"Uncomplimentary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... later in sitting, likened Member for West Belfast to; charming simile, with just that mixture of graphicness and incongruity that only Irish wit could flash upon. Not meant to be uncomplimentary, for SAUNDERSON, like the rest, acknowledges capacity of SEXTON in debate; his clear insight, his capacity for grasping a subject, his aptness of illustration, his quickness of retort, and, alack! the embarrassment of the wealth of language. If he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... the deplorable breaches of etiquette on the part of visitors at the Zoo. We ourselves have heard the most uncomplimentary allusions made to the appearance of the baboons and the hippopotamus, in the hearing of those unfortunate creatures, and quite regardless of their amour propre. The callous Cockney takes care to insult his helpless victims only when they are behind bars and cannot retaliate effectively. One ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... uncomplimentary epithets, indiscriminately applied by the assembled ladies, proved what a choice morsel this was considered that had so unexpectedly fallen to ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... indignation in a foreign tongue. "What for you no go oder man? No my ticket—tung sung lung, ya hip kee—ping!" he cries; and all this time the assistants are industriously ironing and spouting mist, and leisurely making remarks in their sing-song unintelligibility which you feel have uncomplimentary reference to yourself. Suddenly a light breaks upon you. This is not Hip Tee's cellar, this is not Hip Tee. It is the establishment of Hi Sing. This is Hi Sing himself who for the last half hour has been endeavoring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... my image just now was both uncomplimentary and unjust: for, parallel with the change in the poet to which I have referred, a still more unnatural change is making itself apparent in the type of the publisher. It would almost seem as if the two are changing places. Instead of the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... by the recollection of their men fighting at the front, or clad in mourning because of the death of some loved one, would look at them with aggressive insolence. The refinement and elegance of the Republican Prince seemed to irritate them. Several times, she overheard uncomplimentary words ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... am uncomplimentary? I'm not really, you know. Every one knows you're a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but then you're not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend me to ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... friendliness entirely disappeared, the men staring insolently at us from under scowling brows, while the women and children, who had less to fear and consequently were bolder in expressing their feelings, frequently shouted uncomplimentary epithets at us or shook their fists as ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... he hasn't), and Whythe said that cut no figure with him, and asked me point-blank if I did not love him. It didn't sound polite to say no, and yet I couldn't truthfully say yes, so I just sighed and shook my head. When he asked me if I could give him no hope, I answered no with such uncomplimentary quickness that I had to cough to overcome it, and then I told him it was impossible for a girl of Elizabeth's taste and training and character, who had once loved such a man as he, to really care for any one else. And the blackness in his face, caused ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... spent the rest of his life in Spain. After forty years in Europe he wrote, partly from memory, his "Royal Commentaries," an account of the country of his Indian ancestors. Of the Inca Manco, of whom he must frequently have heard uncomplimentary reports as a child, he speaks apologetically. He says: "In the time of Manco Inca, several robberies were committed on the road by his subjects; but still they had that respect for the Spanish Merchants that they let them go free and never pillaged them of their wares and merchandise, which ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... why.' Pilgrim Fathers His persecution to escape 1620 Some Zealots in the 'Mayflower' shape Their course for an uncharted world Where Freedom's Flag could be unfurled. These 'Pilgrim Fathers' found a state 'New England,' blessed with happy fate. Folks have called the first King James Most uncomplimentary names; To wit 'a sloven' and 'a glutton'; Perhaps his weakness was Scotch Mutton. And as to gluttony, 'Gadzooks'! If what we read in History books Is true, they all were trenchermen; There were no diet ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... Addington Cabinet could not venture on the unpopular act of curbing freedom of the Press in Great Britain. The First Consul, who had experienced no such difficulty in France, persisted now, as a year later, in considering every uncomplimentary reference to himself as an indirect and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... worthy people of this class, however much they may suffer by the sins of some of their kind. An acquaintance once said to me that he would "never buy another book," because he had been "buncoed" by a book-agent, to whom he otherwise referred with an uncomplimentary adjective. But this did not convince me that his position was more logical than that of the man who declared he would never take another bath because a watch had been stolen from his pocket while he was in bathing at some beach resort. It is incomprehensible that any one could imagine that ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... Ronald was twenty-one he should look about for a suitable mastership, in order for the two brothers to go immediately into rooms together. Lady Le Breton was surprised at the decision; but as it was in her favour, she wisely abstained from gratifying her natural desire to make some more uncomplimentary references to the snuffy old German socialist. Sufficient unto the day was the triumph thereof; and she had no doubt in her own mind that if once Ernest could be induced to live for a while in really good society the well-known charms and graces of that society must finally ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... answered, with a curious air of drawing in his horns. I wondered whether he had just been going to pretend he knew Sir Charles, or whether perchance he was on the point of saying something highly uncomplimentary, and was ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... were his own. Yet he recognized the truth of the resemblance; it was uncomplimentary, but he felt relieved. The desperado came forward, and to the boy's surprise began to climb the small ridge of outcrop until he reached the fallen tree. Johnny saw that he was carrying a heavy stone. "What's the blamed fool goin' to do?" ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... joke upon any of his friends, both in season and out of season, and he always showed his appreciation of the victim's discomfiture by roars of laughter. His letters are full of puns, and he bestows uncomplimentary nicknames upon his intimates. One day his brother Johann, who had acquired a small property in the neighbourhood of Vienna, called upon him in his absence, and left his card, bearing the inscription, 'Johann van Beethoven, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... admirable Chicago Club (the old Art Institute), and the new Art Institute on the verge of Lake Michigan. Of its churches the less said the better; their architecture, regarded as a studied insult to religion, would go far to justify the highly uncomplimentary epithet Mr. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... in white,—except when they sit for their pictures in Venice," said Blanche. "How fresh Mr. Islington looks! It's really uncomplimentary to us." ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Before an opinion uncomplimentary to the colored man's interest in the professional and business ventures of his race-variety can be of weight, there are several antecedent facts of primal value to be considered. If devotion to either class is lacking, it must be remembered, that shortcoming is traceable to causes which, however ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... foundry men with enticing them into to coalition, and the spinners were hot in their denunciations of the molders. Ancient personal antagonisms that had been slumbering started to their feet. Torrini fell out of favor, and in the midst of one of his finest perorations uncomplimentary missiles, selected from the animal kingdom, had been thrown at him. The grand torchlight procession on the night of the ninth culminated in a disturbance, in which many men got injured, several badly, and the windows of Brackett's bakery were stove in. A point of light had pierced the darkness,—the ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a very beautiful woman. The daughter, who was to become so famous, is best described by those two very uncomplimentary English words, "dumpy" and "frumpy." She had bulging eyes—which are not emphasized in the flattering portrait by Gerard—and her hair was unbecomingly dressed. There are reasons for thinking that Germaine bitterly hated ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... appeared following the incident in the sheriff's office, there was a detailed account of Dunlavey's now famous "ten day edict," together with some uncomplimentary comments upon the latter's action. This was signed by Hollis. He called attention to Dunlavey's selfishness, to the preparations that had been made by him to shoot down all the foreign cattle on the Rabbit-Ear. He made no reference to his part in the affair—to ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Apollo? And now this night, again, he had taken the opportunity of turning him into ridicule in the presence of La Bianca; and he and she had spoken of the possibility of their being troubled with his company as of a nightmare. For the painful fact was that their uncomplimentary expressions had been heard by the poet; who, when he had left Ludovico and Bianca in the little supper-room together, had retreated no further than just to the other side of a curtain, which hung, Italian fashion, by the side of the open door. Finding that there was nobody there—for ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... plain from what he had said that this was the boy whom Fray Antonio had promised to send to me; and notwithstanding his uncomplimentary comments upon my laziness, I had taken already a strong liking to him. I waited until he had played through the sabre song again—to which, as it seemed to me, the ass listened with a slightly critical yet pleased attention—and ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... learned that Cultoquhey was in the habit of mentioning his Grace's family in such uncomplimentary terms, invited the humorist to Dunkeld, for the purpose of giving him a hint to desist from the reference. After dinner, the Duke asked his guest what were the precise terms in which he was in the habit of alluding to his powerful neighbours. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... doubted much whether her request would be granted. Moreover if contemporary chronicle can be trusted he even expressed a preference for the scaffold, as the milder fate of the two. The lady, however, not being aware of those uncomplimentary sentiments, made her proposal to the magistrates, but was dismissed with harsh rebukes. She had need be ashamed, they said; of her willingness to take a condemned traitor for her husband. It was urged, in her behalf, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that his brother "Jim" was the "Truthful James" of Bret Harte. He said that in reality it was J. W. E. Townsend, known in old times as "Alphabetical Townsend," also by the uncomplimentary appellation of "Lying Jim." According to Mr. Gillis, Bret Harte made but one visit to Tuttletown. He arrived there one evening "dead broke" and James put him up for the night and lent him money to help him on his way. Personally, Mr. Gillis ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... gone two minutes when I discovered that the hat he had exchanged for the stovepipe was not mine. It came from the same firm, but the initials proved it without doubt to belong to the young fellow I had met at the table. I said some uncomplimentary things. Where the deuce was my hat? Evidently the benevolent old gentleman hadn't waked ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Catholic Priest.' 'The Province must be converted into an English Colony,' declared Sewell, 'or it will ultimately be lost to England.' The opinion these men held of the French Canadians was most uncomplimentary. 'In the ministerial dictionary,' complained Le Canadien, 'a bad fellow, anti-ministerialist, democrat, sans culotte, and damned Canadian, mean the ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... his cousin's behaviour during dinner, had struck young Clive, who was growing very angry. He growled out remarks uncomplimentary to Barnes. His eyes, as he looked towards his kinsman, flashed out challenges, of which we who were watching him could see the warlike purport. Warrington looked at Bayham and Pendennis with glances ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this uncomplimentary speech, Dane glanced into a near mirror and ran his slim hand through his hair. He cast such a complacent look at his reflection that Giles could not forbear a smile. The man was a compound of treachery, courage, and vanity. He had some virtues ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... the Brownsville Clipper had on many occasions praised the business competitor of Alfred's father and, while Uncle Billy was a candidate for county judge, not only assailed his loyalty but referred to all his family in uncomplimentary terms, Alfred became an ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... information, to be sure!" says Mr. Jack; on which George burst forth into language much too violent for us to repeat here, and highly uncomplimentary to Miss Lydia. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Roman discipline, however severe as to the acts of the legionary, put very few restrictions upon his speech; and the general, as he watched from the rampart the lines and movements of the enemy, heard many comments no less uncomplimentary than those of his master-of-the-horse, and couched in language almost as coarse as that of the Numidians themselves. It seemed as if the foul words of the barbarians were passed on thus to the man held responsible for ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... Well, really, you've put me in an awkward position, Miss Banborough. One can't be uncomplimentary to the fair sex, ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... on the north side of York River. Here came Smith and his captors, around them the winter woods, before them the broad blue river. Again the gathered Indians, men and women, again the staring, the handling, the more or less uncomplimentary remarks; then into the Indian ceremonial lodge he was pushed. Here sat the chief of chiefs, Powhatan, and he had on a robe of raccoon skins with all the tails hanging. About him sat his chief men, and behind these were gathered ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... with an odd, superstitious wonderment at the colonel, as if overcome by this not very remarkable coincidence. The colonel, overlooking or totally oblivious to its somewhat uncomplimentary significance, simply said, "Go on. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the time passes rapidly by to them. A gentleman, who had just arrived from England, declared that "Quebec was a horrid place, not fit to live in." A few days after he met the same individual to whom he had made this uncomplimentary observation, and confided to him that he thought Quebec "the most delightful place in the whole world; for, do you know," he said, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... if he had the strength, which he hasn't," exclaimed the widow with uncomplimentary fervor. "He's Aaron's son, and Aaron hadn't much to learn from them as is where he's gone too," and she looked ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... (though his temperament made it impossible for him to enter into the same sort of personal sympathy with them as did Ruskin); but their whole environment and conception of life seemed to him hideous. With his usual uncomplimentary frankness Arnold summarily described the three groups as 'a materialized upper class, a vulgarized middle class, and a brutalized ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... one, involving Church and State, and the infallibility of our newly risen Jeremiah. Thus full-handed, thinkest thou in a suit the Prince of India against the venerable Hegumen of all the St. James', His Majesty will hesitate? Is thy opinion of him as a politician so uncomplimentary? Think again, I ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... an awkward one, for not only was the skipper of the opposition barge landed, and awaiting us with an uncomplimentary eagerness on the bank, but the driver, whip in hand, was standing beside him, and the dog, showing his teeth, ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... no more than justice in the remark, not expressed, though, I hope, implied, that I would not knowingly make use of an offensive expression towards him or any living man; and I appreciate the courtesy with which he has sweetened the uncomplimentary things he has felt constrained to say of me. I trust it will be found that I can repay his courtesy and imitate his forbearance. As a preliminary remark, however, I must say that MR. HALLIWELL, in his haste, has confounded the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... erecting this hospital, it was no sign that he intended to follow his example. What is more, he declared that we never would see another red cent of Danbury money if he could help it. Called his father an old fool and every other uncomplimentary ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... set foot on a bridge could pass that scaly hulk unmoved. Matt Peasley said uncomplimentary things about the owners of the vessel and directed the launchman to pass in under her stern, in order that he might read her name. She proved to be the ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... very late day ran through all German-English and French-English dictionaries; I know not whether even now it has disappeared. In all of these 'pineapple' is rendered as though it signified not the anana, but this cone of the pine; and not very long ago, the Journal des Debats made some uncomplimentary observations on the voracity of the English, who could wind up a Lord Mayor's banquet ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... mysterious or uncomplimentary. You either care nothing for a tete-a-tete with her, or you will gladly send her out of my way. Which ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... reason, we were talking about balloons, and we were as merry as possible; but the conversation drifted into family matters, during which Carrie, without the slightest reason, referred in the most uncomplimentary manner to my poor father's pecuniary trouble. I retorted by saying that "Pa, at all events, was a gentleman," whereupon Carrie burst out crying. I positively could not ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... to have you take yourself off, somewhere, and stay till the day after the party," was Kat's uncomplimentary remark. ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... I studied myself and watched and waited for the first sign of growing grace, for the dawning glory. Sometimes I thought I could see the change already under way, and then again the same plain Nelly Winship looked at me from the uncomplimentary glass, and away ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Swiveller, "that's not uncomplimentary. Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad of a degrading quality. Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... little, I confess, that a magazine of such unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America, should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I must stand to it, Godfrey—there's a touch of the magnanimous in the affection which exists among Americans for Christopher ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... de Saint-Bartholomee Porte-Glaive I shall not say much. The "province," which is strong in them, saves them sometimes. But Cladel's hopeless lack of self-criticism shows itself in the fact of his actually reprinting in full an article of Veuillot's (by no means uncomplimentary) on himself, as a prelude in the book last mentioned, and adding a long reply. The proceeding was honest, but rather suicidal. One may not wholly admire the famous editor of the Univers.[441] But nothing could ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... had been very shy of Ester since the morning's trials, and were at that moment sympathizing with each other in a manner uncomplimentary to her. However, they slid down from their perch and ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... the beautiful state of our national legislation and morals, as civilizers and protectors of the red-men. It is time for me to relieve you from these details, so uncomplimentary to us of the superior order, and to tell you something about the famous religious festival which took me amongst the Indians, and thereby caused, the foregoing first preamble,—the ennui produced by which I proceed to cure, like a quack doctor, by doubling the dose. Accordingly, here ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Gerrish, perhaps a brother of Moses, was a farmer in Lancaster who left his home, was arrested and imprisoned in York County, and thence removed for trial to Worcester by order of the council, May 29, 1778. The following letter uncomplimentary to these two loyalists is found in Massachusetts ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... spy out a rich man's only daughter. People said: The Hampdens have made a dead set on Campbell, always asking him to luncheon, etc. People said: He is fooling her. In fact people gave expression to every uncomplimentary sentiment which the circumstances could possibly suggest, and it was only then that I turned my attention to the matter at all. I heard the floating verdicts that were being pronounced upon us, and thenceforth I also infused a certain purpose ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... in the course of the uncomplimentary remarks directed toward him that the crowd, being unable to find the dingey where they believed they had left it, had spent some twenty minutes searching up and down the beach, that subsequently they had waited there in the fog for a good forty minutes more ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... evening, gentlemen. We are all wery poor, but strictly honest." At which cheerful apocryphal statement, all the inmates of the room burst into boisterous laughter, and began pelting the imaginative female with epithets uncomplimentary and unsavory. Dickens's quick eye never for a moment ceased to study all these scenes of vice and gloom, and he told me afterwards that, bad as the whole thing was, it had improved infinitely since he first ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... author tells us how he finally was dismissed from the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... orifice on a line enervatingly little above the top of his head; and, although he had not supposed himself so well known in this neighbourhood, he was aware that he did, here and there, possess acquaintances of whom some such uncomplimentary action might be expected as natural and characteristic. His immediate procedure was to prostrate himself flat upon the ground, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... less democratic than one of shirt-sleeves: the important thing in both cases is that the great majority of citizens all look alike. The alarm-clock awakens us, less politely than a James or Joseph, but we need never suspect it of uncomplimentary mental reservations, and neither its appetite nor its morals cause us uneasiness. Fellow-citizens of Greek extraction maintain parlors where we may sit, like so many statues on the Parthenon, while they polish our ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... to fall in love with you?" asked Joan. "I don't mean to be uncomplimentary, Dad." She laughed, taking his hand in hers and stroking it. "You must have been ridiculously handsome, when you were young. And you must always have been strong and brave and clever. I can see such a lot of women falling in love ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... passer-by," says Montaigne, "to become tutor to the ignorance of the first I meet, is a thing I abhor;" a thing, in fact, naturally distressing to the scholar, who will therefore ever be shy of offering uncomplimentary assistance to the reader's wit. To really strenuous minds there is a pleasurable stimulus in the challenge for a continuous effort on their part, to be rewarded by securer and more intimate grasp of the author's sense. Self-restraint, a skilful economy ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the ragged gorge. For days they clambered up and down the jagged walls of the cut, or skirted its densely covered margin. Twice Harris fell into the brawling stream below, and was fished out by Rosendo, his eyes popping, and his mouth choked with uncomplimentary opinion regarding mountain travel in the tropics. Once, seizing a slender vine to aid him in climbing, he gave a sudden lurch and swung out unexpectedly over the gorge, hundreds of feet deep. Again Rosendo, who by this time had learned to keep one eye on the ground and the other ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and Aunt Barbara, Serena and Letty, and Seth and Jonathan were all in a whirl from morning until night. Serena thought that the phonograph was an invention of the devil, and after hearing the uncanny little machine repeat that very uncomplimentary remark which she had just made about it, she was surer than before. Serena did not relish being called an invention of the evil one, herself, but it does not do to call names at ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... between the Drive and Broadway. His usually placid nervous system was ruffled and a-quiver from the events of the afternoon, and his cauliflower ears still burned reminiscently at the recollection of the uncomplimentary words shot at them by Mrs. Pett before she expelled him from the house. Moreover, he was in a mild panic at the thought of having to see Ann later on and try to explain the disaster to her. He knew how the news would ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Motte-Broon, near Rennes, France, there was born about the year 1314 "the ugliest child from Rennes to Dinan," as an uncomplimentary chronicle says. He was a flat-nosed, swarthy, big-headed, broad-shouldered fellow, a regular wretch, in his own mother's words, violent in temper, using his fist as freely as his tongue, driving his tutor ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... about to give up in despair, and were leaving the White House lobby, their speech being interspersed with vehement and uncomplimentary terms concerning "Old Abe," when "Tad" happened along. He caught at these words, and asked one of them if they wanted to see "Old Abe," laughing at the ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... and when it appears that Hans Kampe makes a favorable impression upon him, the friends of Riis concoct a scheme to injure him. They inform his father that he is suspected of embezzlement, and get him drunk, whereupon the old man scandalizes the company by a burst of uncomplimentary candor. When Hans arrives the mischief is done; though the pathetic scene between father and son convinces the chairman that, whatever their failings, these men are true and genuine. Simply delicious ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... proceeded to paint the improvement which would follow in glowing colours, and in this she was urged by two motives—one, an honest desire to smarten Lilac up a little, and the other, to vex and thwart her aunt, Mrs White; to pay her out, as she expressed it, for sundry uncomplimentary remarks on ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... preferred to lie down. But with spring, when it got out to grass, this would right itself. And it was a good cow for a small family like his; it did not give much milk at a time, but to make up for it gave milk all the year round. And rich milk too! When uncomplimentary remarks were made about it, Lars Peter would chaffingly declare that he could skim the milk three times, and then there was nothing but cream left. He was very fond of it, and more so for the good milk it had given the ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the somewhat uncomplimentary and insubordinate language in which you express yourself," said Gowdy, "which I overlook under the peculiar circumstances, I reckon I must admit that I did assume an attitude on your part of which you are incapable, and that such an assumption ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... about its being a family drove or not," I replied; "it simply says 'drove.' I do not mean it in any uncomplimentary sense, but, speaking etymologically, I am inclined personally to regard your collection as a 'drove.' Whether the police will take the same view or not remains to be seen. I ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... muttering very uncomplimentary remarks about his hostess under his breath, deliberately passed by several eligible wallflowers, chose out the youngest child in the room, and led ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Lannigan wept. As to that none might be sure, for he sat facing the wall in a corner of the bunk-room. No misunderstanding could there have been about his remarks, muttered though they were. They were uncomplimentary to all veterinary inspectors in general, and most pointedly uncomplimentary to one in particular. Below they were leading Old Silver away ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... and that something of an unusual nature was troubling his mind. Priscilla was an odd-looking creature but faithful;—her attachments were strong, and her dislikes only a shade more violent,—and just now she entertained very uncomplimentary sentiments towards "them doctors" who had, as she surmised, put her master out of sorts with himself, and caused anxiety to the "darling child," as she invariably called Innocent when recommending her to the guidance of the Almighty in her daily and nightly prayers. Meanwhile ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... his early youth was spent at East Stour in Dorsetshire, to which his father removed after the judge's death. He is said to have received his first education under a parson of the neighbourhood named Oliver, in whom a very uncomplimentary tradition sees the original of Parson Trulliber. He was then certainly sent to Eton, where he did not waste his time as regards learning, and made several valuable friends. But the dates of his entering and leaving ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Nauvoo. For a year she had watched him enter the post-office, unlock his letter-box, swing on his heel and walk away, with never a glance at her nor a sign of recognition to any of the village people who might be there. She heard people exchange uncomplimentary opinions concerning him; she heard him sneered at, ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... a general sense of awakening and recovery. Next to happiness, perhaps enmity is the most healthful stimulant of the human mind. The Perpetual Curate woke up and realised his position with a sense of exhilaration, if the truth must be told. He muttered something to himself, uncomplimentary to Mr Morgan's good sense, as he turned away; but it was astonishing to find how much more lively and interesting Prickett's Lane had become since that encounter. He went along cheerily, saying a word now and then to the people at ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... that might have been taken at the uncomplimentary nature of the reply was swallowed up in eager ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... writ of execution against him, and at the imperative sign made by this man the porter stopped. The creditor attacked Derues violently, reproaching him for his bad faith in language which was both energetic and uncomplimentary; to which the latter replied in as conciliatory a manner as he could assume. But it was impossible to silence the enemy, and an increasing crowd of idlers began to assemble ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... something inadvertently, which had so piqued Corkran that he threw over his appointment on the impulse? Or had he perhaps been dishonourable enough to glance at a letter, in which Lark referred to him in terms uncomplimentary? ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... bear it,' said unworldly and uncomplimentary Mysie. 'And you need not be lonely now. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to Kidnappers. Richard Allen, the Colored Bishop. The Colored Guests at his Table. Kane the Colored Man fined for Blasphemy. John McGrier. Levi Butler. The Musical Boy. Mary Norris. The Magdalen. The Uncomplimentary Invitation. Theft from Necessity. Patrick M'Keever. The Umbrella Girl. The two young Offenders. His courageous intercourse with violent Prisoners. Not thoroughly Baptized. The puzzled Dutchman. Hint to an Untidy Neighbor. Resemblance to Napoleon. The Dress, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... protests of the New World against a colonial government that bound us all hand and foot; when the plain people undertook to govern themselves without any Heaven-sent superior force to control them, how gloomy were the prognostications, how unfriendly were the wishes, how uncomplimentary were the expressions which, upon the other side of the Atlantic, greeted the new experiment—that we should have rule by the mob, that disorder and anarchy would ensue, that plain men were incapable and always would be incapable, of maintaining ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Such critics are content to regard as black anything which Naude calls white and vice versa. Others accept him as a witness entirely trustworthy, and adopt as a true description of Cardan the paragraphs made up of uncomplimentary adjectives—applied by Cardan to himself—which Naude has transferred from the De Vita Propria and the Geniturarum Exempla to his Judicium ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... train came along. I overheard him make that remark to the stranger in the dark—it was in Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his talk—most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favourably: among these latter yourself. I say 'favourably'—nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person in the town—not one; but that you—I THINK he said you—am almost sure—had done him a very great service once, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Greusel, betraying no eye for beauty, "called us every uncomplimentary name she could think of. We were the scum of the earth, according ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... I am certain," the latter proclaimed to her daughter; "while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's wonderful how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin." Somehow, with this commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary impatience. Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a disagreeable object with a sharp point. She considered this in the long periods when, partly by ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to have it. A woman to the North American Indian is a simple affair, dealt with without circumlocution. In the Bible records there is not much mystery about her; there are many tributes to her noble qualities, and some pretty severe and uncomplimentary things are said about her, but there is little affectation of not understanding her. She may be a prophetess, or a consoler, or a snare, but she is no more "deceitful and desperately wicked" than ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... open field extending to the bluff near the river; on the right was a dense thicket of pines and undergrowth. In this we had to form. The Seventh experienced some trouble in getting into line, and many camp rumors were afloat a few days afterwards of an uncomplimentary nature of the Seventh's action. But this was all false, for no more gallant regiment nor better officered, both in courage and ability, was in the Confederate service than the "Bloody Seventh." But it was the unfavorable nature of the ground, the difficulties experienced in forming a line, and ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... with the honest independence of Gladding to be offended at his uncomplimentary frankness. Nor, indeed, looking at it from Tom's point of view, could he avoid feeling a certain respect for that right-mindedness, which regarded not merely the personal remuneration to be received, but, also, the general benefit to be produced. He ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that decidedly uncomplimentary penwiper, where the ass's head declares "There are two of us;" while every child had some absurdity to show; and Miss Moy's shrieks of delight were already audible at a tortoise-shell pen-holder disguised as ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... incidents do not stand alone. It was not uncommon for some of the Continental guests, in the presence of the court ladies, to make uncomplimentary remarks about the food, which was Chinese, and often not very palatable to the foreigner. These remarks, of course, were not supposed to be understood, though the Empress Dowager always had her own interpreter at table. One often felt ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... in his opinion, at the present day any sufficiently pronounced method of declaring admiration for the many lovely women this world contained. A proposal of marriage he considered to be a mean and clumsy substitute for the older way, and was uncomplimentary to the many other women left unasked, and marriage itself required much more constancy than he could give. He had a most romantic and old-fashioned ideal of women as a class, and from the age of fourteen had been a devotee of hundreds of them as individuals; and though in that time ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... to dispute the count after every hand has been played. It draws attention to the fact that you are anxious to win. It also draws uncomplimentary remarks from your opponents and sometimes occasions the ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... for me," mused Van Berg. "Stanton, no doubt, has told her of my uncomplimentary remarks, and possibly of the fact that I declined an introduction. That's awkward, for if I should now ask to be presented to her, she would very naturally decline, and so we might drift into something as closely resembling a quarrel as is possible in the case of two people who have ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... days when I shall get the big check that is coming to me," I assured them. I went on to spin a long yarn, to which she listened with jeers and outbursts of uncomplimentary Yiddish ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... when it reaches its extremity; short wide trousers terminate at the knees, at which points they are met by a pair of Wellington boots. He entreats his equally strangely dressed companion to pay no attention to the uncomplimentary remarks of certain rude people who stand at the door and seem strongly inclined to subject them to the discipline of the pump. The pretty girl in attendance expresses to herself a hope that "the creatures will leave the shop," as she fears the exasperated ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... conjuration; many of his brethren in art had much more effective formulae. It seems that devils were peculiarly sensitive to any opprobrious epithets that chanced to be bestowed upon them. The skilful exorcist took advantage of this weakness, and, if he could only manage to keep up a flow of uncomplimentary remarks sufficiently long and offensive, the unfortunate spirit became embarrassed, restless, agitated, and finally took to flight. Here is a specimen of the "nicknames" which had so potent an effect, if Harsnet is to ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... although this certainly would have been probable owing to the position of the house of Este. On one occasion he deeply offended Lucretia when, in reinstating Guglielmo Gaetani in possession of Sermoneta by a bull dated January 24, 1504, he applied the most uncomplimentary epithets to Alexander VI, describing him as a "swindler" who had enriched his own children by plundering others.[206] This especially concerned Lucretia, for she had been mistress of Sermoneta, which had subsequently been given ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... carried a notice that the proceeds of all meetings would be turned over to the woman's rights cause. Susan also arranged for the printing of Train's widely distributed pamphlet, The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas, with this jingle, so uncomplimentary to the eastern abolitionists, on ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... confusion the time seemed much longer. She began to grow ill at ease; she felt a quick spurt of irritation. No doubt she looked a perfect fright, taken all unawares like this, and equally indisputably he was forming an extremely uncomplimentary opinion of her. It required less than three seconds for Miss Helen to decide emphatically that the man ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... weight two hundred, ruddy, simple, guileless, singing softly to himself as he walked, in peasant blouse, and sabot-shod, used to come up to Paris, his birthplace, two or three times a year, and the gamins would follow him on the streets, making remarks irrelevant and comments uncomplimentary, just as they might follow old Joshua Whitcomb ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... a Mr. Swain, was a sturdy Britisher with a very red face and cool blue eyes, not easily impressed; if Lanyard were not in error, Mr. Swain entertained a private opinion of the lot of them, Captain Monk included, decidedly uncomplimentary. But he was a civil sort, though deficient in sense of humour and inclined to be a bit abrupt in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... be in trouble," Kaiser observed dryly. And on that uncomplimentary comment King Karl slept, his face drawn into a ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... courtesy. The singling out of one person for address is supposed to be a liberty or an excess of familiarity; and the effect is softened or diluted by the fiction of taking in others. If our address is uncomplimentary, the sting is lessened by the plural form; and if the reverse, the shock to modesty is not so great. This is a refinement that was unknown to the ancient languages. The orators of Greece delighted in the strong, pointed, personal appeal implied in the singular 'thou.' In modern ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... Giles, uncomplimentary to me though it be, might have some force if we were just now in the Channel, where being run down in fog is an event of frequent occurrence; but here, in a comparatively unfrequented sea, it would be strange indeed were I to be influenced by such ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... a gift to him last week, and I do not think very much of that Gouverneur," I made answer with excellent falseness, because I had had no thoughts since my presentation to that Gouverneur Faulkner that were not of him. I had obtained the uncomplimentary remark upon the ship, from the lady of Cincinnati, who said it about the doctor of the ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... after making some extremely uncomplimentary comments upon the weather, had lowered his green-shaded electric light and established himself ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... public opinion in those days was quite as powerful a force as it is now, though the channels along which its force could be felt and its strength find expression were limited. Indignation was rife, and monkish versifiers and chroniclers protested in lines more or less uncomplimentary, and more or less forcible, their loathing of such ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... so, indeed, that we shall not trouble to refute it Good and noble, he avers, are epithets inapplicable to animals, even to the horse or dog. What vain creatures men are to talk thus! Does his lordship remember Byron's epitaph on his Newfoundland dog, and the very uncomplimentary distinction drawn therein between dogs and men? Look at that big pet with the lordly yet tender eye! How he submits to the boisterous caresses of children, because he knows their weakness and shares their spirit ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... exceedingly uncomplimentary at times," said Raffles Holmes, showing more resentment than I had ever given him credit for. "Perhaps you observed that I didn't go to ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... all of whom he supposes to be such blockheads that they will not instantly detect the patch-work he has so awkwardly sewn together. So abjectly does he everywhere flatter France, Paris, the theologians, the Sorbonne, the Colleges, no beggar could be more cringing. Accordingly, if anything uncomplimentary seems to be said against the French, he transfers it to the British; or against Paris, he turns it off to London. He added some odious sayings as if coming from me, with the view of stirring up hatred against me amongst those by whom he is grieved ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... during the summer months, and the school-children twice a day all the year long. The invalids in the hotel object to the children and make unsuccessful attempts to banish them from their pitch, and the children in their turn regard the invalids with frank disdain, and make audible and uncomplimentary surmises as to the nature of their complaints as the ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... often treated in a contemptuous manner by several of the mates and midshipmen. He heard himself called a wretched young quill-driver, Cheeseparings, junior—Cheeseparings being the name gived to the purser—the captain's spy, or licenced talebearer, with many similar uncomplimentary epithets. He made no complaint even when Mr Leigh once kindly asked him if he was happy in the berth, nor did he reply in a way to excite the anger of those who were endeavouring to ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston |
