"Mealy-mouthed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would work wonders. We critics are much to blame, and blamed, for not trying to force the entry of good sense. Some of our forebrothers never hesitated to talk bluntly about the physical unsuitability of players for their parts, but we have grown so mealy-mouthed that if Miss Florence Haydon were to play Rosalind or Mr Louis Calvert Romeo, we should merely use some obscure phrases about unsuitability of temperament instead of saying something usefully brutal about the folly of these admirable ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... mealy-mouthed little snip Lois could be, sometimes. You'd think to hear her that she was better than any of them, and luckier too, with her Joe and the kids. What a laugh! Joe was probably the only guy who'd ever looked at her, and she'd hooked him right out of school, and now ...
— The Very Secret Agent • Mari Wolf
... Englishmen of a certain order which has helped this country through many troubles. You are going to leave behind entirely the companionship of your class. You are going to cast in your lot with the riffraff of politics, the mealy-mouthed anarchist only biding his time, the blatant Bolshevist talking of compromise with his tongue in his cheek, the tub-thumper out to confiscate every one's wealth and start a public house. You won't know yourself in ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Peggy, "that she has set a fashion to give the rest of the girls a chance. I wouldn't be so mealy-mouthed about cutting them out. But Angelique has been ruined by waiting so much on her tante-gra'mere. When you bear an old woman's temper from dawn till dusk, you soon forget you're a girl ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "Well, what you so mealy-mouthed about? You ain't nigh so peart and hop-skippin' as you was when you started. Didn't you get a good welcome to the Mansion? Wasn't Madam to home? Don't squeeze that basket so tight. Eunice won't ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... try trover for a goose, and larceny for an old hat, to Nova Scotia, and you was sent for to take the ribbons o' the state coach here; hang me if it wouldn't. You know that, and feel your oats, too, as well as any one. So don't be so infarnal mealy-mouthed, with your mock modesty face, a turnin' up of the whites of your eyes as if you was a chokin', and savin' 'No Bun-kum, Mr. Slick.' Cuss that word Bunkum! I am sorry I ever told you that are story, you will be for everlastinly ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... motionless and unfeeling as a block. I placed myself under cover of an adjoining hedge, and watched him for the space of half an hour; but he pulled up nothing but his baited hook;—what his bait was, I know not; but I suppose, from the vicinity, he was fishing for a "miller's thumb." Presently, two mealy-mouthed men, from the mill, made their appearance, cautiously creeping ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o' them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' brumsaidge—everywhar ye seen his yaller head, ez homely ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... against these worshippers of golden calves! Remember thy spiritual ancestry. Forget not the prophet that came from Judah many a year ago. How he testified against that golden god, and how Jeroboam's arm was paralyzed when he would have had the prophet slain. Why are we so mealy-mouthed in denouncing these golden-idol men? Is not the worship of money the hidden nourisher of public sin? Could the gin-palace exist but for the worship of Mammon? Could those streets of bad houses in London and other large towns flaunt their shame, were it not for high rents? They pay well! As ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... man! I've only been to the offices in Conduit Street a few times," said Castlemayne. "The chap you see there is a fellow called Stipp—Mr. James Stipp. A nice, smooth-tongued, mealy-mouthed chap—you know. I say—d'ye think you'll be able to fasten anything on to Markham, or Chestermarke, or whatever his ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher |
