"Undutiful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "that is the matter in a nutshell, and everyone must see that I am perfectly reasonable and within my rights. Now, my dear, you talk to him; he thinks a great deal of your opinion. Just tell him plainly that if he persists in his folly, he is ruining his life, and behaving in a very wrong, undutiful manner to his mother and to me. Talk to him plainly; don't ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... she's throwing herself at his head; it's perfectly awful to think of it. She has forgotten all about her old father. I'll be a beggar in my old age; the Firs will have to go; I'll be ruined, undone. Oh, was there ever such an undutiful daughter? I must go to her. I must hobble up to that distant spot as quickly as possible; perhaps when she sees me she may pause before she irrevocably commits so wicked an act. Oh, how lame I am! what agonies I'm ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... boys in many respects. Smoking often leads to boys into bad company. Smoking often makes them precocious, undutiful, impudent and callous. Smoking often ruins the health. Smoking generally stunts their growth. Smoking generally sallows their complexion. Smoking often leads them to lying. Smoking often leads them ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... those who are set under him. To turn his whole mind and soul to doing, not just what he fancies, but to what must be done, because it is his duty. This is the character which makes a good soldier, and a good Christian likewise. If we be undisciplined and undutiful, and unruly; if we be fanciful, self- willed, disobedient; then we shall not understand Christ, or Christ's rule on earth and in heaven. If there be no order within us, we shall not see his divine and wonderful order all around us. If there be no discipline and ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... undutiful to trouble you with a recurrence of it, until such a period had been suffered to elapse, as would suffice to afford, by the effects it should itself produce, some fair criterion and presumption of the inclination which my mind was likely to adopt in reference to the final ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... honours of the state, and yet to leave unrepealed the Act which made it death to attend a Presbyterian conventicle. The answer of the board was, therefore, less obsequious than usual. The King in reply sharply reprimanded his undutiful Councillors, and ordered three of them, the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George Lockhart, and General Drummond, to attend him at Westminster. Hamilton's abilities and knowledge, though by no means such as would have sufficed to raise an obscure ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... means that she may give or leave it to the children in unequal proportion—a shilling to one and all the rest of the property to another—just as they may deserve to be treated. When any of the children are undutiful and likely to give the widow trouble, this placing her in his own position gives her the needed power over the unruly. Should a man die intestate, the widow is entitled to a third of his property, and the remainder goes to ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... anon, sir.—Lucy, on her part, angelic creature, professed that she could not dream of being undutiful towards kind old Pa; and that, unless desperate measures were resorted to, quamprimum, in the twinkling of a bed-post she would be under the disagreeable necessity to bundle and go with the disabled man of war to the temple of Hymen. Sacrilegious thought! I could not permit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... smokes still; Dolly owes money still. And though his venerable father, Rear-admiral Sir Ajax Trotter, K.C.B., has paid his debts many times, and swears if he ever hears of Dolly betting again, he will disinherit his son, Dolly—the undutiful Dolly—goes on betting still. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... till four years after her birth, and no other child followed me. Caroline, from her earliest days, was the perfection of beauty and health. I was small, weakly, and, if the truth must be told, almost as plain-featured as Uncle George himself. It would be ungracious and undutiful in me to presume to decide whether there was any foundation or not for the dislike that my father's family always felt for my mother. All I can venture to say is, that her children never had any cause ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... either to her undutiful son or to Sidonia, about what she had heard; only when the latter asked her what the nun came there for, she answered coldly, "For a Popish priest." Hereupon the young Prince was filled with joy, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... it as their decided opinion that the business could not be legally proceeded with, under the letter W., and in all probability it would have stood over for one day at least, had it not been for the prompt, though, at first sight, undutiful behaviour of Sam, who, seizing his father by the skirt of the coat, dragged him to the counter, and pinned him there, until he had affixed his signature to a couple of instruments; which, from Mr. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... would to Heaven I was near that glowing eloquence—that poetical language—it charms the mind in an inexpressible manner, and warms the coldest heart." While consoling herself with this strain, her father rushed into her room almost frantic with rage, exclaiming: "Oh, Ambulinia! Ambulinia!! undutiful, ungrateful daughter! What does this mean? Why does this letter bear such heart-rending intelligence? Will you quit a father's house with this debased wretch, without a place to lay his distracted head; going up ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... regard for duty, as we have pointed out, is exercised in maintaining public peace and tranquillity. These could not be preserved if every man were to live as he pleased. Therefore it is no less than undutiful for a man to act contrary to his country's laws, for if the practice became universal the ruin ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... and a wanton spendthrift," so he writes, "and the people undutiful and devoted to their own advantage, there tumults break out. But this also does not happen without that Divine Providence, which has numbered all the hairs of our heads, and by which the wantonness of the tyrant and the recklessness of the people are alike controlled. A seditious ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... half-privileged freebooters - I shall be reasonably safe from molestation. It is a common thing in Constantinople when two men are quarrelling for one to threaten to give a Circassian a couple of medjedis to kill the other. The Circassian is to Turkey what the mythical "bogie" is to England; mothers threaten undutiful daughters, fathers unruly sons, and everybody their enemies generally, with the Circassian, who, however, unlike the "bogie" of the English household, is a real material presence, popularly understood to be ready for any devilment a person may hire ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... am just come out of court, and I am to wait at the inn, for Aunt Ailie does not like for me to hear the trial, but she says I may write to you to pass away the time. I am sorry I left my letter out to go this morning, for Aunt Ailie says it is very undutiful to say anything about the sheep's wool in Russia smelling of tobacco. Conrade says it is all smoking, and that every one does it who has seen the world. Papa never stops smoking but when he is with Aunt Ermine, he sat on the box and did it all the way to ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Very undutiful, indeed, ma'am; she might have been a duchess before this:—a very foolish girl, indeed, ma'am," ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... miracle, with the moral purpose of all the world, of which we are a part, that removes all difficulty in believing it. Science, as such, cannot admit a miracle, and can only say, 'Here is a puzzle yet unsolved.' Nor can the most religious scientific man be blamed as undutiful to religion if he persists in endeavouring to solve the puzzle. But he has no right to insist beforehand that the puzzle is certainly soluble; for that he cannot know, and the evidence is ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... small commission. I forgot to do it. In his eyes the fault for a moment assumed the form of wilful disobedience. That moment was enough—he was roused—the paroxysm prevailed—and I was beaten like a dog. An hour afterwards he was persuaded that his child was not undutiful. His reason had returned to him, and, with it a load of miserable remorse. He offered me, with a tremulous hand, the bauble, which I accepted; and, as I took it, I saw a weight of sorrow tumble from his unhappy breast. This ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no manners—an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how to behave herself in the presence ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... Archbishop of Bordeaux to carry his signet ring, and assure his son of his pardon. He found the unhappy young man in the agonies of death, lying on a bed of ashes, accusing himself of having been a "wicked, undutiful son, and bitterly disappointed at not seeing his father, to receive the blessing he had once cast from him, and which in vain he now sought earnestly and with tears." He died, fervently pressing the ring to his ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the laws of God and man? Against the rules of reason and justice, by which all men ought to be governed? Is not this the only way in the world to make children become undutiful? and to bring the grey head of the parent to the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... about her grandmother (I, ii, 140) and to Caliban inconsistent with the maidenly innocence assumed to be characteristic of her? Do you consider her talk with Ferdinand (III, i) in character? Is she undutiful to her father? Unmaidenly in her speedy declaration of love (III, i, 67, 89, 94-106, 110)? Should she be represented as ignorant or innocent of the world, or as in love? Describe the characters and ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... not have been listening, sir, attentively," retorted Sir James. "I look upon it as disobedient and undutiful ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... for patriots. Bah! Damn patriots! The upper classes are out for all they can get, and they befool the poor imbecile working man with all their highfalutin phrases to get it for them at the cost of his blood. I've no use for them, I tell you. And I've no use either for undutiful daughters. I've no use for young women who blow hot and cold. Haven't I seen you with the fellow? Do you think I'm a blind dodderer? Do you think I haven't kept an eye on you? Haven't I seen you blowing as hot as you please? And now because he refuses to be a blinking idiot and have his guts blown ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... she got home, was there any comfort there for the daughter who had been so undutiful as to depart from her mother's precepts, and conceal from her not only her unfortunate connection with a villain, but the condition into which that connection had brought her. But she was at least saved from the pain of a part of the confession, for her mother had learned enough from Miss ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the army; he headed riots; and he was finally detected in a plan for actually assassinating his father. Severus, when he discovered this last enormity of wickedness, sent for his son to come to his imperial tent. He laid a naked sword before him, and then, after bitterly reproaching him with his undutiful and ungrateful conduct, he said, "If you wish to kill me, do it now. Here I stand, old, infirm, and helpless. You are young and strong, and can do it easily. I am ready. Strike ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... protection, because it showed that he was not a man "to be tried by ordinary standards." When, in addition to this, he laboured day after day to persuade the jury that Roger Tichborne was a drunkard, a liar, a fool, an undutiful son, an ungrateful friend, and an abandoned libertine—declared in loud and impassioned tones that he would "strip this jay of his borrowed plumes," and indignantly repudiated the notion that the man his client claimed to be had one single good quality about him, the humour ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... rage, And justice urgeth some extreme revenge, To wreak the wrongs that have been offer'd us. But nature, that hath lock'd within thy breast Two lives, the same inclineth me to spare Thy blood, and so to keep mine own unspilt. This is that overweening love I bear To thee undutiful, and undeserved. But for that traitor, he shall surely die; For neither right nor nature doth entreat For him, that wilfully, without all awe Of gods or men, or of our deadly hate, Incurr'd the just displeasure of his king; And to be ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... "You undutiful, extravagant boy!" exclaimed Lady Augusta. "I am worried out of my life for money, between you all. Gerald got two sovereigns from me yesterday. What ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a rare occurrence to see just retribution visited upon parents who in their day were undutiful, unworthy and unnatural children. The justice of Heaven often permits it to be done unto us as we do unto others. Our children will treat us as we shall have treated our parents; their hands will be raised against us and will smite us on the cheek to avenge the grandsire's ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... expressed by Plato in the noble words:—'A man should cling to immortality, and leave behind him children's children to be the servants of God in his place.' Again, as at Athens, the father is allowed to put away his undutiful son, but only with the consent of impartial persons (Telfy), and the only suit which may be brought by a son against a father is for imbecility. The class of elder and younger men and women are still to regard one another, as in the Republic, as standing in the relation of parents and ...
— Laws • Plato
... the outside of the ship, and let himself down by a rope to paddle in the sea; he had been several times detected by his papa, in playing those frolics; and as often reproved for it, and warned of the danger, but to little purpose; for he was one of those headstrong undutiful children (of whom I fear there are too many) who, as soon as they are out of their parents' sight, forget the good advices and prudent cautions which have been given them, and pursue each idle fancy that enters their heads, without once ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... her judgment, what her wild and ungoverned fancy had misled her to think of with so much partial favour. And too late, as it probably may happen, she will see and lament her fatal, and, perhaps, undutiful error. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... reward, as stated above (I-II, Q. 114, A. 12). Wherefore sometimes in accordance with the hidden design of the Divine judgments, which regard chiefly the future reward, some, who are dutiful to their parents, are sooner deprived of life, while others, who are undutiful to their parents, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... is, we exercise our spirits, when brought home, to the torment and regret of our parents themselves, and torture their hearts by our undutiful and perverse behaviour to them, which, however ungrateful in us, is but the natural consequence of their culpable indulgence to us, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... 'Ah! Ungrateful and Undutiful Wretch (cry'd he) 'how hast thou requited all my Care and Tenderness of thee? Now when I might have expected some return of Comfort, to throw thy self away upon an unknown Person, and, for ought I know, a Villain; to me I'm sure he is ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... and eccentric daughter, Fielding was naturally on better terms. She was, as already stated, a member of the Great Mogul's Company, and it is worth noting that some of the sarcasms in Pasquin against her father were put into the mouth of Lord Place, whose part was taken by this undutiful child. All things considered, both in this controversy and the later one with Pope, Cibber did not come off worst. His few hits were personal and unscrupulous, and they were probably far more deadly in their effects than any of the ironical attacks which his adversaries, on their ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... an undutiful son I have been!" cried Harry; "had I known then what I know now! and yet, the fiend would not have turned a hand, had it been his own father! Thank God, I have his forgiveness for disobeying his last commands! ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... mind, he would trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness, would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, who had amply redeemed all possible criminalities by successful (I did not say honest) gambling in the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the monarch had spent alone, thoughts so sad, bordering upon melancholy, had visited him, although for several hours he had been free from pain, that he relinquished his resentful intention of showing his undutiful sister how little he cared for her surprise and how slight was his desire ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... SANDFORD AND MERTON, lived and - more credit to the place still - was killed at Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... ruin themselves. The heir apparent, Mr. James Macburney, offended his father by making a runaway match with an actress from Goodman's Fields. The old gentleman could devise no more judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the cook. The cook gave birth to a son named Joseph, who succeeded to all the lands of the family, while James was cut off with a shilling. The favorite son, however, was so extravagant that he soon became ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... did the contradictory measures of England in first succouring the Duke of Burgundy, and then the Duke of Orleans his antagonist, arise from a change of policy in the King himself and the English government, without implying undutiful conduct on the part of the Prince, or dissatisfaction in his father towards him?" The former view has been recommended for adoption, though it reflects upon the Prince's character as a son; and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... she repeated, and warned her brother into the background with a gesture half-pleading half-peremptory. "We are your children, and we're not bad or undutiful children at all, and I'm sure that when you think it all over, mamma, you'll see that it would be absurd to let anything come between you ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... course, go astray; hug a sin, hug a fault; sow one's wild oats. render vicious &c adj.; demoralize, brutalize; corrupt &c (degrade) 659. Adj. vicious; sinful; sinning &c v.; wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal; naughty, incorrect; unduteous^, undutiful. unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores [Lat.], indecorous, unseemly, improper; dissolute, profligate, scampish; unworthy; worthless; desertless^; disgraceful, recreant; reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... fast, it was impossible to guess where they would end. Clarissa herself was a Prude—a Coquet—all the Contradictions mentioned some Time ago in a printed Paper, with the Addition of many more, were laid to her Charge. She was an undutiful Daughter—too strict in her Principles of Obedience to such Parents—too fond of a Rake and a Libertine—her Heart was as impenitrable and unsusceptible of Affection, as the hardest Marble. In short, the many contradictory Faults that she was at once accused of, is ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... "You are my father," she sobbed, "my dear, dear father! All the dearer," she went on, in words made half inarticulate by her tears, and all the more expressive and affecting—"all the dearer because we never knew each other through all those dreadful years! I love you, dear, and I am not undutiful, and I will do whatever you ask me; but I want to be with you, I want to be with you. I have had you for such a little time. I want you—I want ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... mind that women and doctors were all fools together, and frightened themselves for nothing. He had resolved against letting himself be scared by their long faces and doleful prognostications, and had gone on in his wonted courses with reckless bravado. He was not altogether an undutiful son. He had some affection for both father and mother. But his affection was not strong enough to keep him from following out his own wishes. He had long been a sort of leader amongst the young men of the place and neighbourhood, and he ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... say as much for our Irish brethren; but their conduct has been—oh! detestable. Yet what can you expect? The true—blush for them. A certain person is a disgrace to the church of which he pretends to be a servant. Where does he find in our canons sanction for his proceedings, his undutiful expressions towards one who is his sovereign by divine right, and who can do no wrong? And above all, where does he find authority for inflaming the passions of a vile mob against a nation intended by nature and ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... considers them as the worst people in the world, till they have seen others no better; and then, like individuals with their private sorrows, they find change produces no alleviation. The Mount of Miseries, in the Spectator, where all the people change with their neighbours, lay down an undutiful son, and carry away with them a hump-back, or whatever had been the source of disquiet to another, whom he had blamed for bearing so ill a misfortune thought trifling till he took it on himself, is an admirably well constructed fable, and is applicable ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... obstinate stubborn son, and ane ungrateful kindred, my family must go to destruction, and I must lose my life in my old age. Such usage looks rather like a Turkish or Persian government than like a British. Am I, my Lord, the first father that had ane undutiful and unnatural son? or am I the first man that has made a good estate, and saw it destroyed in his own time? but I never heard till now, that the foolishness of a son, would take away the liberty and life of a father, that lived ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... in accordance with Mrs. Ellsworthy's instructions, went to see the girls, he was confronted first by Mrs. Flint, who assured him in her soft and cushion-like style that the young ladies had left, and as they had been undutiful enough not to confide in her she could furnish him with no address. As he was leaving the mansion Poppy Jenkins ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... what had happened, interfered by letter, and insisted on the right he had acquired by his troth plighted with Janet Dalrymple. But Lady Stair answered in reply that "her daughter, sensible of her undutiful behaviour in entering into a contract unsanctioned by her parents, had retracted her unlawful vow, and now refused to fulfil her engagement with him." Lord Rutherford wrote again to Lady Stair, and briefly informed her that "he declined positively to receive such an answer from ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... what you are talking about, Janetta, and I beg that you will not address me in that way," said Mrs. Colwyn, with an attempt at dignity. "It is very undutiful indeed, and I hope that I shall hear no ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... devil, item, conjured all the caterpillars into her father's orchard?—R. The question was almost as monstrous as the deed would have been. There sat her father, and his worship might ask him whether she ever had shown herself an undutiful child to him. (Hereupon I would have risen to speak, but Dom. Consul suffered me not to open my mouth, but went on with his examination; whereupon I ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Colonel Seymour, now Sir Edward, became a member of Parliament a year or so later. His letters to Lady Seymour from London are amusing from their variety of news and gossip. Sir Edward's style was terse, not to say jerky. One letter he begins by bitter complaints of their 'most undutiful son,' his 'obstinacy' and 'untowardness,' and then passes on to speak of his own imminent return. Then: 'I was this day sennight, which was the last Saturday, upon the scaffold, where I saw Sir Henry Vane's head severed from his shoulders.... ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... answer. A feeling of shame, painful but wholesome, kept him silent. Even according to his own idea of right, he had been undutiful in his conduct to his father. He had accepted all from him, he had exacted much, and he had given little in return, except the careless respect to his wishes in little things, which he could not have refused to any one in whose house he was a guest. They had been on friendly terms enough, as a ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... sweetly he slept,—now frowning, and now smiling in his dreams,—she went away with Hepsa, and they talked a great while together, telling each other what the other didn't know. Genevieve was often shocked and grieved at Hepsa's undutiful remarks about her father, mother and brother; and when she felt they didn't love Hepsa, as her own dear father and mother loved her, still she could not understand why Hepsa did not love them better. She was often a good deal perplexed to know what she ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... Ried who had come home was not the Ester Ried who had gone out from them only two months ago. A whole lifetime of experience and discipline seemed to her to have been crowded into those two months. Nothing of her past awakened more keen regret in this young girl's heart than the thought of her undutiful, unsisterly life. It was all to be different now. She thanked God that he had let her come back to that very kitchen and dining-room to undo her former work. The old sluggish, selfish spirit had gone from her. Before this every thing ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... a most undutiful wife," Helen pronounced severely. "I am sure Henry is a delightful person, even if he is a little irresponsible, and it is almost pathetic to remember how much you were in love with him, a ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first tell me, for I have been undutiful in not asking before, have any tidings been received of my poor uncle, and the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Sixth and of Elizabeth, the defenders of the Anglican ritual had generally contented themselves with saying that it might be used without sin, and that, therefore, none but a perverse and undutiful subject would refuse to use it when enjoined to do so by the magistrate. Now, however, that rising party which claimed for the polity of the Church a celestial origin began to ascribe to her services a new dignity and importance. It was hinted that, if the established ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... prince in bland tones, "I am fully resolved not to be angry with you. Your undutiful conduct proceeds from ignorance, which is never an offence, though it is always a misfortune. If you ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... found her almost an intolerable nuisance. The girl developed a conscience, and refused indignantly to tell the little fibs which her mother occasionally suggested. She put her sense of right and wrong before Mrs. Clibborn's wishes, which that lady considered undutiful, if not entirely wicked. It seemed nothing short of an impertinence that Mary should disapprove of theatres when there was nothing to which the elder woman was more devoted. And Mrs. Clibborn felt that the girl saw through ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... me (not very seldom you will think no doubt) she does not do it in a manner that commands respect or in an impressive style. No! did she do that I should amend my faults with pleasure, and dread to offend a kind tho just mother. But she flies into a fit of frenzy, upbraids me as if I was the most undutiful wretch in existence, rakes up the ashes of my father, abuses him, says I shall be a true Byrrone, which is the worst ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... bitterer feelings on one side. If I go or stay they must be bitter: words have been said that I cannot easily forget, nor remember without pain; and yet I really do almost smile in the midst of it all, to think how I was treated this morning as an undutiful daughter because I tried to put on my gloves ... for there was no worse provocation. At least he complained of the undutifulness and rebellion (!!!) of everyone in the house—and when I asked if he meant that reproach for me, the answer was that he meant it for ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... me that it was absolutely essential that his mother should go with him, and that if he was married without taking care to secure her presence, he would be for ever branded as an undutiful son. She was not at all grateful for his kind consideration, and made herself very disagreeable all through the wedding-day, but the guests treated her with a good deal of respect and regard solely on the score of her being the bride-groom's mother, and on that ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... we apart? Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart! A manchild born, now tall and beautiful, Was worth the ache of days undutiful." ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... her far more than he would have believed; he thought her dying, and his heart smote him, as memory recalled many a passionate, undutiful word he had spoken to her; often, it is true, under great provocation, but oh, what would he not now have given ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... dame. "And is there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy's breaking the heart of his own plighted love, and his mother's heart too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger? Why did you ever come here?" she apostrophised the innocent captain. "Who wanted you? Where did you come from? Why couldn't ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... "Silence, undutiful scoundrel," ordered Lampaxo, from her corner; "what has so noble a patriot as Democrates to conceal? Ugh! Be off with you! Phormio, don't dare to fill up the tipsy fox's beaker again. I want to pull on my nightcap and go ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the blooming toast of the county, for whom his passion had long died out, having indeed departed with the honeymoon, which had been of the briefest, and afterwards he having borne her a grudge for what he chose to consider her undutiful conduct. This grudge was founded on the fact that, though she had presented him each year since their marriage with a child, after nine years had passed none had yet been sons, and, as he was bitterly at odds with ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that it was a mere foolish freak, originating at the wine-table, and asseverating, with warmth, that nothing disrespectful or disloyal to his Majesty had been contemplated upon that or upon any other occasion. Had a single gentleman uttered an undutiful word against the King, Egmont vowed he would have stabbed him through and through upon the spot, had he been his own brother. These warm protestations were answered by a gentle reprimand as to the past by Philip, and with a firm caution as to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... father. And, dashing his skinny fingers through the bars, this was, I regret to say, precisely what the little gentleman did. I was quite taken aback; but as we turned round, to my infinite delight, the undutiful baby snatched the biscuit from its mother's hand after a fashion so remarkably similar that we all burst out laughing, and ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... undutiful cousin, Alice Vavasor. But, Alice, Mr Palliser knows nothing about it, and it is ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... janitor and all the slaves concerned, but instead of ordering scourged the two servitors whom I had left in the triclinium when I went out of it to visit the kitchen and who should have remained there until my return, he merely reprimanded them mildly. He did not so much as have the undutiful janitor flogged, let alone sent away for sale. He even laughed at the luck, alertness, dexterity and swiftness of the thieves; picturing their glance into the unshut door, their glances up and down the street, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... fizzing and cracking like a wheen squeebs, the whole tot, except about half-a-dozen which fell into the porritch-pot, which was on boiling at the time, were reduced to a heap of grey aizles. I soon showed them who was the top of the tree, and what they were likely to make of undutiful rebellion. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades 'neath the blighting touch of frost. What he said was so undutiful from a nephew touching his uncle—particularly when that uncle is a prelate—that I refrain from ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... deep scrutiny Into her mutiny Rash and undutiful: Past all dishonour, Death has left on her ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... go right to work to learn the parts in this little play. I do not approve of some parts of it, because a deceit was practised to bring one of the boys to a sense of his selfish and undutiful conduct. This was 'doing evil that good may come,' and was very wrong. If your mother were to punish you by deceiving you, you would doubt her ever after; and for a child to doubt a parent is, I should think, one of the most miserable feelings ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... over which he affected to shed tears. He then produced his testament for my inspection, pretended to blame me that though I were the elder, I had so little ingratiated myself in his favour, and added, that he could not think of being guilty of so undutiful a conduct, as to contravene the last dispositions of his father. If however he could be of any use to me in my future plans of life, he would ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Friederika, "but my fidelity to my Chateaudoux has not faltered, nor will not, whatever I may be called upon to endure. I cannot, however, be so undutiful as to accept my Chateaudoux's addresses without my father's consent; and my mother, who is of the same mind with me, insists that even with that consent a runaway marriage is not to be thought of unless my Chateaudoux can provide me with a ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... have to admit that she had been personally wrong,—some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could be called unfeminine, indelicate, or undutiful. But she had high ideas of what was due to herself, and conceived that she would be wronged by her father, should her father take advantage of her sense of duty to crush her heart. She had her own rights and her own privileges, with which grievous and cruel interference would be made, should her ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... mystery, my heart rose in very undutiful bitterness against Dr. Dobree; but by-and-by I found that it resulted less from a want of fidelity to her than from a radical infirmity in his temperament. It was almost as impossible for him to avoid or conceal his ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... said the lady earnestly again laying her cold hand on his arm. She was interrupted by her wayward and undutiful son. ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... their proper names and characters. The interest of the story, as in the Ethiopics, turns chiefly on an elopement, and the consequent misadventures of the hero and heroine among various sets of robbers and treacherous friends; but the lovers, after being thus duly punished for their undutiful escapade, are restored, at the finale, to their original position, and settle quietly in their native home, under their own vines ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... I would not be so undutiful; but it is a pity your throwing all that money away on my education if I am not to complete it. If I had taken a good degree, I might have turned out something; but never mind,—it can't be helped now. Then you will be kind enough to write a letter ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... to Agra; he was falling on evil days. He effected a reconciliation with Selim; he saw that Selim was still rebellious at heart; that his best officers were inclining toward his undutiful son. In his perplexity he sent to the Deccan for Abul Fazl. The trusted servant hastened to join his imperial master. But Selim had always hated Abul Fazl. He instigated a Rajput chief of Bundelkund to waylay Abul Fazl. This chief was Bir Singh of Urchah. Bir Singh fell ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Hale's wife and sons and daughters whatever moneys his judgement dictated, at whatever times he deemed advisable. Had there been any scandal in the dead man's family, or had his sons been wild or undutiful, then there might have been a glimmering of reason in this most unusual action; but Eben Hale's domestic happiness had been proverbial in the community, and one would have to travel far and wide to discover a cleaner, saner, wholesomer progeny of sons and ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... I felt very much so when the horses ran away, and for fifteen minutes I sat clinging to Mamma, expecting to be killed. Every unkind, undutiful word I'd ever said to her came back to me, and was worse to bear than the fear of sudden death. It scared a great deal of naughtiness out of me, and dear Mamma and I have been more to ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... without sufficient reason, for he was extravagant and dissipated. My father never mentioned his name, but my mother would sometimes tell me that he had ruined the family. That he spent much I know; but I am inclined to think that his undutiful conduct occasioned my great-grandfather to bequeath a part of his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... privately, because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant, undutiful,—altogether bad. At last his father disinherited him; but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.—Take another glass of wine, and excuse my ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... sullen rage] I have half a mind to shew you that my spade can split your undutiful head open, in ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... deaths of your father and your mother brought me the tidings also that your mother's fortune had been diced away down to the last penny, and that even the negroes must be sold to satisfy the claims against it. However undutiful your father may have been, I could not permit his son to become a charge upon the ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... to fancy that it was. No, sir, my wrongs are irreparable. I had the making of a real Harvard man in me, and of a Unitarian, nicely balanced between radicalism and amateur episcopacy. Now, I am an orthodox ruin, and the undutiful stepson of a Down East alma mater. I belong nowhere; I'm at odds.—Is Hubbard's wife really handsome, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... miles. My father and my sister met me at the door; but to attempt to describe the affecting reconciliation would be only doing an injustice to my own feelings. My poor father, however, would scarcely allow me to offer any apology for my undutiful behaviour; he took all the blame to himself; he had reflected more than I had upon the consequences of my voyage, the full particulars of which I found he knew, he having received an account of my every movement, and known all my plans, which had in confidence been communicated by the honest ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... see, my dear young friend, I have lost much, even more than I tell you and I say there are sorrows worse than death so you will be a pride and comfort as you grow up, for I have known what an undutiful son is too. But I think of my brave, noble boy that died in France and you brought him back to me for a few minutes when I sat reading his letter. So I shall always love these scout boys on account ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... away from thee! Thy little bride shall be faithful to thee, whatever betide. When we meet beyond the grave I will have been thine only, nor have set any before thy sons. Heaven forgive me if I be undutiful to my uncle; but thou must be preferred before even him! Hark!" and she started as if at Eberhard's foot-step; then smiled, recollecting that Ebbo had his father's tread. But her husband had been too much in awe of ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proved, in every respect, an unhappy one. The lady, as a stepmother, was peevish, harsh, and undutiful. Her cruelty to her husband's children was a continual source of grief to him, and of unhappiness to his domestic circle. On a certain day, the lady quarrelling with one of her step-daughters, told her she hated to see her face, and that she always considered the day an ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... first, all covered with orders and decorations, and greeted us affectionately, calling the Countess the "sweetest lass in France," and me his undutiful Yankee cousin who had landed feet foremost at the ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... Joseph. France was laboring to consolidate her newly-founded Republic. There was question of electing a president. And if, on the occasion, Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte secured the greatest number of votes, he owed this success, if not wholly, in great measure, at least, to his repudiation of the undutiful conduct of his cousin, the Prince of Canino, at Rome, and his declaration in favor of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope. On the eve of the election he wrote as follows to the Papal Nuncio: "My Lord, I am anxious that the rumors which tend to make me an ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... it was wrong and undutiful," he declared. "I am astonished that my daughter should have mixed herself up with such underhand work. And may I ask why I ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... recurrence of it, until such a period had been suffered to elapse, as would suffice to afford, by the effects it should itself produce, some fair criterion and presumption of the inclination which my mind was likely to adopt in reference to the final decision. At the same time it would also have been undutiful, and most repugnant to my feelings, to permit the prolongation of that intervening period to such an extent, as to give the shadow of a reason to suppose that anything approaching to reserve had been the cause of my silence. The present time seems to lie ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle or vagrant Indian, whom the white man's firewater ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think it unfriendly—or, I should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful—if I showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very angry with Traddles, and said he was glad he had ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... I want an assurance of your entire reconciliation and affection before you go. I came here to say to you that I deeply regret all the unfortunate circumstances of my life which caused you to treat me so coldly for a season—that if in anything I have ever seemed obstinate or undutiful, it was not because I failed in love for you, but from an unhappy difference of opinion as to my duty under very trying circumstances. Father, my heart ached very bitterly under your estrangement—the very memory is ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... saw her do this and the tale was soon all over the village; but the undutiful wife never said a word about it to her husband, and it was only after some days that he heard from others of his wife's extravagance. When it did reach his ears he seized the opportunity and at once drove her out of the house, and when ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... undutiful, but it is my right to choose my husband for myself." She paused and his heart beat fast as he waited until she resumed: "The evening I came to the orchard I had ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... the most unfit to undertake the task. Nobody could expect Lady Shelley to enter into those painful explanations necessary to it. Accordingly, in the work before us, we do not find any light thrown on those places where a person would be most anxious to see it. Lady Shelley slurs over the undutiful boyhood of the poet and the terrible sternness of his Mirabeau-father. She merely glances across the first foolish marriage and the catastrophe that closed it, as a bird flies over an abyss. On such subjects she cannot set about ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... a question of debt in that sense in which it can be paid by another, though the effect, of which alone St. Paul was speaking, is the same in both cases to James as the debtor, and to James as the undutiful son. He is in both cases liberated from the burthen, and in both cases he has to attribute his exoneration to the act of another; as cause simply in the payment of the debt, or as likewise 'causa causae' in James's reformation. Such is my present opinion: God grant me increase ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... Thus I see another of my prospects blighted! Undutiful, degenerate boy! your folly and obstinacy will punish themselves. Answer me not; think of the proposal I have made you; obey your father's will, or forever ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... breakfast. Cardan asked who the bride might be, but the messenger said he knew not, and departed. It is not quite clear whether Gian Battista was present or not, but as soon as ever the messenger had departed, Cardan let loose an indignant outburst over his son's misconduct, reproaching him with undutiful secresy, and setting forth how he had introduced to him four young ladies of good family, of whom two were certainly enamoured of him. Any one of the four would have been acceptable as a daughter-in-law, but he declared that now he would ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... still life are: 95, 96, 101, and 102; and R. wall 94. On the same wall hang, 97, The Ape as Antiquary, and 99, The Housewife. If Chardin touches the border-line between sentiment and sentimentality, Greuze (end wall) in 369, Return of the Prodigal; 370, A Father's Crime; and 371, The Undutiful Son, certainly oversteps it. Each of these became the theme of extravagant eulogy and didactic preachments by Diderot, his literary protagonist, who hailed him as a French Hogarth making Virtue amiable and Vice odious. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... such, that the execution was to be forced upon him; and the execution thereof was accordingly forced upon him. And the Resident, Middleton, on the Nabob's refusal to act in contradiction to his sworn engagement guarantied by the East India Company, and in the undutiful and unnatural manner required, did totally supersede his authority in his own dominions, considering himself as empowered so to act by the instructions of the said Hastings, although he had reason to apprehend a general insurrection in consequence thereof, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... oats. render vicious &c. adj.; demoralize, brutalize; corrupt &c. (degrade) 659. Adj. vicious[1]; sinful; sinning &c.v.; wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal; naughty, incorrect; unduteous[obs3], undutiful. unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores[Lat], indecorous, unseemly, improper; dissolute, profligate, scampish; unworthy; worthless; desertless[obs3]; disgraceful, recreant; reprehensible, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Henry White[1150], a young clergyman, with whom he now formed an intimacy, so as to talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. 'Once, indeed, (said he,) I was disobedient; I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter-market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago, I desired to atone for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... other three followed suit, and when they had all had a good time on their knees, each one gave a short oration, and when they got through I reminded them again of the two dying men; but like the undutiful son, they said, "I go! and ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... would feel little restraint upon her mind against corrupting his daughter, when such an effect might contribute to answer the purpose which she had in view. But in the ingratitude of Tiberius, however undutiful and reprehensible in a son towards a parent, she at last experienced a just retribution for the crimes in which she had trained him to procure the succession to the empire. To the disgrace of her sex, she introduced amongst the Romans the horrible practice of domestic murder, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... that she could not believe her ears that a child of hers should venture on making such objections—so unmaidenly, so undutiful to a parti selected by the queen and approved by ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... herself was capable of taking a situation as lady's maid—a higher position then than now—and she knew of one lady who was willing to engage her, if she could provide otherwise for Phoebe. Phoebe was the second of her children, and was now seventeen. She expressed her sorrow for the undutiful behaviour of which she had been guilty towards both parents; and she besought in all ignorance the father who had been dead for fourteen years, to plead with Madam, to help her, in any way she pleased, to put Phoebe into some respectable place where ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... had not thought fit, by any application to his majesty, to desire that his allowance of fifty thousand pounds might be rendered less precarious, the king, to prevent the bad consequences which he apprehended might follow from the undutiful measures which his majesty was informed the prince had been advised to pursue, would grant to his royal highness, for his majesty's life, the said fifty thousand pounds per annum, to be issued out ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... they had flowed freely. But now if at night he visited his ailing daughter's room for a few minutes and prayed with her and for her, it meant that on such an occasion she was not too criminal to merit the pious intercession. If he called her "puss," it meant that she had not recently been an undutiful child of thirty-nine or forty years old. A circus-trainer probably rewards his educated dogs and horses with like amiable familiarities, and he is probably regarded by his troupe with affection mingled with awe. Mr Barrett had been appointed circus-trainer by ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... not going," she went on, as though in answer to an unspoken question. "I am playing the part of the undutiful wife and running away from him, for exactly three weeks. It is very wicked of me, isn't it? but I have an engagement that I must keep. It ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... plans deliberate robberies against those of his blood, and trudges hundreds of weary leagues to put them into execution, is surely a little on the wrong side of toleration. The uncle at Angers may have been monstrously undutiful; but the nephew from ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson |
