"Invidious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voice of the White Chief shattered the sweet, wild moment like an invidious thing. "You two seem to be getting uncommonly friendly!" His red lip lifted on one side into a cynical smile that suddenly infuriated Jean, implying, as it did, that he had caught the two young people in a compromising situation. She took a hasty ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... of Lord Milner's administration as High Commissioner in South Africa. What those who express opinions without understanding that which lies under the surface of history fail to take into account is the peculiar, almost invidious position and the loneliness in which Sir Alfred had to stand from the very first day that he landed in Table Bay. He could not make friends, dared not ask anyone's advice, was forced always to rely entirely upon his own judgment. He would ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... It would be invidious perhaps to name, in this place, any particular works of art in which the predominant element is malice rather than love. But such works of art exist in considerable number, and the lacerated and distorted beauty of them remains as a perpetual witness to what they have ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... to. "If a shooter is a good shot," says the same classic, "he may use No. 6 early in the season, and only for partridges—afterwards, nothing but No. 5. To the average shot, No. 6 throughout the season." This sounds dreadfully invidious. If a good shot cannot kill grouse with No. 6, how on earth is a merely average shot to do the trick? But, in these matters, the conversationalist finds his opportunity. Only they must not be pushed too far. There ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... each other. One of the latest additions to this choir of voices is Mr. Stopford Brooke, and there are other living lyrists, belonging to one or other of the Churches, who might be named if there were no fear of making invidious selection. ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... obedience, he received a reply from Spain, to the earnest representations made by him, in the preceding autumn, of the distracted state of the colony and the outrages of these lawless men, and his prayers for royal countenance and support. The letter was written by his invidious enemy, the Bishop Fonseca, superintendent of Indian affairs. It acknowledged the receipt of his statement of the alleged insurrection of Roldan, but observed that this matter must be suffered to remain ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... her husband. Mr. Gladstone cast his eye over the results of his wife's labor and exclaimed in despair: "You have done them all wrong, from beginning to end!" His wife, however, has been so invaluable a helpmeet in other ways that it seems somewhat invidious to recall that little incident. She had other work to do, and she wisely left the accounts to her husband and his ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... entertaining a number of distinguished visitors, and among them Mr. John Derringham, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He is a most interesting personality, as perfectly sure of what he wants in life as is M. E. (M. E. stood for "My Employer"—names were invidious). They would be a perfect match, each as selfish as the other, I should say. He is really very cultivated, and believes her to be so, too. She has not made a single mistake as yet, but frightened me at luncheon a little. I must try and get her to keep him off classical subjects. She intends to ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... has never been denied by the United States. But we have contended, and with reason, that if at any time Great Britain may desire the productions of this country as necessary to her colonies they must be received upon principles of just reciprocity, and, further, that it is making an invidious and unfriendly distinction to open her colonial ports to the vessels of other nations and close them against those of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... very fond and very proud of his lovely young bride, whose beauty soon became the theme of London clubs—though invidious critics insisted that she was much too pale and grave ever to become ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... detachment of another 1000 men—the total fighting strength of the column being raised to about 2300 men. For whatever errors had been committed, and their consequences, the band of soldiers assembled at Jakdul on that 12th of January could in no sense be held responsible. Without making any invidious comparisons, it may be truthfully said that such a splendid fighting force was never assembled in any other cause, and the temper of the men was strung to a high point of enthusiasm by the thought that at last they had reached the final stage of the long journey to rescue Gordon. A number ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Judge Robert Earl, of Herkimer, N.Y., yet the personnel of the Convention was up to the usual standard. The new deputies, clerical and lay, felt at home at once, and some of them made good reputations for themselves in debate and in committee-work. It would seem invidious, perhaps, to single out any one deputy more than another, when all excelled, yet the names of some of the representative clergymen and laymen of the Church may justly be mentioned, as for example, Rev. ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... for the blessings of a plenteous year, had offered the first fruits of the corn to Ceres, to Bacchus his wine, and the Palladian juice[26] {of olives} to the yellow-haired Minerva. These invidious honours commencing with the rural {Deities}, were continued to all the Gods above; they say that the altars of the daughter of Latona, who was omitted, were alone left without frankincense. Wrath affects even the Deities. "But {this}," ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... quote from the elegiac tributes which appeared in the public press after Lord Leighton's death, and invidious to repeat certain unkind and unjust strictures which marred the otherwise unanimous note of appreciation. It is obvious that an artist with so strongly marked a personality must needs have been fettered by the very limits he himself had set. At one time, when a painter ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... out of sight of the village, he would urge us on with cries of "Gellcha-buk" ("Come on, ride fast"). When a bad piece of road or a steep ascent forced us to dismount he would bring his horse to a walk, roll a cigarette, and draw invidious comparisons between our steeds. His tone, however, changed when we reached a decline or long stretch of reasonably good road. Then he would cut across country to head us off, or shout after us at the top of his voice, "Yavash-yavash" ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... like spirit it may be remarked, that it ought not to be permitted to inferior writers to monopolize all the appliances and means of popularity that art can bestow. Accordingly, the proprietors have secured the hearty and zealous co-operation of Kenny Meadows. It would be invidious, and from the purpose, to institute a comparison between this gentleman and his contemporaries; but it may be asserted that no living artist has shown an equal versatility of genius, which points him out as the man best fitted to trace the many-colored ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... said the girl, with her imagination—what there was of it—swimming in this happy truth, which seemed, after all, invidious to no one. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... forget that truly noble-hearted man, David Hunt, the founder of Oakland College, whose charitable munificence was lordly in character, but only commensurate with his soul and great wealth. It seems invidious to individualize the hospitality of this community, where all were so distinguished; but I cannot forbear my tribute of respect—my heart's gratitude—to Wood and Dunbar. I came among these people young and a stranger, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... church do you go to?"—the challenge took in childish circles that searching form; of the form it took among our elders my impression is more vague. To which I must add as well that our "fending" in this fashion for ourselves didn't so prepare us for invidious remark—remark I mean upon our pewless state, which involved, to my imagination, much the same discredit that a houseless or a cookless would have done—as to hush in my breast the appeal to our parents, not ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... spirited action—but, particularly now that the original designs had been found faulty and rejected, it placed the unfortunate architect in a most invidious position. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... had all the advantages of red hair without any of the inconveniences; a constant attention to her person served as a corrective to the natural defects of her complexion. After all, what does it signify, whether cleanliness be owing to nature or to art? it argues an invidious temper to be very inquisitive about it. She had a great deal of wit, a good memory, more reading, and a still ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States to its correction. As, however, one mode of correction is in the power of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it continues to ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... had ever been before; and instead of attiring himself more sprucely than of old, he neglected his apparel to such a degree, that, although few would have noticed the untidy change, Statira was filled with continual alarms, lest some invidious housewife should perceive it, and lay the blame at her door. Except when called abroad to perform some professional duty, he spent his time at home, although his family observed that he secluded himself in his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... part that each should play in the social system. Generally speaking the advantage of status is in its power to give order and continuity. As Gibbon informs us, "The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of all distinctions among mankind," and he is doubtless right in ascribing the confusion of the later Roman Empire largely to the lack of an established rule for the transmission of imperial authority. The chief danger of status ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... depressive; dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous; woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable; sad, affecting, touching, pathetic. irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling; unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious; troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome; plaguing, plaguy^; awkward. importunate; teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking. intolerable, insufferable, insupportable; unbearable, unendurable; past bearing; not to be borne, not to be endured; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... inconstant a mortal as ever existed, what he might have said carried but little weight; and, as he would blow both hot and cold, nay, too frequently, to gratify the company present, would sacrifice the absent, though his best friend, I disregarded this invidious hint, 'till I was lately informed, a person of distinction in the learned world, had condescended to become the biographer of this unhappy man's unimportant life: as the sanction of such a name might prove of prejudice to me, I have since thought ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... some who, with invidious look, Have styl'd this bird more like a Russian duck Than what he stands depicted for on sign, He proves he well has croaked for prey within, From massy tankards, formed of silver plate, That walk throughout this noted house ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... be invidious to single out any portion of the police for special commendation, where all did their duty so nobly; but it is not improper to speak of the sanitary police, whose specific duties do not lead them to ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... invidious task! None will, by speaking in her favor, dare To meet thy anger: stiffer, then, an old And faithful counsellor (whom naught on earth Can tempt on the grave's brink) to exercise The pious duty of humanity. It never shall be said that, in thy council, Passion and interest ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... his ways If they inveigle you to emulation; But where, if I may ask it, are you tending With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures? You call to mind an eminent archangel Who fell to make him famous. Would you fall So far as he, to be ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... to the examination of the modern hymns. In place of this somewhat invidious task, I propose to make a few remarks on the general question of the introduction of modern harmony into ecclesiastical music, with reference of course to hymns only. It cannot escape the attention of ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... allegory, by mentioning several of the children of False Humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general that False Humour differs from the True as a ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... respecting it. He should also move the thanks of the House to the captains who served under Sir James; but he could not forbear to give his highest applause to the captains whose conduct was so gallant and successful on that day. There was no invidious distinction in this. Every captain on that service, he was persuaded, would have done his duty in the same signal manner had he been fortunate enough to get into action. But it was not less his duty to notice the conduct of these gallant officers, on whom the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... invitation he received in 1638, from the authorities in Sweden, to visit their country and undertake the reformation of their schools. He replied that he was unwilling to undertake a task at once so onerous and so invidious, but that he would gladly give the benefit of his advice to anyone of their own nation whom they might select for the duty. These communications led him to resume his labor on the Great Didactic, and to translate it into Latin, in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... not appeased by this invidious parallel. "That's enough," he cried at all but the full pitch of his voice, pointing at the same time ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... now appointed Viceroy. He landed in Dublin, on the 15th September, 1360, with an army of one thousand men. From the first moment of his arrival he exercised the most bitter hostility to the Irish, and enhanced the invidious distinction between the English by birth and the English by descent. Long before his arrival, the "mere Irishman" was excluded from the offices of mayor, bailiff, or officer in any town within the English dominions, as well as from all ecclesiastical ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... "except in those particular portions of the country where it is deemed invidious, and contrary to the public rights, to be better off than one's neighbour, by owning any thing that all the community has not a better claim to than ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Love, receive me With such tip-tilted scorn? Self-love can scarce retrieve me From obloquy forlorn; 'Twas not my fault, believe me, That wealthy I was born. Of Nature's gifts invidious I'd choose I know not which; One might as well be hideous As shunn'd because he's rich. O Love, if thou art bitter, Then death must pleasant be; I know not which is fitter, Not I—(or is't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... absolutely free from invidious personalities, for we emulate the good in humanity and shall seek to find it ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... the porter's face! For an instant he hung out of the carriage window, intent upon ordering the coachman to drive back to the station, but the reflection—again a ludicrous one—that he would now be only bringing witnesses to a scene which might provoke a scandal more invidious to his acquaintance, checked him in time. But his spirits, momentarily diverted by the porter's effrontery, sunk to a lower ebb ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a unique case," declared Zizi. "Never has such a thing been known to science." Her smile robbed the words of invidious intent, and though Julie stood up for Carlotta's innocence, she had always wondered whether there was not some involuntary, even unconscious helping along done to ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... be pronounced by the ancient Four Masters to be a mutilated form of the old Irish language. (Great laughter and cheers.) And now that I have mentioned Scottish students, I am sure you will not think that I am making any invidious comparison when I allude to the noble example I have seen set by them in the determination and energy with which I have known them prosecute their studies. (Hear, hear.) I have known at St. Andrew's men go up to the university so little able to afford the necessary money for their stay there, that ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... to recapitulate the oppression of the one party, or the quiet suffering of the other, nor to analyse the causes, but to take the Jews as I find them, I will leave to others the task of commenting upon the past, nor will I, by any invidious remarks, prove that they have always been an ill-used body; yet I cannot refrain from stating, that in no similar number of men in Great Britain, labouring under the same social and political disadvantages with themselves ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown
... me to forgiveness, I have already much merit; for I despise the littleness of my past conduct. I now find that the heart of any worthy man cannot be gained by invidious attacks upon the rights and characters of others;—by countenancing the addresses of a thousand;—or that the finest assemblage of features, the greatest taste in dress, the genteelest address, or the most brilliant wit, cannot eventually secure a ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... allowed to vote. In New York Loyalist lawyers were not allowed to practise until April 1786, and then only on condition of taking an 'oath of abjuration and allegiance.' In the same state, Loyalists were subjected to such invidious special taxation that in 1785 one of them confessed that 'those in New York whose estates have not been confiscated are so loaded with taxes and other grievances that there is nothing left but to sell out and move into the protection ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... haunt th' alluring road; There gaunt-eyed Want asserts her iron reign, There, as in vengeance of the world's disdain, This half-flesh'd hag midst Wit's bright blossoms stalks, And, breathing winter, withers where she walks; Though there, long outlaw'd, desp'rate with disgrace, Invidious Dulness wields the critic mace, And sworn in hate, exerts his ruffian might Where'er young genius meditates his flight. Erewhile, when WHITE, by this fell fiend oppress'd, Felt Hope's fine fervours languish in his ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... of politics he came near playing a more active part than that of a mere looker-on and humble voter, for in the fall of 1854 he was nominated for Congress on the Democratic ticket. It would be difficult and, perhaps, invidious to attempt to state exactly his political faith in those heated years which preceded the Civil War. In the light of future events he and his brothers and many other prominent men of the day were on the wrong side. He deprecated the war and did his ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... all articles of consumption brought to the towns; but the officers are not strict, and it would be reckoned invidious to enter a house to ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... that there were shouts of applause and crowds round me in the house ringing with my praise. Nay, if you ever thought that I shewed courage in political business, you certainly would have admired my conduct in that cause. For when the culprit had betaken himself to public meetings, and had made an invidious use of my name, immortal gods! What battles! What havoc! What sallies I made upon Piso, Curio, on the whole of that set! How I fell upon the old men for their instability, on the young for their profligacy! Again and again, so help me heaven! I regretted your absence not only as the supporter ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... might very well wear one, I should think," he had murmured defensively. "I don't wish to be invidious, but surely Lizzie must be—let's see; 'eighty, 'ninety—why, she must be between ...
— Mrs. Dud's Sister • Josephine Daskam
... had been appointed to take place on that evening at her home, and she went. The child Prince, however, had been left in the Palace, as his mother wished, even at that time, to make her withdrawal as privately as possible, so as to avoid any invidious observations on the part of her rivals. To the Emperor the night now became black with gloom. He sent messenger after messenger to make inquiries, and could not await their return with patience. Midnight came, and with it the sound of lamentation. The messenger, who could do nothing ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... how the interested observer in the doorway must really have felt about him. Rather disconcertingly, hereupon, the sharp truth proved to be that the most amused, quite the most encouraging and the least invidious of smiles graced the young Lord's handsome countenance—forming, in short, his final contribution to a display of high social candour unprecedented in our hero's experience. No, he wasn't jealous, didn't do John Berridge the honour to be, to the extent ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... four years. That empire and power which he had pursued through the whole course of his life with so much hazard, he did at last with much difficulty compass, but reaped no other fruits from it than the empty name and invidious glory. But the great genius which attended him through his lifetime, even after his death remained as the avenger of his murder, pursuing through every sea and land all those who were concerned in it, and suffering ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... that accentuation, bring out all the syllables. This we observe very commonly in the comparative Northern and Southern pronunciation of proper names. I might exemplify by citing familiar instances; but, lest that should seem invidious, it may suffice to say that, not to mention more important changes, many a Northern member of Congress goes to Washington a dactyl or a trochee, and comes home an amphibrach or an iambus. Why or how external physical causes, as climate ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... And though you kick against the parallel drawn between you and the Cataline of antiquity, you have in this point proved its exactness; he haranguing in the circle of his conspirators, exasperates them against the opulent citizens of Rome; you, in your pamphlet, labor to create invidious distinctions, would pervert the order of well regulated society, and make fortune's larger gifts, or even its moderate blessings, criterions of disqualification for public trust and honours in Pennsylvania; and under a spacious description of men, offer with ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... night, Georgiana Ford had studied her brother Merthyr's face when Emilia's voice called for Wilfrid. Her heart was touched; and, in the midst of some little invidious wonder at the power of a girl to throw her attraction upon such a man, she thought, as she hoped, that probably it was due to the girl's Italian blood. Merthyr was not unwilling to speak of her, and say what he feared ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... significantly; then, turning away and crossing the apartment, she applied herself to the entertainment of the elder Mr. Bainrothe, "Mr. Basil," as we called him after his son came, by way of distinction between the two, since the word "old" seemed invidious in his case, and we characterized them as we would have done ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... an Old Man of Aoster, Who possessed a large cow, but he lost her; But they said, "Don't you see she has rushed up a tree? You invidious Old Man of Aosta!" ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... reasons for our retirement are most excellent. We have already spoken of the fact that Philadelphia might prove a Capua for our young troops, and now we are relieved from the chance of appearing as oppressors. It can never be said of us by the people of Pennsylvania that we were tyrants. It's an invidious task to rule over the unwilling, even when one rules with justice and wisdom. It's strange, perhaps, Leonidas, but it's a universal truth, that people would rather be ruled by themselves in a second rate manner than by the foreigner in a first rate ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... uncertainties and injustice growing out of the delays in trials, judgments, and the executions thereof by our courts. Of course these remarks apply quite as well to the administration of justice in State courts as to that in Federal courts, and without making invidious distinction it is perhaps not too much to say that, speaking generally, the defects are less in the Federal courts than in the State courts. But they are very great in the Federal courts. The expedition with which business is disposed of both on the civil and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... their duty in so exemplary a manner, it would be unfair, and, indeed, invidious, to particularise, still, I cannot refrain from mentioning the good conduct of Mr Smith, my first lieutenant; Mr Bowles, my second lieutenant; Mr Chabb, my worthy master; Mr Jones and Mr James, master's mates; Messrs. Hall, Small, Ball, and Pall, midshipmen; and ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... servile manhood. The other day (the idea remains the same, though the fact is to be questioned) the richest lord in Europe dug up a chest of hoarded coins, many thousand pound's worth, simply because he didn't want it: and, if such particularization were not improper or invidious, you or I might name a brace of friends a-piece, who, having once lacked bread in the career of life, suddenly have found themselves monopolizing two or three great fortunes. As too few things are certain, novel writers less like truth in their descriptions, than where ample ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... as well as a prince of the empire. She was aware that everybody knew her to be the chief object of this lavish outlay, but she was delighted to see that I did not pay her any attentions which were at all invidious. The table was seated for twenty-four, and though I had only asked eighteen people every place was occupied. Three couples, therefore, had come without being asked; but that pleased me all the more. Like a courtly cavalier I would not sit down, but waited on the ladies, going ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... constant roll of carriages and clatter of hoofs coming to a standstill before the Institute. Never, perhaps, had so many people in evening costume gathered under this roof. Even Mr. Chown, the draper, though scornful of such fopperies, had thought it due to his position as a town-councillor to don the invidious garb; he was not disposed to herd among the undistinguished at the back of the room. Ladies were in great force, though many of them sought places with an abashed movement, not quite sure whether what they were about to hear would be strictly "proper." ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... card of Mr. Charles Wilkinson was borne gingerly, by a large youth from South Framingham who served as door boy, into the presence of Mr. Hurd. That gentleman, reading the bit of pasteboard with a grunt which might have been indicative of any one of a dozen invidious sentiments, opened the proximate corner ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... she had the good fortune not to be obliged to consult it to that degree), and not from any love of wandering about Boston at night (a kind of exposure she greatly disliked), but by reason of a theory she devotedly nursed, a theory which bade her put off invidious differences and mingle in the common life. She would have gone on foot to Boylston Street, and there she would have taken the public conveyance (in her heart she loathed it) to the South End. Boston was full of poor girls who had to walk about at night and to squeeze into horse-cars ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Assembly would have been permitted to speak Dutch if they asked permission and obtained permission from the Speaker. We are not able to lend ourselves to that condition. We are of opinion that such a discrimination would be invidious. The recognition of their language is precious to a small people. I have never been able to work myself into a passion because there are in parts of South Africa Dutch people who wish to have Dutch teachers to teach Dutch children Dutch. I have not so poor an opinion of ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the evil which attends all secret societies, that it tends to produce invidious distinctions and castes. An instinct impels men to form themselves into associations; but then Christ has satisfied that ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so sad a dilemma? For Rose I would perish (pro tem.); For Dora I'd willingly stem a— (Whatever might offer to stem); But to make the invidious election,— To declare that on either one's side I've a scruple,—a grain, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the best of our understandings, in all respects, for the preservation of our lives and liberties; and when our superiors shall think proper to call us to an account, which we expect will be at the commodore's arrival, we do not doubt but we shall clear ourselves in spite of all invidious ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... rather as an importer, the entries to his firm's credit having steadily climbed the list of percentages until they are now far ahead of those belonging to any other house; and with his intimate relations with A. * * S. * * * & Co., of London, it would be making no invidious comparison to say that he is the recognized leader of the * * * trade ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... ever. She had satisfied the kindly pity which for a long while had made her very uncomfortable on his account; and, O happy circumstance! she became in course of time the mother of the most attractive, wonderful, and interesting child ever born. In the eyes, however, of the invidious world, he was uncommonly like his plain sickly father, and not, with that exception, at ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... from the doctrine of the Rights of Man. Upon the model of that system, it begins with flagrant injustice to chartered rights; for if it were adopted, the elective Franchises that now exist would be depreciated accordingly; an invidious process for those who would lose by the alteration; and still more invidious for those to whom the privilege would not be suffered to descend. Alas! I am trifling with the subject! If the spirit of a People, composed ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I thought well of the provincial administrations. Those, if the superior power had been severe and vigilant and vigorous, might have been of much use politically in removing government from many invidious details. But as everything is good or bad as it is related or combined, government being relaxed above as it was relaxed below, and the brains of the people growing more and more addle with every sort of visionary speculation, the shiftings of the scene in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... answered that he did not wish to make an invidious distinction by deciding to the advantage of either party, but would give them a rule by which they might determine between themselves; "for," added he, "the greater fool of the two shall in future always take precedence, but which of you it may ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... There is another feature, or rather cardinal principle of it, which is rather indigenous than exotic, which is wanting in the educational systems of some countries, and which is made the occasion and instrument of invidious distinctions and unnatural proscriptions in other countries; we mean the principle of not only making Christianity the basis of the system, and the pervading element of all its parts, but of recognising and combining in their official ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the opportunity When to do it with impunity: You are neither—then he'll flatter Till he finds some trait for satire; Hunts your weak point out, then shows it Where it injures to disclose it, In the mode that's most invidious, Adding every trait that's hideous, From the bile, whose blackening river Rushes through his Stygian liver. Then he thinks himself a lover: Why I really can't discover In his mind, age, face, or figure: Viper-broth might give him vigor. Let him keep the caldron steady, He the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... themselves what you're doing, but what I'm doing. The first branch of their curiosity was inevitably destined, under my culpable delay, to give way to the second; and it's on the second that, if I may use the expression and you don't mind my marking the invidious fact, they've been of late exclusively perched. When Sarah sailed it was me, in other ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... a higher average of female beauty than Chicago, and that is saying a great deal. But I must not enlarge on this fascinating topic. A Judgment of Paris is always a delicate business, and I am in nowise called upon to make the invidious award. Were I compelled to undertake it, I could only distribute the apple, and my homage, in equal shares to the goddesses of the East, the ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... feudal system, where the retainers sat at the same table with their chief, but below the salt. The dances are monotonous, with small steps and a great deal of shuffling, but the music is rather pretty, and some of the dancers were very graceful and agile; and if it were not invidious to make distinctions, we might particularize Bernardo the Matador, the head coachman, and a handsome peasant-girl, with a short scarlet and yellow petticoat, and a foot and ankle la Vestris. They were all very quiet, but seemed in a state of intense enjoyment; and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... This language he clearly explains as meaning that through the death and resurrection of Christ "the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles was broken down" and a universal religion inaugurated, free from all invidious distinctions and carnal ordinances. In his bodily death and spiritual ascension the Jewish ritual law was abolished and the world wide moral law alone installed. From his spirit, rising into heaven, all national peculiarities fell away, and through him Jews and Gentiles ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... DOG or RUNNING VIOLET (V. Labradorica) is that its small, heart-shaped leaves are set along the branching stem, and its pale purple blossoms rise from their angles, pansy fashion. From March to May it blooms throughout its wide range in wet, shady places. Its English prototype, called by the same invidious name, was given the prefix "dog," because the word, which is always intended to express contempt in the British mind, is applied in this case for the flower's lack of fragrance. When a bee visits this violet, his head coming in contact with the stigma jars it, thus opening ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... her and at times wondered at his own procrastination. The idea implanted by Peter Masters bore strange fruit, for even an unconsciously harboured lie must needs hamper the life behind which it finds shelter. He could make no advance towards Patricia while that invidious doubt of his parentage existed, and he lacked the remorseless courage of Mr. Aston to inflict pain for however justifiable a cause on Caesar. Also perhaps his pride had a word to say. If there was a secret, it was theirs, and they had not chosen to divulge ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... virtue of your eye must break my oath] I believe the author means that the virtue, in which word goodness and power are both comprised, must dissolve the obligation of the oath. The Princess, in her answer, takes the most invidious part ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... distinction; in them they delight and glory, and our ancestors called them the women's world. Still, they desire to be under control of those who are bound to them by the bonds of love, not by stern law, in these matters. The consul just now used invidious terms, calling this a female 'secession' as though our matrons were about to seize the Sacred Mount or the Aventine, as the plebeians did of yore; but their feeble nature is incapable of such a thing. They must necessarily submit ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... that which he should never have done. Moreover, even on the day of this notable sermon, he was known to have referred to the young man, within the hearing of a discreet housekeeper, as "the son of his father"—which was an invidious circumlocution, amounting almost to an epithet. And he had most weakly continued to grieve for the wayward lost son of his daughter—the godless boy whom he had driven from ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... manhood and our womanhood. There does not stand today upon God's earth a race more capable in muscle, in intellect, in morals, than the American Negro, if he will bend his energies in the right direction; if he will Burst his birth's invidious bar And grasp the skirts of happy chance, And breast the blow of circumstance, And ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... It would be invidious to institute critical comparisons between the styles of these four friends and their respective merits. It may, however, be remarked that Mr. Manmohan Ghose's work possesses a peculiar interest on account of its really notable command of the subtleties of English prosody and diction, combined ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... acquired endowments of Kemble or Cooke, whether mental or corporeal? Certainly not superior to those of Mr. Cooper. How do they respectively stand in the records of professional fame? It would be invidious to give the answer. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... the evil influence of a contemptuous and spendthrift landlord class, who considered the tenant in no other light than as a rent-paying creature. As Roman Catholics they found themselves the social inferiors of the ruling Protestant class—the laws had placed them in that invidious position. They were practically without any defence. They were ignorant, poor, and half-starved. Thriftless, like their landlords, they ate up in the autumn what harvests they gathered, and begged for their winter's support. Adultery ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... so I must forgive you invidious comparisons." Lindsay visaged the words with a smile, but they had an ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... Colonel, after some little while had passed, 'if we are to travel in silence, we might as well be at home. I appear, of course, in an invidious character; but I am a man of taste, fond of books and solidly informing talk, and unfortunately condemned for life to the guard-room. Gentlemen, this is my chance: don't spoil it for me. I have here the pick of the whole court, barring ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... and breeding become saturated with Christian ideas and feelings,[Footnote: this case is far from uncommon; and undoubtedly, from having too much escaped observation, it has been the cause of much error. Poets I could mention, if it were not invidious to do so, who, whilst composing in a spirit of burning enmity to the Christian faith, yet rested for the very sting of their pathos upon ideas that but for Christianity could never have existed. Translators there have ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... this complicated and interwoven business of tariff rates. Now, a maximum and minimum tariff would enable us to deal equally with all countries, as we are friendly, and ought to be, with all countries. It would be free from invidious discrimination; it would enable us to protect ourselves against those that use us badly, to reward those that use us well; and it would proceed upon a general and intelligent consideration ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... with an air of half-angry sincerity altogether convincing, "I really don't know that I am particularly proud of the episode. I know I was careless, that I laid myself open to the invidious comment, which is usually the reward of all disinterested action. One learns to accept it as a matter of course. And you ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... maxims as these, however, nations have been taught that their interest consisted in beggaring all their neighbours. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... by mentioning several of the Children of FALSE HUMOUR, who are more in Number than the Sands of the Sea, and might in particular enumerate the many Sons and Daughters which he has begot in this Island. But as this would be a very invidious Task, I shall only observe in general, that FALSE HUMOUR differs from the TRUE, as a ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... were disposed to talk over the weaknesses and foibles of their absent sisters in the confidential environments of the Mite Society or the Sewing Circle, they were as reluctant to expose these to the invidious criticisms of the women of the other churches as if the discussed ones had been their sisters in fact, and not simply through sectarian affiliation. Church pride, if nothing else, contributed to the bridling of their tongues, and checking ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... any service done for our soldiers in France is the value the men themselves place upon it. No matter how excellent our intentions, we cannot be satisfied with the result if the soldiers are not satisfied. Without suggesting any invidious distinctions among organizations that are working at the front, it is nevertheless a pleasure to record that the Salvation Army stands very high in the regard of ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... too, with a people who have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself, as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore, if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper, he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Martin Jubb, Peter Featherstone, Henry Richardson, and others, among whom it would be invidious to make distinctions. We may add that a famous missionary of this sect was Thomas Williams, son of John Williams, a cabinet maker of Horncastle, the latter being an active member of the Wesleyan Sunday School Committee. His first wife, mother of the missionary, was Miss Hollingshead, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... Hazlitt dwells most willingly on the Scotch novels, though he did not like Scotsmen, and shared some of the prejudice of Stendhal—'my friend Mr. Beyle,' as he calls him in one place—with regard to Scott himself. And Balzac has no invidious preferences: he recommends an English romance, Kenilworth, to his sister, and he also remembers David Deans, a person most ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... amiable, spirited, and handsome young man; and who made a barbarous war, indeed, since heads were taken after the old Samoan practice, but who made it without any of the savagery which we have had reason to comment upon in the camp of his adversaries. I do not grudge the invidious fate that has befallen my old friend and his followers. At first I believed these judgments to be the expression of a severe but equal justice. I find them, on further experience, to be mere measures of the degree of panic in the Consuls, varying directly as the distance of the nearest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... regulation, not under that of the law; and it ought to be your wish to hold them in control and guardianship, not in bondage; and to prefer the title of father or husband to that of master. The consul just now made use of some invidious terms, calling it a female sedition and secession; because, I suppose, there is danger of their seizing the sacred mount, as formerly the angry plebeians did; or the Aventine. Their feeble nature must submit to whatever you think proper to enjoin; and, the greater ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... public that ten thousand families ought to be put on short allowance of food in order that one man may have a fine stud and a fine picture gallery. Our monopolists have changed their ground. They have abandoned their old argument for a new argument much less invidious, but, I think, rather more absurd. They have turned philanthropists. Their hearts bleed for the misery of the poor labouring man. They constantly tell us that the cry against the corn laws has been raised by capitalists; that the capitalist wishes to enrich himself at ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... intense or practical than Knox, but broader of faculty; nor yet fitted by nature or accomplishment to make himself a more enduring name in literature than Robertson, but greatly nobler in sentiment, and of a larger grasp of general intellect. With any of our other Scottish ministers it might be invidious to compare him; seeing that some of the ablest of them are, like Henderson, little more than mere historic portraits drawn by their contemporaries, but whose true intellectual measure cannot, from the lack of the necessary materials on which to form a judgment, be now taken anew; and that ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... compelled him to accompany them to Domitian. The emperor, prepared to dissemble, and assuming an air of stateliness, received his petition for excuse, and suffered himself to be formally thanked [138] for granting it, without blushing at so invidious a favor. He did not, however, bestow on Agricola the salary [139] usually offered to a proconsul, and which he himself had granted to others; either taking offence that it was not requested, or feeling ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... administration of Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus had destined for the occupation of his old age; [38] but when he took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the vices of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... equipage, was very loud, that none of the captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled; upon which his cloak-bag was fixed in the seat of the coach; and the captain himself, according to a frequent, though invidious behaviour of military men, ordered his man to look sharp, that none but one of the ladies should have the place he had taken fronting ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... eugenists, it may appear that we use the word in an invidious way. We use it deliberately, and by using it we mean to intimate that we do not think enthusiasm is an adequate substitute for knowledge, in anyone who assumes to pass judgment upon a measure as ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... superstition, are apt to apprehend that great and unusual peace or tranquillity will be attended with its opposite. For which reason the antients used, on such occasions, to sacrifice to the goddess Nemesis, a deity who was thought by them to look with an invidious eye on human felicity, and to have a peculiar delight ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... exercised under benign but autocratic supervision, conduce to the strength and splendour of Riseholme. Naturally she must be loyally and ably assisted, and Georgie realized that the tableau of King Cophetua (his tableau as she had said) partook of the nature of a bribe, and, if that word was invidious, of a raising of his pay. It was equally certain that this prolonged recital of slow movements was intended to produce in his mind a vivid consciousness of the contrast between the romp last night and the present tranquil hour, and it did ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... related briefly his history since their last meeting. It was an intensely Western story, and it dealt with enterprises which it will be needless to introduce to the reader in detail. Newman had come out of the war with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in this case—without invidious comparisons—had lighted upon shoulders amply competent to bear it. But though he could manage a fight, when need was, Newman heartily disliked the business; his four years in the army had left him with an angry, bitter sense of the waste of precious things—life ...
— The American • Henry James
... in general indicates practical knowledge with a touch of shrewdness, and perhaps of cunning; in regard to some special matter, it indicates the possession of reserved knowledge which the person could impart if he chose. Knowing has often a slightly invidious sense. We speak of a knowing rascal, meaning cunning or shrewd within a narrow range, but of a knowing horse or dog, in the sense of sagacious, implying that he knows more than could be expected ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... eyes, and they were tears not only of tenderness but gratitude. Fortunately Lord de Mowbray was at the moment absent, and as the question of the controverted inheritance was a secret to every member of the family except himself, the name of Gerard excited no invidious sensation in the circle. Sybil was willing to please and to be pleased: every one was captivated by her beauty, her grace, her picturesque expression and sweet simplicity. Lady de Mowbray serenely smiled and frequently when unobserved viewed ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... she hadn't got it she wouldn't have been restrained from the endeavour to sound him personally by those superior reflections, more conceivable on a man's part than on a woman's, which in my case had served as a deterrent. It wasn't however, I hasten to add, that my case, in spite of this invidious comparison, wasn't ambiguous enough. At the thought that Vereker was perhaps at that moment dying there rolled over me a wave of anguish—a poignant sense of how inconsistently I still depended on him. A delicacy that it was my one compensation ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... the Frenchman, who was seated behind him and understood every invidious word, Walter, instead of being contrite, said airily that he regretted that he had not spoken French as that would probably have been beyond Mr. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... I can remember that I have made invidious remarks about New York, and have objected to the odors in Chicago, and have hated the Illinois Central turnstiles. But if I could be back in America I would not mind being caught in a turnstile all day. Dear America! ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... introduction, and then the fact that I am an American made it final. Americans in England are supposed to pick flowers in private gardens, cut their names on trees, laugh boisterously at trifles, and often to make invidious comparisons. Very properly, Mr. Ruskin does not admire ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds—it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor—disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. That's Roman wormwood—that's pigweed—that's sorrel—that's piper-grass—have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... briefly detailing the necessary arrangements, concluded with the emphatic words, "Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed to-night." All speculation as to the troops to be engaged in this daring enterprise was soon at an end; for with his characteristic sense of duty, Lord Wellington made no invidious selection, but merely commanded that the attack should be made by whatever divisions might chance to be that day in the trenches. Upon the Third and Light Divisions, therefore, this glorious task devolved. The former was to attack the main breach; ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... admonitions both, each containing such felicities of grave, compacted statement as will hardly be surpassed. The assuaging, marmoreal majesty of the concluding lines of the poem are a final demonstration of the virtue of this formal dignity in poetry. If it did not appear invidious, one would like to quote by way of contrast some lines oddly parallel, but on a pitch deliberately subdued to a less rhetorical level, from what is indubitably one of the very greatest poems written in our own century, ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... arrangement. At five o'clock precisely, dinner was served, whether all the invited guests were arrived or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill-bred as to wait an hour perhaps for two or three persons of rank or title, and put the rest of the company out of humor by this invidious distinction. His invitations, however, did not regulate the number of his guests. Many dropped in uninvited. A table prepared for seven or eight was of ten compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen. There was a consequent deficiency of knives, forks, plates, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... writer on the subject would wish he could treat it without such frequent use of the phrases, "lower orders," "subordinate classes," "inferior portion of society," and other expressions of the same kind; because they have an invidious sound, and have indeed very often been used in contempt. He can only say, that he uses them with no such feeling; that they are employed simply as the most obvious terms of designation; and that he would like ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... With all their brilliancy, they have thrown but little helpful light on any Irish problem. In this want of political and economic foresight Irish Nationalist politicians, with some exceptions whom it would be invidious to name, have fallen lamentably short of what might be expected of Irish intellect. For the eight years during which I represented an Irish constituency I always felt that an Irish night in the House of Commons was one ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... Card-table. If we do, the character of our Heroine may then indeed be justly thought not only improbable, but unattainable. But we have neither room in this place, nor inclination, to pursue a subject so invidious. We quit it therefore, after we have repeated, that we know there are some, and we hope there are many, in the British dominions [or they are hardly any-where in the European world] who, as far as occasion has called upon them to exert the like humble and modest, ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... come, an immortal god, Mercury, to thee; for to thee my father sent me as companion. Yet shall I return indeed, nor be present before the eyes of Achilles; for it would indeed be invidious for an immortal god so openly to aid mortals. But do thou, entering, clasp the knees of the son of Peleus, and supplicate him by his father, and fair-haired mother, and his son; that thou ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... President. Tyler has but three counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk has five counties and thirteen towns. Taylor, three counties and twelve towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a vast difference in popularity. Clay has thirty-two towns, and Webster only four. Cass has fourteen, and Calhoun only one. Of Revolutionary heroes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... already referred to as her main source of uneasiness concerning him. Then she begged me by our long and close intimacy, by the suddenness of the danger that had fallen on her and her powerlessness to avert it, to undertake what she said she well knew, if she died, would be an unpleasant and invidious trust. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... wasn't yet invented? His mamma never said to him in early youth, 'Why-why,' or 'Tomtom,' as the case might be, 'that's the wrong hand to hold your flint-scraper in.' He grew up to man's estate in happy ignorance of such minute and invidious distinctions between his anterior extremities. Enough for him that his hands could grasp the forest boughs or chip the stone into shapely arrows; and he never even thought in his innocent soul which particular hand he ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Occasionally they sweep along the base, leaving its huge and black mass involved in additional gloom, and resembling the castle of some Arabian enchanter, built on the clouds, and suspended in air." It might be perhaps deemed somewhat invidious to deal with pictures such as these in the style the connoisseur in the "Vicar of Wakefield" dealt with the old painting, when, seizing a brush, he daubed it over with brown varnish, and then asked the spectators whether ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... affairs. The intellectual force acting through the press of this country is habitually underrated. There are a dozen journals here which may be advantageously compared with any in Europe, with the single exception of the Times. It would perhaps seem invidious to point them out, from the greater number that are conducted with ability and energy; but it will not be objected by any one who has the right to express an opinion in the case, if we say that Mr. Gales is of the first rank of public men who have ever influenced or illustrated the course of events ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... social democracy, and was founded on mutual understanding, good-will, and assistance. The leader used his official and unofficial power to obtain jobs for his followers. He succored them when in need; he sometimes protected them against the invidious activity of the police or the prosecuting attorneys; he provided excursions and picnics for them in hot weather; he tied them to himself by a thousand bonds of interest and association; he organized them into a clan, who supported him blindly at elections in return ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... each and all contributing toward the achievement of this astounding victory, for which neither ancient nor modern history affords a parallel in the completeness of the event and the marvelous disproportion of casualties, it would be invidious to single out any for especial honor. Deserved promotion has rewarded the more conspicuous actors. The nation's profoundest gratitude is due to all of these brave men who by their skill and devotion in a few short hours crushed the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... spirit of emulation, evidently, at the same time that it is emulation shot through with a sense of solidarity. It belongs under the general caption of sportsmanship, rather than of workmanship. Now, any enterprise in sportsmanship is bent on an invidious success, which must involve as its major purpose the defeat and humiliation of some competitor, whatever else may be comprised in its aim. Its aim is a differential gain, as against a rival; and the emulative spirit that comes under the head of patriotism commonly, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... bigoted measure, spoken of as the "prohibition of heterodoxy," did not produce the desired effect. It tended rather to accentuate the differences between the various schools, and a petition was presented to the Bakufu urging that the invidious veto should be rescinded. The petitioners contended that although the schools differed from each other, their differences were not material, since all stood on common foundations, namely, the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius, and all agreed in inculcating the virtues ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... introduced them. I contrived to keep my muscles so unconcerned that no one could imagine what was passing in my mind, yet I saw and felt that I had a difficult card to play, and that it would seem very invidious to oppose a mere vote of thanks to any one of the individuals, or, in fact, to oppose a general vote of thanks to those Members of Parliament, for their opposition to the measures of a corrupt administration. On ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... a commission was appointed "to inquire into the existing state of the municipal corporations, and to collect information respecting their defects." These commissioners applied themselves to the discharge of their somewhat invidious duties with both earnestness and impartiality, and in their Report, published in 1837, acknowledged the superior excellence of the London Corporation as compared with other corporate bodies. They readily admitted that the Common ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... men,"—find pleasant and interesting fields of labor on all our frontiers. But let such persons show fastidiousness, affect superior intelligence and virtue, catechise the people for their plainness and simplicity of manners, and draw invidious comparisons, and they are sure to be "used up," or left without hearers, to deplore the "dark clouds" of ignorance ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... look in the dictionary for 'invidious'; but a daisy's a flower that has budded in the green fields of England, where there aren't any newspaper reporters ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... theory. The defense of home, family, and country is universally recognized as the paramount political duty of every member of society; and, in a form of government where each citizen enjoys an equality of rights and privileges, nothing can be more invidious than an unequal distribution of duties or obligations. No pursuit nor position should relieve any one who is able to do active duty from enrollment in the army, unless his functions or services are more useful to the defense of his country in another ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... produced by what he says, except as far as florid common-places may be depended on. Buonaparte is referred by Mr. Coleridge to the class of active rather than of intellectual characters; and Cowley has left an invidious but splendid eulogy on Oliver Cromwell, which sets out on much the same principle. 'What,' he says, 'can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt |
