"Unseemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because it appeared to me at the time to be conclusive—he said, sir, that he would set the dogs on me if I ever crossed his lot again. HENCE, sir, my appearing three times at your door yesterday. HENCE, sir, my breaking in upon you at this unseemly hour in the morning. I am particular myself, sir, about having my morning meal disturbed; cold coffee is never agreeable, gentlemen—but in this case you must admit that my intrusion ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... shriek; but it is, and remains, even so. Their well-charged explosion has exploded through the touch-hole; covering themselves with scorches, confusion, and unseemly soot! Poor Triumvirate, poor Queen; and above all, poor Queen's Husband, who means well, had he any fixed meaning! Folly is that wisdom which is wise only behindhand. Few months ago these Thirty-five Concessions ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... reason already, James. It would be not only unseemly, but impossible, for me to leave my guest. But even without that, even if I were entirely alone, still I could not go. My duties; the house; my dear sister's ideas,—she always said a house could not be left for a month by the entire family without deteriorating in some ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... gazed down at her from his ledge and shut his teeth in anger at the mounting of the blood to his cheek and its unseemly burning there. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... whose character and high rank Clarendon could rely to balance the jealousy of his own promotion—too sudden not to offend the pride of the older nobility. With touching anxiety, Clarendon had sought to defend his old friend, now enfeebled by age and ill-health, from the unseemly efforts that had been made to remove him by those who sought to fill his place, but it may be doubted whether in doing so he acted in the real interests of Southampton's reputation. His desire to keep his old friend at his side was only natural. Both had passed through ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Tempest's well-worn saddle, and brought Arion out of his snug box, and wisped him and combed him, and blacked his shoes, and made him altogether lovely—a process to which the intelligent animal was inclined to take objection, the hour being unseemly and unusual. Poor Bates sighed over his task, and brushed away more than one silent tear with the back of the dandy-brush. It was kind of Miss Violet to think about getting him a place; but he had no heart for going into a new service. He would rather have taken a room in one of the ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... learned more of their language and religion. In this he was especially instructed by good Master Hunt, the chaplain, who had ever proved himself a friend to the Indians, and to his own countrymen, whose unseemly disputes he had ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... studied all the time how he could best and most openly insult his minister. He used to come to church late on the Sabbath morning; and he never remained till the service was over, but would rise and stride out in his spurs in the noisiest way and at the most unseemly times. Rutherford's nest at Anwoth was not without its thorns. And that such a crop of thorns should spring up to him and to his people from Lady Cardoness's house, was one of Rutherford's sorest trials. The marriage- day, from which so much was expected, came and passed away; but what ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... everything, from the single narrow red stripe on her low black hull to the trucks on her tapering masts, evinced an amount of care and strict discipline that would have done credit to a ship of the Royal Navy. There was nothing lumbering or unseemly about the vessel, excepting, perhaps, a boat, which lay on the deck with its keel up between the fore and main masts. It seemed disproportionately large for the schooner; but, when I saw that the crew amounted to between thirty and forty men, I concluded that this boat was held ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the seven heads and ten horns of a monastery, and when they had come away and were going home, one of them, Bailie Pollock, a gaucy widower, was instigated by the devil and the wine he had drunk to stravaig towards Maggy Napier's—a most unseemly thing for a bailie to do—especially a bailie of Paisley, but it was then the days of popish sinfulness. And when Bailie Pollock went thither the house was full of riotous swankies, who, being the waur of drink themselves, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Moreover it hath been said that Time will bring the hour when the wealth of Yahn shall be such as his dreams have lusted for. Then shall Yahn leave the earth at rest and trouble the shadows no more, but sit and gloat with his unseemly face over his hoard of Lives, for his soul is a usurer's soul. But others say, and they swear that this is true, that there are gods of Old, who be far greater than Yahn, who made the Law wherein Yahn is overskilled, and who will one day drive a bargain with him that shall be too hard for ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... in these womanly offices. A tea-kettle in a man's hand, that would, if there was no better employment for him, be fitter to hold a plough, or handle a flail, or a scythe, has such a look with it!—This is like my low breeding, some would say, perhaps,—but I cannot call things polite, that I think unseemly; and, moreover. Lady Davers keeps me in countenance in this my notion; ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... bureau. I entered his presence, told him my story, and demanded permission to put on male attire, and assume a masculine name, in order to obtain the means of subsistence. He heard me respectfully, treated me kindly, and advised me to ponder well before I took a step so unusual and unseemly. But I was firm. Seeing my determination, he granted ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the games, and no one had ever impugned his spirit of gallantry by accusing him of unseemly neglect of the beautiful Misses P. His absence from this particular game was largely due to the fact that the right Miss Potiphar was ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... Madam," he announced, placing the casket in her lap, and because of the riotous and unseemly laughter, no ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... was the work of years; the placing of every one was duly chronicled in the press, and it was understood in London that Manchester was entirely satisfied. But lo! on the placing in position of the last picture but one of the series an unseemly dispute was raised by some members of the Corporation, and it was seriously debated in committee whether the best course to pursue would not be to pass a coat of whitewash over the offending picture. It is impossible to comment adequately on such barbarous conduct; perhaps at no distant ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... of unsavoury divorce cases being threshed out in public. Divorce is applied for, considered, granted, in every capital in Europe, but nowhere does it receive the publicity in the Press that it does in England. Its unseemly details are left in the obscurity of private life elsewhere, and not brought forward for public consideration as in England. One arrives in London just in time to hear the Lord Chief Justice make a grand summing-up of a nullity suit, ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... silence and desertion as in the other parts of the mansion. I passed through a sitting-room into a long gallery, with which the bed-chambers of the ladies communicated. The doors were all open, and the whole interior of their apartments exhibited so strange a medley of unseemly objects, and such utter disorder, as materially to affect my opinion of female delicacy, and to damp my desire of becoming acquainted with my cousins. I passed on, with a feeling of disappointment bordering on disgust, when I came to a room ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... raiment Kenneth put on, too, a courtier's ways; he grew mincing and affected in his speech, and he—whose utterance a while ago had been marked by a scriptural flavour—now set it off with some of Galliard's less unseemly oaths. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... from his unseemly paroxysm, sat erect to study the newcomers in detail. He was a short, round-chested man with a round moon face marked by heavy brows like those of the other. He had fat wrists and stout, blunt fingers. With a stubby thumb he now pushed up the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... very much like an errand-boy, and also felt that he was called on to perform his duties as such at rather an unseemly time, but he said nothing, and took the slip of paper and the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... as it may," replied Florian, "it is not quite becoming to speak thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth; there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor; but even so, a little charitable prevarication ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... your smiles, leering looks, and your winks, And your items and jeers, you'd insinuate it stinks: Dispraising the nectar, well knowing you meant, That a health to my Tw——t gave the juice an ill scent. Nay, laugh if you please, for I know I'm extreamly To blame, thus to blurt out a word so unseemly. But all know the proverb, wherein it is said, That a What is a What, and a Spade is a Spade; And now I'm provok'd, for a truth I may tell it, Tho' as red as a fox, yet it smells like a vi'let. By Jove I'll be judge, if I am not as sweet, I may say, as a primrose, from head to my feet. ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... Fielding's personality appears in the conscious control exercised over all the humorous and satiric zest of Joseph Andrews. Here is no unseemly riot of ridicule. The ridiculous he declares in his philosophic preface is the subject-matter of his pages; but he will suffer no imputation of ridiculing vice or calamity. "Surely," he cries, "he hath ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... was true that one or two among thousands might not have been everything they should have been," admitted Ailsa, loyal to her government in everything. "And perhaps one or two soldiers were insolent; but neither Letty Lynden nor I have ever heard one unseemly word from the hundreds and hundreds of soldiers we have attended, never have had the slightest hint ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... change which thou hast, striving earnestly for that which thou hast not, taking heed especially that no man comes the "artful" over thee; whereby I caution thee against one Tom Kitefly of Manchester, whose bills have returned back unto me, clothed with that unseemly garment which the notary calleth "a protest." Assuredly he is a viper in the paths of the unwary, and will bewray thee with his fair speeches; therefore, I say, take heed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and unnatural rags in which he has ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... "the unseemly hours sped light of foot." He awoke again, between sunset and dark; the owl astir; "the silver gnats yet netting the shadows," and ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... well digesting this matter, went forth to the parish church, where all the parishioners were then at the service; and being impatient, and in an agony with the speeches before passed between her and the gentleman, beginneth to upbraid in the open church very hard and unseemly speeches concerning religion, saying that she was threatened by the gentleman, that, except she would leave her beads, and give over holy bread and holy water, the gentlemen would burn them out of their houses and spoil them, with many other speeches very ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... laughing, and, in the most unseemly manner, said: "Alas, poor Cummings. He'll lose 35 pounds." At that moment there was a ring at the bell. Lupin said: "I don't want to meet Cummings." If he had gone out of the door he would have met him in the passage, so as quickly as possible Lupin opened the parlour window and got ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... with my objections several bills making provisions for the erection of public buildings for the reason that the expenditures contemplated were, in my opinion, greatly in excess of any public need. No class of legislation is more liable to abuse or to degenerate into an unseemly scramble about the public Treasury than this. There should be exercised in this matter a wise economy, based upon some responsible and impartial examination and report as to each case, under a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... that the question I put to you is, under the circumstances in which we are placed, one of the greatest moment. If, therefore, there is any unseemly joking, any trick, or secret project in contemplation, with which this affair is connected, do not ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... in manhood, he was certainly a very amiable rake and a very earnest bigot. "There can be no doubt," says our historian, in his convincing way, "that he often paused in his reckless career, filled with remorse, wrestling with his flighty spirit, to overcome his unseemly sports"; and as to the sincerity of his fanaticism, "to suppose otherwise is to charge a mere youth with a hypocritical cunning worthy of the Borgias in their zenith." Masterly strokes like these are, of course, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... after, I will tell you. Charity is the very opposite of the selfish, covetous, ambitious, proud, grudging spirit of this world. Charity suffers long, and is kind: charity does not envy: charity does not boast, is not puffed up: does not behave itself unseemly; that is, is never rude, or overbearing, or careless about hurting people's feelings by hard words or looks: seeketh not its own; that is, is not always looking on its own rights, and thinking about itself, and trying to help itself; is not easily provoked: thinketh no evil, that is, is not ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... beauty, but one that shrinks from the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that is apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. As others have done, as others will do, he finds in imagination the adventure that progress has decreed unseemly. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... he asks for daily bread: He who has sowed the bread he may not taste Begs for the crumbs: he would do no man wrong. The Parish Guardians, when his case is read, Will grant him (yet with no unseemly haste) Just seventeen pence to ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... deeds that are done, O God! there is none without thee; In the holy ether not one, nor one on the face of the sea, Save the deeds that evil men, driven by their own blind folly, have planned; But things that have grown uneven are made even again by thy hand; And things unseemly grow seemly, the unfriendly are friendly to thee; For no good and evil supremely thou hast blended in one by decree. For all thy decree is one ever—a Word that endureth for aye, Which mortals, rebellious, endeavor to flee from and ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... woman suffrage," said Harding, "seem to me very evenly balanced. I agree with Dr. Biddle of the Society for the Promotion of Beautiful Manners, that it is unseemly for a woman to climb a truck and demand the ballot. Dr. Biddle maintains that if woman wants the ballot she should wait until every one is asleep and then go through somebody's pockets for it. Woman, Dr. Biddle thinks, has her own peculiar ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... expression was, the young man was shocked that they should reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal before which, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered somewhat stiffly: "Yes, you have been ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Royce with that right. He himself now publicly puts forth a worse than "extravagant pretension" when he arrogates to himself this right of literary outrage. He was not appointed professor by you for any such unseemly purpose. To arrogate to himself a senseless "professional" superiority over all non-"professional" authors, to the insufferable extent of publicly posting and placarding them for a mere difference of opinion, is, from a moral point of view, ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... such a scurvy trick should be foisted off upon him. It was like going to a funeral and being confronted, suddenly, with the grinning head of the supposed dead projecting through the coffin lid. It was unseemly! ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the cow, attending strictly to her business as a ruminant, "does not impress me as justifying your execution of all manner of unseemly contortions, as a preliminary to accosting an ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful; with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly humor had been exorcised. In manner he was bland, ornate, gestureish, ample; giving the sense that in nothing less commodious than a church could he loose his person and his powers to their full expression. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... through thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit; As musing slow I hail Thy genial ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... missionaries carrying on their duties at Zanzibar. In this section map, swallowing up about half of the whole area of the ground included in it, there figured a lake of such portentous size and such unseemly shape, representing a gigantic slug, that everybody who looked at it incredulously laughed and shook his head—a single sheet of sweet water, upwards of eight hundred miles long by three hundred broad, equal in size ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... "This is an unseemly interruption, Master Putnam," said Squire Hathorne sternly. "We all know that the early disciples were given the power to cast out devils and that they exercised the power continually, but that in later times the power has been ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... not at all," the leader responded politely; "but for luggin' kites round these quarters an' causin' all this unseemly disturbance. It 's disgraceful; that 's ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... me, that she herself was my best justification. Such a woman could make anyone forget all reason—everything! Even that moujik, Rogojin, you saw, brought her a hundred thousand roubles! Of course, all that happened tonight was ephemeral, fantastic, unseemly—yet it lacked neither colour nor originality. My God! What might not have been made of such a character combined with such beauty! Yet in spite of all efforts—in spite of all education, even—all those gifts are wasted! She ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... be no unseemly rage this time. In dignified silence Cheon received the marrow—a sinuous yellow insult, and as the homestead waited he raised it above his head, and stalking majestically from us towards the finished part of the fence, flung it from him in contemptuous scorn, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... not help becoming attached to them and admiring them, but as they also came to know that they were great friends of Hsueeh P'an, they did not, in consequence, venture to treat them lightly, or to be unseemly in their behaviour towards them. Hsiang Lin and Yue Ai both kept to themselves the same feelings, which they fostered for Ch'in Chung and Pao-yue, and to this reason is to be assigned the fact that though these four persons nurtured fond thoughts in their hearts there was however ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... lands and liberty, their wives and children, with all their lives; such a blunder is stupid and worthy of infamy, obloquy, and hell. 6. This wretched and unhappy governor, in giving instructions as to the said intimations, the better to justify them—they being of themselves unseemly, unreasonable and most unjust—commanded these thieves sent by him, to act as follows: when they had determined to invade and plunder some province, where they had heard that gold was to be found, they should go when the Indians were in their towns, and safe ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... a state of great excitement, not wholly caused by sorrow. It appeared that there had been a violently bitter quarrel between the pair, the night before the man's death; and so far from having forgiven her husband, even then, the woman exhibited the turbulence of her temper and behaved in an unseemly manner during and after the services. Her outcries gave me a very strange impression and in fact so shocked and terrified me, that to this day I cannot recall the scene without a singular sensation of disquiet. Withal, it was the first funeral which I had ever ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... that unfortunate inebriate whom I sentenced to confinement in the gaol yesterday. The Court, while sensible of the imperative necessity of protecting itself from all unseemly disorder and preserving its dignity undiminished, nevertheless always leans to the side of mercy. The Court trusts that a night's incarceration may have sufficiently sobered and chastened the poor creature. ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... goes that Michel Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the Dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior, wrote upon the chair of the Doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man, on being brought before the Forty,[56] confessed that he had thus avenged ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... their curvature, particularly at the lower part of the chest, and thus lessen the size of this cavity. The lower ribs are united to the breast-bone, by long, yielding cartilages, and compression may not only contract the chest, but an unseemly and painful ridge may be produced, by the bending of the cartilages, on one or ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... actually persuading Mag to wean it, Philip," complained Jemima, who had no reserves with her friend, "so that she can keep it in her room at night. Did you ever hear of such a thing? A squalling infant that would much rather be with its mother! Isn't it—unseemly ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... have great and painful reason to remember that at the moment of all their history, when it was most important to them to collect and concentrate all the strength and wisdom of their policy on the pacification of the South, that policy was divided by a strife in the last degree unseemly and degrading. But it will be for a competent historian hereafter to trace out this accurately and in detail; the time is yet too recent, and I cannot pretend that I know enough to do so. I cannot venture myself to draw the full lessons from these events; I can only predict that when they are drawn, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... cast down her eyes. She could not talk to Mrs. Wilkins. There was something about the things she said. . . "A husband." Suggesting one of many. Always that unseemly twist to everything. Why could she not say "My husband"? Besides, Mrs. Fisher had, she herself knew not for what reason, taken both the Hampstead young women for widows. War ones. There had been an absence ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... while he is busy, though I doubt if any will get as much work out of the lay brothers as he does; and indeed, he himself labours harder than any of them. With any other, I should say that tucking his gown round his waist, and labouring with might and main was unseemly; but as it works off some of his superabundant energy, I ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... seeing the Battalion safely across the railway, near the station, was indeed a pleasant one, and less fortunate members of the Battalion have accused him of carrying on in an unseemly manner with the fair keeper of the level crossing. We have his assurance, however, that though he felt proud indeed at having such a charming young lady by his side, his behaviour was beyond reproach! A few ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... kirk-gate—long, low tents of dirty white canvas—so that when passing into the church or out of it you inhaled their odours. The congregation emerged austerely from the church, shaking their heads solemnly over the minister's remarks, and their feet carried them into the tent. There was no mirth, no unseemly revelry, but there was a great deal of hard drinking. Eventually the tents were done away with, but not until the services on the Fast Days were shortened. The Auld Licht ministers were the only ones who preached against the tents ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... Pagett," he said, and cut at the sun-baked soil. After three strokes there rolled from under the blade of the hoe the half of a clanking skeleton that settled at Pagett's feet in an unseemly jumble of ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... remembered the jollities of the wedding,—incongruous recollection,—and once more he looked at the stark figure, its face covered with a white cloth, which had been done in a sentiment of atonement for the unseemly publicity of ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... "What—what—what does this unseemly excitement mean?" sternly demanded the Iron King, while Cora arose to shake hands with her uncle and brother; and while Rose, fearful of doing ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... were we glad enough to see him there, as hoping for something strange to vary the sameness of school, and scenting a disturbance in the air. Only Grace was ill at ease for fear her father should say something unseemly, and kept her head down with shocks of hair falling over her book, though I could see her blushing between them. So in vapours Maskew, and with an angry glance about him makes straight for the desk where our master sits at the top of ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... now made for the Dotropy residence. We could not call it a rush, for the three ladies were too light and elegant in form to proceed in such a manner. They tripped it—if we may say so—on light fantastic toe, though with something of unseemly haste. Ruth being young and active reached the door first, and, as before, went with a rebounding bang against it. The anxious Mrs Dotropy had been for some time on the watch. She opened ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the hands or feet, nor catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humor and spasm. Therefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise, or of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness, or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings or from the dry spasm, which they relieve with ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... time, and after months of hopelessness and pain, must have bounded from that barrier, into the joy of liberty and life. My feelings had become in some way mastered by what I had seen, and all about my heart was disturbance and unseemly effeminacy. There was only one individual, besides myself, walking in the narrow court-yard, which, but for our footsteps, would have been as silent as a grave. This was a woman—a beggar—carrying, as usual, a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... It would be unseemly to follow poor Aubrey in his vacillations of rage and worship as he thrashed along Wordsworth Avenue, hearing and seeing no more than was necessary for the preservation of his life at street crossings. Half-smoked cigarette stubs glowed in his wake;[2] his burly bosom echoed ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... the theological error of "thinking," and assume it must be of supernatural character? Because the unknown in the past has been assigned to the supernatural is no indication for us also, in the present age, to relegate the unknown to divine cause. It is unseemly that minds that have emancipated themselves should go just so far—as far as their own reason can explain the unknown—and when their limited reason can go no further to revert back to the primitive stage where solution is considered impossible to man save it be "revealed to him by God." If ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... discountenance all obtrusive professions of and tradings in religion, as one of the main causes why real Christianity has been retarded in this world; and because my observation of life induces me to hold in unspeakable dread and horror, those unseemly squabbles about the letter which drive the spirit out of hundreds of thousands." In precisely similar tone, to a reader of Edwin Drood (Mr. J. M. Makeham), who had pointed out to him that his employment as a figure of speech of a line from Holy Writ in his tenth chapter ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... explained to his audience that he was composing an operetta, of which he would give them a few passages. He was a skilful pianist. He explained, as his fingers ran up and down the keys, that the scene was in Ratcliffe Highway. A tavern: a hornpipe. Jack ashore. Unseemly squabbles: here there were harsh discords and shrill screams. Drunkenness: the music getting very helpless. Then the daylight comes—the chirping of sparrows—Jack wanders out—the breath of the morning stirs his memories—he thinks of ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... contretemps," said Brooks, all trembling. "If I had thought a little whistle, a mere tibia of ash, had power to precipitate this unlucky and unseemly belligerence I would never have ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... my struggling church, a weak blade of grass in the desert," Santa Fe was saying when Hill got the range of 'em, "I cannot but regret having taken from you your splendid contribution to our parish fund in so unusual, I might almost say in so unseemly, a way. That I have returned to you a sufficient sum to enable you to prosecute your journey to its conclusion places you under no obligation to me. Indeed, I could not have done less—considering the very liberal loan that you have made to my poor niece to enable her to return ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... Was man, one part felt his revenge alone; A slowly pacing asses ears he bears. His head, weigh'd heavy with his load of shame, He strove in purple turban to enfold; Thus his disgrace to hide. But when as wont His slave his hairs, unseemly lengthen'd, cropp'd, He saw the change; the tale he fear'd to tell, Of what he witness'd, though he anxious wish'd In public to proclaim it: yet to hold Sacred the trust surpass'd his power. He went Forth, and digg'd up the earth; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... his sermon, was greeted with stamping of feet, clapping of hands, and waving of handkerchiefs, [469:2] supplied melancholy evidence of the progress of spiritual degeneracy. In the days of the Apostle Paul such demonstrations would have been universally denounced as unseemly and unseasonable. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... I asked gloomily, and, unseemly though it might be, it was perhaps hardly strange that I could not bring myself to wish anything but ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... was greeted with soft music on muted violins) deprecated all unseemly pranks. Nothing would induce him to change his patronymic or turn it upside down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... his unseemly mirth, sprang from the cutter and came to his aid. There was something to arouse pity in the downfall of the man of strength. Neither by word nor sign did Sandy recognize either his or Elsie Cameron's presence. The atmosphere was too highly charged to admit of ordinary ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.' Ephes. v. [iv.] 1, 2.—'And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.' Col. iii. 14.—'Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: doth not behave itself unseemly, is not easily provoked.' 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5. BOSWELL. Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 28, had almost foretold what would happen. 'For escaping these and a thousand other deceits many expedients have been proposed. Some have recommended the frequent consultation ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... gentle rogues," said he, "behold and regard well this sturdy cut-throat fellow that sitteth beside me, big of body, unseemly of habit, fierce and unlovely of look—one to yield the wall unto, see ye! And yet—now heed me well, this fellow, ragged and unkempt, this ill-looking haunter of bye-ways, this furtive snatcher of purses (hold thy peace, Pertinax!). I say this unsavoury-seeming clapper-claw is yet neither ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... committed a sin. Who is the man of common sense that does not know it is wrong to lie, steal, swindle, defraud, curse, drink, get angry and cross; to refuse to help a needy neighbor when he can, to talk foolishly, to tell unseemly tales, to backbite, slander, commit adultery, hold enmity against another, or to be proud ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... "Not in a way unseemly," retorted the lad, dashing the water from his eyes,—"to think of the mother dead like that behind the bars is not a cheery thing! As for the daughter—I dare call myself her foster brother, and I dare pray for her that she finds the chance ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... all sorts of unseemly places and hours out of doors,—in the dark,—fainting away in his—his arms, if I must speak out. All the town is talking of it.' Mr. Gibson's hand was over his eyes again, and he made no sign; so Miss Browning went on, adding touch ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... vanish, and her form be unformed, and her eyes will grow small and dim, and creep back into her head, and her hair will fall from her, and she shall be as the unsightly figure of Death with a skin drawn over his unseemly bones; and the damsel of thy love, with the round limbs and the flying hair, and the clear eyes out of which looketh a soul clear as they, will be nowhere—nowhere, for evermore, for thou wilt not be able to believe that ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... it. Soulas had placed himself under her wing when she was thirty, and at that time had dared to admire her and make her his idol; he had got so far as to be allowed—he alone in the world—to pour out to her all the unseemly gossip which almost all very precise women love to hear, being authorized by their superior virtue to look into the gulf without falling, and into the devil's snares without being caught. Do you understand why the lion did not allow himself the very smallest intrigue? He ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... I felt no desire to be kicked downstairs. I declared that I should consider it an unseemly thing for me to engage in personal conflict with a gentleman of Colonel Morris's years and social position, and, as a final argument, I stated solemnly that I believed no number of interviews would change the opinions of our late tenant or ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... housewife—is in the first place to help her old parents, and in good time to marry and bring up a Christian family of her own. You have no call to the religious life? No. Then you must give up torturing yourself in this fashion, because it is a sacrilegious thing and unseemly, seeing that the young man was nothing whatever to you. The good God knows what is best for us; we should neither rebel nor ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... interfered, taking upon himself the freedom of a co-adjutor. "Verily," he said, "if what the damsel is called to speak upon hath aught unseemly, I crave your Excellency's permission to withdraw, not desiring that my nightly meditations may be disturbed with ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... boundaries by war. He overwhelmed the Burgundians, almost annihilating them, and conquered a number of other races also. He unjustly provoked the Goths, being the first to break the bonds of kinship by unseemly strife. He was greatly puffed up with vain glory, but in seeking to acquire new lands for his growing nation, he only reduced the numbers of his own countrymen. For he sent ambassadors 98 to Ostrogotha, to whose rule Ostrogoths and Visigoths alike, that is, the two peoples of the ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... Aunt Adeline in a voice that sounded as if it had been buried and never resurrected, "if you are going to continue in such an unseemly course of conduct I hope you will remove your mourning, which is an empty mockery and an ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... it, for we could not help it. Love is the welling up within us of our true social nature; which nothing but our indifference and lack of sympathy could have kept so long repressed. "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own." Love "seeketh not its own" because it ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... one of the prefects, along the corridor to the studio. Hitherto, by dint of judicious curbing, they had always walked two and two in decent line and had refrained from prohibited conversation. To-day they surged upstairs in an unseemly rabble, chattering and talking like a flock of rooks or jackdaws at sunset. It was in vain that Althea tried to restore order, her efforts at discipline were simply scouted by the unruly mob, who rushed into the studio helter-skelter, took their places anyhow, and only controlled ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... in the temples; half-dead sufferers gathered around the springs, tortured by violent thirst; the very dogs that meddled with the corpses died of the disease; vultures and other carrion birds avoided the city as if by instinct. Many bodies were burnt or buried with unseemly haste, many doubtless left to fester where they lay. Misery, terror, despair, overwhelmed all within the walls, while the foe without drew back in equal terror, lest the pestilence should leap the walls and assail them in ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to a compromise. That Dame Justice should be hustled in this fashion—taken by the shoulders, so to speak, forced to catch up her robe and skip—offended the Chief Magistrate's sense of propriety. It was unseemly in the last degree, he protested. Nevertheless it appeared certain that Captain Vyell had a right to be tried and punished; and the Clerk's threat to set down the hearing for an adjourned sessions was promptly ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... gives a somewhat fuller account of this unseemly broil: "No sooner had the aforesaid Barons brought up the King to the foot of the stairs in Westminster Hall, ascending to his throne, and turned on the left hand (towards their own table) out of the way, but the King's footmen ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... extend to women, women not being used to be present at such sights, and when they were, usually upsetting everyone with cries and lamentations, and, as soon as the decapitation was over, rushing to the scaffold to staunch the blood with their handkerchiefs—a most unseemly proceeding. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was recorded in the papers of the period in these blasting words: "The Home Secretary was understood to be quoting a passage from 'Letters to a Young Man,' but we failed to catch its drift, owing to an unseemly interruption ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... consolidate their forces and plan some new form of attack, or because they had received a very salutary lesson, he could not say. Also it did not worry him over much. His ideas were centred mainly on Mr. Cumshaw. True, that gentleman had disappeared over the horizon with every mark of unseemly haste, and already he must be well advanced on whatever road he was taking. Not so very far away the car awaited Bryce, and he was sure that, once he reached it, it would be merely a matter of a day or so until he rediscovered Mr. Cumshaw. He repeated ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... to advance their interests. The Apostolic maxim should find place among the principles adopted by politicians,—"look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." The "charity that envieth not, that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth"—does it not almost seem as if the portraiture was drawn in view of the contrast often exhibited by men in their political ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... white-skinned foster child, or the inventions thereof. There had been other times, too, when Tublat had swung helplessly in midair, the noose tightening about his neck, death staring him in the face, and little Tarzan dancing upon a near-by limb, taunting him and making unseemly grimaces. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... originate in virtue, and they promote it. They continue men in those habitudes of friendship, those political connexions, and those political principles, in which they began life. They are antidotes against a corrupt levity, instead of causes of it. What an unseemly spectacle would it afford, what a disgrace would it be to the commonwealth that suffered such things, to see the hopeful son of a meritorious minister begging his bread at the door of that treasury, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... no one make the mistake of thinking that thus moistening the vulva with saliva is unseemly, or unsanitary. It is neither. On the contrary, it is nature's way of helping to perfection an act which, but for such timely assistance, might never be brought to a successful issue. As has already been noted, chemically, saliva and the pre-coital fluid are almost identical. They are both a natural ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... impudent knave, sir, to stand and tell me this to my face. Look ye here, Bolle'—he swung round upon the colonel, who had put forth a hand as though to arrest this unseemly abuse. 'How do I know that this dog has not tampered with the wine? By God!' he broke out as a servant entered with a stoup of it, 'I'll not drink it—I'll not drink a drop of it—until this fellow has first tasted it, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... at first sight. I did not like to shout. The silence of the place, only broken by the sobbing of the waves, hundreds of feet below, forbade it, while to knock at the old iron-studded door was equally unseemly. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... At the dress rehearsal our young friend had achieved genuine prodigies. There was a moment when the few of us whom curiosity had brought to witness it, rose to our feet electrified, convulsed, making a most unseemly outcry. You have no conception how marvelously she rendered her part. Then and there, all of a sudden, an idea entered my head. Recalling all my observations of Clotilde's love affair, I felt convinced, in view of the evidence, that Inocencio had had no other purpose in winning her ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... she suddenly broke into a little ripple of laughter, and, upon being questioned severely as to the reason of such unseemly mirth, she said, gaily, "I was just wondering what poor Phil will do with three girls, and one ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... This unseemly and insulting conduct filled Berenike with the deepest indignation. It must not remain unpunished, and, while waiting for her daughter, she imagined what evil consequences might ensue if Antyllus were forbidden the house and accused to his tutor, and how unbearable, on the other hand, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... evidently from modesty") gratified the company in the intervals of the dance, and at which he expresses unbounded delight; but this does not prevent his again launching out into a tirade against the unseemly methods, as they appear to him, used by the English to signify applause or approbation. "The strangest custom is, that the audience clapped their hands in token of satisfaction whenever any of the ladies concluded their performance.... The only occasion on which such an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... you will pardon me when I say that, as a Christian minister, I cannot suffer a spirit so ill as that you manifest, and language so unseemly as that you have just uttered, to pass unreproved," said Danvers, solemnly. "If you will cherish those bitter and unchristian feelings, at least for the brief space that I am with you, ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... himself now, crushed inwardly, but carrying himself just as proudly as if no mental fire were consuming him, making him think seriously more than once of jumping into the river and ending it all. He was very luxurious and fastidious in his tastes, and would have nothing unseemly in his home at the North, where he had only to say to his servants come and they came, and where, if he died on his rosewood bedstead with silken hangings, they would make him a grand funeral—smother him with flowers, and perhaps photograph him ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Wright who regarded love as a kind of sin and when he married the pale, bloodless, shadowy bookkeeper in Wright & Perry's store, he regarded the charivari prepared by Morty Sands and George Brotherton as a shameful rite and tried for an hour to lecture the crowd in his front yard on the evils of unseemly conduct before he gave them an order on the store for a bucket of mixed candy. If Ahab had defined love he would have put cupid in side whiskers and a white necktie and set the fat little god to measuring shingle nails, cod-fish and calico on week days and sitting around in a tail coat and mouse-colored ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... British Museum. I believe artists are already giving up the worst of vehicles, the meguilp, made of mastic, of all the varnishes the most ready to decompose, as well as to separate the paint, and produce those unseemly gashes which have been the ruin ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... time before them, ought never to compel or so much as to offer at the feat, if they do not find themselves quite ready: and it is less unseemly to fail of handselling the nuptial sheets, when a man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling, and to await another opportunity at more private and more composed leisure, than to make himself perpetually miserable, for having misbehaved himself and been baffled at ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of the public conscience, and does not my Cousin Rosalie mention me with a shudder of horror in her tepid prayers? If I really give them cause for reprobation they will be neither wiser, nor better, nor sorrier. And if the baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I for one shall know that the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was lighted, when my great-grandfather earned the radiance by services rendered at Brighton to His Royal Highness the Prince ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... in the yard; there you may pump.' 'No, mesdames, that is impossible,' exclaimed the governess, approaching in her dignity, and placing herself with outspread arms in front of the door, 'never shall I consent to so unseemly a proceeding.' 'Unseemly!' exclaimed Madame Goethe, indignantly. 'Why should it be unseemly for the dear little princesses to move their arms like other children, and to draw up the fresh spring-water? It is an innocent pleasure, and they shall ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... here?" said the lawyer peevishly. "Very irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "get the tin basin that is hanging to my saddle, and fill it with the water from that snowbank. On the occasion of any more unseemly language, pour it over ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... nothing for it but to go to bed too. I sleep on the drawing-room sofa. The sofa has not increased in length, and is as short as it was before, and so when I go to bed I have either to stick up my legs in an unseemly way or to let them hang down to the floor. I think of ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... dressed decorously, becomingly, tastefully. Each several piece well fitted on, and all of a piece, till it all looks as if it had grown by nature itself upon the well-dressed wearer. Be like him—be like her—so runs the third head of the etiquette-card. Be not slovenly and disorderly and unseemly in your livery. Let not your livery be always falling off, and catching on every bush and briar, and dropping into every pool and ditch. Hold yourselves in hand, the instruction goes on. Brace yourselves up. Have your temper, your tongue, your eyes, your ears, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... him! Well, upon my word! All this unseemly rage and row about such a—a— Dorcas, I never saw you carry on like this before. You have alarmed the sentry; he thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there's a mutiny, a ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... ever confused, and it was remarked that his eyes danced about hazily, with a most ineffectual expression. He looked about, however, with a stupid gaze of self-satisfaction; but his laugh and language, forming a strange and most unseemly coalition, degenerated at last into a dolorous sniffle, indicating the rapid departure of the few mental and animal holdfasts which had lingered with him so long. While thus reduced, his few surviving senses were at once ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... disgust stirred my pulse. We Ormonds had as much to lose as he, but yelled it not to the skies, nor clamored of gain and loss in such unseemly fashion, ignoring higher motive. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... a guilty blush, like a child detected in an unseemly frolic, and put her hand to her head to take ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... was treated as a huge joke. One set of members advocated the admission of ladies on the ground, among other reasons, that their presence in the House of Commons would tend to keep the legislators sober, and prevent them from garnishing their speeches with unseemly expressions. Another set stood out against the proposal on the ground that if ladies were allowed to sit in a gallery in sight of the members, the result would be that the representatives would cease to pay any real attention ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... warriors, with jetty helmets; some with brawny, long arms stretched over the pathway as if to seize the passer by, and all with feet planted, seemingly in deep and flaming fire. How quickly nature goes about repairing her desolations! So great in this case is her haste to cover up the black, unseemly surface of the earth, that, from the strange resemblance of the weed with which she clothes it to the fiery elements, it would seem as if she had not yet been able to thrust the raging glow out of her fancy, and so its type has crept again over ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... to-morrow The execution of the order, sir. I'll merely, without scandal, quietly, Come here and spend the night, with half a score Of officers; and just for form's sake, please, You'll bring your keys to me, before retiring. I will take care not to disturb your rest, And see there's no unseemly conduct here. But by to-morrow, and at early morning, You must make haste to move your least belongings; My men will help you—I have chosen strong ones To serve you, sir, in clearing out the house. No one could act more generously, ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... been obliged with the actual sight of it, by the favor of Mr. Minns, the intelligent and worthy parish-clerk of Lupton. Possibly some expectation in point of worldly advantages from some of the sponsors might have induced this unseemly deviation, as it must have appeared, from the practice and principles of that generally rigid sect. The term Dissentientium was possibly intended by the orthodox clergyman as a slur upon the supposed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... rode lustfull Lechery Upon a bearded goat, whose rugged hair And whaly eyes (the sign of jealousy) Was like the person's self whom he did bear: Who rough and black, and filthy did appear. Unseemly man to please fair lady's eye: Yet he of ladies oft was loved dear, When fairer faces were bid standen by: O! who does know the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... became so much like his model that they might easily have been mistaken for each other, and certain high dignitaries were heard to remark that they found it unseemly and even vulgar; the matter was mentioned to the prime minister, who ordered that the employee should appear before him. But at the sight of him he began to laugh and repeated two or three times: "That's funny, really funny!" ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... one poem's period, And all combin'd in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest. But how unseemly is it for my sex, My discipline of arms and chivalry, My nature, and the terror of my name, To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint! Save only that in beauty's just applause, With whose instinct the soul of man is touch'd; And every warrior that is rapt with love Of fame, of valour, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... the champions of thy faith esteem The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... union between the two Conferences which had (nominally) existed since 1833, and which had promised such happy results, and thus was inaugurated a period of unseemly strife between the two parties from 1840 to 1847, when it happily ceased. What followed in Upper Canada is thus narrated ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... AL. Submit to Fate without unseemly wrangle: Such complications frequently occur— Life is one closely complicated tangle: Death is ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Mr. Harleston!" the voice rippled. "I suppose you are rather astonished at being called up at such an unseemly hour—" ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... turned pale under its big freckles. Its dismay was so comical that Father Orin laughed till the woods rang with his hearty, merry voice. Toby turned his head in sober disapproval of such unseemly levity, and Tommy Dye ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... at such a period to observe the taste of her lover in regard to her costume, and strive carefully to follow it, for all men desire to have their taste and wishes on such apparent trifles gratified. She should at the same time observe much delicacy in regard to dress, and be careful to avoid any unseemly display of her charms: lovers are naturally jealous of observation under such circumstances. It is a mistake not seldom made by women, to suppose their suitors will be pleased by the glowing admiration expressed by other men for the object of their passion. Most lovers, on the contrary, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... where the Temple had stood and saw a fox run out from the very site of the holy of holies four of them wept bitterly; but again Rabbi Akiba appeared merry. His comrades again rebuked him for this, to them, unseemly state of feeling. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... still air. Before we began our march all unnecessary clothes were taken off and put on the sledges. It almost looked as if everything would be considered superfluous, and the costume in which we finally started would no doubt have been regarded as somewhat unseemly in our latitudes. We smiled and congratulated ourselves that at present no ladies had reached the Antarctic regions, or they might have objected to our extremely comfortable and serviceable costume. The high land ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... but noblemen and gentlemen, which shall be tied to residence in those towns they dwell next, at such set times and seasons: for I see no reason (which [614]Hippolitus complains of) "that it should be more dishonourable for noblemen to govern the city than the country, or unseemly to dwell there now, than of old." [615]I will have no bogs, fens, marshes, vast woods, deserts, heaths, commons, but all enclosed; (yet not depopulated, and therefore take heed you mistake me not) for that which is common, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... committee to investigate the charges. In spite of the support which Pitt derived from the followers of Sidmouth the votes were equally divided on Whitbread's motion, 216 a side. Abbot, the speaker, gave his casting vote in favour of Whitbread, and the announcement was received by the whig members with unseemly exultation.[28] ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... scrambling for places at table, no bolting of food, no impertinence manifested, no swearing about missing the eastern or southern boats, or Schenectady, or Saratoga, or Boston trains, on account of a screw being loose, nor—any other unseemly manifestation that anybody was in a hurry. On the contrary, wine and fruit were provided, as if the travellers intended to enjoy themselves; and a journey in that day was a festa. No more embarked than could ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... aware, must have taken place, both in the village and in the Castle, ere these sounds of unseemly insult could have been poured forth in the very inn which was decorated with the armorial bearings of his family; and not knowing how far it might be advisable to intrude on these unfriendly revellers, without the power of repelling ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... said she, 'yet it would be unseemly for a man of thy dignity to hang a reptile such as this. Do not meddle with it, ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... deliciously formed limbs I could scarcely restrain myself, but pressed her frantically to my heart. Margaret appeared to be as much excited as I was and I saw her direct her eyes to the front of my trousers, which I assure you stuck out in a very unseemly manner. ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... Probably this is a little too concise, and the narrative is somewhat dry and bare. It is often, however, acute, and is always clear; and even were its defects greater than they are, we should think it unseemly to criticize the last work of one who has performed so many useful services to ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... from the gallery into the room to the right. There stood a cradle with an infant in it—a red, ribald, unintelligible, babbling, beautiful infant, sputtering at life in an unseemly manner. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... swear, by God's foot, he would never stir his foot to see a hundred such as that is!" The conduct of the gallants, among whom were included those who deemed themselves critics and wits, appears to have usually been of a very unseemly and offensive kind. They sat upon the stage, paying sixpence or a shilling for the hire of a stool, or reclined upon the rushes with which the boards were strewn. Their pages were in attendance to fill their pipes; and they were noted for the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... known that there is no worse deafness than that of people who will not hear. Hence it is that the Festklange, as well as the Mass and everything that I and others better than my humble self have been able to compose, is prejudiced. But the more unseemly and malicious factiousness may show itself against new works, the more am I laid under a grateful obligation to those who do not accept as their artistic criterion ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... it be known to those who will scoff at it. But Christians and worldlings will look for consistency; and if it be wanting, the last will be the first to mark it. A decided character will soon deliver you from all solicitations to what may be even unseemly, and dignified consistent conduct will command respect. Not but the Lord may let loose upon you the persecuting sneer and banter of the wise of this world, whose esteem you wish to preserve; but, if he do, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... with vines, and when the fruit was ripe, and he had gathered the grapes in the season, and the wine was ready for use, he offered a sacrifice and feasted, and, being inebriated, fell asleep, and lay in an unseemly manner. When Ham saw this, he came laughing, and showed him to his brothers." Does not this exhibit the impression of the Jews as regards the character of Ham? Could a man capable of such an act deserve the blessing of a just ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... —Yet these unseemly and desolate appearances do not prevent the attendance of congregations more numerous, and, I think, more fervent, than were usual when the altars shone with the offerings of wealth, and the walls were covered ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... cabin'd up in its disguis'd coarse rust, And scurf'd all ore with its unseemly crust, The diamond, from 'midst the humbler stones, Sparkling shoots forth the price of nations. Ye safe unriddlers of the stars, pray tell, By what name shall I stamp my miracle? Thou strange inverted Aeson, that leap'st ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... desperate hand: Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art; Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote The unreasonable fury of a beast; Unseemly woman in a seeming man! Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! Thou hast amaz'd me: by my holy order, I thought thy disposition better temper'd. Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself? And slay thy lady, too, that lives in thee, By doing damned hate upon thyself? Why ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... market price. We've had some 'rummage sales' in Washington, you know, but nothing to compare with this thorough and businesslike undertaking of yours. But I won't wear your uniform; I can't afford to allow the glorious red-white-and-blue to look dowdy, as it would on my unseemly form." ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... half-a-dozen servant girls, perched on ladders, washed down these splendid walls. These girls wore wide hoops, being obliged to put on breeches, as otherwise they would have interested the passers by in an unseemly manner. After looking at the house we went down again, and M. d'O—— left me alone with Esther in the antechamber, where he worked with his clerks. As it was New Year's Day there was not business ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... lively, always within the bounds of propriety—that goes without saying—and of a character suitable for an individual in my position. This was, moreover, the general tone of the party. Until towards the end of the entertainment I heard none of those unseemly jests, none of those scandalous stories which give so much amusement to the gentlemen of our Board; and I take pleasure in remarking that Bois l'Hery the coachman—to cite only one example—is much more observant of the proprieties than Bois l'Hery ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the whole of the open space was more or less disfigured by stumps, dead and girdled trees, charred stubs, log-heaps, brush, and all the other unseemly accompaniments of the first eight or ten years of the existence of a new settlement. This period, in the history of a country, may be likened to the hobbledehoy condition in ourselves, when we have lost the graces of childhood, without having ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... goodness, yes! Always was—confound it!— An unsavoury mess, Foulness reeking round it. Resurrection pie Not in it for nastiness. Dished-up—who knows why?— With unseemly hastiness. Of the chef's poor skill, Feeblest of expedients. Sure we've had our fill Of its stale ingredients. Toujours perdrix? Pooh! That is scarce delightful; Toujours Irish Stew Very much more frightful. Thrice-cooked colewort? Ah! That no doubt were tedious; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... shears and thimble is capable of effecting. If there be the most unpleasant disproportions in the turn of your limbs—any awkwardness or deformity in your figure, the enchantment of this mighty wizard instantly communicates symmetry and elegance. The incongruous and unseemly furrows of your shape become smooth and harmonized; and the total want of all shape is immediately supplied by the beautiful undulations of the coat, and the graceful fall of the pantaloons. And all this is by the potency of your tailor. His necromantic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... whole bottle because I think it would be unseemly for Don Pedro Quinones de Leon to ask for a glass like some ink-stained clerk in ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... young," she said, "so is my lady. Her lord is old and their union is unseemly. Heaven intended you for one another and has brought you together in its ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence |
