"Inappropriate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... William Gardiner, now venerable but surviving by true merit, is not unlike "Azmon" in movement and character. Though less closely associated with the hymn, as a companion melody it is not inappropriate. But whatever the range of vocalization or the dignity of swells and cadences, a slow pace of single semibreves or quarters is not suited to Wesley's hymns. They ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... like it, Peter?" faltered Lady Mary. "The roof was not safe, you know, and had to be mended, and—and when it was all done up, the furniture and curtains looked so dirty and ugly and inappropriate. I sent them away and brought down some of the beautiful old things that belonged to your great-grandmother, and made the ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... reason to the contrary, avoid the use of expressions that have been used so much that they are worn out and often almost meaningless. Such expressions as the following ones are not wrong, but are often used when they are both inappropriate and unnecessary. ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... Bagshaw and Crane came into the room and overheard my last remark, so I had to tell them the whole thing over again. Both of them laughed tremendously, but Crane, who was captain of the college cricket eleven, and President of the Mohocks, which was the inappropriate name of the St. Cuthbert's wine club, seemed to be more amused at the solemn way I told the story, while Bagshaw said he would have given anything to have seen the Subby rushing down-stairs. They laughed loudly, and as soon as I ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... got immediate hearing and sickening praise. The opera-houses of every city were given over, during the season, to Italian troupes. And if these did occasionally consent to perform some native work, it was always on an "off" night, with third-rate members of the company, in cast-off, inappropriate costumes, surrounded by worn-out scenery, and accompanied by the "ballet" orchestra—which contained about half ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... curious habits, which, unlike those just described, lives almost entirely among the branches of the trees. In shape it is somewhat like a weasel, and is the largest of the tree martens. It is known as the wood-shock or pekan, and is also called the black cat, and fisher. This last term is inappropriate, as it is not in any way piscivorous. It is of a dark brown hue, with a line of black shining hair reaching from the neck to the extremity of the tail. The under parts are lighter; some entirely white. It possesses also a very ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... happening now to humanity at this time of transition through which we are passing, from the pagan conception of life to the Christian. The socialized man of the present day is brought by experience of life itself to the necessity of abandoning the pagan conception of life, which is inappropriate to the present stage of humanity, and of submitting to the obligation of the Christian doctrines, the truths of which, however corrupt and misinterpreted, are still known to him, and alone offer him a solution of the ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... off being lanky and freckled. He saw it now, however; he would have been blind if he had not; and it set him vibrating with the throb of a new responsibility. Mrs. Pearce saw it too, and stared astonished at this oddly inappropriate niece. She stared still more when Fritzing, jumping up from his chair, bent over the hand Priscilla held out and kissed it with a devotion and respect wholly absent from the manner of Mrs. Pearce's own uncles. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... of the five farms appeared to me so inappropriate, selfish, and futile in presence of Aniela's tears that it made me quite angry ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... it seems to me more sorrowful than you perhaps feel it. People amuse me very much sometimes, too; but I have not your eye for their foibles. You draw them rather as Forain does; I should do it, I suspect, with more sentimentality. The fruit comes regularly once a week, and punctual thanks seem inappropriate for what has become an institution. But you know how grateful I am. And for the weekly Punch;—so gemuetlich and bien pensant and, often, very, very funny, with a funniness that the Continental papers never ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... have very inappropriate names, for instance another little gem is called "Hog Island." No one knows why it was so called. The clerk of the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... division of the civil law into two kinds seems not inappropriate, for it appears to have originated in the institutions of two states, namely Athens and Lacedaemon; it having been usual in the latter to commit to memory what was observed as law, while the Athenians observed only what they had made ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... The policy of his country occasioned many awkward moments which, thanks to his talent for amiable raillery, he usually succeeded in rendering harmless. Not infrequently Page's fellow guests at the dinner table would think the American attitude toward Germany a not inappropriate topic for small talk. "Mr. Page," remarked an exaltedly titled lady in a conversational pause, "when is your country going to get into the war?" The more discreet members of the company gasped, but Page was not disturbed. "Please give us at least ninety ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... in love with her. Round this bright young creature (Owen, at the foot of the table, and Morgan and I on either side) sat her three wrinkled, gray-headed, dingily-attired hosts, and just behind her, in still more inappropriate companionship, towered the spectral figure of the man in armor, which had so unaccountably attracted her on her arrival. This strange scene was lighted up by candles in high and heavy brass sconces. Before Jessie stood a mighty china punch-bowl of the olden time, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the knowledge of Jehovah as peace fits us for strife, that hastily-reared altar with its seemingly inappropriate name, may remind us that it is possible, in the midst of the deadliest hand-to-hand grip with evil, and whilst fighting the 'good fight of faith' with the most entire self-surrender to the divine will, to bear within us, deeper than all the surface strife, that inward ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... islands of the Indian Archipelago, and the barren and worn-out hills which line the southern part of the coast of China, that in the whole range of human language it would seem scarcely possible to find a more inappropriate term than the term 'Celestial' whereby to designate this great empire. Neither is this unfavorable opinion removed immediately on landing. The style of building is so inferior, the streets are so narrow and filthy, the ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... there were no dreams, or when the interpretation of them seemed inappropriate to the pharaoh, his holiness smiled and commanded kindly to act in this way or that in given cases. This command was law which no one might change except in the execution perhaps ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... latter function he commanded the Virginia troops during the Indian war of 1675, and when his great-grandson, George, on his first arrival on the frontier, was called by the Indians "Conotocarius," or "devourer of villages," the formidable but inappropriate title for the newly-fledged officer is supposed to have been due to the reputation that John Washington had won for his name among the Indians eighty ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... couldn't be a soldier. I had the finest collection of tin soldiers you can imagine. A pairfect army. Mother used to stint herself to buy them for me.... Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" He felt her tremble again. "Well, we've come to the end of George the Fourth Bridge. Is it not awful inappropriate to call a street after George the Fourth when ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... mining, is a more expensive and complicated process, requiring much skill and capital. First, let me explain what a lode really is. The American term is "ledge," and it is not inappropriate or inexpressive. Imagine then a ledge, or kerbstone, continuing to unknown depths in the earth at any angle varying from perpendicular to nearly horizontal. This kerbstone is totally distinct from the rocks which enclose it; those on one side may be slate, on the other, sandstone; ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... not finish. Considering all that you have in your well-furnished brain beside your accumulated papers, half the contents of which you do not yourself know, your expression "aufraumen,"—to put in final order, is singularly inappropriate. There will always remain some burdensome residue,—last things not yet accounted for. I beg you, then, not to abuse your strength. Be content to finish only what seems to you nearest completion,—the most advanced ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... the scene altogether inappropriate to the occasion. The frigate, pausing in her rapid flight, swayed slowly and majestically upon the bosom of the surges which would soon receive the bodies of her dead heroes, and hung, as if in sentient grief, over the spot which was to be their tomb. Her graceful ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... retired to the Grey Sisters, such scenes being inappropriate to her mourning, and besides her apartments being needed for the influx of guests. There, in early morning, before the revels began, Grisell ventured to ask for an audience, and was permitted to follow the Duchess when she returned from mass to ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the little preposition to. When inquiring the whereabouts of an individual, Devonians ask one another, "Where is he to?" The invariable reply is, "To London," "To Plymouth," &c., as the case may be. The Cheshire clowns, on the other hand, murder the word at, in just the same strange and inappropriate manner. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... going round it, you must turn back when you come to the end. Boz must have been thinking of the Circus. Hardly—for he knew both well—and Circus and Crescent are things not to be confused. The phrase was a little loose, but, as the Circus was curved "round," is not inappropriate, and he meant that Winkle turned when he got to ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... that marred the impression which his delicate regular little features would otherwise have conveyed. Indeed, I do not think he was quite of equal rank with the rest of the company, for his dress was inappropriate to the occasion (and he apparently was an invited, while I was an involuntary guest); and one or two of his gestures and actions were more like the tricks of an uneducated rustic than anything else. To explain what I mean: his boots had evidently ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... allowed to remain together for about twenty-four hours prior to distillation. The reason for moistening the cake is well understood to the practical chemist, and although we are not treating the subject of perfumery in a chemical sense, but only in a practical way, it may not be inappropriate here to observe, that the essential oil of almonds does not exist ready formed to any extent in the nut, but that it is produced by a species of fermentation, from the amygdalin and emulsine contained in the almonds, together ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... always stormy. We think it necessary to make this latter observation because the succession of short-lived gales and squalls which have been prominently and unavoidably brought forward in our tale might lead the reader to deem the name of this ocean inappropriate. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... creed, Browning deprecated nothing more entirely (to use a mild term where a stronger would not be inappropriate) than that the poet should reveal his personal feeling in his poem; and to the dramatic character of his own work he held tenaciously. He rebuked the idea that Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" to his readers, and he warns them off from the use of any fancied latch-key ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... conversation now led the young Indian to infer that interruption might not be inappropriate, so he turned round the corner of rock that hid the interior from view, and led his party in front of the captives. They were seated on the ground with their backs against the wall, and their ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... between Leif Ericsson and Agamemnon, made by a committee of the Massachusetts Historical Society, was peculiarly unfortunate and inappropriate 194, 197 ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Cradle, late 19th century. USNM 213356; 1958. A form of scythe used for harvesting grain before the reaper came into use, or used in places where the reaper proved uneconomical or technologically inappropriate, as rough or hilly land. This specimen has four wooden fingers, or tines, that are 45 inches long and spaced 7 inches apart. The blade is 2 inches wide and as long as the fingers. Gift of New York ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... "It's mighty inappropriate, because we're fond of each other," said Joe, "but when I picked him up he was so yellow, and so thin, and so creeping, and so scared ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... extremely pretty when left to its own proper Cabul pattern or other native design—aims too often at attracting the eye of the mighty hunter by introducing an inappropriate markhor's head. The old lacquer-work is difficult to get, and, when obtained, is high in price; but comparison between the old and the new shows the gulf that lies between the loving and skilful labour of the artist and the stupid and generally "scamped" achievement ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... not suit the Baconians, or Mr. Greenwood, to find contemporary recognition of Will as an author. {0i} Consequently, Mr. Greenwood finds Davies's "curious, and at first sight, inappropriate comparison of 'Shake-speare' to Terence worthy of remark, for Terence is the very author whose name is alleged to have been used as a mask-name, or nom de plume, for the writings of great men who wished to keep the fact of their ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... customary grace, Agnes returned the Captain's and Mr. Clifford's respectful greeting, and resumed again her embroidery, disclaiming, however, as she did so, the epithet of dreary, as being quite inappropriate, in her estimation, to the place which had afforded ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor. ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... more than vaguely mapped out a plan of proceeding before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon found my way into the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which the queer name seemed not inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an ugly big box of a building, with rooms advertised to let, as I could see by the light of a street lamp across the way, which gleamed bleakly on the lines of shut windows ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... would the saying fit into the facts of the case if we gave it that low meaning, for no person had his residence in the temple. And what follows in the next verse would, on that hypothesis, be entirely inappropriate. 'In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me.' No one went into the secret place of the Most High, in the visible, material structure, except the high priest once a year. But this singer expects that his abode will be there always; and that, in the time ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... said is deemed not inappropriate at a time when, from a century's height, we view the way already trod by the American people and attempt to discover their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... of Sedekiah; 11, 12 are a warning to the royal house of unknown date, and 13, 14 a sentence upon a certain stronghold, which in this connection ought to be Jerusalem, but cannot be because of the epithets Inhabitress of the Vale and Rock of the Plain, that are quite inappropriate to Jerusalem. This is another proof of how the editors of the Book have swept into it a number of separate Oracles, whether relevant to each other or not, and whether Jeremiah's own or ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... and breathless, wrapped in her rusty black shawl, with her shadow flitting far out over the level bog amid the slanted beams, she looked a not inappropriate messenger of woe, symbolically impotent and insignificant; a little dark speck in the wide westering light; a feeble stir of life creeping on the verge of a vast silent solitude; and full, withal, of baseless fears and futile plots, concerning the ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... first Fan was naturally stared at, a little rudely at times, and addressed in that profoundly respectful manner the poor sometimes use to uninvited visitors of a class higher than themselves, in which the words border on servility while the tone suggests resentment. How inappropriate and even unnatural this seemed to her! For these were her own people—the very poor, and all the privations and sufferings peculiar to their condition were known to her, and she had not outgrown her sympathy with them. Only she could not tell them that, and it would ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... undertone, made it clear that it was so, but not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural forces are not quarrelsome. You can't quarrel with the wind that inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street full of people. He had no ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... the furniture should correspond with the size of the room, with a due regard to the place a piece of furniture or ornament will occupy. The order of arrangement in furnishing is subject to individual taste, but the following suggestions may not be inappropriate:— ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... truth carries his star in his brain. Even so bold a thought is no inappropriate motto for an intellectual workman, if his heart be filled with loyalty to God, the Author of truth and the Maker of stars. In this double spirit of independence and submission it has been my desire to perform the arduous task now finished and offered to the charitable ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... were calculated to render him restless and quite willing to seek a home in the Western wilderness. Customs and fashions were changing. The Scotch traders, to whom we have referred in the last chapter, and others of the same class were introducing an ostentatious and expensive style of living, quite inappropriate to the rural population of the colony. In dress and equipage, they far surpassed the farmers and planters; and they were not backward in taking upon themselves airs of superiority on this account. In this they were ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... conspicuous urn design, that finally disillusioned him. I had just returned from putting it back in the chest for the third time when he missed it; and he announced the discovery with a profusion of perfectly unnecessary and highly inappropriate adjectives. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... reasonable reader could possibly attach a scriptural reference to a passage in a book of mine, reproducing a much abused social figure of speech, impressed into all sorts of service on all sorts of inappropriate occasions, without the faintest connexion of it with its original source. I am truly shocked to find that any reader can make ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... strange place for a bridegroom to perform his toilet in, but, considering the unconventional nature of the marriage, a not inappropriate one. What events had been enacted in that earthen camp since it was first thrown up, nobody could say; but the primitive simplicity of the young man's preparations accorded well with the prehistoric spot on which they ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the goose? Well, perhaps it was not precisely what the emperor expected. But it was all that I had, and it seemed to me not inappropriate. You will agree to that if you are a Christian, as I guess from ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... viii., p. 335.).—An occasional contributor wishes the Editor to note down this Query. What could have led your correspondent J. G. FITCH to use so peculiarly inappropriate a synonym for Martin Luther as "the great Iconoclast?" Has he any historical evidence for Luther's breaking ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... Scottish prelate [Archibald Quhitlaw.—"Faciem tuam summo imperio principatu dignam inspicit, quam moralis et heroica, virtus illustrat," etc.—We need scarcely observe that even a Scotchman would not have risked a public compliment to Richard's face, if so inappropriate as to seem a sarcasm, especially as the orator immediately proceeds to notice the shortness of Richard's stature,—a comment not likely to have been peculiarly acceptable in the Rous Roll, the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to which this response would be inappropriate he often went to the extent of observing, "I dare say!" seemingly ventured after careful consideration of the chances for and against the ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... the maharaja is a noble building, but very ornate, and is furnished with the most tawdry and inappropriate French hangings and furniture. It is a pity that His Highness did not allow his own taste to prevail, and use nothing but native furniture and fabrics. His garden is lovely, being laid out in the highest style ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... of boastful and vaunting Israel! This conspicuous tree, nigh one of the frequented paths of Olivet, was no inappropriate type, surely, of that nation which stood illustrious amid the world's kingdoms—exalted to heaven with unexampled privileges which it abused—proudly claiming a righteousness which, when weighed in the balances, was found utterly wanting. ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... summer-house. The bench was narrow, hard, and broken; and there were some snails which discomposed her;—but, nevertheless, she would make the best of it. Her darling "Queen Mab" must be read without the coarse, inappropriate, every-day surroundings of a drawing-room; and it was now manifest to her that, unless she could get up much earlier in the morning, or come out to her reading after sunset, the knob of rock ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... a thousand pardons. I have fallen insensibly into my Sunday-school style. Most inappropriate in such a record as this. Let me try to be worldly—let me say that trifles, in this case as in many others, led to terrible results. Merely premising that the polite stranger was Mr. Luker, of Lambeth, we will now follow Mr. Godfrey home to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... undulations, with pasture and woodland, with long winding roads, and many a farm that gleamed white amid its orchard leafage, led the gaze into regions of evanescent hue and outline. Westward, a bolder swell pointed to the skirts of Dartmoor. No inappropriate detail disturbed the impression. Exeter was wholly hidden behind the hill on which the observers stood, and the line of railway leading thither could only be descried by special search. A foaming weir at the hill's foot blended its soft murmur with that of the fir branches hereabouts; else, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... visitor to Atlanta would know her, at least by sight, rose to his lips, but he suppressed it as decidedly inappropriate to ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Barton, who thought that a little familiarity would not be inappropriate, 'I've asked you to meet me so that we might come to some agreement about the rents. We've known each other a long time, and my family has been on this estate I don't know for how many generations. Therefore—why, of course, I should be very sorry if we had any falling out. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... building? They do not support anything (the “business” of columns in architecture) except some rather feeble statuary, and do seriously block the entrance. Were they added with the idea of fitness? That can hardly be, for a portico is as inappropriate to such a building as it would be to a parlor car, and ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... higher reaches of the Gregory, they found the country of a more arid nature. They ascended the main range, and on the 21st of December, Landsborough found an inland river flowing south, which he named the Herbert. The Queensland authorities subsequently re-christened the stream with the singularly inappropriate name of Georgina. In this river two fine sheets of water were found, and called Lake Frances and Lake Mary. An ineffectual attempt was then made to go westward, but lack of water compelled ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... climate and surroundings seemed singularly inappropriate; dust could not be transformed, even in imagination, into snow, nor heat into frost, any more easily than we could turn dried apples into roast beef and plum-pudding. Excellent food as dried fruit is, yet it is apt to become monotonous when it ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... it may not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion for me to dwell for a moment on the memory of the most eminent citizen of our country who during the summer that is gone by has descended to the tomb. The enjoyment of contemplating, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... rightly, whether in secret or in the sight of men. That boy was well trained who, when asked why he did not pocket some pears, for nobody was there to see, replied, "Yes, there was: I was there to see myself; and I don't intend ever to see myself do a dishonest thing."—This is a simple but not inappropriate illustration of principle, or conscience, dominating in the character, and exercising a noble protectorate over it; not merely a passive influence, but an active power regulating the life. Such ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... said the coroner, looking hesitatingly up at Sam, with an expression which showed he was quite prepared to withdraw his proposal if it should prove inappropriate, "I think we might have the lawyer over here. He knows how these things should be done, and he's the only man in Salt Lick that's got a Bible to swear the jury on. I think they ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... "the true Church" were regarded as identical conceptions. In this way the concept "Catholic" became a pregnant one, and finally received a dogmatic and political content. As this result actually took place, it is not inappropriate to speak of pre-Catholic and ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... where Brutus stimulates Cassius to the conspiracy, drawn, as if involuntarily, half out of the sheath.) This does in no way agree with our way of thinking: we are not content without the toga. The present, perhaps, is not an inappropriate place for a few general observations on costume, considered with reference to art. It has never been more accurately observed than in the present day; art has become a slop-shop for pedantic antiquities. This is because we live in a learned and critical, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Princhester. It came to him that if archbishops were rolled into patriarchs and patriarchs into archbishops, it would matter scarcely more in the world process that was afoot than if two men shook hands while their house was afire. At times all of us have inappropriate thoughts. The unfortunate thought that struck the bishop as a bullet might strike a man in an exposed trench, as he was hurrying through the cloisters to a special service and address upon that doubly glorious day in our English history, the day of St. Crispin, was ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... wholesome vitality of earth. The objection that carpenters and joiners, who assume the Heraklean task of purging the earth of monsters, must be prepared to undergo a period of confinement at the pleasure of the Czar in a Criminal Lunatic Asylum is highly sensible, and wholly inappropriate, belonging, as it does, to a plane of thought and feeling other than that in which the poem moves. But perhaps it is not a defect of feeling to fail in admiration of that admired final tableau in which the formidable carpenter is discovered building a toy Kremlin ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... who would fail stick to one bad sort of writing; either to the newspaper commonplace, or to the out of the way and inappropriate epithets, or to the common word with a twist on it. But there are examples of the combined method, as when we call the trees round a man's house his "domestic boscage." This combination is difficult, but perfect for its purpose. You cannot write ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... occasionally the sound of the drum or the bugle, fit accompaniment for such surroundings. At the foot of the belfry was an antique building in another style, with a small open colonnade, which, though out of harmony, was still not inappropriate. The only thing jarring was a pretentious modern town-hall, in the style of one of our own vestry buildings, 'erected out of the rates,' and which must have cost a huge sum. It was of a genteel Italian aspect, so it is plain that French local administrators ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... our best streets. This is what is done in painting and other arts, and why not in architecture? Particular situations require particular treatments. A front that would appear well on a narrow street, would be inappropriate on a broad avenue or a square. A corner, or the head of a street, are most responsible situations. A tall marble front, placed in a modest row of freestone, is hideous, and yet the unrelieved monotony of many such rows is quite as bad. A dome, unless at the top of a street or on ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... creature like man, who has the same tastes, who eats the enormous buds of the cabbage, the cauliflower, and the brussels sprouts, or the more tender buds which he calls heads of lettuce, it seems particularly inappropriate that he should throw stones at this little creature whose tastes are so similar to ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... own, and forming thereby the most powerful antagonistic principle to war that the earth has ever known." [Bradshaw's Almanack, 1849.] Again, what says the Quarterly: "We trust our readers of all politics will cordially join with us in a desire, not inappropriate at the commencement of a new year, that the wonderful discovery which it has pleased the Almighty to impart to us, instead of becoming amongst us a subject of angry dispute, may in every region of the globe bring the human family into friendly communication; that ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... the World is Waking Up" is not inappropriate therefore as the title of the book now offered to the public. The reader will kindly observe here that I have written of where half the world is waking up and not merely of the waking-up itself. My purpose has been to set forth the old and the new in ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... thermometer in her hand-bag. She had it by her and rose to put it under his tongue. He struck it from her, and she stared at him. He stood quivering like an overdriven horse. He called her a name highly proper in a kennel club, but inappropriate to the boudoir. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... was quoted to me by my friend the Rev. Dr. Badger when he heard that I was translating "The Nights": needless to say that it is utterly inappropriate. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... It may not be inappropriate to mention here, in reference to the minuteness attainable by paper negatives, that a railway notice of six lines is perfectly legible, and even the erasure for a new secretary's name is discernible in the accompanying specimen, which was obtained with one of Ross's landscape lenses, without ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... disposition, or else commit murder and get hanged for it. It is far better that they should be hanged, because nobody knows where violence ends and insanity begins, and it is just as well to be on the safe side. Whenever a given form of intellect happens to be joined to a totally inappropriate temperament, we say it is a case of idiocy or insanity. Of course there are many other cases which arise from the mind or the body being injured by extraneous causes; but they are not genuine cases of insanity, because the evil has not been transmitted from the parents, nor will ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... to about eighty. I find it difficult to obtain statistical data as to the comparative number of copies of different works existing in manuscript. With Dante's great Poem, of which there are reckoned close upon 500 MSS.,[1] comparison would be inappropriate. But of the Travels of Friar Odoric, a poor work indeed beside Marco Polo's, I reckoned thirty-nine MSS., and could now add at least three more to the list. [I described seventy-three in my edition of Odoric.—H. C.] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... it sufficiently for remembrance. Yet it remained my act. On one or two occasions, after shoving in the key in my usual unconscious fashion, I heard voices in the room and knew that it would be inappropriate to enter. Instantly I stopped and checked the remainder of the train. Habitual though the series of actions was, and ordinarily executed without conscious guidance, it as a whole was aimed at a definite end. If this were ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... policy[131]" was the appointment as agents to Europe of Yancey, Rost and Mann, all of them extreme pro-slavery men and eager secessionists. Of these Mann was the only one with any previous diplomatic experience. Yancey's choice was particularly inappropriate, for he at least was known abroad as the extreme fire-eating Southern orator, demanding for ten years past, that Southern action in defence of states rights and Southern "interests," which now, at last, the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... the most noteworthy part of this room, or "cabin," was the space between the two windows immediately over the chimney-piece, which the eccentric old woman had covered with a large, and, in some cases, inappropriate assortment of objects, by way of ornament, each article being cleaned and polished to the highest possible condition of which it was susceptible. A group of five photographs of children—three girls and two boys, looking amazed— formed the centrepiece of the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to quote fifty pages, for on re- reading them I find they are not only full of Cabinet secrets but jerky, disjointed and dangerously frank.] and here, in the interests of my publishers and at the risk of being thought egotistical, it is not inappropriate that I should publish the following letters in connection with ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Roger's health. I did not expect it, and I never was so nearly betrayed into feeling fond of father in my life. They all drink it, each wishing him something good. As for me, I have been a fool always, and I am a fool now. I can wish him nothing, my voice is choked and my eyes drowned in inappropriate tears; only, from the depths of my heart, I ask God to give him every thing that He has of choicest and best. For a moment or two, the wax-lights, the purple grapes, the gleaming glass and shining silver, the kindly, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... questions from his mother answered, he turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say child I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term—a term suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a good-sized doll—perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy work-box of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... by, however, with averted eyes and a discountenanced expression, feeling, I am sure, that I had put her up to it. Mother thought it quite amusing, and enjoyed my discomfiture hugely. Then for no particular reason she began to garnish her conversation with inappropriate seagoing expressions, such as "Pipe down," "Hit the deck," "Avast," and "Hello, Buddy!" Where she ever picked up all this nonsense I am at a loss to discover, but she continued to pull it to ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... Dolly looked nervously round, fearing that she had been inappropriate. Paul continued to scratch ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... Natural Law to the Social World? Will it be charged that the splendid achievements of such thinkers are hybrids between things which Nature has meant to remain apart? Nature usually solves such problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism is checked by the Law of Sterility. Judged by this great Law these modern developments of our knowledge stand uncondemned. Within their own sphere the results of Mr. Herbert Spencer are far from sterile—the application ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... interior, the finest part of the church, reminds one irresistibly of a good puzzle badly put together. The weak tower is a sufficient excuse for the absence of the other; from the tower the roof slopes sharply and unreasonably, and the rose-window is perched, with inappropriate jauntiness, to the left of the main portal. The whole structure is not so much the vagary of an architect as the sport of Fate, the self-evident survival of two unfitting facades. Walking through narrow streets, one comes upon the apse as upon another church, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... had nevertheless been an unusual number of hours without food. He had made during the period no inconsiderable exertion, and was still some distance from the city. Though he resigned himself perforce to the care of his little attendants, their solicitude therefore was not inappropriate. He partook of some of their dishes, and when he had at length succeeded in conveying to them his resolution to taste no more, they cleared the kiosk with as marvellous a celerity as they had stored it, and then two ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... the imagination than the study of the "dealers" themselves? The gentlemen who preside at art exhibitions fall, rather violently, into three, perhaps four, classes. You have, I dare say, been repeatedly struck by the quaintly inappropriate character in appearance of those of one of these classes. I mean, of course, those very horsey-looking men, with decidedly "hard" faces, loudly dressed, and dowered with hoarse voices. They would seem to be bookmakers, exceedingly prosperous publicans, bunco-brokers, militant ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... pleasing manner in the recitation room. In the happy adjustment of Professor Young's powers one could but observe a union of quick perception with almost perfect self-control. Whatever the deficiencies of the student, a hasty or unguarded or inappropriate or even an unscientific word was seldom found in Professor Young's vocabulary. His ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... degree of accuracy. The southern half of the village of Ercildoun came next in the track of the storm-cloud. As this is the only village over which the tornado traveled, a brief description would not be inappropriate. ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... that there was an organized body of murderers and thieves under Mowbray called the Gray Wolves was not inappropriate. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his religious friends armed with the decent and reputable gingham. May it not be said of the bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets "with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reproduce the cat-pile, full page. And save the photo for me in as good condition as possible. When Susy and Clara were little tots those cats had their profoundest worship, and there is no duplicate of this picture. These cats all had thundering names, or inappropriate ones—furnished by the children with my help. One was named ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... any thing more inappropriate than that he should be named "Wing," for no creature could be farther from any thing light or airy. One reason, I think, why he seems so different from any of his countrymen that we have seen, is because he has never lived ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... this place is intended as a separate residence (for the imperial consort), on her visit to her parents, it is likewise imperative that we should comply with all the principles of etiquette, so that were words of this kind to be used, they would besides be coarse and inappropriate; and may it please you to fix upon something else ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... shift their load according to the motions of the crew and their masses of equipment that were constantly being shifted during installation. For already the observatory was hard at work, and its time must not be stolen by inappropriate wobbles of ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... If he says a thing in one way, and while he is doing it thinks of a more telling form of expression, he doesn't erase the first statement; he merely says it over again more effectively. He is full of lapses and inappropriate passages—and it is that very thing which gives him ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... blushing intensely, have their mental powers confused. This is recognized in such common expressions as "she was covered with confusion." Persons in this condition lose their presence of mind, and utter singularly inappropriate remarks. They are often much distressed, stammer, and make awkward movements or strange grimaces. In certain cases involuntary twitchings of some of the facial muscles may be observed. I have been informed by ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... sometimes, again, so enthralled them. They would say sometimes that their minister was more than a mere man; that he was a prophet and a seer, and that his Master seemed sometimes to stand and speak again in His servant. And 'seer' was not at all an inappropriate name for their minister, so far as I can collect out of some remains of his that I have seen and some testimonies that I have heard. There was something awful and overawing, something seer-like and supernatural, in the pulpit of Mansoul. Sometimes the iron chains in which the preacher ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... Thomas concluded, the services were not required to go further than had been their custom, and until Vandegrift decided on segregation or integration, setting quotas for the different branches in the corps was inappropriate. Thomas himself recommended that segregated units be adopted and that a quota be devised only after each branch of the corps reported how many Negroes it could use in segregated units.[6-57] Vandegrift approved Thomas's recommendation for segregated black units, and ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... have told, in the short time at my disposal, the characteristics of the Filipinas Islands, and their customs and practices, it will not be inappropriate to discuss the navigation to them since it is made thither from Nueva Espana; the return voyage, which is not short, or without great dangers and hardships; and that made ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... note on Mrs. Davenport, who was deceived by a pretended marriage with the Earl of Oxford, see ante. Lord Oxford's first wife died in 1659. He married, in 1672, his second wife, Diana Kirke, of whom nothing more need be said than that she bore an inappropriate Christian name.] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... require or to justify on my part any general expression of political opinions or any announcement of the principles which would govern me in the discharge of the duties to the performance of which I had been so unexpectedly called. I trust, therefore, that it may not be deemed inappropriate if I avail myself of this opportunity of the reassembling of Congress to make known my sentiments in a general manner in regard to the policy which ought to be pursued by the Government both in its intercourse ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson |
