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Undue   /əndˈu/   Listen
Undue

adjective
1.
Not yet payable.
2.
Not appropriate or proper (or even legal) in the circumstances.  "I didn't want to show undue excitement" , "Accused of using undue force"
3.
Lacking justification or authorization.  Synonyms: unjustified, unwarranted.  "Unwarranted limitations of personal freedom"
4.
Beyond normal limits.  Synonyms: excessive, inordinate, unreasonable.  "A book of inordinate length" , "His dress stops just short of undue elegance" , "Unreasonable demands"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Undue" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Napoleon and His Detractors," obviously desires to convey the impression that all questions, important or unimportant, relating to the Emperor, were studiously kept from his son, and until he arrived at a certain age there can be little doubt that undue and unnatural precautions were taken to prevent the Emperor's name being spoken, but the means used for this purpose must have proved abortive, as everything points to him having been well informed. He appears ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... The college barometer this year was unusually depressed, for rumour had gone abroad that the Presbytery examination was to be of the more serious type. It was a time of searchings of heart for those who had been giving, throughout the session, undue attention to the social opportunities afforded by college life, and more especially if they had allowed their contempt for the archaic and oriental to become unnecessarily pronounced. To these latter gentlemen the day brought ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... your imagination too much—it might have deceived you," she warned. "But you have sense; you wouldn't attach an undue value to anything." ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... with proper gravity, "I am glad to find that any undue austerity of character—of which, however, I assure you, upon my honor, I never suspected you—has received so invaluable a corrective. Still, it is obvious to remark, that, if the chief effect of this new style of religion is to abate any excessive antipathy which the New ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... Kandy was certainly of vast dimensions, and was continuously packed to overflowing during the cricket week, and an unusual notice conspicuously displayed, asking "gentlemen to refrain from singing in the passages and bedrooms at night," seemed to hint that undue conviviality was not unknown in the hotel; but it must be remembered that these young fellows work very hard, and lead most solitary existences. An assistant-manager on a tea estate may see no white man for weeks except his own boss, or "P. D.," so it is perfectly natural ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... riches to a small number of persons, some half-dozen or less of whom continue to live in the Colony, while the others have returned to Europe. These great fortunes are a disturbing element, giving an undue influence to their possessors, and exciting the envy or emulation of the multitude. The other change is the growth of a class of people resembling the "mean whites" of the Southern States of America, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... capitalist. This revolt, taking the form of trade unionism, has pursued in the industrial field the same line of development as the movement for political freedom has pursued in the sphere of national government. It first contented itself with protests against excessive exactions, against all undue stretchings of the power of the capitalist; then its efforts broadened out to demands for restrictions upon the absolute character of such power, i.e., by claiming for trade unions the right to make rules for ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... air seemed vibrant with a living personality, which, without undue stretching of the imagination, I recognized as the SPIRIT OF HISTORY come to tell me the wonderful story of those wonderful mountains. Enraptured ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal

... undue increase of Church property. Through gifts and bequests the clergy had become owners of a very large part of the most fertile soil of the realm. No farms, herds of cattle, or flocks of sheep compared with theirs. These lands were said to be in mortmain, or "dead hands"; since the Church, being ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... passages are ample and are so proportioned that the resistance offered to the gases is only such as will assure the proper abstraction of heat from the gases without causing undue friction, requiring excessive draft. ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore," said Anne, in a matter-of-fact tone. She had decided that it would be best to mention Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue morbidness to the subject by avoiding it. She was right, for Leslie's air of constraint suddenly vanished. Evidently she had been wondering how much Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that no explanations ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... "Crayshaw's" of undue severity, of discomfort, of bad teaching and worse manners, my father opposed arguments which he allowed were "old-fashioned" and which were far-fetched from the days of ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... begins to put his tail between his legs!" cried a young and garrulous savage, who bore the appropriate title of the Corbeau Rouge; a sobriquet he had gained from the French by his facility in making unseasonable noises, and an undue tendency to hear his own voice; "he is no warrior; he has killed the Loup Cervier when looking behind him not to see the flash of his own rifle. He grunts like a hog, already; when the Huron women begin to torment him, he will cry like the young of the catamount. He is a Delaware ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... ago he received intelligence from Edward Granger that his stepfather had died suddenly of heart trouble, brought on by an undue use of alcoholic mixtures. Edward concluded: "Now there is nothing to mar my mother's happiness. I live at home and manage her business, besides filling a responsible place in a broker's office. We hope you will pay us ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr

... Commissioner of his department, his immediate superior. This is the perennial problem of trusty and loyal servants; anarchism gave it its particular complexion, but nothing more. Truth to say, Chief Inspector Heat thought but little of anarchism. He did not attach undue importance to it, and could never bring himself to consider it seriously. It had more the character of disorderly conduct; disorderly without the human excuse of drunkenness, which at any rate implies good feeling and an amiable leaning towards festivity. As criminals, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... and with the treatment of other diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis should be given adequate attention; the idea of the whole plan being to place all these matters in their proper setting, without undue emphasis on matters ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... affections to my life. Not only was I his son, I was his only son. Moreover, I was the only living child of the beloved wife of his youth—all that remained to him of my fair mother. Then I was the heir to his property, the hope of his family, and, without undue egotism, I may say, from what I have been told, that I was a quaint, original, and (thanks to Mrs. Bundle) not ill-behaved child, and that, for a while at least, I should have been much missed in the daily ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... prosecuting officer must each make arguments before the jury on the real meaning of the evidence. In civil cases likewise, all disputed questions of fact go ordinarily to a jury, and are the subject of arguments by the opposing lawyers. Did the defendant guarantee the goods he sold the plaintiff? Was undue influence exerted on the testator? Did the accident happen through the negligence of the railroad officials? In such cases and the countless others that congest the lists of the lower courts arguments ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... It is said—of course, without any allusion to nurture, education, environment, opportunity—that such extreme variations as we call genius are much commoner amongst men than women: and then that the male sex also furnishes an undue proportion of the insane—as if there were no unequal incidence of alcohol and syphilis, the great factors of insanity, upon the two sexes. Nevertheless, observant members of either sex will either contradict one another on this point according to their particular opportunities, or will, on further ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... thought so, for at a very early age I perceived that we lived in a more expensive way than any of my father's friends did. It was not the pride of birth, of which, miss Withers, you once imagined you might justly boast, but the mere display of wealth that I was early taught to set an undue value on. My parents spared no cost for masters to instruct me; I had a French governess, and also a woman servant whose sole business it was to attend on me. My play-room was crowded with toys, and my dress was the admiration of ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... exciting that the mind has no time to rest on details, but hurries on from clue to clue till finally and literally the murder is out. Books which keep a reader on the tenter-hooks of conjecture must always suffer from this undue concentration of the interest; and in spite of cheery, inquisitive Dr. Toole, and the remarkable sketch of Black Dillon, the ruffianly genius with a reputation only recognised in the hospitals and the police-courts (a character admirably invented ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... is very refreshing. Rejection by one's own constituents is sometimes a blessing in disguise: it saves one from undue familiarity.... That has never happened ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman

... nature sound, as is proved in a hundred directions where it has had full play. Suppressed idealism, like any other suppressed desire, becomes unsound. And here lies the ultimate cause of the taste for sentimentalism in the American bourgeoisie. An undue insistence upon happy endings, regardless of the premises of the story, and a craving for optimism everywhere, anyhow, are sure signs of a "morbid complex," and to be compared with some justice to the craving for drugs in an alcoholic deprived of liquor. No one can ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... successors of Wu-wang profited by the lessons given them by past history. Incapacity, excessive severity and undue weakness had created discontent and loosened the relations between the emperor and his vassals. Increase in the extent of the empire greatly added to this decline of central power. For the emperor's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... thee, then, that hedgehogs have many ways. I warrant thee this king's man knoweth naught of them, any more than he knoweth the wood. Had he been some men, we had been caught ere now. I fear him not overmuch. For do but see how he is puffed up with undue pride and importance. And let me tell thee that undue pride and importance and good sense dwell not in the same skull. We shall therefore have the better ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... went abroad, hints were given, and broader assertions advanced, that the old man had not been capable of making a will, and that his mind had been so completely disordered and prostrated by excessive grief for the loss of his daughter, that he became the dupe and victim of undue influence in the person of a selfish and artful girl—that artful girl being no other than Alice Goodwin, aided and abetted by her family. Every circumstance, no matter how trivial, that could be raked up and collected, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... of these things the Spanish Government, ever fearful of undue colonial strength, came to the conclusion that the Viceroyalty of Peru was quite powerful enough and wealthy enough without these newer possessions. In the year 1718 the limits of the Viceroyalty of New Granada were ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... hour or so with this witty and amiable lady nearly every day. The actress is a great favorite with the people at large, on account of her devotion to the emperor, and for her tact in declining to take any undue advantage of the favor which he accords to her. Indeed, the degree of indulgence with which Austrian society, as well as the masses, look upon this intimacy maybe gathered from the fact that one of the most—popular ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... offence, may be one of the main pillars in the structure of the intellectual system of the universe; without which its internal constitution would be radically defective, and its moral government impossible. In short, for aught he knows, his objection may arise, not from any undue or unnecessary severity of the punishment in question, but from his own utter incapacity to decide such a point in relation to the universal and ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... fickleness of the multitude, but what seems to us to be merely the general law of human nature. Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor. It was thus in the case of Hastings. The length of his trial, moreover, made him an object of compassion. It was thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... through the air, "it is the duty of every gentleman when he finds that he is in the wrong to acknowledge the fact with dignity and good grace. My dear young pupils, I hope I have properly expressed myself towards you both; and let me add that this will be a lesson to us, to me, against speaking in undue haste, and ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... perhaps that Columbus took ninety days in a forty-ton boat, and that only fifty years ago paddle steamers took six weeks, and all the time the demand is greater and the strain is more: the public demand speed and luxury; the lines supply it, until presently the safety limit is reached, the undue risk is taken—and the Titanic goes down. All of us who have cried for greater speed must take our share in the responsibility. The expression of such a desire and the discontent with so-called slow travel are the seed ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... father's fortunes were at a low ebb she had retrieved them by good management and personal industry—a girl, too, who through years of toil had preserved sprightliness and perfect gentility. What though this gentility was somewhat cramped by that undue importance given to trifles which is often the result of a remote life; it was still a very lovely thing, a jewel shining all the more purely for its iron setting of honest labour. Sophia fought with the scorn that was thrusting itself into her heart as she listened when ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... although there does exist a certain monotony of gloomy depression in the tone of all his writings, yet they are so varied in form and contents that it is impossible to classify them under any one heading without resorting to undue violence. He is not the poet of any one class of society, of any one party or circle, but expresses in his poetry the thoughts of a whole cycle of his native land, the tears of all his contemporaries ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... extract some passages of peculiar force and beauty,—such as that where Mr. Choate rebukes the undue haste of reformers, and calls to mind the slow development and longevity of states and ideas. But our duty is the less pleasing one of pointing to some of the sophistries of the argument and some of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. The Romish religion especially teaches renunciation of self, submission to others, and nowhere are found so many grasping tyrants as in the ranks of the Romish priesthood. Each human being has his share ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... predicaments, and have suffered no hardships whatever: there has been a sort of freemasonry among Polar voyagers to keep up the credit they have acquired as having done wonders, and accordingly, such of us as were new to the ice made up our minds for frost-bites, and attached a most undue importance to the simple operation of boring packs, etc., which have now vanished, though I am not going to tell everybody so; I do not here refer to travellers, who do indeed undergo unheard-of hardships, but to voyagers who have a snug ship, a little knowledge of the Ice, and due caution is ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... declining way" without him. Then two entire companies raised on the frontier offered the same petition on similar grounds. Sometimes Pepperrell was beset with prayers for favors and promotion; sometimes with complaints from one corps or another that an undue share of work had been imposed on it. One Morris, of Cambridge, writes a moving petition that his slave "Cuffee," who had joined the army, should be restored to him, his lawful master. One John Alford sends the General a number of copies of the Reverend ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... at noon Thursday. Lee was still in Fredericksburg. The troops were able to march many miles farther without undue taxing. They should have been pushed out that afternoon to the open ground and to Banks's Ford. To fail in this, was the first great error of the campaign. There had not been a moment's delay allowed from the ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... difference between the northern and southern cast of conception: but there are indirect causes holding a far more important place in the Gothic heart, though less immediate in their influence on design. Strength of will, independence of character, resoluteness of purpose, impatience of undue control, and that general tendency to set the individual reason against authority, and the individual deed against destiny, which, in the Northern tribes, has opposed itself throughout all ages to the languid submission, in the Southern, of thought to tradition, and purpose to fatality, are all more ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... held to be one of the last works of the Castelfranco master. That is to say, it is both sumptuous and boldly contrasted in the local hues, the sovereign unity of general tone not being attained by any sacrifice or attenuation, by any undue fusion of these, as in some of the second-rate Giorgionesques. Common to both is the use of a brilliant scarlet, which Giorgione successfully employs in the robe of the Trojan Aeneas, and Titian on a more extensive ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... true minds, wherein nothing of the common bane of matrimonial life found existence. Moreover, both were artists, and, therefore, too full of respect for themselves and their art to bring in any way the undue influence of each other ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... semicircle, as if they were a hand at cards, and not always a good one? Why, having done this, she instantly retired to the nearest wall, and gazed at you scornfully, as one who would say, "Fair sir, though lowly, I am proud; if thou dost imagine that I would permit undue familiarity of speech, beware!" And then I began to think of and dread the coming breakfast; to wonder why the ham was always cut half an inch thick, and why the fried egg always resembled a glass eye that visibly winked at you with diabolical dyspeptic suggestions; ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... traditions and events that are landmarks in a great military and maritime past. He would not care to see his King always, or even frequently, in uniform, as he would be apt to find in the fact an undue preference for one class of citizens to another. His idea is that the monarch ought to treat all classes of his subjects with equal kingly favour. In Germany it is otherwise. The monarchy relies on military force for its dynastic security, as much, one might perhaps say, as for the defence of the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... picnics and the like in the neighbourhood, but the acquaintance, instead of ripening on frequent meeting into a frank, pleasant friendship, had taken the turn of secrecy and silly playing at love. James Graham was in a lawyer's office, a young articled cleric of seventeen in undue haste to be that delightful thing, a man. He carried a cane, and was very particular about his hat and necktie and his boots, which generally were tan. And he had the faintest possible moustache, that he ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... them until he borrowed a foolish fashion from France—and from the very cut and nature of them, they should be worn so still, or abandoned altogether. We quarrel with them, not on the score of form so much as on that of inutility and undue contrast of colour. If the thing be dark, and the stocking light, an effect of cleanliness is attained; but the magpie appearance immediately prevails. The case is the same as that of a white waistcoat and a black coat; too glaring, trop prononce. If they are both of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... earlier volume entitled "Stamboul Nights" will recall the very real genius for the romantic presentation of adventure in exotic backgrounds which the author revealed. Every detail, if studied, was quietly set down without undue emphasis, and the whole was a finished composition. In the title story of the present volume, and in "The Emerald of Tamerlane," written in collaboration with John Taylor, Mr. Dwight is on the same familiar ground. I had occasion three ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... above it will save undue confusion if we state that the copy of the perforated 6d on laid paper to which Mr. King refers was proved to be a forgery as shown by the following extract from the American Journal of Philately ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... hero's appearance that he could hardly believe in his own identity when he stood before the glass, and saw reflected the form of a well-dressed boy, in place of the ragged figure which he saw on entering. The only thing which marred his good appearance was his hair, which had grown to undue length. He determined to have it cut before he left the ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... liberal and friendly relations with all; ever ready to fulfill our engagements with scrupulous fidelity; limiting our demands upon others to mere justice; holding ourselves ever ready to do unto them as we would wish to be done by, and avoiding even the appearance of undue partiality to any nation, it appears to me impossible that a simple and sincere application of our principles to our foreign relations can fail to place them ultimately upon the footing on which it is ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... conceivable means of salvation. And the opponents of each particular form of faith invariably take just such good men and women, with all their limitations, as the only true exponents of that especial creed, which they then proceed to tear in pieces with all the ease such an undue advantage of false premise gives them. None of them have thought of intellectual mercy as being, perhaps, an integral part of Christian charity. Faith they have in abundance, and hope also not a little; ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... wound on the head will tell its own story. As a commencement we will petition that we may not be ordered back to our father's custody, and it will further be set forth that our reason for this is that a father has assaulted a son with undue and unnecessary violence. We shall be sure to gain the ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... men by the sword or by exile, yet rather increased, for the time to come, the dread with which they were regarded, than their real power. Such proceedings have often ruined powerful states; for of two parties, each strives to suppress the other by any means whatever, and take vengeance with undue ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... suspected why, led carefully up to the subject, and not being discouraged—except by numerous grunts—gave the father an account of the proceedings by no means unfavourable to the son. Some people like paregoric; the Honourable Hilary took his without undue squirming, with no visible effects ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... brother, Shawn, occupying the lower portion, and the other, Morgan, living in the upper apartments. Both at the same moment invited a Spanish captain, who had come into the port, to dine with them. The foreigner, embarrassed by their hospitality, and not wishing to show an undue preference—as neither brother would give way—agreed to give his company to whichever gentleman had his repast cooked first. The brothers repaired with speed to the castle, and Morgan was chagrined ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... words, "Him will God destroy." The full force and bearing of this teaching he may not apprehend. I have already said that with a young boy the lower appeal never to do anything that is low and dirty and blackguardly will have far more practical weight, and will also avoid laying undue stress on the religious emotions. But I am quite sure that the Christian teaching of the sanctity of the body must be laid deep and strong with all the force of early impression in a boy's inmost being, in order that it may lie ready for future use when Nature has ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... candour of disposition, which marked him in private life, pervade his writings, except on some few occasions, when his mind is too much under the influence of party feelings. This bias inclined him, not only to treat the character of Milton with a most undue asperity, but even to extenuate the atrocities committed under the government of Mary, and somewhat to depreciate the worth of those divines, whose attachment to the reformed religion led them to suffer ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... large black dog—one of the noble race of Newfoundland, generally so sensible and dignified as to forbid undue familiarity on the part of strangers. The aforesaid quadruped was one of the finest of the race—a colossal beast, and occupied the whole width of ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... in this connection other instances of good work done by our Lord on Sabbath days; and this we may do without undue regard to the order of the events in time. We again find Jesus in Galilee, whether prior to or after His visit to Jerusalem at the time of the unidentified feast, on which occasion He wrought the miracle ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... and snatch time from the hours of night. Headings such as "10 P.M.," "Midnight," "8.45 A.M.," became frequent, yet she would give love's full measure to every correspondent, and there was seldom sign of undue strain. "If my pen is in a hurry," she would say, "my heart is not." When she was ill and unable to write, she would simply lie in bed and speak to her Father about ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... ART OF MAKING ENEMIES. As pleasingly exemplified in many instances, wherein the serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have been prettily spurred on to indiscretions and unseemliness, while overcome by an undue sense of right. By J. M'NEILL WHISTLER. A ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... BIRKENSTOCK: We must not act with undue haste in this important matter. Every Republican knows what the sentiment of freedom is, for which everything has already been sacrificed, and therefore it is not so easy to approve of, or to reject, a document such as the one now before us. I cannot agree ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... was being suspected of taking an undue interest in the benefactress of the island. The idea, when it came from ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... strange action, the deathblow given by the most persistent vengeance to the feeblest of victims. Madame de Listomere's legacy to Birotteau was contested by the Baron de Listomere under a pretence of undue influence! ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac

... extension, and was converted into something like an exact science, the pervading aim being to produce landscapes and water-scapes within the limits of a comparatively small park without conveying any sense of undue restriction. Buddhist monks developed signal skill in this branch of esthetics, and nothing could exceed the delightful harmony which they achieved between nature and art. It may be mentioned that the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... him had to be done covertly, it was found; he disliked any manifestation of undue attention to his wants. Sometimes he was terribly irritable and unjust, and at others almost heartbreakingly gentle and mild. Lois had persuaded him to have the doctor, who told him seriously that he ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... by a permanent and irresponsible body, from whom there is no appeal. When this power is secretly exercised, the abuses become still more grave. It is also worthy of remark, that in the nations which submit, or have submitted, to these undue and dangerous influences, the pretensions to justice and generosity are of the most exaggerated character; for while the fearless democrat vents his personal complaints aloud, and the voice of the subject of professed despotism is smothered entirely, necessity itself dictates ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... insured a fair amount of favor. Her work was always welcome and well paid, so well that she could live comfortably on the income she made for herself, without falling back on her marriage settlement. Without an undue strain upon her mental powers she could earn a thousand a year, which was amply sufficient ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... part company. But I have been requested by a great many persons to give some account of the subsequent history of the vessels and their crews, with which I had made them acquainted. I attempt the following sketches in deference to these suggestions, and not, I trust, with any undue estimate of the general interest my narrative ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... fascinations of domestic life would attract them from many duties which they owe to their fellow creatures. There are then many disadvantages connected with matrimony. There is so much ignorance, perverseness, undue inclination for power, disposition to contradict, anger, jealousy, hatred, and versatility among human beings that many unpleasant occurrences will necessarily arise, and especially in the marriage state, because ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... Virtues named by the said Philosopher. The first is called Courage, which is sword and bridle to moderate our boldness and timidity in things which are the ruin of our life. The second is Temperance, which is the law and bridle of our gluttony and of our undue abstinence in those things requisite for the preservation of our life. The third is Liberality, which is the moderator of our giving and of our receiving things temporal. The fourth is Magnificence, which is the moderator of great expenditures, making and ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... "extremes, my dear, ought always to be avoided. To be constantly running from one extreme to another shows an unbalanced character. A medium path is the wisest which one can choose, and one should show neither undue elation nor foundless depression at the events of life. I remember a proverb which we used to quote as children: 'Laugh in the morning, cry before night!'—and there is a great deal of truth in it, too. High spirits are bound to be brought low ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... to cite Hillier than it was to find him. For three days I searched in my library, and tumbled my books about in that confusion which results from undue eagerness; 't was all in vain; neither hide nor hair of the desired volume could I discover. It finally occurred to me that I must have lent the book to somebody, and then again I felt sure that it had ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... used for the outward convoys were destroyers or sloops which were due to proceed to sea to meet a homeward convoy, the routine being that the outward convoy should sail at such a time as would ensure the homeward convoy being met by the escort without undue delay at the rendezvous, since any long period of waiting about at a rendezvous was impossible for the escorting vessels as they would have run short of fuel. It was also undesirable, as it revealed to any submarine in the neighbourhood ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... your ruin or your shame: and what evil could ensue the confession of the foulest murder, even before a bench of magistrates, more dreadful than that which will inevitably follow the practice of the least concealment to me, or the least undue disclosure to others? ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... Without undue flattery to Master Trafford, we may conclusively state that we deem his poem a great deal better than most of the vers libre effusions which so many of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... gold head. With all its dandyism it was a model of good taste, and in no single detail smacked of the parvenu, and that for the very good reason that Paul was no parvenu, but a man who was conscious of having attained to a position which was his by nature and by right. He had never suffered from undue diffidence, and his success had naturally increased his sense of his own value, which, however, he did not display in any bumptious or aggressive manner as one who would force reluctant acknowledgment of his merits, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... some soft material. As life goes on, many archers take aim thereat; and every man's quiver is full of subtle and varied arguments, but not every man shoots aright. Some draw the bow too tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction, but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows are ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... were entertained, but these wise (?) men discreetly recommended caution and deliberation, lest by undue haste the Great Spirit might become incensed and defeat their endeavors. This stratagem was very pellucid, because the longer they delayed the formalities, of course the greater would be the chance of success; but the importunities of the women became daily more persistent, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... judges being members of the Legislative Council. But the motion was not pressed. This gentleman, though very desirous of as much liberty as it was possible to obtain for himself, was not particularly disposed to give an undue share to others. He took umbrage at an article communicated to the Mercury, ably written, and perhaps, at the time, strikingly true, relative to the conduct which Mr. Stuart had been and was pursuing, since he had been stript of his official situation by the late Governor. It was ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... the excellent retold versions of two Japanese stories are given as made by Teresa Peirce Williston in her Japanese Fairy Tales. (Copyrighted. Used by permission of the publishers, Rand McNally & Co.) In these simple versions the point to the story is made clear in natural fashion without undue moralizing. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... teaching you that," guffawed the mill owner. "I stick to half-crown cigars myself." His wife shot him a dignified rebuke, as though he were forgetting his station in undue familiarity. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... Messer Simone had put his pledge, with his palm and fingers, into the hand of the Captain of the People, but he had done so because at the given instant he could not very well see that there was anything else for him to do—as, indeed, there was not. But Simone was never a man to give undue weight to the words or forms of a foolish ceremony if the ceremonial stood in the way of anything he wished to accomplish and saw the chance of accomplishing. Therefore, Messer Simone did not intend to keep the Peace of the City a moment longer than was convenient for ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... be proper to bring any undue influence to bear on him. I shall carry your challenge to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... bright girls of the institution beguiled him into revealing the authorship of the satiric verses, "Don Pompioso," which caused their victim, a wealthy and popular young gentleman of Richmond, to quit the city with undue haste. The verses were the boy's revenge upon "Don Pompioso" for insulting remarks about the position of Poe as the son of ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... Tellurio added, "the Martians are far too intelligent to waste the water in this fashion: hence their canal system by which the water is economically distributed where required, and also protected from undue evaporation. It must not be forgotten that our canals are also means of communication across the deserts, and without them distant parts of the planet would be entirely isolated from the rest of our ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... allow the destinies of this planet to work themselves out without undue concern. We should gain nothing by exclaiming against them, and a display of temper would be very much out of place. It is by no means certain that the earth is not falling short of its destiny, as has probably ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... she was yet an infant, and she was in some ways still innocent as a babe. The circumstances of our journey put her so much in my power that I, not to take advantage of the situation, sometimes held myself with undue stiffness toward her when my every impulse was to tenderness. Perhaps it might be that we rode through woodland in the falling dusk while the nesting birds sang madrigals of love. Longing with all my heart to touch but the hem of her gown, I would yet ride with ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... Assembly of Virginia ... which you had refused to recommend as being unfit to be presented.... Wee cannot but approve of your proceedings.... And wee doe further direct you to discountenance such undue practices for the future as alsoe the Contrivers and Promoters thereof."[967] For their activity in this matter Sherwood and Milner "in ye following year were both turned out of all imployments to their great damage ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... or the outbreak, call it what you like, has been put down with firmness, I do beg the Government, and I speak from the very bottom of my heart and with all my earnestness, not to show undue hardship or severity to the great masses of those who are implicated, on whose shoulders there lies a guilt far different from that which lies upon the instigators and promoters of the outbreak. Let them, in the name of God, ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... mystery does not lessen the obligation. We are responsible not only for the existence of our children, but equally for their growth. It is the parent's privilege to make sure that they start on the journey of life properly equipped, and with no undue obstacles in their pathway—to make them realize that they are not only his children but also children of God; and that they are to live not only in time but ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... Germans, who, in spite of their culture, preserve a strain of barbarism in their characters, are the modern representatives of this view. There is just this amount of truth in it—that at the cost of undue and appalling sacrifices, war brings out certain fine qualities in ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... to him, and that he learns all the vices but none of the virtues of society, can be opposed instances of tribes which have freely mingled with the whites without debasement, and have acquired the arts of civilized life with no undue proportion of its evils. To the assertion that the Indian must gradually decline in numbers and decay in strength, his life fading out before the intenser life which he encounters, can be offered instances of the steady increase in population of no small number of ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... more frequently in the book of Job and the Lamentations of Jeremiah than any other portion of the Bible. The poor lonely woman seemed to feel a mother's tenderness for me, which manifested itself in many little acts of kindness, when unobserved by her husband, who took good care that no undue indulgence should be shown to any one under his roof. I soon learned to regard the old lady with all the affection of which I was capable; and it was her kindness alone which rendered my position endurable. I sought in many ways to lighten ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell

... history of the word 'Humor.' In the first place this was the Latin name for 'liquid.' According to medieval physiology there were four chief liquids in the human body, namely blood, phlegm, bile, and black bile, and an excess of any of them produced an undue predominance of the corresponding quality; thus, an excess of phlegm made a person phlegmatic, or dull; or an excess of black bile, melancholy. In the Elizabethan idiom, therefore, 'humor' came to ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... gripping the extended hand, and I immediately coughed hard, to explain away the undue moisture welling ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... of the eye is one of the first portions of the nervous apparatus to be disturbed by any undue strain on the system; it is not surprising that masturbation should be widely incriminated as a cause of eye troubles. If, however, we inquire into the results obtained by the most cautious and experienced ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of France, was naturally disposed to a union with that kingdom. Ferdinand did not neglect to maintain such an understanding with the malcontents of Navarre, as should enable him to counteract any undue advantage which the French monarch might derive from the possession of this key, as it were, to the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... passionately seeking and needing material betterment, have magnified in this country the feverish acquisition of material wealth and accentuated the hard, calculating business spirit; and has seemed to place undue value upon the worth of material success and the things of ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... Lebanon as one who had authority, and desired not to use it; as one to whom life was like a case in surgery to be treated with scientific, coolness, with humanity, but not with undue sympathy; yet the early morning of the day after Ingolby had had his accident at Barbazon's Hotel found him the slave of an emotion which shook him from head to foot. He had saved his friend's life by a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Sforza at Milan. The fifth class includes the nephews or sons of popes, and is of later origin, like the Borgia of Romagna. Their governments had less stability. The sixth class is that of eminent citizens, like the Medici at Florence and the Bentivogli of Bologna. These acquired undue authority by wealth, sometimes by personal qualities and noble descent. Among those who are called "despots" were individuals of worth, moderation, and culture. The records of many of them are filled with tragic scenes of violence and crime. To ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... course was run in England. Colet's foundation of St. Paul's School in London, [Sidenote: 1510] for 153 boys, has perhaps won an undue fame, for it was {666} backward in method and not important in any special way, but it is a sign that people at that time were turning their thoughts to the education of the young. When Edward VI mounted the throne the dissolution of the chantries ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... information at once to my master; but I learned that he had already started, and thus baffled and believing that his affection for Mademoiselle d'Entragues, if not for her sister, would lead him to act with undue leniency, I conceived a ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... been abandoned by the garrisons, and routed the cavalry who later confronted them: by reason of the river, however, near Mutina and the guard beside it they found themselves unable to proceed farther. They wished, notwithstanding, even so to make known their presence to Decimus, that he might not in undue season make terms, and at first they tried sending signals from the tallest trees. But since he did not understand, they scratched a few words on a thin sheet of lead, and rolling it up like a piece of paper gave it to a diver to carry across under water by night. Thus Decimus learned at the same ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... however, to lay undue stress on the factor just mentioned in accounting for both the rise and the decay of Spain. Her ascendancy in Europe in the 16th century was due chiefly to the immense territories united with her under Charles the Fifth (1500-1558), who inherited Spain, Burgundy, and the Low Countries, and ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... that my girls had such discernment as to select you as one of their, I might really say august, number. You took your honors in precisely the spirit I should have expected of you—sweetly, modestly, without any undue sense of pride or hateful self-righteousness. Then, a few days ago, there came a thunderclap; and teachers and girls were alike amazed to find that you were no longer a member. By the rules of the club we were not permitted to ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... directly from this, that the mind lays undue stress upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it separates and individualizes its objects as far as possible; that it places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense of the whole,—to the analogia fidei or spiritus which alone gives unity to the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... Rushbrooke, who was an older man than Mr. Murray, and who was unwilling to accede to him any position of dominance in the business world of Winnipeg. "There's really nothing we can do. It seems to me that we must keep our heads and as far as possible prevent undue excitement ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... least thirty at table every day, the dishes were delicate without undue profusion, the conversation gay and animated without any improprieties. I noticed that whenever the Marquis d'Argens chanced to let slip any equivocal expressions, all the ladies made wry faces, and the chaplain ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... straightforward and simple, speaks to him, not with the downcast eyes of her humility, but as an equal, as if the great Dunois had been a prud' homme of her own degree. There is no appearance indeed that the Maid allowed herself to be overborne now by any shyness or undue humility. She speaks loudly, so as to be heard by those fighting men, taking something of their own brief and decisive tone, often even impatient, as one who would not be put aside either by cunning ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... churches, and lectures, and school-houses, and city military affairs, and highway robberies, and Bible societies, and hay wagons, and the thousand other things which it is within the province of local reporters to keep track of and magnify into undue importance for the instruction of the readers of a great daily newspaper. Beyond this revelation everything connected with these two experiments of Providence must for ever remain an impenetrable mystery." An admirable picture of Mark Twain on his ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... of her refusal. In conspiracy with her "dead" husband it was impossible to be apart from him for long together. The undue accentuation of her daughter's feigned grief had alarmed the old lady—and justly so. Now that I recollected, her conduct at table on the previous night was remarkable, having regard to the true facts of the case. I confess I had myself been entirely deceived into believing ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... needs and has almost compelled a higher standard of life in order to satisfy them. As a whole, the working classes of England, though less thrifty than those of some Continental countries, cannot be accused of undue negligence with regard to the future. The accumulation of savings in Friendly Societies, Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies, and Savings Banks shows an increase which has more than kept pace with the rise in the level of wages; yet there appears no likelihood ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... same from 1900. That noble exponent of the best there is in womanhood, Mrs. Emily S. Richards, preserved the spirit and genius of the Council, which recognized no party and whose members cast their votes for good men and measures without undue partisan bias. She was sustained by its capable and resourceful secretary, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Cohen, and both maintained a non-partisan attitude in the conduct of the Council. The officers were: Emmeline B. Wells, member national executive committee; Elizabeth A. Hayward, Mrs. Ira D. Wines, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... all," Carter almost shouted at him. "They'll be arriving with sufficient time elapsing between arrivals to guarantee us immunity from any undue delay or embarrassment in loading them. We've bought the wheat and sold it; now give us the tonnage to freight it, Redell, and we'll all be happy, and a little richer than we were the day ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... undertook, body for body, that he should be detained in captivity for the necessary period. But the old steward was not half so docile when it came to be considered how the captive's bedding and table should be supplied; and he thought Lady Peveril displayed a very undue degree of attention to her prisoner's comforts. "I warrant," he said, "that the cuckoldly Roundhead ate enough of our fat beef yesterday to serve him for a month; and a little fasting will do his health good. Marry, for drink, he shall have plenty of cold water to cool his hot liver, which ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... far as possible, his own mind in a curious turmoil, passed down St. James's Street and along Pall Mall and presented himself at Carlton House Terrace. Externally, the great white building, with its rows of flower boxes, showed no signs of undue perturbation. Inside, however, the anteroom was crowded with callers, and it was only by the intervention of Terniloff's private secretary, who was awaiting him, that Dominey was able to reach the inner ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... chance of insult or offence. The suite of the rajah consists principally of slaves, either purchased or debtors: they are well treated, and rise to offices of some note. The Panglima rajah was a slave-debtor, though we did not know it for some time after our arrival. I never saw either cruelty or undue harshness exercised by the great men during my stay, and in general their manners were affable and kind to those about them. The Rajah Muda Hassim is a remarkably short man, and slightly built; about 45 years of age; active and ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... and the little he possessed was taken from his children's necessities to build this record to his dust. Do not suppose that I would check that honest pride which will prove a safeguard from unworthy actions. I only wish to check that undue pride which will mar thy future prospects. Jacob, that which thou termest ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and everything else; consequently conscience would not give her a moment's peace; consequently that day was a long and bitter fight betwixt right and wrong. Duties were neglected, because she could not give her mind to them; then they crowded upon her notice at undue times; all was miserable confusion. In vain she would try to reason and school herself into right feeling; at one thought of her lost treasure passion would come flooding up and drown all her reasonings and endeavours. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... individual development depends on the harmonious exercise of our three-fold nature, and undue power given to either deranges and undermines the whole being, so in the nation, a complete experiment of self-government can be made only by the equal recognition of the rights of all citizens, and in their homogeneous education into the laws of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Empire" was revoked on February 26, 1861, when Schmerling succeeded Goluchowski, and the so-called "February Constitution" was introduced by an arbitrary decree which in essence was still more dualistic than the October Diploma and gave undue representation to the nobility. The Czechs strongly opposed it and sent a delegation on April 14 to the emperor, who assured them on his royal honour of his desire to be crowned King ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... generally freezes the first, this circumstance seems a remarkable instance of the provision of nature for maintaining such a balance in the quantity of ice annually formed and dissolved, as shall prevent any undue or extraordinary accumulation of it in any part of the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry



Words linked to "Undue" :   due, immoderate, law, jurisprudence



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