"Undignified" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... defenders of Acre. The besieging monarchs withdrew down the ladder to hold a council of war, while the sultan's wives and troops—it was difficult to distinguish them—crowed triumphantly. They even did a little undignified taunting of ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... most of us is as defective and almost as risible as was that of this savage Court. We take on our opinions without paying heed to conclusions, and the result is absurd. Better be without any opinions at all. A naked savage is not necessarily an undignified object; but a savage in a dress-coat and nothing else is, and must ever remain, a mockery and a show. There is a great relativity about a dress-suit. In the language of the logicians, the name of each article not only denotes that particular, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... Sam—Mr. Barstow—fixed that all right. Must really go now;" and, still holding his hat in his hand as a polite compromise for his undignified haste, he ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... it must be mentioned that, from the great length of the staff, you cannot, very often, get out of the way by the ordinary retreat, as above described, but may have to make an undignified jump back for five or six feet, to avoid a quick return or, possibly, an unexpected lead-off. In a stiff bout this jumping, with all the heavy impedimenta indispensable to the game, takes it out of one considerably, and, on this account, it is a first-rate exercise ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... that his aunt perceived that there was something amiss. She gave him opportunities of speaking to her, but he could not take them. He shrank with a painful dumbness from displaying his secret wound. It seemed to him undignified and humiliating to confess his weakness. He hoped vaguely that the situation would solve itself, and spare him the necessity ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... run him up to Fort Govindghar. And "running up" is a performance almost as undignified ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... age is getting mentally old. An individual begins to grow old by dwelling on the subject. The girl of thirteen must cease romping and racing about because it is not lady-like. At twenty-five it is very, very undignified to run a little. At forty a woman must be rather sedate, for being natural would mean frivolity. People are continually growing too old to do this and that, not because they have lost the desire and the ability, but because ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... painful and somewhat undignified, there is no reason that it should not be sure and strong. But it must be consistently pursued. Dynamite in the hands of a child is not more dangerous than a strong policy weakly carried out. The reproach which may be justly laid upon the rulers of India, whether ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... You only carried me as far as Red Bridge, in a position the most comfortable for yourself and the most undignified for me. You borrowed that sixpence from me and never paid me again; and we were both punished with dry bread for breakfast, because we were seen ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... to be the new occupier, and to whom I should have to make a somewhat awkward apology for intrusion, but still more to encounter the scornful look of Mr. Vigors in what appeared to my pride a false or undignified position. Involuntarily, therefore, I turned down the path which would favour my escape unobserved. When about half way between the house and the wicket-gate, the shrubs that had clothed the path on either side suddenly opened to the left, bringing into view a circle of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fact, Siegfried did not succeed and Bismarck did. Roeckel was a prisoner whose imprisonment made no difference; Bakoonin broke up, not Walhall, but the International, which ended in an undignified quarrel between him and Karl Marx. The Siegfrieds of 1848 were hopeless political failures, whereas the Wotans and Alberics and Lokis were conspicuous political successes. Even the Mimes held their own as against Siegfried. ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... to the appearances being caused by spiritual agency, and though he could give no satisfactory explanation of the extraordinary movements of tables, easy chairs, sofas, &c., he felt that these things were very undignified and absurd, as every unbeliever always feels at first; but the eagerness of the large party who were gathered together had something infectious in it. Many of them had known severe bereavement—many of them had been ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... attendant, who should be one of the fathers or mothers of the young people, if possible, would be in so great sympathy with the spirit of the group that his presence would impose no restraint and spoil no fun, yet it would be a curb on undue or undignified gaiety, and a protection ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... (see note on l. 23), whom Pope used to meet at the house of the Blounts. He wrote a comedy, 'The Rival Modes', in which he introduced six lines that Pope had written. Pope apparently had given him leave to do so, and then retracted his permission. But Moore used them without the permission and an undignified quarrel arose as to the true authorship ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... jumped on their chairs in alarm, The lords drew their swords to protect them from harm, And the Queen gave a scream and fainted away— A very undignified act, I must say. ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... "turpissima bestia" that accompanies the itinerant organ-grinder or grins in the Zoological Gardens of London. Milton has made his hero, Satan, assume the forms of a cormorant, a toad, and a serpent, and I cannot see that this creation of semi-divine Vanars, or monkeys, is more ridiculous or undignified. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... room. The blow stung his cheeks and the soapy water flew in his eyes, and he involuntarily began rubbing them with his hands. Lena giggled with delight at his discomfiture, and the wrath in Canute's face grew blacker than ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a little one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter consciousness that he had made a fool of himself He stumbled blindly into the living room, knocking his head against the door jamb because he forgot to ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... article (June 28, '88) upon Mr. Hitchman's "Biography of Sir Richard Burton." No denizen of Grub Street in the coarse old day of British mob-savagery could have produced a more damning specimen of wilful falsehood, undignified scurrility and brutal malevolence, in order to gratify a well-known pique, private and personal. The "Saturday Reviler"—there is, I repeat, much virtue in a soubriquet—has grown only somewhat feebler, not kindlier, not more sympathetic ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... deceived me and then jumped into the underbrush beside the path and hid myself under a projection of nearby rock. I disliked the girl intensely and hated the sight of her, and this must, I suppose, account for the sudden impulse which led to my undignified retreat. Had I known in advance of the unfortunate situation in which it would have placed me, I should have faced her boldly or have fled miles away from that spot, to be forever associated in my mind with the one really discreditable experience of my career. I have always been, I think, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... sworn in. Announcement was made that the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the invited spectators would proceed to the east portico of the Capitol to participate in the ceremonies of the inauguration. The greater portion of those in the Senate Chamber, however, did not wait, but started in a most undignified ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... great man and was quite unmoved by Lambert's little tricks. At last there was no excuse for waiting any longer, and the umpire, after Lambert had refused to have a trial ball, which I suppose he thought would have been an undignified thing for him to do, called "Play." The mystery was solved immediately, Higgs bowled very fast underhand, the kind of ball which is correctly termed a "sneak," but unfortunately for Lambert the first one was straight and his bat was still in the air when his middle stump was knocked ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... groups in the street, all listening with faces aghast to some tale or other. Miss Jenkyns wondered what could be the matter for some time before she took the undignified step of ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a little way without noticing the men, the bear seemed to think that it was extremely undignified and cowardly to run from a fierce little animal something like the dogs it had probably seen in the Esquimaux sledges, and, stopping short, it faced round to look wonderingly at ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... really too undignified an act in the life of the Honorable Percival to chronicle, but before he had time to contradict his impulse, he had actually doubled up his long legs and crawled into the small space Bobby made for him beside her. If she persisted in preferring ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... toll-taker's booth is quite sure to have forgotten his ticket, and has to set down his parcels while he fumbles through all his pockets for it. You are sure you hear the inner gate closing. You dash through the ferry-house in the most undignified manner and unphilosophic mood—to find that you have five minutes to spare! And you take your stand beside your double, who has been all this time enjoying the little woes and absurdities ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... worn, Toiling for peace in undignified days, Set in a sphere with the shadows forlorn, Seeing sublimity dimmed by a haze— Mournful humanity wearing the sign Of trouble with time and unequable things, Long alienated from spaces divine, Sometimes remembers that once it had wings. Chiefly ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... you. Your face just wants that dash of color; and I'd no idea your eyes were so violety! You can give me a kiss if you like—mind the ink! Ah, Nell, some day some man will go mad over that same face and eyes of yours. Well, don't marry a politician, or a man who thinks it undignified to care for his wife! ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... intense, just about this time Johnson made his famous "swing around the circle," as it was termed. His speeches published in the opposition press were intemperate and extreme. He denounced Congress. He threatened to "kick people out of office," in violation of the Tenure of Office act. He was undignified in his actions and language, and many people thought he was intoxicated most of the time, although ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... contempt for gesticulation, and look upon it as something vulgar and undignified. This seems to me a silly prejudice on their part, and the outcome of their general prudery. For here we have a language which nature has given to every one, and which every one understands; and to do away with and forbid ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... special branch of education, in which experts are only gradually becoming developed. The phenomena are as massive and wide-spread as is anything in Nature, and the study of them is as tedious, repellent and undignified. To reject it for its unromantic character is like rejecting bacteriology because penicillium glaucum grows on horse-dung and bacterium termo lives in putrefaction. Scientific men have long ago ceased to think of the dignity of the materials ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... interesting to me were the scenes depicted in the first part of Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi." An eminent Italian told me at this time that Manzoni never forgave himself for his humorous delineations of the priest Don Abbondio, who figures in these scenes after a somewhat undignified fashion. Interesting also was a visit to the tomb of Rosmini, with its portrait-statue by Vela, in the monastery looking over the most beautiful part of the Lago Maggiore. Thence by the St. Gotthard to Zurich, where we visited my old ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "unless you particularly want to figure in a very undignified light as a witness in a trial for murder, sit down and listen ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... when it seemed to Mary that she had promised to do an undignified thing, a thing which would make Vanno respect her less than ever. To go out deliberately to meet him, after all that had passed!—it was impossible. She must send a message to the cure saying that she could not come to ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... with an air of the gravest and most majestic deliberation, he began to turn round, as if he were revolving on a pivot. Little by little his ugly brown side was exposed to view. A white smoke sprang out, as it were from the ground; a sharp report came with it. The old bull gave a very undignified jump and galloped off. At this his comrade wheeled about with considerable expedition. The other Indian shot at him from the ravine, and then both the bulls were running away at full speed, while half the juvenile population of the village ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... passage to New York for your daughter in a pilot-boat that has been out privateering, but has come in here, and is refitting merely to get to New York. My only fears are that Governor Alston may think the mode of conveyance too undignified, and object to it; but Mrs. Alston is fully bent on going. You must not be surprised, to see her very low, feeble, and emaciated. Her complaint is an almost ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... eyes and looked curiously at the dark princess. She knew nothing of what had passed the night before, save that the king had seen Nehushta for a few moments, but she knew his character well enough to imagine that his frank and, as she thought, undignified manner might have struck Nehushta even in that brief interview. The idea that the princess was already deceiving her flashed across her mind. She smiled more tenderly than ever, with a little added air of sadness that gave her a ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... they were full of delightful pleasure and of nice talk too, though it never happened that they sat down under a tree again to sermonize and Mr. Rhys never forgot himself again to speak to her by the undignified appellation he once had given her. But Eleanor had got over her shyness of him pretty well, and was inclined to think it quite honour and pleasure enough to be allowed to share his walks; waited very contentedly when he was wrapped up in his own thoughts; wrapped ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... before he was as decrepit in mind as he is in body. He had great fluency, some power of invective, and a vast stock of assurance. We listened to him upon one occasion, when, without the slightest provocation, he used the most undignified personalities to the late Sir Robert Peel,—to which Sir Robert, very wisely, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... planned. Critics there were a-plenty who wagged a sad head because the advertising was undignified. What they meant was that it was unconventional, was without the dignity of tradition to give it its hallmark. It had, at least, the novelty of originality, and answered the final test of good advertising ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... war, was the first convert to the policy of peace, which the Landgrave and the towns desired. Peace would relieve the financial strain and prevent the Germans from becoming desperate; peace would enable Charles to turn his arms against the Turks. Charles thought it undignified to negotiate with an army in the field: peace entailed the abandonment of Maurice, and henceforth no other prince would dare serve him; Augsburg and Ulm, if they were persuaded that he had no wish to establish a tyranny in Germany, were likely to capitulate, and after a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and over again that he heard the eagerly anticipated knock. But no one came, and he sat far into the night, fancying strange sounds and trembling at the dark; and at last fell asleep in his chair, and was discovered in an undignified position on the floor in the early morning by the ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... stepped back to one of the two windows on the front of the house, where he discovered an officer and two "grayback" soldiers. The ghost of his grandmother would not have been half so appalling a sight, and he retreated to the back door with a very undignified haste. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... any of the nations of Europe. And so the Athenians were the Frenchmen of Greece. Whilst they spent their "leisure time"[36] in the place of public resort, the porticoes and groves, "hearing and telling the latest news" (no undignified or improper mode of recreation in a city where newspapers were unknown), whilst they are condemned as "garrulous," "frivolous," "full of curiosity," and "restlessly fond of novelties," we must insist that a love of study, of patient thought and profound research, was congenial to their ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... to arouse sympathetic emotions on our behalf. That would be foolish, futile, and undignified proceeding. I shall content myself with putting the following questions to the Jews: Is it not true that, in countries where we live in perceptible numbers, the position of Jewish lawyers, doctors, technicians, teachers, and employees of all descriptions ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... of his visit, and of the purple agitation, dawned upon her, the grim humour of the position overbore every other feeling. Her hand still in his, she began to laugh, and no biting of her lips could do more than change the laugh into an undignified snigger. Instead of profiting by his grip of her, he dropped her hand suddenly as if a hose had been turned on his passion, and this surrender of her hand reduced Eileen to a ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... mayor and corporation, and council, also most of the ladies, were loud in his praise. Nothing could be more noble, nothing more generous, nothing more upright. But the gentry were of a different way of thinking,—especially the lawyers and the clergymen. They said such conduct was very weak and undignified; that Mr Harding evinced a lamentable want of esprit de corps, as well as courage; and that such an abdication must do much harm, and could ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Adams had deprecated the new mission to France. The nominations had been made by the president without consulting his cabinet; and both Pickering, the secretary of state, and M'Henry, the secretary of war, lamented the occurrence, not only because it was undignified, but because it was likely to complicate the already perplexing relations with the French. They remonstrated, but the president refused to listen. Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and other supporters of the administration, were equally opposed to the measure, but the president paid little heed to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... was during the rest of the evening. And those who had come to the Hotel Gemosac to confirm their adoption of a figure-head went away with the startling knowledge in their hearts that they had never in the course of an artificial life met a man less suited to play that undignified part. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... I paid some attention to the negro method of conducting praise meetings, which they very appropriately call "de shoutings." If I give some verbatim reports of the negro's curious and undignified clerical efforts, it is not done for the purpose of caricaturing him, nor with a desire to make him appear destitute of mental calibre; but rather with the hope that the picture given may draw some ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... prepared for the journey, Iligliuk assisting him with the most attentive solicitude. Before the invalid was suffered to leave his apartment, some of the by-standers sent for Ewerat, now better known to our people by the undignified appellation of the "conjuror." Ewerat, on this occasion, maintained a degree of gravity and reserve calculated to inspire somewhat more respect than we had hitherto been disposed to entertain for him in that capacity. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... her warm heart delighted, and it has been asked wonderingly if Miss More could preternaturally have lengthened her days until William E. Gladstone's present glory, whether she would have gone on dubbing him "Billy" in undignified ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... seen, with nothing on but pyjamas and a towel? I suppose he thinks 'You can't be too careful.' It makes one humble to live with a dog. I always blush when I see a dog dreaming, because I'm afraid they give us an undignified place in their dreams. Your Hound, Russ, dreams of you plunging into the Serpentine after a Canadian Goose, with your topper floating behind you, or Anonyma with her tongue hanging out, scratching ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... woman was in despair at witnessing her husband's undignified actions and wondered what she might do to control him. The professor seemed more grave than usual; the senator's face wore an offended expression, and Bessie kept moving her fingers as if she still wanted to play ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... the term lieutenant augured ill. Surely the servant would speak of Desmond as the young lord if he had gained his cause. He, however, considered that it would be undignified to ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... promiscuity and undignified relations of the peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of sympathy for her distress, he said: ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... away. Still he does not seem to mind; once more, as of old, his gaze is fixed beyond the horizon and his mind is filled with one idea. They may not think much of him in Spain now, but they will when he comes back; and he can afford to wait. Completing his preparations without undignified haste he despatched Bartholomew with his four little vessels from Seville to Cadiz, where the Admiral was to join them. He took farewell of his son Diego and of his brother James; good friendly James, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... anything, Smith," I replied, "however undignified, when it has seemed that my presence could be of ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... she dove straight through the crowd, then proceeded in a circle, her heels describing wonderful curves and sweeps in the air. Her pack, too, began to come to pieces and to take forced flights from her undignified body and heels, in the midst of the screams of women and children, the barking of dogs, and the war-whoops of the amused ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... conviction that, revealed in this ghastly plight before the eyes of his fellows, his case would be regarded differently; that instead of commiseration there would be for him only the derision which is so humiliating to a sensitive nature. He felt so undignified, so glaringly conspicuous, so—well, so scandalously immature. If only it had been an orthodox costume party which Mrs. Carroway had given, why, then he might have gone as a Roman senator or as a private chief or an Indian brave or a cavalier. In doublet or jack ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... one German city, that of Leipzig, where it is punished with some rigour, the Emperor, who is supposed to embody the majesty and effectiveness of the law, is hardly the person to recommend it. His inconsistency in the matter on one occasion placed him in an undignified position. Two officers of the army quarrelled, and one, an infantry lieutenant, sent a challenge to the other, an army medical man. The latter refused on conscientious grounds, whereupon he was called on by a military ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... undignified proceeding admits of no other justification than the urgency and exigency of the occasion; and the best thing that can be said of it is, that it answered the end for which it was designed, although the notoriety which was given to it (and without ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... as saddle animals, and it is said that they perform good service in this way. This will probably be regarded by our people as a very undignified and singular method of locomotion, but, in the absence of any other means of transportation upon a long journey, a saddle-ox ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... He topped his father by a head already, though he was but three months beyond his fifteenth birthday, and if he had chosen to fight he might perhaps have held his own. But a thought so impious never entered his mind. He was helpless, and he lay blubbering, undignified, with a breaking heart. He did not think much or often of the coming pain, but he brooded on the indignity and injustice until he writhed with yelps of wrath and hatred and agony of heart, and awoke Dick, who wanted ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the species attends the game for decorative purposes only. I protest. Listen. In 1908 I had the good fortune to be selected to enter the Harvard-Yale Game at New Haven, for the purpose of scoring on Yale in a most undignified way, through the medium of a drop-kick, Haughton realizing that while a touchdown was distinctly preferable, he was not afraid to fight it out in the ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... It was in this undignified position that the Master presently found the grey whelp, and he chuckled as he picked up Finn, with two of the other pups, and wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... left the station. So, abruptly, in fact, did the train start that my last vision of the end brakeman revealed him rolling along the platform in a highly undignified fashion, while the engineer sat at my feet in amazement as I clutched ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... is stately, yet sweet, free, graceful, and never undignified. We confidently believe that our readers will agree with us in regarding this as one of the finest and most suggestive poems recently published. We trust to have, ere long, more poetic work from his hand."—British Quarterly ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... Diary to an end. It is evident, however, when we survey the whole of this perhaps typical episode, that neither husband nor wife were in the slightest degree prepared for the commonplace position into which they were thrown; that each of them appears in a painful, undignified, and humiliating light; that as a result of it the husband acquires almost a genuine and strong affection for the girl who is the cause of the quarrel; and finally that, even though he is compelled, for the time at all events, to yield to his wife, he remains at the end exactly what he was at the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... one be anything else, in such a country? And then—you don't know Manley, you see. It's horribly bad form, and undignified and all that, to prate of one's private affairs, but I just can't help bubbling over. I'm not looking for heaven, and I expect to have plenty of bumpy places in the trail—trail is anything that you travel over, out here; Manley ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... there, but that you might know that many men like myself take pride in you, rejoice in your opportunity, and keep our faith in Democracy because out of it can come men of ideals like yourself. I know/that you will not allow yourself to become cheap, undignified, or demagogical. Remember, that East and West alike, we want gentlemen to represent us, and we ask no man to be a panderer or a hypocrite to get our votes. Frankness, and largeness, and simplicity, and a fine fervor for the right, are virtues ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... and had common ways and spoke the low Marsh talk—he drank out of his saucer and cut his bread with his pocket-knife—he spat in the yard. How dared people think she would marry him?—that she was so undignified, infatuated and unfastidious as to yoke herself to a slow, common boor? Her indignation flamed against the scandal-mongers ... that Woolpack! She'd like to see their licence taken away, and then perhaps decent women's characters would ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... the blood of eight men on his hands, was making more noise in the coffin box than a sack of cats. It was a most undignified way for a man of his sanguinary reputation to accept this humiliation at the hands of a public that he had outraged. A mule in a box stall could not have made a greater clatter with heels against planks than the fallen city marshal of Ascalon drummed ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... Chancellor addressed him: "Mr. Scott, I am glad to find you are engaged in the cause, for I now stand some chance of knowing something about the matter." This same leader of the Bar on one occasion, in the excitement of professional altercation, made use of an undignified expression before Lord Thurlow; but before his lordship could take notice of it the counsel immediately apologised, saying, "My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon. I really forgot for the moment where I was." A silent recognition of the apology would have made the counsel feel his position ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... ineffective rhetoric, and undignified petulance, furnishes a pitiful proof of the intellectual and moral decadence of a once great name;" i.e., The same oration seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... Could it be that reverses of fortune with reference to moderate sums of money, such as this which was now coming into his hands, would always affect him in the same way? Was it not almost unmanly, or at any rate was it not undignified? And yet she tried to make the best of it, and lent herself to his holiday mood as well as she was able. "Shall I write and thank papa?" she said ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... of Berlin, thought it quite right and natural that the old Emperor William should exercise his authority for the purpose of prohibiting the young mother from herself nursing her baby; on the ground that it was contrary to the traditions of the House of Hohenzollern, and a quite undignified proceeding. Fortunately, the late Emperor Frederick, who had spent much of his time at the court of his mother-in-law, Queen Victoria, and who was aware that she had nursed every one of her numerous children herself, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... sober care of gain Snatch'd in your cradles from the god of Love: She render'd all his boasted arrows vain; And all his gifts did he in spite remove. Ye too, the slow-eyed fathers of the land, With whom dominion steals from hand to hand, Unown'd, undignified by public choice, I go where Liberty to all is known, And tells a monarch on his throne, He reigns not but ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... all. I think it extremely undignified on your part, and that it is a pity that you should be so swayed by Aunt Mary as to go by her judgment instead of your own. You never thought of asking him till she tried to ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... find names in that career of which I can speak with enthusiasm? Must I not confess to a boundless lust of gain in my country? Must I not concede the weakest vanity, which bristles and blusters at each foolish taunt of the foreign press, and admit that the men who make these undignified rejoinders seek and find popularity so? Can I help admitting that there is as yet no antidote cordially adopted, which will defend even that great, rich country against the evils that have grown out of the commercial system in the Old World? Can I say our social laws are generally ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... either cheek as she walked towards him. Though he did not intend it, there was perhaps too strong a suggestion of command in his attitude, and when Helen came abreast of him, he laid a hand restrainingly upon her arm. She shook it off, not with ill-humored petulance, for Helen was never ungraceful nor undignified, but with a disdain that hurt the man far more than anger. Nevertheless, knowing that he was right, he was determined that she should run no risk. Letting his hand swing at his side, he walked a few paces before her, and then turned in a narrow portion ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the lower parts of the house. His Eastern costume was almost equal to that of the Dey in magnificence, but there was a tinselly look about the embroidery, and a glassy sheen in the jewels, which, added to the humorous and undignified cast of his countenance, bespoke him one of low degree. He was the Dey's story-teller, and filled much the same office at the palace that was held by court jesters in the olden time. The presence of some such individual in Achmet's court, even in the first quarter of the present ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... forced back against the planks. The guards then stood aside; but, Jim's arms being now bound behind him, resistance was useless and escape impossible. Rather, therefore, than engage in a useless and undignified struggle, he determined to put a bold face on the matter, and meet his fate like a man. Accordingly, he stood still, waiting ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... sighed, "and that's the worst of it. We came to find husbands—'live' husbands, and we only find—cabbages. The man-hunters. That's what we called ourselves. It sounded—uncommon, and so we used the expression." Suddenly she scrambled to her feet in undignified haste, and shook a small, clenched fist in her sister's direction. "Kate Seton," she cried, "you're a fraud. An unmitigated—fraud. Yes, you are. Don't glare at me. 'Live' men! Adventure! Poof! You're as tame as any village cat, and ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... right-hand man, Tom Staple, was called in to assist at the conference. Tom Staple was the Tutor of Lazarus, and moreover a great man at Oxford. Though universally known by a species of nomenclature as very undignified. Tom Staple was one who maintained a high dignity in the University. He was, as it were, the leader of the Oxford tutors, a body of men who consider themselves collectively as being by very little, if at all, second in ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... fond illusions in which he had hitherto indulged. Besides, most of the names were scrawled so illegibly, that some deceit was evidently intended. But instead of being recalled to his discretion by this warning, he gave vent to his injured pride in undignified complaints and reproaches. He assembled the generals the next day, and undertook personally to confirm the whole tenor of the agreement which Illo had submitted to them the day before. After pouring out the bitterest reproaches and abuse against the court, he reminded them of their ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... nothing to do but to put it on again. Before I had finished this operation Billali himself arrived with undignified and unusual haste. I asked him what was the matter, and he answered inconsequently that the Black One, the slayer of Rezu, was at ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... had come to me, buried and choked in thy strange house of flesh. I despised thee, I hated thee, thy stupid ways, thy dreadful greeds, thine unspeakable obstinacy and unwillingness; thou didst give me horrible sicknesses with thine unsavoury wants, thine undignified requirements. I thought thee foolish and now know myself to be more foolish than thee, for thou hardly knowest the heavenly love whereas I knew and left Him, seeking other loves. The Fall was not thy fault, poor human thing, but mine. ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was 'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary farce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to an Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of death,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and stern. The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy, faded as the ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... think business there, so when I'm putting through any big deal, I just slip away and come to this hotel for a few days. At home I'm an art lover, revelling in the treasures I have succeeded in collecting; here I am a vulgar business person, occupied in the undignified task of making money. Only last week, when I was home, I got thinking out a plan one night in the library for a merger with a road which is cutting pretty badly into our business. I had thought out a plan, the details were ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... of this century our more pretentious historians who really did pay some heed to facts and wrote books that—in addition to their mortal dulness—were quite accurate, felt it undignified and beneath them to notice the deeds of mere ignorant Indian fighters. They had lost all power of doing the best work; for they passed their lives in a circle of small literary men, who shrank from any departure ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... aware that he must have looked a fool, a coward, an ass, a contemptible and pitiful person, in the eyes of at least one girl, if not of two. He did not like this—no man would have liked it; and to Lionel the memory of an undignified act was acute torture. Why had he bidden the girls adieu and departed? Why had he, in fact, run away? What precisely would May Lawton think of him? How could he explain his conduct to her—and to himself? And had that worshipping, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... peculiar isn't much of a person. You see, I don't care for things which are already fixed for me. I like to do my own fixing. And I don't want to live in anybody else's home, not even yours, though you are dear to want me. I am grateful, but I prefer to live here. My present income would make an undignified affair of life among the friends of other days. I'd feel continually as if I were overboard and holding on to a slippery plank. Down here I'm independent. I have enough for my needs and something to give—. That's a good-looking hat you have on. Did ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... by standing on his head and kicking his legs about. Cleisthenes, who was apparently one of the "old school," and did not appreciate the manners and customs of young Athens, was much offended by this undignified performance of his would-be son-in-law, and when he at last saw him standing on his head, could no longer contain himself, but cried out, "Son of Tisander, thou hast danced away thy marriage." To which the other replied with characteristic ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... leave the room, in a tone which sounded to me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist—oh, I could have killed the creature with ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... A very undignified method of travel, he thought. Yet for all that, the scuttlebugs were light and efficient, and reduced transit time between outlying projects and the big wheel to a very reasonable time, compared to that which it would take for a man to jump the distance ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... down the two flights of stairs which led from the morning-room to the ground floor of the house. She had no idea of allowing herself to be hustled into any undignified haste either by rebels or troops engaged in suppressing the rebellion. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she stopped. Her attention was held by two different noises. The Sinn Feiners were battering the door of their prison with the butts of their rifles. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... jolly, good-tempered, old Olympian who lived in great terror of his wife, JUNO, and was sadly addicted to surreptitious beer, and undignified flirtations with the female servants. He was fond of disguising himself, and staying out late at night in search of adventures. It is difficult, however, to believe that he really disguised himself as a swan, in order to present his bill to LEDA. The story, doubtless, originated ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... was at the moment lying in a somewhat undignified position on the floor. Half sprawling, half resting on one knee, Robbie was surprised in the midst of an amusement of which the perky little body whom he claimed as his sweetheart had previously expressed her high disdain. This consisted of a hopeless endeavor to make a lame dog dance. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... undignified course through the Courts with a fortnight's interruption, because a youth named Shumacher refused to give his opinions on a certain subject to the Attorney-General, and was ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... and stirring news, my boy," cried Erling striding onward at such a pace that the carle with the fish was left behind, and Alric was compelled to adopt an undignified trot in order to keep up with his huge brother. "From this I see," continued Erling in a tone of deep seriousness, "that the long-looked-for time is at last approaching. This battle that must surely come will decide the fate of freemen. King Harald Haarfager must ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... his Lordship of Crandlemar and to a long life of free and easy celibacy." Now 'twas said Lord Cedric could drink more without becoming undignified than any other man of his company, but it seemed he gave himself to the spirit of the moment and had drunk deep. When the young blood upon the table offered the toast, Cedric sprung as if shot to the table, where he staggered and would have fallen, had it not been for the youth who bore him up. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... There are two or three poor societies; it is for them to look after these cases. What is the use of having poor societies, if we are to do the work ourselves? So low! so undignified! so degrading! just ask any minister,—ask ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... the small high-born ones, and hardly was the ceremony over when they caught sight of me, and, rushing toward me with cries of "Misi Walk siandra, lollies," they nearly knocked over some of their visitors, who no doubt were greatly scandalized at such undignified behaviour. ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... endowed artist is not ill fed—unhealthy diet of the mind entices him every where. If in the country, he is sparingly fed—sees little or nothing of Art, little perhaps beyond the Sign of an Inn—and is scarcely, from other sources of education, taught to look with the mind's eye, through the undignified appearance, to the actual dignity even of the nature he sees:—if he has lived in the city, the Print shops are inevitable lures to cheat him by little and little out of his natural taste, if there be one; for at first it can be but a mere germ. The works of greatness, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... fashionable avenues and cross-streets wore its midsummer aspect. Before entering his own home he obeyed an impulse to gallop by the Vosburgh residence. All was still quiet, and Marian, with surprise, saw him clattering past in a way that seemed reckless and undignified. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... long," having been the first to observe the impression the mignonne maid-of-honour had made on the King's susceptible fancy, had little hesitation in attaching to his diplomatic office the very undignified one of Sir Pandarus, and therefore with a brave defiance of decorum bent all his efforts to overcome the scruples, if any there might be, lingering in the mind of Louise with regard to transferring herself to the service of the Queen of England, poor Catherine ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... entering the adjoining room he heard the knocking repeated—this time at his own door; and hastening back to put an end to this somewhat undignified form of hide-and-seek, he discovered that this visitor at least was legitimately his, and was, in fact, no other than Professor ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... it. Judge Harvey would secure her money gladly; but if the previous Friday she could not accept his aid, then a thousand times less could she accept it now. To ask his aid would be to reveal, not alone her presence in America, but the series of undignified experiences which had involved her deeper and deeper. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... the department of housewifery, and she could make a castle in pastry far better than in tapestry; but where Queen Mary had a whole service of cooks and pantlers of her own, this accomplishment was uncalled for, and was in fact considered undignified. She had to sit still and learn all the embroidery stitches and lace-making arts brought by Mary from the Court of France, till her eyes grew weary, her heart faint, and her young limbs ached for the freedom of Bridgefield ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a squabble with the military. At the drawing-room on Thursday they refused to let his carriage pass through the Horse Guards, when he ordered his coachman to force his way through, which he did. He was quite wrong, and it was very unbecoming and undignified. Lord Londonderry called for an explanation in the House of Lords, when Brougham made a speech, and a very lame one. He said he ordered his coachman to go back, who did not hear him and went on, and when he had got through he thought it was not worth while to turn ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Militant. No doubt, a laudable aversion prevails, in this country, to the English practices of pugilism; yet it must be remembered that sparring is, by its very name, a "science of self-defence"; and if a gentleman wishes to know how to hold a rude antagonist at bay, in any emergency, and keep out of an undignified scuffle, the means are most easily afforded him by the art, which Pythagoras founded. Apart from this, boxing exercises every muscle in the body, and gives a wonderful quickness to eye and hand. These same remarks apply, though in a minor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... what he said to himself, but the fact was that he was afraid to face his sister, who was infinitely braver and cooler than he. Besides, he reflected that he could not now prevent her from going to the laboratory, since she was already there, and that it would be very undignified to make a scene before Zorzi, who was only a servant after all. This last consideration consoled him greatly. In the eyes of the law, and therefore in Giovanni's, Zorzi was a hired servant. Now, ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... comedy, or at most two, among the Sagas—the story of the Confederates (Bandamanna Saga) with an afterpiece, the short story of Alecap (Olkofra ttr). The composition of the Sagas, however, admits all sorts of comic passages and undignified characters, and it also quietly unravels many complications that seem to be working up for a tragic ending. The dissipation of the storm before it breaks is, indeed, so common an event that it almost becomes itself a convention of narrative in the Sagas, by opposition to the common devices ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... rise up promptly and remark, with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school book much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh! you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing! —Rock a-by Baby in the Tree-top, for instance. What a spectacle far an Army of the Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbors, too; for it is not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... usually goes before the woman, as he thinks it undignified to walk alongside. Nothing like social intercourse ever goes on between man and wife; and in their domestic experience they have no little pursuits in common, such as cheer and brighten ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... was seen coming round the corner, familiar furniture piled undignified on top, Tom, her brother, and Theresa, marching on foot beside the mass, proud of having walked ten miles or more, from the tram terminus. Ursula poured out beer, and the men drank thirstily, by the door. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... banked up around the horizon! I shivered as I looked at the sullen masses. The houses seemed little citadels against the sky. I had not taken fifty steps before my face stiffened into a sort of mask, so that it hurt me to move the facial muscles. I came home on an undignified run, experiencing a lively sense of the inadequacy of two hands to protect two ears and a nose. Did the Creator intend man ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... specimens of soil from a friend's estate. "I conducted these experiments with proper earnestness, and he paid me for them with becoming gravity. I now thank him kindly for the same (it would have been undignified to do so then) and sincerely hope that he has found my scientific research beneficial to his land." Then the gold contagion suddenly broke out and committed great ravages. "I caught it one rainy afternoon near the Exchange; my mother and sister instantly became affected, but my father, ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... poetry in general has none of the vulgarisms, which, in many cases, deface the popular ballads of the Teutonic nations. Yet dignity of style cannot be expected in any popular production. Those whose feelings, from want of acquaintance with the poetry of nature, are apt to be hurt by certain undignified expressions interspersed unconsciously sometimes in the most beautiful descriptions, will not escape unpleasant impressions in reading the Servian songs. The pictures are always fresh, tangible, and striking; but, although ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... cooked, but Mrs. Fisher had never cared for maccaroni, especially not this long, worm-shaped variety. She found it difficult to eat—slippery, wriggling off her fork, making her look, she felt, undignified when, having got it as she supposed into her mouth, ends of it yet hung out. Always, too, when she ate it she was reminded of Mr. Fisher. He had during their married life behaved very much like maccaroni. He had slipped, he had wriggled, he had made her feel undignified, and when ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Grimes was guilty of a most undignified wink. "Thomas ain't forgiven himself for not being here Monday night, miss; though it wouldn't a done him any good; he wouldn't a heard Mr. Turnbull climbing in or his arrest, away upstairs in the ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... brutal spectators, the policemen stationed among them to keep them in order, the lawyers with the plaintiff and defendant seated all at one table, the uncouth abruptness of the clerks and janitors, or whatever, the undignified magistrate, who looked as if his lunch had made him drowsy, and who seemed half asleep, as he slouched in his arm-chair behind his desk. Instead of such a setting as this, you must imagine a vast marble amphitheatre, larger than the Metropolitan Opera, by three or four times, all the gradines ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... he had not unfortunately, while looking round to enjoy the scenery, taken just one step more than there was any necessity for, and walked off the punt altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was left clinging to it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignified position for him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chum to "hurry up and see ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... ear was caught by a shrill scream and I turned and saw a very handsome young woman, beautifully dressed, dragging a cup and ball away from an angry little French boy. I supposed, of course, that she was his mother or his aunt, and only regretted that she should be so rough and undignified in her manner to him, but when his nurse rushed up and angrily questioned the young woman, who fought her off, still clinging to the toy, I realised that something was wrong, and went over to them. Hardly had I got there when a neat-looking ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... d'Enghien, who routed the Spanish and sent two hundred and sixty standards to the church of Notre Dame; but this glorious feat of arms brought neither food nor clothing to the poor, and the fierce internal strife, known as La Fronde, broke out. The very name was undignified, being derived from a kind of sling used by the urchins of the Paris streets. It was a mere series of brawls between Frondeurs and Mazarins, and brought much ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... seen Osterhaut quite so cheerful—and he had a bonny cheerfulness on occasion—as on this grisly October day when Nature was very sour and the spirit of the winds was in a "scratchy" mood. But Osterhaut was not more cheerful than Jowett who, in a very undignified way, described the state of his feelings, on receiving a certain confidence from Halliday, the lawyer, and Gabriel Druse, by turning a cart-wheel in the Mayor's office; which certainly was an unusual thing in a man of fifty years ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... publication of the largest contributors to the Republican and Democratic-Reform campaign fund—caused a great deal of public and private discussion. Large crowds cheered Hull when he, without doing the charges the honor of repeating them, denounced the "undignified and demagogic methods of our desperate opponents." The smaller Sawyer crowds applauded Sawyer when he waxed indignant over the attempts of those "socialists and anarchists, haters of this free country and spitters upon its glorious flag, to set poor against rich, to ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... while the batteries along the Narrows slipped into view. Farther on, camouflaged ships rode sullenly at anchor, as though ashamed of their frivolous and undignified appearance. A battleship was just leaving the Lower Bay, smoke pouring from every funnel. Destroyers and chasers ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers |
