameses, not far from Heliopolis, toward the southern frontier of Palestine. But Moses, instructed not to conduct his people at once to a conflict with the warlike inhabitants of Canaan, for which they were unprepared, having just issued from slavery, brought them round by a sudden turn to the south and east, upon an arm or gulf of the Red Sea. To the eyes of the Egyptians, who repented that they had suffered them to depart, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... knights, except Yvain, that disloyal traitor, liar, hypocrite, who had deserted her deceitfully. "She has seen clearly the treachery of him who pretended he was a faithful lover while he was a false and treacherous thief. This thief has traduced my lady, who was all unprepared for any evil, and to whom it never occurred that he would steal her heart away. Those who love truly do not steal hearts away; there are, however, some men, by whom these former are called thieves, who ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... months to Litchfield when he boarded the City of Asgard at the port of the same name on Odin. It had been two hours to Litchfield when the Countess Dorothy rose from the airship dock at Storisende. He had had all that time, and now it was gone, and he was still unprepared for what he must face ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper |
