"Unworthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whom he had slain, Frankton carried Llywelyn's head to Edward at Rhuddlan, who, with a barbarity unworthy of himself, set it over the Tower of London, wreathed in mockery of a prediction (ascribed to Merlin) upon the coronation of a Welsh Prince ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... for "conduct unworthy of an officer and a gentleman," as the charge against him on his trial set forth; and he and his brother have passed ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... in Sibyl, and in Sibyl alone, she found genuine appreciation of her musical talent. Sibyl's choice of a husband had secretly surprised and disappointed her, for Hugh Carnaby was not the type of man in whom she felt an interest, and he seemed to her totally unworthy of his good fortune; but this perplexity passed and was forgotten. She saw that Sibyl underwent no subjugation; nay, that the married woman did but perfect herself in those qualities of mind and mood whereby ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... has so boldly, and perhaps light-heartedly, undertaken is not only the affair of China, not only the affair of Asia, but that the whole world stands to gain or lose according as the Chinese people prove themselves worthy or unworthy to carry out the stupendous task to which they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... quaint old scriptural style they conspired for the life of their unconscious guest. This was in truth a "holy alliance." How many dark conspiracies there have been, resulting in blood, wrong, and outrage, that some unworthy brow might wear for a little time a petty, perishing crown of earth! Oh, that there were more conspiracies like that in Mr. Walton's parlor for the purpose of rendering the unworthy fit to wear the ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... and its auxiliaries, to effectuate our removal—that we sincerely deprecate their gratuitous and illiberal attacks upon, and their too frequently exaggerated statements of our moral standing in the community—that such means are unworthy of a magnanimous people, and of a virtuous and ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... return to the castle, since the hour was already late and his time overspent. Yet did the monk's eyes hold him to the spot. Nor was the thing that held him there fear; rather could it be described as the feeling one has before a devout, sacred and holy presence. Despite the holy man's unworthy aspect he inspired no ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... "Vile, unworthy prince!" replied Maximilian, his eyes kindling with passion, "know that your intentions, so worthy of a fiend, towards that most innocent of ladies, have been confounded and brought to nothing by your own gentle daughter, worthy of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... lov'st her. And 'tis with Reason thou deny'st an Entrance To one so much unworthy to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... repeated, in manner more solemn than before, the invitation above given. Still there was no response. It all seemed formidable and afar off. In the hope that he might in some measure dispel the embarrassment, the unworthy chronicler of these important events, from his humble place in the northwest corner of the lodge, for the first and last time addressed the chair. Permission being graciously given him to proceed, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... were a great race, not unworthy of their fame,—those ancient Romans; and Alpine flowers of moral beauty bloomed amid the Alpine snow and ice of their austere pride." ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... he reckoned up his sins she was one of those in regard to whom he accounted himself to have been a sinner. The spirit of intrigue with women, as to which men will flatter themselves, is customarily so vile, so mean, so vapid a reflection of a feeling, so aimless, resultless, and utterly unworthy! Passion exists and has its sway. Vice has its votaries,—and there is, too, that worn-out longing for vice, "prurient, yet passionless, cold-studied lewdness," which drags on a feeble continuance with the aid of money. But the commonest folly of man ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... he had shaken hands, to make way for his successor. Those in the next rank followed in the same order, and so on, until all had given the pledge of friendship. During all this time, the chief, according to custom, took his stand beside the guests. If any of his people advanced whom he judged unworthy of the friendship or confidence of the white men, he motioned them off by a wave of the hand, and they would submissively walk away. When Captain Bonneville turned upon him an inquiring look, he would observe, "he was ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Work!" exclaimed Linklater in disgust. "At this season of the year! Come, Martin, this pose is unworthy of you." ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... I do not exaggerate when I say that the majority of educated Irishmen would feel grateful to the man who informed them that the history of their country was valueless and unworthy of study, that the pre-Christian history was a myth, the post-Christian mere annals, the mediaeval a scuffling of kites and crows, and the modern alone deserving of some slight consideration. That writer will be ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... Phil's way to speak ill of people, but when one considered men in comparison with Margaret, they looked indeed very crude and unworthy. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... his visitor, lowering the lantern and bowing his head, "I was her unworthy husband, and am your father, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the seven men gathered in this room were not unworthy to lead the "forlorn hope" they had long determined on. Darwen—young, handsome, Spiritual, a Third Classic, and a Chancellor's medallist; Waller, his Oxford friend, a man of the same type, both representing ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... splendid cattle and land were spoiled with no good to anyone. Worst of all, the energy expended on this work was not simply wasted. He could not help feeling now, since the meaning of this system had become clear to him, that the aim of his energy was a most unworthy one. In reality, what was the struggle about? He was struggling for every farthing of his share (and he could not help it, for he had only to relax his efforts, and he would not have had the money to pay his laborers' wages), while they were only struggling to be able to do their work easily and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... she thought; "shall I be unworthy of Pascal?" And she resolutely entered the carriage, mentally exclaiming: ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... lasting impression on both Vincent and the Countess. Here was a man who for years had been living in deceit and making an unworthy use of the Sacraments. How many others might be in like case! It was a terrible thought. "Ah, Monsieur Vincent," cried the great lady, "how many souls are being lost! Can you do nothing ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... magnanimity under the injuries heaped upon him. There is a noble scorn which swells and supports the heart, and silences the tongue of the truly great, when enduring the insults of the unworthy. Columbus could not stoop to deprecate the arrogance of a weak and violent man like Bobadilla. He looked beyond this shallow agent, and all his petty tyranny, to the sovereigns who had employed him. Their injustice or ingratitude alone could wound his spirit; and he felt ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... child. "Generous relation!" said she, "I know not how to thank you for your liberality! I know that my son is not deserving of your favours; and were he ever so grateful, and answered your good intentions, he would be unworthy of them. I thank you with all my soul, and wish you may live long enough to witness my son's gratitude, which he cannot better shew than by regulating his conduct by your good advice." "Alla ad Deen," replied the magician, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... right I had, citizen Lebel," replied Chauvelin with perfect composure. "The right conferred upon me by the Committee of Public Safety, of whom I am still an unworthy member. They sent me down here to lend you a hand in an investigation which is ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... hoped her son, when raised to a station so far above her own, would not forget the tenderness with which she had ever cherished him, or the fact that Count Valdu's financial situation was one quite unworthy the stepfather of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... himself there. When they were both within, the bridegroom bolted the door, looked around, and as he believed that they were quite alone, he suddenly threw off his ass's skin, and stood there in the form of a handsome royal youth. "Now," said he, "thou seest who I am, and seest also that I am not unworthy of thee." Then the bride was glad, and kissed him, and loved him dearly. When morning came, he jumped up, put his animal's skin on again, and no one could have guessed what kind of a form was hidden beneath it. Soon came ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... to-night for the last time." A gasp and a murmur ran through the congregation, followed by an awed silence. "I am here to confess my sins, because I am unworthy to hold the sacred office, because for weeks past my life has been a living lie. At each service, I have mounted the steps of this pulpit, and have preached to you of sin and its atonement, and all the while my heart was sore, and my conscience eating ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... of content! She can enter a world from which he is barred. And, that is his wife! That was his sweetheart, and is now—ah, what is she? He feels somehow abashed; he knows that if he were ten times better than he is he might still feel unworthy to touch the latchet of her shoes; he feels that reverence and awe have enveloped her, and that the first happy love and longing are springing afresh in his heart. It is his wife and his child; apart from him unless he can note and understand that miracle of nature's secret. Can he? Well, ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... much by her devotion to him and his cause, and in return for that devotion had not taken a step towards attempting her deliverance—not at any time did she drop one word or let an expression escape her which could cause any uneasiness to the King, who had proved himself so utterly unworthy of such a subject, or to the men about the King's person, some of whom, if not actually guilty of having given her over to her enemies, at any rate had allowed her to be kept during all those long months a close prisoner, without protest or any sign ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... Medyna, with a browe half angry) fight with one of these Spanish Pullets? O my Lord! sayd I, I am a Prisoner, and my life at stake, and therefore dare not be so bold as to adventure upon any such Action, ... Yet ... with all told him, he was unworthy of the Name of an English Man, that should refuse to fight with one Man of any Nation whatsoever. Hereupon my Shackells were knockt off and my Iron Ring and Chayne taken ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... section brings to light in greatest number and of truest value the differential characters between lowest Homo and highest Simia. Those truly and indifferently interested in the question may not think it unworthy their time—if it has not already been so bestowed—to give attention to the detailed discussions and illustrations of the characters in question in the second and third volumes of the "Transactions of the Zoological Society."[2] The concluding memoir, relating ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... represented himself as one who had suffered for the party. Metellus had himself fought in the Social War, and fought against the side to which the murdered prisoner belonged. It was therefore easy to persuade him that the man had deserved his fate, and that his friends were unworthy persons and dangerous to the commonwealth. Oppianicus returned to Larinum with an armed force, deposed the magistrates whom the towns-people had chosen, produced Sulla's mandate for the appointment of himself and three of his creatures in their stead, as ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... has an example of a Hagioscope, a curious, small, square, angular, tunnel-like opening through the wall, which divides the nave from the chancel. It is said to have been the place through which those members of the church, who were unworthy or unable to receive the sacred elements, might get a look at their more acceptable companions during the administration of the sacrament. The Rev. W. H. A. Leaver, the Rector, who kindly shows us over his church, in reply to our question ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... says Mr. Soulis, "in the name of God, and before me, His unworthy minister, renounce the devil ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... and complete History of the Stage; it has rather been my object to traverse by-paths connected with the subject—to collect and record certain details and curiosities of histrionic life and character, past and present, which have escaped or seemed unworthy the notice of more ambitious and absolute chroniclers. At most I would have these pages considered as but portions of the story of the British ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... a secret, then—the appeal to the primary curiosity of actual ignorance—may be ruled out as practically impossible, and, when possible, unworthy of serious art. But there is also, as we have seen, the secondary curiosity of the audience which, though more or less cognizant of the essential facts, instinctively assumes ignorance, and judges the development ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... to oblivion, to neglect, much of what is great in that magnificent walk. For if the masters of the Holy Harp are to strike it but to please—if their high inspirations are to be deadened and dragged down by the prevalent power of such a mean and unworthy aim—they will either be contented to awaken a few touching tones of "those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide"—unwilling to prolong and deepen them into the diapason of praise—or they will deposit their lyre within the gloom of the sanctuary, and leave ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the well-spread table with their mouths full of cold sirloin, to look at that off pastern, or that sprained forearm, or the colt that had just come back from the veterinary surgeon's, set down Robert Audley, dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade, as a person utterly unworthy ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... vitally necessary that our interests shall be broad and pure if our thoughts are to be of this type. It is not enough that we have the strength to drive from our minds a wrong or impure thought which seeks entrance. To stand guard as a policeman over our thoughts to see that no unworthy one enters, requires too much time and energy. Our interests must be of such a nature as to lead us away from the field of unworthy thoughts if we are to ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to do, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I maintain, are unworthy of me. I thought at the time that I ought not to do anything common or mean when in danger: nor do I now repent of the style of my defence; I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... inability to do justice to this important subject, I yet hope (if you do me the honour to publish my letter) that my remarks may induce scientific men to consider it; for it appears unaccountable to me that hitherto they seem to have thought it unworthy of ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... dear friend, are my thoughts, poor and unworthy; yet they seem to me as certain as my life, or as anything I see. Am I unduly confident? I ask your prayers that I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... and him. Spenser has described the visit in the tenderest and least artificial of his poems. Colin Clout's Come Home Again, printed in 1595, was inscribed to his friend in 1591. The dedication was expressed to be in part payment of an infinite debt. The poet declared it unworthy of Sir Walter's higher conceit for the meanness of the style, but agreeable to the truth in circumstance and matter. Lines in the poem corroborate the hypothesis that Elizabeth had for a time, perhaps in the summer of 1589, been estranged ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... foreign idiom or even a foreign word. He possessed an infallible memory, absolute perspicuity, and a scholarly taste. He detested oppression wherever enforced, and never exercised his great powers in the defence of mean politics or unworthy practices. ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... hundred men, to collect them and bring them from a distance. This, too, is not one of those miracles which can be explained by the convenient hypothesis of a "substratum of truth." It is either a direct exhibition of the creative power of God, or a fiction as unworthy of a moment's serious consideration as a story in the ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... Piedmont. Fevers, and suicides attempted but interrupted, marked the termination of this tragic amour. His second passion had for its object an English lady, with whose injured husband he fought a duel, although his collarbone was broken at the time. The lady proved unworthy of Alfieri as well as of her husband, and the poet left her in a most deplorable state of hopelessness and intellectual prostration. At last he formed a permanent affection for the wife of Prince Charles Edward, the Countess of Albany, in close friendship with whom he lived after her ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... not know how it was that I should have such a feeling of dissatisfaction when I beheld that beautiful Madam Whitworth dancing within the arms of the Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner. I blushed that I should be so unworthy, with such an unreasonable fury in my heart, and I looked away so that I seemed not to see the smile that he sent to me over the head of the very sweet Belle girl in blue ruffles and silver slippers I was guiding past him in the trot ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... not listening attentively; but when he had repeated his story three times in detail I was so stupefied that I could not reply. My first impulse was to laugh, for I saw that I had loved the most unworthy of women; but it was no less true that I loved her still. "Is it possible?" was all ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... Spanish, is given in Howell's Letters (1645-1655), and is admirably told by Parnell, but much that he wrote, including a series of long poems on Scripture characters, is poetically worthless. His poems, published five years after his death, were edited by Pope, who wisely suppressed some pieces unworthy of the poet. Then, as now, literary scavengers were at work. In 1758 the suppressed poems were published, and called forth the comment from Gray, 'Parnell is the dunghill of Irish Grub Street.' To Parnell Pope was indebted ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Greece we find gods and goddesses who do unworthy deeds, but none to act the permanent part of villain of the play. In the mythology of the Norsemen we have a god who is wholly treacherous and evil, ever the villain of the piece, cunning, malicious, vindictive, and cruel—the god Loki. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... of entire proportion in all its parts, and leave no natural energy of life idle or athirst. Do you ask for sanctions! One whose conscience has been strengthened from youth in this faith, can know no greater bitterness than the stain cast by wrong act or unworthy thought on the high memories with which he has been used to walk, and the discord wrought in hopes that have become the ruling ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... person or persons that shall buy or sell or give or receive or trade in s'd Tea, directly or indirectly, knowing it or suspecting it to be such, but will consider all persons concern'd in introducing dutied Teas ... into any Town in America, as enemies to this country and unworthy the society ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... said it must surely be false—that Christian men could not be guilty of such wickedness! Yet it has proved all too true. We have heard stories during our journey which have filled our hearts with loathing and scorn. France is playing a treacherous, a vile and unworthy game. England is no match for her yet—unprepared and taken at a disadvantage. But you will see, you will see! She will arise from sleep like a giant refreshed! And then let proud France tremble ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there is something mean and cruel in this procedure. If policy demand the sacrifice, it does not require that the victims should be rendered odious; and if it be necessary to dispossess them of their habitations, they ought not, at the moment they are thrown upon the world, to be painted as monsters unworthy of its pity or protection. It is the cowardice of the assassin, who murders before he dares ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... were in hopes that I would become your wife: I had judged you well enough to understand their error. Precisely because I love you I acknowledge myself unworthy of you and I wish you to know that if you had asked my hand,—the hand of a girl who has a dowry of a million—I would have ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... some respectable post, possibly the same from which his victim has been evicted. Practical advantage carries the day against abstract notions of aesthetic fitness. Sublime it might be to see the guardians of the common weal striking down the unworthy, with a public spirit untainted by self-interest; but in China (and in some other countries) such machinery requires self-interest for its motive force. Wanting that, it would be like a windmill without wind, merely a ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will give back to you all the land of your grandfather Saul; and you shall always eat at my table." Meribaal bowed down and said, "What is your servant that you should look favorably upon one as unworthy as I?" ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... And Land Nobles say'd with their annointed. I've Princes seen to live on others' lands; A royal one by gifts from strangers' hands Admired for their magnanimity, Who lost a Prince-dome and a Monarchy. I've seen designs for Ree and Rochel crost, And poor Palatinate forever lost. I've seen unworthy men advanced high, And better ones suffer extremity; But neither favour, riches, title, State, Could length their days or once reverse ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Eyre's narrative, we must refer our readers to the work itself. Major Pottinger appears on this occasion to have exhibited the same high courage and promptitude and vigour in action, and the same resources in difficulty, that made him conspicuous at Herat, and Lieutenant Haughton was no unworthy companion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... and went on with his work. Once more the human flotsam and jetsam, worthy and unworthy, laid bare the sore places in their lives, sometimes with the smooth tongue of deceit, sometimes with the unconscious eloquence of suffering long pent up. One by one they found their way into Brooks' ledgers ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it to her—unless you outlaw yourself from your native country—strip yourself of your citizenship—declare yourself unworthy to be a son of the land that gave you birth. Even if you perpetrated such a civil crime, you would render no service to Annie. Your right would simply lapse to the son of Herbert Hyde—the young ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon the subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the convention ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal structure of the proposed government was such as to render it unworthy of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have wandered into inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS of federal administration, or, in other words, for the management ...
— The Federalist Papers
... yeast-brewing and bread-raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called biscuit, which many of our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days, is wholly unworthy of the men and women of the republic. Good patriots ought not to be put off in that way—they ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... now to learn that Edward, with all his follies, hath a very pleasant humour when he chooses, and a tongue not unworthy of his family; and young Carew being very conversable and well-featured and full of odd stories of the authorities at Oxford and the liberties they allow themselves under the mask of gravity, the evening past extreme agreeably, and it ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... am to consider, sir, on the testimony of this man, that I am unworthy of holding a commission in Her ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... which imprecates on themselves the misery of going barefoot forever if they are faithless to their words, a penalty by no means light to those who rove over the thorny plains of their country. It is not unworthy to remark the analogy which some of the customs of those wild children of the wilderness bear to those recorded in holy writ. Moses is admonished to pull off his shoes, for the place on which he stood was holy ground. Why this was enjoined ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... disappoint at first, and appear lifeless in its exceeding tranquillity; the brow is indeed slightly knit, but the eyes have no local direction. They comprehend all things—are set upon all spirits alike, as in that word-fresco of our own, not unworthy to be set side by side with this, the Vision of the Trembling Man in the House of the Interpreter. The action is as majestic as the countenance—the right hand seems raised rather to show its wound (as the left ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... your nature which have brought you here, and which would have made you anything but an admirable man had you retained your old position—if, with God as your fast ally, you wage unrelenting and successful war against all that is unworthy of a Christian manhood—I will not only respect, I will honor you. You will be one ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... their interests jointly at work, succeeded in fixing the ostracism not on either of them, but even on Hyperbolus. This, indeed, at the first, made sport, and raised laughter among the people; but afterwards it was felt as an affront, that the thing should be dishonored by being employed upon so unworthy a subject; punishment, also, having its proper dignity, and ostracism being one that was appropriate rather for Thucydides, Aristides, and such like persons; whereas for Hyperbolus it was a glory, and a fair ground for boasting ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... liberty of applying to any other use or purpose the time designed to be employed for the public, they would be instantly dismissed from their employments, as persons who could not be depended upon; and they might rest assured, that any one, who had been proved unworthy the trust he had placed in him, would never be restored to a situation of which ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... himself unexpectedly disengaged, he asked Vyse to dine; it had occurred to him that, in the course of an after-dinner chat, he might delicately hint his feeling that the work he had offered his friend was unworthy so ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... honour," replied King Charming. "A monarch is surely at liberty to form his own engagements. I know what is a knight's duty to his lady, and should wish to fulfil it; as I cannot fulfil it to Troutina, I would rather decline the favour she offers me than become unworthy ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... this reply, and answered in few words: "Marcus Aurelius's action to his brother may, be called generous; it was none the less inconsiderate. By his own confession, the Emperor Verus proved, by his debauchery and his vices, unworthy, of the honour which had been done him. Happily, he died from his excesses during the Pannonian War, and Marcus Aurelius could only do well from ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... them imperceptibly to the most vile and vulgar sensuality, by blending its language with that of exalted feeling and tender emotion; and to steal impurity into their hearts, by gently perverting the most simple and generous of their affections. In the execution of this unworthy task, he labours with a perseverance at once ludicrous and detestable. He may be seen in every page running round the paltry circle of his seductions with incredible zeal and anxiety, and stimulating his jaded fancy for new images of impurity, with as much ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... less subtle pitfall or trap into which the reader may be apt to fall. It is good exercise to cultivate the habit of being very wary over the exact wording of a puzzle. It teaches exactitude and caution. But some of the problems are very hard nuts indeed, and not unworthy of the attention of the advanced mathematician. Readers will doubtless select ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... we unworthy? then with Thee We plead for helpless infancy, Who wrong have never done. Shall cradled infants feel the stroke, Shall ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... only, the good little creature who had so innocently deceived me, remembered that the mischief might have been wrought by the force of habit. While he had still a claim on their regard the family had always spoken of Eunice's unworthy lover by his Christian name; and what had been familiar in their mouths felt the influence of custom, before time enough had elapsed to make them think as readily of the enemy as they had hitherto thought of ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... it is considered glorious for one nation to sacrifice itself to another; but to this there are important limitations, as we shall see. Poets also celebrate street-sweepers, scavengers, lamp-lighters, laborers, and above all, paupers, and pass by as unworthy of notice the authors, Meleks, and Kohens ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... dictum of first mate Hudson of the Betsy, "Out she goes, or down she goes," and not unworthy of being mentioned in the same breath ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... money has been lodged in the hands of the banker at Hamburg, and Thekla and I have this morning signed a deed renouncing in his favour all claim to the estate. Thus Thekla has a dowry of 20,000 gold crowns—a sum not unworthy of a dowry even for the daughter of a Count of Mansfeld; but with it you must take me also, for I would fain leave the country and ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the eternal state of the departed; and that all saints, angels, demons, and the ghosts of the departed, should support, with great variations indeed, the corrupt dealings of a corrupt priesthood—form a creed worthy of the darkest and most unworthy days of heathenism. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Leonardo implies an emotion, distilled from a number of highly prized and purposely repeated experiences, kept to gather strength in respectful isolation, and further heightened by a thrill of initiate veneration whenever it is mentioned. This Leonardo-emotion, once set on foot, checks all unworthy doubts, sweeps out of consciousness all thoughts of inferior work (inferiority and Leonardo being emotionally incompatible!), respectfully holds the candle while the elements common to the imitation and the masterpiece are gone over and ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... startle, stagger; shake one's faith, shake one's belief, stagger one's faith, stagger one's belief. Adj. unbelieving; skeptical, sceptical. incredulous as to, skeptical as to; distrustful as to, shy as to, suspicious of; doubting &c v.. doubtful &c (uncertain) 475; disputable; unworthy of, undeserving of belief &c 484; questionable; suspect, suspicious; open to suspicion, open to doubt; staggering, hard to believe, incredible, unbelievable, not to be believed, inconceivable; impossible ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Marjorie confided her sorrows. So distressed was the latter at the part she had unwittingly played in the jangle that she wrote Mary Raymond an earnest little note, which was read and contemptuously consigned to the waste-basket as unworthy of answer. Long were the talks Constance and Marjorie had on the sore subject of Mary's unreasonable stand, and many were the plans proposed by which they might soften her stony little heart, but ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... not of others at all, but of his own conscience; and coming soon to that perpetual gnawing sense which had possessed him ever since the war began, that it was his duty to be dead. This feeling that to be alive was unworthy of him when so many of his flock had made the last sacrifice, was reinforced by his domestic tragedy and the bitter disillusionment it had brought. A sense of having lost caste weighed on him, while he sat there with his past receding from him, dusty and unreal. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... has recently incorporated both epics (of course much abridged) into his History of India, and we must refer our readers to his work for a knowledge of these remarkable poems. The whole life of ancient India appears in them, and certainly they are not unworthy products of the genius of that ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... but to any employer other than a brutal tyrant. The benefit of this role they claim for every man and woman living within this republic, till on fair trial the proper tribunal shall have judged them unworthy of it. They deny both the justice and expediency of permitting any degree of ignorance or debasement to work the forfeiture of self-ownership, and pronounce slavery continued for such a cause the worst of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... standeth nat by wordes onely, but principally by acte and example; that by example of gouernours men do rise or falle in vertue or vice. Ye shall knowe all way your selfe, if for affection or motion ye do speke or do nothing unworthy the immortalitie and moste precious ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... toad does not come of bad blood; he is related to some of the best families. The Duc de Lauzun is his uncle, and Biron his nephew. He is, nevertheless, unworthy of the honour which was conferred on him; for he was only a captain in the King's Guard. The women all ran after him; but, for my part, I find him extremely disagreeable; he has an unhealthy air and looks like one of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the Seniors have shown themselves unworthy of our confidence, they don't deserve our support in any respect. Instead of voting to elect them as officers, we'll withdraw our subscriptions, and found a separate system of Guilds for ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... reality—who shall say which?—give me a joy never before felt in life. If I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy—my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, my soul on you—that beautiful, beloved face; those deep eyes in which ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... literary enthusiasm. He lived to know, and to rebuild his knowledge in a shape as durable and as magnificent as a Greek temple. He was content for years and years to lie unseen, unheard of, while younger men rose past him into rapid reputation. No unworthy impatience to be famous, no sense of the uncertainty of life, no weariness or terror at the length or breadth of his self-imposed task, could induce him at any moment of weakness to give way to haste or discouragement in the persistent ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Little Jane Morton, I have the great honor on this suspicious occasion to present to you on behalf of my unworthy self, a slight testimonial of my deep respect and undying affection—Alice, stop winking at Marian—Mrs. Morton, is it fitting for a wife to stop the flow of her husband's eloquence by winking? I wish you'd take Alice in hand. I think she needs some lessons in the proprieties. As I was saying, ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... nothing short of pure perfection. Poor old Bishop Deane, who always would speak his mind, in the pulpit or out of it, went to call on her, he told me, and took occasion to reprove her for such excessive grief over so unworthy an object. 'He was not an upright man, Matty, and you know it,' he began quite boldly; 'he was a libertine, and a gambler, and an open scoffer at religion.' But Matty went on sobbing harder than ever, and at last, getting angry, he said sternly: ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold," before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... a friend, my poor boy! And trust me, dear maiden, he is not unworthy, for better son never lived, and good son, good all! Surely we will go to him, but not as thou art. I will dress thee. Such throngs are in the streets: I heard them clattering in early this morning. Rest, dear heart, till ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bore only the name of regent; he had the power and the dominion; the infant nurseling Ivan, the minor emperor, was but a shadow, a phantom, having the appearance but not the reality of lordship; he was a thing unworthy of notice; he could make no one tremble with fear, and therefore it was unnecessary to crawl ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... himself. Still I feel sure that he is all that is honourable and noble. He has given me numberless assurances, undoubted, that he is what he represents himself. The proofs he offers are so clear, can I for a moment doubt him? His I have promised to be: his I will be. I should be unworthy of the name of woman were ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... any woman a son like him," said she as the sound of Joe's steps fell quiet overhead, "and I've sold him into slavery and bondage, just to save my own unworthy, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... phrases whose use had hitherto been confined to poetry, and also in a certain warmth of colouring unknown to earlier prose. To Augustan purists this relaxation of the language seemed provincial and unworthy of the severe tradition of the best Latin; and it was this probably, rather than any definite novelties in grammar or vocabulary, that made Asinius Pollio accuse Livy of "Patavinity." But in the hands of Livy the new style, by its increased volume and flexibility, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... literature; and a kind of gratitude for the author's plainness mingles, as we read, with the nausea proper to the business. I shall quote here a verse of an old student's song; worth laying side by side with Villon's startling ballade. This singer, also, had an unworthy mistress, but he did not choose to share the wages of dishonour; and it is thus, with both wit and pathos, that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inseparable from every great undertaking. What then was to be done? I could not make the pursuit an easy one, much less increase my fortune, and least of all imbue others with a love for astronomy; and yet to complain of philosophy on account of its difficulties would be foolish and unworthy. I determined, therefore, that the tediousness of study should be overcome by industry; my poverty—failing a better method—by patience; and that instead of a master I would use astronomical books. Armed with these weapons I would contend successfully; ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... a long drive to Greenfield, Mr. Carleton;—you must not turn away from a country house till we have shewn ourselves unworthy to live in it. You will come in and let us give you something more substantial than those Quarrenton oysters. Do not say no," she said earnestly as she saw a refusal in his eye,—"I know what you are thinking of, but they ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... as a matter of course, that he should accompany him. Malchus pointed out that, with the rewards and spoils he had obtained, he had now sufficient money to become a man of importance among his own people. Nessus quietly waved the remark aside as if it were wholly unworthy of consideration. ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... characters by no means unlike that of the handwriting of the Vicar himself, 'Dr. Thos. Young, of Jesus.' The tractate is described as a very elaborate and learned compilation from the Fathers upon the sanctity of the Sabbath. A spirit of laborious and determined energy pervades it, nor is it unworthy the abilities and erudition of the author. The work was written at Stowmarket, and may have been published in Ipswich. Its paper and type are coarse; the name of the author was concealed, because at that time a man who reverenced the ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... had but listened to the voice of her heart, and had sought that affection abroad which she was unable to obtain at home. As the Count gazed upon the young man before him, he was forced to admit that Mademoiselle Sabine had not fixed her affections on an unworthy object, for at the very first glance he had been struck with the manly beauty of the young artist, and the clear intelligence of ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... is an unworthy life. The toad and beetle and snake show that there are often vile things hidden among the treasures of earth. The bent, crouching form of the old man shows how selfishness and greed degrade and bow down our nature. The expiring flame of the lantern warns us that worldly grasping puts ...
— Evangelists of Art - Picture-Sermons for Children • James Patrick
... aid she brings is divine, the King should not hinder her from going to Orleans with men-at-arms, but should send her there in due state trusting in God. For to fear her or reject her when there is no appearance of evil in her would be to rebel against the Holy Ghost, and to render oneself unworthy of divine succour, as Gamaliel said of the Apostles in the Council ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... cargo of fir lumber for Cape Town. And would Matt mind slipping ashore and buying the cook a bottle of whiskey, for which the latter would settle very minute he could get an advance out of the Old Man. No? Disgusted, the cook rattled his pans and dismissed Matt as one unworthy of further confidence. ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... lifted up his voice and said: "O heart of stone, O curst and cruel maid Unworthy of all love, by lions bred, See, my last offering at thy feet is laid, The halter that shall hang me! So no more For my sake, lady, need thy ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... and brothers of the syndicate: In the management of the deck department of this new craft of ourn, my previous knowledge of the worthy president and the unworthy secretary leads me to believe that there's goin' to be trouble. A ship divided agin herself must surely go on her beam ends. Now, Scraggsy here has been master so long that the juice of authority has sorter soaked into his marrer bones. For twenty years it's been 'Howdy do, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... as high. As for the White House, it is every way sufficient for its purposes and the institutions; and now that its grounds are finished, and the shrubbery and trees begin to tell, one sees about it something that is not unworthy of its high uses and origin. Those grounds, which so long lay a reproach to the national taste and liberality, are now fast becoming beautiful, are already exceedingly pretty, and give to a structure that is destined to become historical, having already associated with it the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the other; for in a moment I was back again, "that is an unworthy thought—it is but for a moment; and you will return ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy a foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of new Members of this House to add their ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... on; but I feel that it has killed me for this world. I don't know how a girl is to get over it when she has said that she has loved any one. If they are married, then she does not want to get over it; but if they are not,—if he deserts her, or is unworthy, or both,—what can she do then, but just go on thinking ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... White Raven), and the leader of a great people; Pemeh-Katey (the Long Carbine), and the wise Hah-nee (the Old Beaver). You are friends, and we should offer you at once the calumet of peace, but you have come as foes; as long as you think you have cause to remain so, it would be mean and unworthy of the Pawnees to sue and beg for what perchance they may obtain by their courage. Yet the Comanches and the Pawnees have been friends too long a time to fall upon each other as a starved wolf does upon a wounded buffalo. A strong cause must ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... point of view and with a higher spirit than the senatorial college in Rome, perceived clearly the necessity of confining Armenia to the other side of the Tigris and of re-establishing the lost dominion of Rome over the Mediterranean. He showed himself in the conduct of Asiatic affairs no unworthy successor of his instructor and friend Sulla. A Philhellene above most Romans of his time, he was not insensible to the obligation which Rome had come under when taking up the heritage of Alexander—the obligation to be the shield and sword of the Greeks in the east. Personal motives—the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... away to wipe his eyes, while Dan caught his grandmother in his arms and kissed her a dozen times. The joy of these simple souls touched him with a new tenderness; he felt unworthy of his grandmother's kisses and the Major's tears. Why had he stayed away when his coming meant so much? What was there in all the world worth the closer knitting of these strong ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... devil, and death, and hell. Grace can justify freely, when it will, who it will, from what it will. Grace can continue to pardon, favour, and save from falls, in falls, out of falls. Grace can comfort, relieve, and help those that have hurt themselves. And grace can bring the unworthy to glory. This the law cannot do, this man cannot do, this angels cannot do, this God cannot do, but only by the riches of his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Wherefore, seeing God has set grace on the throne, and ordered that it should proceed from this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... standing in society by his immense wealth, or learned profession, rather than by his integrity and virtue, is attended with the most dangerous circumstances, as we have already noticed. Men cannot be reformed by force, nor by declaiming what a low, mean, unworthy, degraded part of the human ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... to prevent the wicked from becoming poor at any time? How can the King and his officers keep the unworthy, suffering the punishment and peril of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... times, however, his indignation broke forth; above all, when he learned from the reports that French emigrants had entered the enemy's ranks, whom he stigmatized by the name of traitors, infamous and wretched creatures, unworthy of pity. I remember that on the occasion of the capture of Huningen he thus characterized a certain M. de Montjoie, who was now serving in the Bavarian army after taking a German name, which I have forgotten. The Emperor added, however: "At least, he has had the modesty not to keep his French ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... of the Coliseum, and drank out of the same cup from the Fountain of Trevi; often visited Crawford's studio, where then stood the famous group which now adorns the frieze of the Capitol at Washington, and by actual observation agreed in thinking his Indian not unworthy of comparison with the famous statue of the Dying Gladiator. We stood together on the Tarpeian Rock, and, looking down upon the mutilated Column of Trajan and all the ruins of ancient Rome, read out of the same copy of Horace the famous ode beginning, "Exegi ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... that unworthy motives and corrupting elements were introduced into the Transvaal by the influx of strangers urged there by self-interest, it is strange that any should imagine and assert that the "corrupting influence of gold," or the lust of gold told upon the British alone. The disasters brought upon the Transvaal ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... better life, and to be worthy of your friendship, and of your tears ... your tears. And to be worthy of you, too, Jean; for I see now that the bandage has fallen from my eyes; I see myself, O how unworthy even of you! ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever. Her poor mother now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram's sister as she was but too apt to look. It often grieved her to the heart to think of the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother, as handsome ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... hairs pricking out from under his brown wig; with shaking, shrivelled hands and blackened nails; this old man had fixed his melancholy eyes upon her with an amused leer. He pretended, if you please! to think that she was unworthy of his precious grandson's company—unworthy of David's little handclasp. She would leave this impudent Old Chester! She would tell Lloyd so, as soon as he came. She would not endure the insults of these ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... that this divine alchemy, this transmutation of the human creature into God, is generally impossible, for the Saviour, as a rule, keeps His singular favours for His elect; but after all, every one, however unworthy, is presumably able to attain that majestic end, since God only decides, and not man, whose ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... pistols, it so befell that they were fortunate enough to kill their enemy, whom they buried under their dwelling unknown to all the world. But some days after the event they went to confess to a priest of their nation, and revealed every detail of the tragic story. This unworthy minister of the Lord supposed that in a Mahommedan country, where the laws of the priesthood and the functions of a confessor are either unknown or disapproved, no examination would be made into the source of his information, and that his evidence would have the same ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Canada would not have reciprocity at such a price.' Direct taxation might be averted by retrenchment and revision of custom schedules. The charge that unrestricted reciprocity would lead to annexation was an unworthy appeal to {122} passion and prejudice, and, if it meant anything, meant that it would 'make the people so prosperous that, not satisfied with a commercial alliance, they would forthwith vote for political ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... bear his unworthy testimony agin these disturbers. They hed—he knowd whereof he spoke—hired a female woman from Massachusetts to teach their children! He hed bin in their skool-room, and with his ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... socially situated today as I was then, understand. To waste this fortune in riotous living was impossible. From the hour that I received that check for "two-fifty," cream cakes began to wear a juvenile air, and turnovers seemed unworthy of my position in life. I remember begging to be allowed to invest the sum "in pictures," and that my father, gently diverting my selection from a frowsy and popular "Hope" at whose memory I shudder even yet, induced me to find ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... have been. May the same blessed alleviations of anxious, sympathising friends be yours: and may you possess, as I dare say you will, the greatest blessing of all in the consciousness of not being unworthy of their love. I could ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... quite against the rule I follow. But here was no life condensed in an episode; but a story which had necessarily to be told step by step, and a situation which had unavoidably to be anatomised. If it is not unworthy to appear with my best things, that is all I hope for it. You have pitched curiously upon some of my favourite touches, and very ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... hoping, longing, praying, to make you happy! I have thought what joy it will be to do it, what an unworthy wife I shall be if I do not! That's ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... witnesses!" added the man with the ragged college cloak: "to wit, before me, James Fraser, Magister Artium, minister of this pairish, and of the unworthy Saunders Duff, session clerk of the same. Saunders, ye were braw at the sittin' afore. Clatch doon noo, man, and make your entry. Get all the names and surnames, while I collect the fees. The business is, ecclesiastically speaking, a little irregular (though perfectly legal), but that ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... your Lordship's acceptance of a Charge given by me to the Grand Jury of Westminster though I am but too sensible how unworthy it is ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... after, to my great annoyance, married her former fiance. I was angry with her, not for marrying, but for marrying him after his shameful treatment of her. She seemed to me, and to her family also, to have thrown herself away on a man who had proved himself utterly unworthy any woman's devotion. All my chivalry, too, seemed wasted, and the only result of the experiment was the dissipation of an ideal, the naive expectation of the vicarious penalty to which I had in my sincerity offered myself having passed away. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... dying, either gave themselves into the hands of the enemy to be the victims of their cruelty, or offered themselves a willing sacrifice to the precipices of the mountains and to the shipwrecks of the seas! How many, since the world is unworthy of their noble and Christian intercourse, and, it seems, tried to cast from itself, wander for months at a time, naked, an hungered, persecuted, followed on all sides by the shadow of death, without other consolation than that of God, in whose hands ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... frivolously; have soiled a fair mind by ignoble life,—this leaves the good of the intellect untouched. Some who have made strongest profession of religion, who have held high and the highest places in the Church, have been unworthy, but we do not thence infer that the tendency of religion is to make men so. They who praise the bliss and worth of ignorance are sophists. Stupidity is more to be dreaded than malignity; for ignorance, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... But if Georgiana, before her guest arrived, had thought the old house shabby, she felt it now to be positively shambling. She struggled mightily against this attitude of mind, knowing that it was unworthy of her, but, as she led this wonderful, winsome creature, whom she knew to be accustomed only to the softnesses of life, up over the worn stair carpeting to the room she had prepared for her, she was wondering how she herself had ever conceived the ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... do," Roger said, pressing her to him; "if I quit this land alive, you shall accompany me. I should be unworthy of your love, indeed, Amenche, were I to prove faithless to you now. I regard you as being as truly my wife, as if we were ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... will not stay to particularise the defects of each of the seven figures of the front and sides, which represent the cardinal and theological virtues; nor will we make any remarks upon those which stand in the niches above the pavilion, because we consider them unworthy both of the age and reputation of the Florentine school, which was then with reason considered ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and though a creed so highly intellectualised as that will be, can never receive adequate expression from the figurative arts, still the painting of the sixteenth century forms for it, as it were, a not unworthy vestibule. It does so, because it first succeeded in humanising the religion of the Middle Ages, in proclaiming the true value of antique paganism for the modern mind, and in making both subserve the purposes of ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... access, in its recesses lofty, and veiled with mysteries; and I was not such as could enter into it, or stoop my neck to follow its steps. For not as I now speak, did I feel when I turned to those Scriptures; but they seemed to me unworthy to he compared to the stateliness of Tully: for my swelling pride shrunk from their lowliness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet were they such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to be a little one; and, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... hermit life, he began his labors in behalf of the monastery proper. In that mountainous region he established, in succession, twelve cloisters, each with twelve monks and a superior, himself holding the oversight of all. The persecution of an unworthy priest caused him, however, to leave Subiaco, and retire to a wild but picturesque mountain district in the Neapolitan province upon the boundaries of Samnium and Campania. There he destroyed the remnants ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... of the name is proud to provide food and clothing for his children. That's what he's there for. But it does not require much keenness of vision to see that there are many parents unworthy of the name, and that, by the dark and inscrutable degrees of Heaven, such worthless individuals are often allowed to be parents of a numerous progeny. We must (i) inject into these wastrels the feeling of responsibility and (ii) prevent the children from dying of starvation. The first ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... princes, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as they style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... is in the hope of hitting the fancy of this motley body that there is now a tumultuous multiplication of books of every degree of merit; and amid all this din there must be redoubled difficulty of choice. Yet the selection gets itself made somehow, and not unsatisfactorily. Unworthy books may have vogue for a while, and even adulation; but their fame is fleeting. The books which the last generation transmitted to us were, after all, the books best worth our consideration; and we may be confident that the books ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... certainly conduct myself as you prescribe. Your friend shall say and do nothing unworthy of your friend. You govern me in every thing but one: I mean, the disposition I have told you I shall make. Nothing can alter that but a great change in your fortune. In another point, you partly misunderstood me. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... long cogitation in front of the grandfather picture had been highly uncomplimentary to the artist. He pronounced the homespun subject unworthy of artistic treatment, and he told himself that it merited just that order of criticism which it had received at the hands of the young person with the rather pretty turn of countenance, who had regarded it with such enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he did not forget ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... that the Holy Ghost was become incarnate in her person, for the salvation of a great part of mankind. According to her doctrines, none were saved by the blood of Jesus but true and pious Christians, while the Jews, Saracens, and unworthy Christians, were to obtain salvation through the Holy Spirit which dwelt in her, and that, in consequence thereof, all which happened in Christ during his appearance upon earth in the human nature, was to be exactly ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... say, is the final outcome of your thoughts?" asked Melissa, shaking her head sadly. "Do you not perceive that such an outbreak of mad despair is simply unworthy of your own wisdom, of which the end and aim should be a passionless, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... counterpoise to them by the steady and persistent forces of education. A many-sided interest cultivated along the chief paths of knowledge, implies such mental vigor and such preoccupation with worthy subjects as naturally to discourage unworthy desires. ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... is working and risking all for one's country, and one's fellow-countrymen. It is an honour to belong to a band of such noble men and women. But now and then one is admitted who turns out to be unworthy. Yes, even such a cause as ours has traitors to contend with. And your uncle, Lord Ashiel, was ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... detail the obstacles we met with, one after another overcome,—the calumnies and even personal violence to which we were subjected. These things occurred at an early period of our struggle, when the nation was groping its way to light, and are not likely to occur again. Let unworthy men sleep in the oblivion they deserve, and let others of better natures, who were then blind, but now see, not be taunted with their inconsiderate acts. The nickname of Gibeonites, applied to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not what stakes you had in mind, but this I know: if 'twere a lady's hand it were unworthy you and her. A lady's hand is for the winning by deeds of prowess or by proof of worth, not by betting for it as though 'twere a horse or a ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... spirit that can rule itself, that can subject even the strongest, dearest impulses to reason and duty. Without it, indeed," she added, with a soft earnestness, "affection towards the worthiest object becomes an unworthy sentiment—And besides, Kate,"—here her eye gleamed with girlish mirth—"you see, if I had made love my all, I should have missed it all. Not even Cousin Harry's constancy would have been proof against a withered, whining, sentimental ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... air of sincerely meaning what he said being by no means wholly unreal; "that is because I am unworthy of them." ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... of Divine truth would flash over our actions, and in that pure radiance every unworthy work would wither up to naught—every unblessed deed retreat into outer darkness. Which would be right, she ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... quarrel. And when it is remembered that gentlemen in those days universally carried swords, and as a rule possessed some knowledge of how to use them, and that the man who did not habitually drink too much at dinner was a veritable rara avis—a poor creature, unworthy to be deemed wholly a man—the wonder will be, not that so many, but rather that so few, fatal ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... to him that enjoys; in greatness, it extends to infinity; in smallness, it is infinitely divisible; all men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it; it consigns to oblivion whatever is unworthy of being transmitted to posterity, and it immortalizes such actions as are truly great." The assembly acknowledged that ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne |
