"Unprepossessing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and where his mouth should have been there was a huge gap, his lower jaw being altogether missing. A few locks of long hair in patches on his skull, blown by the wind, completed a worthy frame for this most unprepossessing head. ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... and the discordant din of drums and trumpets of the noon parade,— all brought up the scene we had witnessed here with so much pleasure nearly a year before, when coming from a long voyage, and from our unprepossessing reception at Santa Barbara. It seemed almost like ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... back of which lay an extension filled with ordnance stores, then other and similar sheds devoted to commissary supplies, the post butcher-shop, the saddler's shop, then big coal-sheds, and then the brow of the bluff, down which at a steep grade plunged the road to the stables. It was as unprepossessing a place for a home as ever was chosen by a man of education or position; and Mr. Hayne ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... of the gods of Hinduism—one of a great trilogy: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer. He had also spoken of the attributes of Kali, and, after a little further search, I discovered that Kali was Siva's wife—a most unprepossessing and fiendish female. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... beings can use things which resemble snakes so much as eels, and pronounces it to be the height of uncleanness to eat frogs, as some of the continentals do. Indeed, the groogroo worm is by no means more repulsive in appearance than any of the other unprepossessing creatures which are so highly prized. It would be a difficult matter to decide on the merits of the many extraordinary things which the taste of man, in its morbid cravings, has discovered and converted into luxurious use; and the philosopher ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... Messing, who is such an abandoned old creature that her own married daughters won't know her! Oh, dear! And I believe the Knighted Bone- Boiler thinks they are quite good style! That literary man, Longford, was a most unprepossessing looking object,—a friend of Roxmouth's too, which makes him all the more unpleasant. And of course he will at once write off and say he has seen me. And then— and then-dear me! I wonder where Sir Morton picks these people up! He doesn't like the parson here evidently—'a pretentious ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... such evening their discussion was interrupted by an unprepossessing and travel-stained stranger, who, when his wants, none too amiably expressed, had been attended to, exhibited a marked curiosity concerning the people of the locality. As the stranger paid for his welcome with a liberal hand, Peter became more ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... unmarried; but whether it was from a very unprepossessing squint which deterred suitors, or from the same dislike to matrimony as her brother had imbibed, it is not in our power to say. Mr. Witherington was three years younger than his sister; and although he had for some time worn a wig, it was only because he considered it more comfortable. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... concealment behind a great fallen tree when two men appeared around a bend in the path. One was the same whom they had followed a few hours before, while the other was a stranger to them. This man was of a desperate and unprepossessing appearance, and a bulge under his coat suggested the ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... gentle, as I realized when he began to help me. I knew at once that he was the man I needed, notwithstanding his unkempt hair, his general ungainliness, the hat he wore on the back of his head, and the pink carnation in his buttonhole, which, by its very incongruity, added the final accent to his unprepossessing appearance. Together we worked over the child, making it as comfortable as we could. It was hardly necessary to tell my aide what I wanted done; he seemed to know and even to anticipate ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... blow." Everything they made was beautiful. Beauty they placed next to holiness; indeed, they almost or quite made beauty and right the same thing. They are said to have thought it strange that Socrates was good, seeing he was so unprepossessing in appearance. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Lucy's protegee, had a sort of latent interest in Nelly, from her association with her pleasant visit to Ashleigh, accompanied her cousin in her long walk to look for the house. On reaching it at last, tired and hot, the door was opened, not by Nelly, as Lucy had hoped, but by an unprepossessing-looking woman, whose hard face grew more rigid when informed what was the object of ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... evasive body anywhere; when you think you have it, it wriggles away sideways, and refuses to give any hold for jaws or palate. In fact, a more slippery or guileful egg was never yet devised by nature's unconscious ingenuity. Then, again, the Antarctic chimaera (so called from its very unprepossessing personal appearance) relies rather upon pure deception than upon mechanical means for the security of its eggs. The shell or case in this instance is prolonged at the edge into a kind of broad wing on either side, so that it exactly resembles ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... found his garage in charge of an unwashed, unkempt, unprepossessing young ruffian whom he stared at for a full minute before he accepted him as the man he had left there. The ragged trousers, the spotted "reefer" buttoned high around the neck, the dirty cap pulled over the eyes, and the wholly disreputable broken ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... though much of his time was spent in hotels and travelling. The house, begun by his father, had expanded with the fortunes of the son. It stood remote from town or village. It was neither a palace nor a glorified villa, but just a substantial house, with an unprepossessing exterior, and all the marvels of modern luxury within. The short private railway by which it was approaching ran through an ugly tract of country terminating beneath a high belt of trees that shut off the western sun and were flanked ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... of the tents. Their chief, before whom we were brought, was a tall man, of rather lighter complexion than the rest, but with countenance not less hideous and sinister than those of his remarkably unprepossessing followers. He inquired, in a sort of mongrel Arabic,—which, however, I could partly understand,—who we were, whence we had come, and how we had been found. To the latter question alone, his people could give a reply. I heard him remark that there must have been a shipwreck ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... wonderland that lies beyond the rubber plantations between Hana and the Honomanu Gulch. Two days were required to cover this marvellous stretch, which lies on the windward side of Haleakala. The people who dwell there call it the "ditch country," an unprepossessing name, but it has no other. Nobody else ever comes there. Nobody else knows anything about it. With the exception of a handful of men, whom business has brought there, nobody has heard of the ditch country of Maui. Now a ditch is a ditch, assumably muddy, and ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... has thus replied to the threat of excommunication. The nominee is Hidolph, who is attached to his own chapel, a man of no merit whatever, but devoted to the emperor; and whose principal endeavor it has been to remedy by art the unprepossessing exterior which nature ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... veiled our haggard features and ragged garments. In a dimly lighted courtyard we came face to face with the English proprietor of the Hotel de Peking. At our request for lodging, he said, "Pardon me, but may I first ask who you are and where you come from?" Our unprepossessing appearance was no doubt a sufficient excuse for this precaution. But just then his features changed, and he greeted us effusively. Explanations were now superfluous. The "North China Herald" correspondent at Pao-ting-foo had already published ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... language was a delight, "an ornament of women." Simon, the son of Lakish (200-275), hardy of muscle and of intellect, started life as a professional athlete. A later Rabbi, Zeira, was equally noted for his feeble, unprepossessing figure and his nimble, ingenious mind. Another contemporary of Jochanan, Joshua, the son of Levi, is the hero of many legends. He was so tender to the poor that he declared his conviction that the Messiah would arise among the beggars and cripples of Rome. Simlai, who was born in Palestine, ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... house, save a rough shanty for the use of the "track-walker" on the railroad. It was not an attractive place for rest, yet here they were forced to pass the night, and to sit down to such supper as might be provided in so desolate a spot. The unprepossessing look of everything was completed when the host came in and took his seat at the head of the table. A bear out of the woods could hardly have been rougher, with his unshaven hair and unkempt beard. He answered to the type of border ruffian, and his appearance suggested the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... hardly knew how to take the sting from the rebuke, which he was aware his mission could not but convey; and he was no less aware, that unless the dose had a little sugar in it, at any rate to hide its unprepossessing appearance even if it did not render it palatable, his ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... the singularly unprepossessing face of a swarthy foreigner, a powerfully-built, ungainly person of about his ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... ring of his ax against the tough spruce. Virginia was at work preparing their simple evening meal; Harold was stretched on her own cot, the curtain drawn back, his arms under his head, his unshaven face curiously dark and unprepossessing. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... guests were seated, just concluding a late breakfast. Tantaine at once recognized four of the several guests as servants whom he knew from their having applied for situations at the office, and there were two men of a very unprepossessing exterior. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the day, Madeline and Florence, accompanied by Alfred and Stillwell, left Don Carlos's ranch it was not any too soon for Madeline. The inside of the Mexican's home was more unprepossessing and uncomfortable than the outside. The halls were dark, the rooms huge, empty, and musty; and there was an air of silence and secrecy and mystery about them most fitting to the character Florence ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... time by many in which he had been in a similar plight—but his resource in such case had been to tell the truth gallantly to his friend Mrs. Davis; and some sort of viands, not at all unprepossessing to him in his hunger, would always be forthcoming for him at the 'Cat and Whistle.' This supply was now closed to him. Were he, under his present circumstances, to seek for his dinner from the fair hands of Norah Geraghty, it would be tantamount to giving himself ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... of a gentle eminence she entered the narrow, winding street of the town, a crooked little town physically both in the matter of this meandering alley-like thoroughfare and in the matter of the hastily builded, unprepossessing houses; a crooked town in its innermost character, it was easy to believe. On either hand as she rode forward were low, squat, ugly shacks jammed tight together or with narrow passageways between their unlovely walls, these spaces more often than not ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... should we know of your cattle!" exclaimed a harsh voice behind the boys, and Dick and Nort, turning in their saddles, saw fairly glaring at them Del Pinzo, the unprepossessing Mexican half breed. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... vastness of the North-West Territory to a place called Sin Rock, where he took charge of a new post in a more important fur field. Here he spent several lonely and depressing months, eminently disgusted with the unprepossessing appearance of the Indian maidens, and greatly worried by his growing sons who stood in need of a mother's care. Then his eyes ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... have been nearly as bad," Rendel said; "though if we were canaries we should be nicer to look at perhaps," and his eye fell on an unprepossessing elderly couple who were descending the stairs with none of the winsomeness of singing birds. "Have you read Maeterlinck's ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... over her, but superior to them all was the feminine feeling that she could not endure to have Harry see her in her present unprepossessing plight. ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... time, and a most excellent breakfast, though he puzzled his brains exceedingly during the whole time he was so occupied with turning it over in his mind, how it was possible that such a delightful couple as the founders of the feast, could have produced so unprepossessing a progeny; whilst Timothy—who, though it was no part of his duty to wait at table, which was performed by a well-dressed man-servant out of livery—managed, on some pretext or other, to be continually coming in and out of the room, and every time contrived ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... whose name clung to the place we have been unable to ascertain, but when Ward Glazier moved there, the house seemed fairly to scowl upon the passer-by—so utterly unprepossessing was its appearance. A rude, capacious wooden structure, it stood fronting the highway, and was a place where the beautiful had no existence. The very soil looked black and rough—the vegetation rugged. Every inclosure was of stone or knotted timber, and even a ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... fulfilled, for at eleven o'clock the explorers saw the gang of labourers come filing in among the ruins, armed with rude wooden mattocks and spades, and provided with large baskets in which to convey away the soil as it was dug out. They were as unprepossessing a lot of specimens of female humanity as could well be imagined. Naked, save for a filthy ragged skin petticoat round their waists and reaching to the knee, their faces wore, without exception, an expression of sullen stupidity, and they looked ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... forgotten now what first led us to feel that beneath that unprepossessing exterior were concealed the pulses of a warm, generous heart, and the powers of a strong and cultivated mind, but we remember well the morning that she set her seal ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... wiry man with a bristly, protruding chin. She could see that, even in the starlight. There was something about the point of that stubby chin that she shrank from inexpressibly. He was not a pleasant man to look upon, and even his voice was unprepossessing. She began to think that even the night with its loneliness and unknown perils was preferable to this ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... two years in America, the sight of it has to me almost amounted to a necessity, and I am not therefore at all astonished at an American finding fault with the climate of England; nevertheless, our climate, although unprepossessing to the eye, and depressive to the animal spirits, is much more healthy than the exciting and changeable atmosphere, although beautiful in appearance, which they breathe in ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... The table d'hote was at five o'clock; I did not wish to go to the expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere of the salle a manger, could not play either at pool or billiards, and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make me unwilling to enter into any tete-a-tete gamblings with them. So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to explore the surrounding country; the middle ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... Still, unprepossessing as the man was, there was a certain charm of manner about him and a certain attractiveness in his voice Cleek discovered when he was introduced to him and found himself being "sized up," so to speak, by a pair ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... on shore, two men, very poorly dressed and of unprepossessing appearance, came to us and begged for assistance. I asked them who they were, and one, quicker than ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Uncle Paul, looking very hard at his unprepossessing visitor, while Rodd felt as if he wanted to laugh, but held the desire in check, "I may want one by and by, and a crew too; but I must ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... pressure of astonishment and indignation. It was bad enough to be pictured thus unprepossessing, but to be suddenly made aware of her husband in a man whom she feared, was desperate. She stared with frank and horrified ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... Unprepossessing as most of the colliers' homes were, Lowrie's cottage was a trifle less inviting than the majority. It stood upon the roadside, an ugly little bare place, with a look of stubborn desolation, its only redeeming ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... disrespectful to her or myself, I say at once that he is an impudent calumniator. Madame Springbock is old enough to be my grandmother, and as ugly a woman as I ever saw; but, though old, she was passionnee pour la danse, and not having (on account, doubtless, of her age and unprepossessing appearance) many opportunities of indulging in her favorite pastime, made up for lost time by immense activity whenever she could get a partner. In vain, at the end of the hour, would Springbock exclaim, "Amalia, my soul's blessing, the ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "relief," like turrets from a watch-tower, and with pretty much the same object; his skin was of that peculiar colour and texture, to which, not all "the water in great Neptune's ocean" could impart a look of cleanliness, while his very voice, hard, harsh, and inflexible, was unprepossessing and unpleasant. And yet, strange as it may seem, he, too, was a correct type of his order; the only difference being, that Father Malachi was an older coinage, with the impress of Donay or St. Omers, whereas Mister Donovan was the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... the only son of Ebenezer, a person of somewhat unprepossessing appearance, contrived to derive a tolerable livelihood by following the conjunct occupation of an itinerant player and portrait-painter. He was the writer of some good poetry, and about 1827 published a respectable volume ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Indies, particular physical types are developed apparently among communities but slightly isolated; on one side of a mountain a population may be remarkably attractive, while upon the other you may find a hamlet whose inhabitants are decidedly unprepossessing. But nowhere in this country have I seen a prettier jeunesse than that ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... arose from his unwelcome bath, dripping from head to foot with the nasty mess, presenting a most unprepossessing appearance. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... line of politics. She took charge of the affairs of the Church of the Nativity with a high hand which abashed and disquieted the devout rector. She liked Mr. Candish, although she did not hesitate to jest at his unpolished manners and rather unprepossessing person, and it was inevitable that she should be unable to appreciate his self-denying devotion. On one or two occasions she had found him to have a will not inferior to her own; and although she resented whatever balked her pleasure, she was yet a woman and respected ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... he had arrived at a decision, Spike had groped his way across the icy street and pressed the bell-button on the front door of the least unprepossessing house on ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... it with little difficulty. It was a small side street, of somewhat unprepossessing appearance, leading out of Beauchamp Street. Bennet, boot-maker and umbrella-maker, had a dark, dingy little shop just at the corner. It had evidently been an ordinary dwelling-house in old times, but ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cecile Saint Huberty, nee Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide." Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more on the public, till the retirement of Sophie Arnould and Mile. Levasseur, and the death of Laguerre, left her in undisputed possession ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... at Jim and Sorry, and those two unprepossessing ones looked at each other and at Swan and at the doctor and at each other again, and headed for the door. But Swan was leaning against it, and his eyes were on them. "I would like it if you say somebody rides to get the doctor," ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... other feeling than that of avarice, for the slaves are too valuable to be destroyed. In their physiognomy these Malays are inferior to the Dyaks: they have a strong resemblance to the monkey in face, with an air of low cunning and rascality most unprepossessing. In stature they are very low, and generally bandy-legged. Their hair and eyes are invariably black, but the face is, in most cases, devoid of hair; when it does grow, it is only at the extreme point ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... consisted of a blue woollen shirt, coarse blue trousers grimed in mud, and a low-crowned black hat; on his shoulder he carried a spade and pickaxe. As he walked along he was joined by others of an equally unprepossessing appearance, and found many more already assembled at the scene ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous
... unprepossessing, this unclassifiable Mr. Calendar; he was dressed with some care, his complexion was good, and the fullness of his girth, emphasized as it was by a notable lack of inches, bespoke a nature genial, easy-going and sybaritic. His dark eyes, heavy-lidded, were active—curiously, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Nothing can be more unprepossessing than the approach to Gwalior; the hills being naked, black, and ugly, with rounded tops devoid of grass or shrubs, and the soil of the valleys a poor red dust without any appearance of verdure or vegetation, since the few autumn crops that lately stood upon them have ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... legged card table on which a man's cap was lying beside an unfinished glass of kvass. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was followed into the room by the old woman in the red dress, whom he had noticed at the gate, and who turned out to be a very unprepossessing Jewess with sullen pig-like eyes and a grey moustache over her puffy upper lip. Emilie indicated her to ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... you got the money?" snarled Mack, screwing up his features into a frown that made him look even more unprepossessing. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... crew were in evidence, pulling on ropes on the main deck below us. To my inexperienced eye they appeared more unprepossessing than ever. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... aged, unalluring title ('In Search of Quiet,' for instance) may frighten people away from what proves to be a mine of wit and human interest. A book headed by a man's name unmodified and uncommented upon—such as 'Horace Chase'—is apt to have a dreary, unprepossessing air, unless the name is an incisive one that suggests an interesting personality. Fragments of proverbs and poems are always attractive, as well as Biblical phrases and colloquial expressions, but the magic title is the one that ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... his costume. The man himself was of middle size, athletic, yet slender; with straight and regular features,—sunburnt, but not swarthy; and an expression of countenance which, though reckless and bold, had in it frankness rather than ferocity, and, if defying, was not altogether unprepossessing. ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... absolute lord of the Ottoman empire—clad in dark green European clothes, almost without ornament or insignia of rank; a red Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man, black-bearded, black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing—a man whose whole appearance somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear him say: "A mutton roast today, or will you have a nice ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Philadelphia. Though everything about him indicated that he had very little in common with his fellow-citizens, he was the marked man of the city for more than a generation. His aspect was rather insignificant and quite unprepossessing. His dress was old-fashioned and shabby; and he wore the pig-tail, the white neck-cloth, the wide-brimmed hat, and the large-skirted coat of the last century. He was blind of one eye; and though his bushy eyebrows gave some character to his countenance, it was curiously ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... sick! Honest to God, when you gas like that I feel like bashing in your brain, if you've got any! You and your thankfulness!" He turned his quivering face and stared at the wall, winking. I wondered, heartsick, if I had ever seen a more hopelessly unprepossessing creature. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... charming,—Gerome tall, slight, animated, talking very easily about everything. He told me who a great many of the people were, with a little commentary on their profession and career which was very useful to me, as I knew so few of them. Renan was short, stout, with a very large head, almost unprepossessing-looking, but with a great charm of manner and the most delightful smile and voice imaginable. He often dined with us in our own house, en petit comite, and was always charming. He was one of those happy mortals (there are not many) who made ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... strongly this time that she decided to go the rounds of the moving picture employment agencies. As so often had been the case, her sense of smell worked against her good intentions. The employment agency smelt as though it had been dead a very long time. She waited five minutes inspecting her unprepossessing competitors—then she walked briskly out into the farthest recesses of Central Park and remained so long that she caught a cold. She was trying to air the employment agency out of her ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... happened to vex him,' said Margaret, apologetically. 'You would not have thought him unprepossessing if you had seen ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... A Dingy and Unprepossessing Preacher (unctuously). Well beloved friends, as I was telling yer, I went 'ome to the 'ouse of that pious Methodist lady, and she told me as 'ow she 'ad two dear unconverted sons, an' I knelt down (&c., &c.), an' after that we 'ad our tea, and then I preached ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... an Irish orator and statesman, was born at Dublin, and graduated from Trinity College, in his native city. By his admiration of Mr. Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, he was led to turn his attention to oratory. In personal appearance, he was unprepossessing; but his private character was ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... received us with the dignified courtesy of the old school, declined our proposition in civil terms, and bowed us out with a cool politeness equalled only by that of the senior Winkle towards the unlucky deputation of Pickwick and his unprepossessing companions. As we left their doors we could not refrain from smiling in each other's faces at the thought of the small inducement our proffer of the presidency held out to men of their class. Evidently our company ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... shadows from the old Paris life, were thronging round Therese Linders, as with changed name and dress she sat there in her convent parlour! Old familiar forms flitting to and fro, old voices ringing in her ears, her brother young, handsome, and indulged, herself plain, unprepossessing, neglected, and a mother whom she had held to and watched till the last, yet turning from her to the son who had scorned her wishes and broken her heart. It had all happened twenty-five years ago, but to the Superior ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... a sort of ... tramping person," said Sir Felix, putting on his pince-nez the better to see Patsy. "He has been in these parts before. A most unprepossessing person. Quite a bad lot, I ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... as a miner, carrying a long-handled shovel, came slowly through the woods. A red handkerchief tied around his head under his hat, with the loose ends hanging from beneath, did not add much favor to his unprepossessing face. He did not perceive the master and M'liss until he was close upon them. When he did, he stopped suddenly and gazed at them with an expression of lowering distrust. M'liss ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Charming! Bewitching!' Then it was they noticed me.... A couple of young milksops, local amateurs of the scenic art, I presume, looked at me, exchanged glances, and whispered: 'That's her lover!' How do you like that? And an unprepossessing individual in a top-hat, with a chin that badly needed shaving, hung round me, shifting from one foot to the other, then turned ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... brick building at the corner of a street, with nothing very unprepossessing in its external appearance. The wooden stairs were dirty enough, and, on ascending them to the so-called "ladies' parlour," I found a large, meanly-furnished apartment, garnished with six spittoons, which, however, to my disgust, did ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of these men. They were Neal Taggart; a tall, lanky, unprepossessing man with a truculent eye rimmed by lashless lids, and with a drooping mustache which almost concealed the cruel curve of his lips, whom he knew as Denver Ed—having met him several times in the Durango country; and a medium-sized stranger whom he knew as ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... daughters, who are just "fresh" from a very modern boarding-school. Every word she utters has an accompanying look thrown either to the short-sighted full- complexioned eldest daughter or to the slim, unprepossessing younger one, seeking approval from their responsive glances. And, after all, poor Mamma Mountainhead, in her ruby velvet and Chantilly lace, has, by far, more brains of her own—if she could get a license to use them— than either of her daughters have ever admitted ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... stranger was dark in complexion and not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, baring ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... insufficient staff of servants, to the village to the vicar and his wife, and the few far-distant neighbours who perhaps once a year drove miles to call or leave a card. She was an old woman sufficiently unattractive to find no difficulty in the way of limiting her acquaintances. The unprepossessing wardrobe she had gathered in the passing years was remade again and again by the village dressmaker. She wore dingy old silk gowns and appalling bonnets, and mantles dripping with rusty fringes and bugle beads, but these mitigated not in ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... future Emperor of Germany, she had (1528) been given in marriage to the ruler of a petty Italian duchy, himself as inferior to her in mind as in moral character.[402] As for Renee, if her face was homely and unprepossessing, her intellect was vigorous. She had turned to good account the opportunities for self-improvement afforded by her high rank. Admiring courtiers made her classical and philosophical attainments the subject of lavish panegyric, perhaps ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... young and rich Glanville, possessed of the most various accomplishments, and the most remarkable personal beauty, should be supplanted by a needy spendthrift (as Tyrrell at that time was), of coarse manners, and unpolished mind; with a person not, indeed, unprepossessing, but somewhat touched by time, and never more comparable to Glanville's than that of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... therefore, to make amends, had had himself photographed in an attitude of perpetual salutation. Other letters rained in on my sister from the eccentric individual, and he sent her almost weekly fresh presentments of his unprepossessing exterior, but always in a bowing attitude. We made, naturally, inquiries about this person, and found that he was an elderly widower, a hatter by trade, who had retired from business after making a considerable fortune, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... individuals climb down from the stage, unkempt, unshorn—clothed in the roughest of frontier costume, the same they had put on at St. Jo—dusty, grimy, slouchy, and weather-beaten with long days of sun and storm and alkali desert dust. It is not likely there were two more unprepossessing officials on the Pacific coast at that moment than the newly arrived Territorial secretary and his brother: Somebody identified them, and the committee melted away; the half-formed plan of a banquet ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... knowingly. You saw that he was getting ready to assume a bless-you-my-children attitude and even to take credit somehow as match-maker. He related anecdotes, in which, as an emissary of Cupid, he played a benevolent and leading role. One detected, too, a grin, ugly and unmirthful, on the unprepossessing countenance of Captain Magnus. I was indifferent. The man my gaiety was intended for sat at the far end of the table. I had to wipe out the memory of my wet ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... the autumn of 1849 that I went into residence at the little college and was assigned a very unprepossessing room in a very ugly barrack. Entering my new quarters I soon discovered about me various cabalistic signs, some of them evidently made by heating large iron keys, and pressing them against the woodwork. On inquiring I found that the room had ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... and coming forward, "then we must shake hands again," and his face wore a pleasant expression. He thought nothing of first impressions, and was prepared to offer a hearty welcome to any friend of his uncle, even of the most unprepossessing type. Mr. Barker was not exactly unprepossessing; he was certainly not handsome, but there was a look of action about him that was not unpleasing. Claudius felt at once, however, that the American belonged to a type ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... was an Irishman by birth, prematurely aged, of diminutive stature, and unprepossessing appearance. He had been many years at sea; had witnessed perilous scenes; had fought for his life with the savages on board the Atahualpa on "the north-west coast"; had served in an English man-of-war, from which he escaped by swimming ashore, a distance of several miles, one ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Theophilus considered one of his greatest attractions. But my cousin had no personal attractions. There was nothing manly or decided about him. Smooth and insidious where he wished to please, his first appearance to strangers was always unprepossessing; and few persons on their first introduction had any great desire to extend ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the bagpipers congregated in a mass, each playing his own favourite tune. The figure of the Madonna—a modern and unprepossessing image—was carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles, great and small. Several hundredweight of wax must have been brought up on the heads of pious female pilgrims. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... appearance the race is not unprepossessing. The crinal hair is hard and wiry, growing, like that of a half-caste West Indian, in stiff ringlets which sprout in tufts from the scalp, and, attaining a moderate length, which they rarely surpass, bang down. A few elders, savans, and the wealthy, who ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... coaxing touch about all this which was not lost upon Beryl. He was horribly ugly, she thought to herself, with that hideous red smear across his dusky face; but in spite of this she felt no fear. Unprepossessing he might be, but he was in no ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... once introduced to the second mate, and Miss Arminster thought she had seldom seen a more unprepossessing individual. He was surly and shifty-eyed, and she confided to the Bishop, when they were alone, that she was glad they were not going far from land under that man's charge, for he looked like ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... In such a climate as that of Terra del Fuego, their being able to go without clothes shows that they must be of a very hardy nature. We were soon surrounded by some thirty or more of these very unprepossessing gentlemen, all talking most furiously to us or at us, some patting us on the back, and others examining our handkerchiefs, and caps, and buttons, or any article of our dress they could get hold of. We patted them on the back in return, but as they had no clothes, we took hold of their hair ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... turned sharply, and as his eye fell on the unprepossessing figure, he instinctively put his hand in the pocket in which he ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... off, and soon returned followed by a most unprepossessing boy, who slouched in and stood looking about him, with a half bold, half sullen look, which made Mrs. Bhaer say ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... grow on such a soil. Rough, unpainted wooden fences separated them one from another; rough cow-sheds, coal-sheds, or wood-sheds were braced up against the fences, and back of all the yards along the row ran a high rickety barrier of boards, as rough and unprepossessing as the others. Beyond this fence lay a triangular space of open prairie ornamented only by ash-barrels and occasional heaps of empty cans awaiting the coming of the "police cart." Beyond this space stood the big brown hospital on the north; the back-yards ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... senorita, lest you stumble in the darkness on the rough ground," said the muffled voice of El Diablo Cojuelo. "The entrance to my mountain eyrie is narrow and unprepossessing, but I promise you that you shall find ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... the consulate, however, he found difficulty of admission. This was to be expected. His appearance was unprepossessing. He was still attired in the ragged clothes tied up with string, and the aged boots he had got Leon to procure for him, to complete his disguise as a Haitian boy. Moreover, while the soap-weed wash at the fisherman's ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with long ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a pair of Tasmanian devils (Dasyurus ursinus); these unprepossessing-looking brutes are hated by every one in Tasmania, their habitat, owing to their destructiveness amongst poultry, and even sheep. They are black in colour, having only a white band across the chest, and possess great strength in ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... sound judgment of character and circumstances necessary in banking. Nor were they very fortunate in their manager. Mr. Pearson, although he might have been taken as a model of honesty, truthfulness, and straightforwardness, was a phlegmatic, heavy man, and his manners were, to say the least, unprepossessing. The bank was not a success. Negotiations were, a few years after, entered into, and arrangements resulted, by which the Birmingham Banking Company took over the business, on the basis of giving every shareholder in the Bank of Birmingham a certain reduced ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... had been kind to him, and he would protect her from all harm, but not for all the gilt-edged securities in Wall Street would he have the story of his knight-errantry get abroad, nor the unprepossessing heroine of it revealed ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... ejaculated Hallam. He looked helplessly toward Amy, but she was disappearing indoors, too eager to be with her parents to loiter with this unprepossessing guest. ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... out to be a gambler, and ran through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... those to whom he was offered shook their heads. The haggardness of Lionel's face was too unprepossessing. They had seen slaves with that look before, and experience told them that no good was ever to be done with such fellows. Moreover, though shapely, his muscles were too slight, his flesh looked too soft and tender. Of what use a slave who must be hardened and nourished into strength, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... parts.' This lady won my sympathy by telling me she had been friendly ever since her youth with Laube, in whose destiny she continued to take a heartfelt and cordial interest. She was clever, but far from happy, and an unprepossessing exterior, which with the lapse of years grew more uninviting, did not tend to make her any happier. She lived in meagre circumstances, with one child, and appeared to remember her better days with a bitter grief. My first visit to her was paid merely to inquire after Laube's fate, but I soon ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... went out, a bit unsteady, seedy, unprepossessing, but carrying under his dilapidated exterior some remains of the man ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... shepherd poet, had a dog named Sirrah, who was for many years his sole companion. He was, the shepherd says, the best dog he ever saw, in spite of his surly manners and unprepossessing appearance. The first time he saw the dog, a drover was leading him by a rope, and, although hungry and lean, "I thought," Hogg tells us, "I discovered a sort of sullen intelligence in his face, so I gave the drover ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... appearance of the clerk, a small, deformed man, with a dark, Jewish face, one arm longer than the other, misshapen fingers, wearing the tonsure and clerical habit; and thinking there must be superior intelligence to counterbalance so unprepossessing an aspect, he sent for him in private, and asked him on oath respecting the morals and character of his master. He was obliged to confess the whole truth; and Mahomet asked, in surprise, "How can the English allow this cowardly tyrant to misuse them? Are ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his voice, so Colman picked out by his voice one of a number of soldiers destined for a religious life (VSH, i, 261). With the incident of the consecration, as successor, of an unprepossessing intruder, compare the tale of Findian consecrating for the same purpose a raider whom he caught hiding in the furnace-chamber of his kiln (LL, 2628 ff.; CS, 198). The version in LB conveys the impression that Oenna's learning was imparted to him miraculously, as Oengus the ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... see, Eileen, that you are taken unawares," said Linda. "I have had four long years to work up to this hour. Hasn't it even dawned on you that this worm was ever going to turn? You know exquisite moths and butterflies evolve in the canyons from very unprepossessing and lowly living worms. You are spending your life on the butterfly stunt. Have I been such a weak worm that it hasn't ever occurred to you that I might want to try a plain, everyday pair ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... said, "we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night," and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron that matters ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... stealthily watching a young girl, who sat in the window seat of a neighboring mansion. One of these unseen observers, a gentleman, was youthful, and had an air of high breeding and refinement, and a face marked with intellect, though otherwise of unprepossessing aspect. His features wore even an ominous, though somewhat mirthful expression, while he pointed his long forefinger at the girl, and seemed to regard her as a creature completely within the scope ...
— Sylph Etherege - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... his quarto and passed some months under the tents in the desert, was a personage of no small importance. In his volume there were several pictures of Sands in various oriental costumes; and he travelled about with a black attendant of most unprepossessing appearance, just like another Brian de Bois Guilbert. Bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were hailed at Gaunt ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she exclaimed, in an injured tone. One eye was draped by a cobweb, gained by diving into the closet's extreme corner after a missing slipper, gone for some weeks; and in other ways Alexia's face presented a very unprepossessing appearance. "You said you'd help me with my room ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... disdain to pass the night. They possess wives and families, too, but they exhibit no desire to better their domestic surroundings. If the houses happen to include another room other than the living room, that extra room is invariably used for storing grain. The women are untidy and unprepossessing, and the children have not yet learned to appreciate stockings and shoes. It is almost paradoxical to think of human beings in a civilized country living such lives, people who have great possibilities within their reach. The children readily assimilate the habits ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... adjoining my own, there arose a feeble cry that I identified as the voice of Dumaresq; and my grimy nurse, gently laying my head back upon the pillow, at once hurried away to attend to his other patient. I heard a few low-murmured words from Dumaresq, followed by a reply from the unprepossessing unknown, and then I fell into ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... piqued me, and I saw him with prejudiced eyes. At any rate, he seemed to me a singularly unprepossessing youth. That portrait had flattered him. He had a stout body and a round, unwholesome face. His eyes were dull, and his mouth dropped discontentedly. He had the air of one ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the harness and started towards the shed, Mullendore following with his slouching walk, an unprepossessing figure in his faded overalls, black and white ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... second man of equally unprepossessing exterior now appeared from behind a great rock leading a couple of heavily ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... 203; dumpy &c. (short) 201; curtailed of its fair proportions; ill-made, ill- shaped, ill-proportioned; crooked &c. (distorted) 243; hard featured, hard visaged; ill-favored, hard-favored, evil-favored; ill-looking; unprepossessing, unattractive, uninviting, unpleasing. graceless, inelegant; ungraceful, ungainly, uncouth, stiff; rugged, rough, gross, rude, awkward, clumsy, slouching, rickety; gawky; lumping, lumpish[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Haute, Ind. It is one of the largest of the northern varieties, and is a fair nut, but does not grade high in filling qualities, and the bearing record of the parent tree has not yet been determined. The tree is crooked and very unprepossessing looking, and stands in the woods where it has a very poor chance. When I visited it this year, it had a very light crop of nuts, but I did not condemn it, for the reason that any tree growing under the same ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the motionless figure of the attendant, who had remained so inert at her post by the window that he had quite forgotten her presence. She was a young woman, perhaps thirty years of age, and not unprepossessing in appearance, in spite ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... learned the faithful and active part played by Harker. He had lost sight of the man for some time, but when he had bought the cottage, and during the progress of the changes and improvements he had made in that unprepossessing dwelling, accident had thrown Harker in his way, and they had found much to discuss in George Jernam's prosperity, in his generous treatment of Harker, in the general condition of the merchant service, which the two men declared to be going to the dogs, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... recognize. The words are easily enough said, but execution is difficult and practice rare. For Paul gives a strange description of the Christian life, and the color and characteristics with which he exhibits it render it decidedly unprepossessing. First he says: ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... cabins of these craft it is the fashionable thing amongst well-to-do Chinamen to hold their jamborees. They hire a particular junk for a certain date, and at the appointed hour the party assembles there, being received by two or three unprepossessing servants. Dinner, or whatever form the entertainment may take, is commenced, and as general mirth rises with the good cheer, guests write on a slate provided for the purpose the names of such flower-girls as they may fancy. This slate is quickly carried to where the girls live, hard ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... "the napless vesture of humility," to follow the always expensive, and often absurd fashions of his superiors. All ungalled of him is each courtier's heel or great man's kibe. Yet, is not even his every-day clothing unseemly, or his aspect unprepossessing. He casts as broad and proper a shadow in the sun as any other man. Black he is, indeed, but comely, like the daughters of Jerusalem.—To begin with the hat which he has honoured with a preference—what are your operas or your fire-shovels beside it? they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... ran from the corners of his mouth adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... represented in old paintings, in a manner resembling that used by fine gentlemen of our own day, escaped in sable negligence from under a furred bonnet, and hung in elf-locks, which seemed strangers to the comb, over his rugged brows, and around his very singular and unprepossessing countenance. His keen, dark eyes were deep set beneath broad and shaggy eyebrows, and as they were usually bent on the ground, seemed as if they were themselves ashamed of the expression natural to them, and were desirous to conceal it ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... when, at two hours after dark, he entered the streets of Onate. Hopeless of being served for affection's sake, he was meditating whom he could make his own by bribery, when a light from an open window flashed across the street, and illuminated the unprepossessing profile of Jaime the gipsy, who, in his capacity of guide, was riding in front, and a little on one side of Colonel Villabuena. The sight of those sinister features, on which rapacity and cunning had set their stamp, was as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... attend them during their hours of relaxation and festivity;—to wit, dealers in junk, old rags, and marine stores, purchasers of prize-money, crimps, and Jew receivers. The latter formed by far the most knavish-looking and unprepossessing portion of the assemblage. One or two of the tables were occupied by groups of fat frowzy women in flat caps, with rings on their thumbs, and baskets by their sides; and no one who had listened for a single moment to their coarse ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... miserably clad, wretchedly provided, and unprepossessing military host, probably never entered a civilized city. In all, except our order, deportment, and arms, we might have been mistaken for a procession of tatterdemalions, or a tribe of Nomades from Tartary. There ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... likeness, I cannot say I ever saw anything more unprepossessing. I am sure such a countenance as that could never have won a female heart. Surely, it is more calculated to terrify the imagination, than to soothe the affections of the timid ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... tried talking chockjaw. I, knowing perfectly well that the intended attempt could not be made for at least twenty-four hours, went away with a comfortable mind and slept in Bailey's cottage. When I left the door next morning I saw striding towards me through the mud a very begrimed and unprepossessing-looking figure. It was, after all, a man with a two days' beard, a very dirty face, a collarless, grimy shirt, who wore heavy ankle Jack-boots, and had his trousers rolled above his ankles. This person accosted me brusquely. "What are ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Dempster, astonished to find his chatty communications to his old friend, Mrs. Frankland, taken up in this way by this unprepossessing-looking stranger. "Yes, their name was Melville, and I never in my life met with more amiable, more intelligent, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... attracted by Mr. Clayton, who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of St. John's. Behind the then chapel of this last-named college was a 'labyrinth' (this was the name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms," and here dwelt many Simeonites, "unprepossessing in feature, gait, and manners, unkempt and ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described. Destined most of them for the Church, the Simeonites held themselves to have received a very loud call to the ministry . . . They would be instant in season and out of season in imparting spiritual instruction ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... seemed, for it fortunately chanced that John Saunders had had it copied; but the theft remained none the less mysterious. What could be the motive of the thief with whom—quite unreasonably and doubtless unjustly—my fancy persisted in connecting that unprepossessing face so keenly attentive in John Saunders's outer office, and again so plainly eavesdropping at his ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... really think that that alligator could reach them, for he was so big and clumsy-looking that it didn't seem as if he could run very fast. But he could, and the first thing Bully and Bawly knew, that most unprepossessing creature, with a smile that went away around to his ears, was close behind them and gnashing his ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... a horizontal oblong window, barred, and with a sash that opened like a transom. The tables were dirty and the chairs rickety. The walls were bare and unfinished, with beams innocent of decoration. Altogether it was as unprepossessing a place ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... them. We accordingly accompanied them. In front of the tents sat a number of women. They differed somewhat from the men, by having more ample robes of skin, and their hair bound by fillets round their heads. They were, however, very unprepossessing-looking ladies. They all seemed to regard Ellen with looks of astonishment now gazing at her, now at her black attendant, and were evidently discussing among themselves how it was that they were of such different colours. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... mood of which her nature was capable, and that was saying much. With one exception, better forgotten, this blond ruffian who had insulted her was the only man who had ever desired her; doubtless, she reflected bitterly, even Trennahan might be excepted. And when an unprepossessing woman of starved affections and implacably controlled passions sees desire in the eyes of a man for the first time, her vanity of sex responds, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... sailor, climbed up the side of the ship, while the young man, going to his task, left the conversation to Danglars, who now came towards the owner. He was a man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, of unprepossessing countenance, obsequious to his superiors, insolent to his subordinates; and this, in addition to his position as responsible agent on board, which is always obnoxious to the sailors, made him as much disliked by the crew as Edmond Dantes ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... It had one door in the thoroughfare of Holborn, but it ran back some way, and its other doors opened into a narrow alley turning off from the main street under a low archway. As Cuthbert pushed open the door of the public room, he saw several men with faces of decidedly unprepossessing type sitting together at a table engrossed in talk, and these all looked quickly up as he entered, and gazed ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... reaching down into her collar and drawing up a loop of worn ribbon. "Straight front corset," she observed, flushing, "makes a nice pocket for almost everything." She drew up a chamois-skin bag, of an unprepossessing mouse colour, and emptied out a roll of bills. "Two hundred and twelve dollars," she said, proudly, "and eighty-three cents and four ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... impatient; he wanted to be out in the train shed, and we went out there and walked up and down before the gate. I noticed that he was studying Sheener with some embarrassment in his eyes. Sheener was, of course, an unprepossessing figure. Lean, swarthy, somewhat flashy of dress, he looked what he was. He was my friend, of course, and I was able to look beneath the exterior. But it seemed to me that sight of him ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth, undertook to deliver Mr. Lawrence Cardiff's card to Miss Bell. She didn't remember no such name among the young ladies of the Peach Blossom Company, but she would ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... outward life was on the whole unprepossessing, inward succulence was not lacking. We had the Manns, to begin with, and the first real acquaintance between the two sets of children opened here. Mary Peabody, my mother's elder sister, had married Horace Mann, whose name is honorably identified ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... and occasional heavy drops of rain made me rejoice in the possession of an umbrella. On such a day, the park does not appear at its best. The Arch exhibited a dull, dirty, yellowish-grey exterior; every seat was bespattered with mud; whilst, to render the general aspect still more unprepossessing, the trees had not yet donned their mantles of green, but stood dejectedly drooping their leafless branches as if overcome with embarrassment at their nakedness. On the benches around me sat, or lay, London's homeless—wretched-looking men in long, tattered overcoats, baggy, buttonless ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... great unprepossessing building, washed and dried by the rain and sun into a dark, dingy colour, the only one that had ever supplanted the original hue of the freshsawn boards. This, indeed, was not an uncommon thing in the country; near all the houses of the Deepwater settlement ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell |
