"Unpleasing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in this miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous Saint Clair, the spiritual sister of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded from intrusive elements ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... little in appearance, though his slim figure had shot up rapidly in height. His chestnut hair grew in high peaks from his temples and swept in a single lock above his small, sparkling eyes, which held an expression of intelligent animation. On the whole, it was not an unpleasing face, despite the tremulous droop of the mouth, already darkened by the faint beginning ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... should soon have got beyond the first impression created by her severe dress, close widow's cap and straight grey hair, and have discovered that the outline of her face was absolutely beautiful, and I might possibly have detected, what most people failed to detect, that an odd unpleasing effect, caused by the contrast between her general style, and an occasional lightness and rapidity and grace of movement in her slender figure, came from the fact that she was much younger than she looked and affected to be. ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... high-sounding titles was hunched up on his cushions in the State Pavilion. 'On State occasions, among which it is evident that he included this Quaker audience, he delighted to deck his unpleasing person in a vest of cloth of gold, lined with sable of the richest contrasting blackness. Around him were ranged the servants of the Seraglio—the highest rank of lacqueys standing nearest the royal person, the "Paicks" in their embroidered coats and caps of ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... soundly with open mouth. A thick mass of hair escaped from beneath her cap, upon her brow; the moonlight fell, through the window-pane in the roof, upon her face. Otto bowed himself over her and examined the coarse, unpleasing features. The thick, black eyebrows appeared only like one ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... depths (he had before remarked them, that day, as indicating a nature a little weak, purposeless and not prone to self-examination)—in their depths, clear enough now, there lay a dark, sombre, but not unpleasing shadow, such as only shows itself in eyes that have been turned inward. We usually say of a man whose eyes show the same expression: "That man has studied much," or, "he has suffered much," or, "he is a spiritualist." By the latter expression, we mean that he ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... attire, and a certain not unpleasing rusticity of air, Sir Francis comprehended at once that he was fresh from the country; but he also felt satisfied, from his bearing and deportment, that he was a gentleman: a term not quite so vaguely ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... for, a woman outside of his household, unless he can couple the idea of love, past, present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devil would give half as much for the services of a sinner as he would for those of one of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a way to make them unpleasing.—That young girl wants a tender nature to cherish her and give her a chance to put out her leaves,—sunshine, and ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... who know the mocking-bird only as a captive in our houses he has few attractions: a mere loud-voiced echo of the inharmonious sounds man gathers about his home,—car-bells, street cries, and other unpleasing noises,—and choosing for his performances the hours one wants to sleep. Unfortunate is the neighborhood in which one is kept. Such was my feeling about the bird before I knew him in freedom, where he has ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... Ecce Homo at Antwerp, so frequently copied by contemporary painters, is a specimen of masterly modelling and vigorous colour. He is less successful with his life-size Adam and Eve, of which there are repetitions at Brussels, Hatfield, Hampton Court and Berlin. But his most unpleasing efforts are the mythological subjects such as the Danae at Munich, and the Neptune and Amphitrite at Berlin. On the other hand, his portraits are attractive both from being more original, and less influenced by his acquired mannerisms of style Four of these are in the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... day, And when I come to codify, their rules I mean to modify, Or Mrs. Grundy, p'r'aps, may have a word or two to say: For they hadn't macintoshes or umbrellas or goloshes - And a shower with their dresses must have played the very deuce, And it must have been unpleasing when they caught a fit of sneezing, For, it seems, of pocket-handkerchiefs they didn't know the use. They wore little underclothing - scarcely anything - or no-thing - And their dress of Coan silk was quite transparent in design - Well, in fact, in summer ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... several workmen, whose names will be given later, at the cost of nearly 7000 livres, borne by the Cardinal d'Estouteville, the Portail de la Calende was completed, a new top placed upon the Tour St. Romain, a frigid and unpleasing staircase built in the north transept to lead up to the canon's library, and the courtyard, with its entrance screen placed in the Rue St. Romain before the Portail des Libraires. He also began the Tour de Beurre, but left it to be finished by Jacques ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... hiave. The language however which is spoken is the most classical and pure Italian and except the above mentioned aspiration it is delightful to the ear; peculiarly so to those who come from the north of Italy, and have only hitherto heard the unpleasing nasal twang of the Milanese and the exceeding uncouth barbarous dialect of Bologna. Another striking peculiarity is the smart appearance of the Tuscan peasantry. They are a remarkably handsome race ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... He called attention to the fact that it was really a facsimile, rather than a copy, and he seemed pleased at the perfect reproduction of the injured points, which were few, and of the stains, which were faint and not unpleasing. But he never showed it to an artist or ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... doing nothing less for the last half-hour. If looking could make a village, I should begin to see one. There, to be sure, is the mission-house, conspicuous enough, quaint and by no means unpleasing. It is a spacious, substantial, two-story edifice, painted in two shades of a peculiar red, and looking for all the world as if a principal house, taken from one of those little German toy-villages which are in vogue about Christmas, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... with curiosities, both dressed in masculine habits, and both frightfully ugly. These portraits, it seems, were taken by an amateur, by stealth, as neither of 'The Ladies of Llangollen' would consent to sit, and a lamentable record is it which creates most unpleasing sensations to the lover of the graceful, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... toilet she entered the sitting-room. Mrs. Warren, in her morning deshabille, looked a more unpleasing object than ever. Her hair was in tight curl-papers, and she wore a very loose and very dirty dressing-gown, which was made of a sort of pattern chintz, and gave her the effect of being a huge pyramid ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... is equally vulgar in conversation; and puns, unless they rise to the rank of witticisms, are to be scrupulously avoided. A lady-punster is a most unpleasing phenomenon, and we would advise no young woman, however witty she may be, to cultivate this kind ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... conversation for her, for I did not know whether she would like being complimented on the ballet we had just seen. I then went to look at the musicians and their instruments, the latter consisting chiefly of coffee canes struck by a sort of gong-sticks. The sound at a distance was bell-like and not unpleasing. I was informed that the Regent had paid L500 for his set of instruments. After this I returned to my inn in my carriage. How I got to this place I shall tell later. I must now go to bed, as we start at 5 A.M. on an expedition to see an ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... abroad; near home, he is ugly enough. Your saying that he is a pretty man, brings to my mind what I have observed in the work of the painter, whose pictures show best at a distance, but, very near, more unpleasing. ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... cases this superstition is based on unpleasing associations connected with the days proscribed. Who can wonder if, in times less enlightened than our own, undue importance were attached to the strange coincidence which marked the deaths of Henry VIII. and his posterity. They all died on a Tuesday; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... and—the worst of it is—told with a certain foundation of truth? Apocryphal is, no doubt, that which has evolved itself from the internal evidence supplied by the Baptism of Christ of Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci; but a stronger substructure of fact supports the unpleasing anecdotes as to Titian and Tintoretto, as to Watteau and Pater, as to our own Hudson and Reynolds, and, alas! as to very many others. How touching, on the other hand, is that simple entry in Francesco Francia's day-book, made when his chief ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... any solace like the solace and consolation of Language? When I am disconcerted by the unpleasing aspects of existence, when for me, as for Hamlet, this fair creation turns to dust and stubble, it is not in Metaphysics nor in Religion that I seek reassurance, but in fine phrases. The thought of gazing on life's Evening Star makes of ugly old age a pleasing ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... at the new office of the Civil Service Examination Board. Alaric had been invited to wait upon the great man, in terms which made him perfectly understand that the communication to be made was one which would not be unpleasing or uncomplimentary to himself. Indeed, he pretty well guessed what was to be said to him. Since his promotion at the Weights and Measures he had gone on rising in estimation as a man of value to the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... be pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately set it a-singing; or, in other words, though ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... do not suppose there was one of you ladies in the room that did not think so too; but yet the matter was all passed over with smiles, and with not a single insinuation that he had said any thing unpleasing or disagreeable." ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... need to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious; there may be else no mean mistakes in his censure. If he be of such worth as behoves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets. There is no book acceptable, unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoyned the reading of that at all times, whereof three pages would not down at any time, is an imposition ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... he was reduced almost to despair, for nobody liked it. Schumann said of it: "It is the empty and unpleasing music of an amateur." But Spohr wrote: "The opera contains certain new and fine things, which at first I did not like, but to which I became ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... lies; what human can deny Old Honest Tom the tribute of a sigh? Deaf is that ear which caught the opening sound; Dumb that tongue which cheer'd the hills around. Unpleasing truth: Death hunts us from our birth In view, and men, like foxes, take ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... melody of the hymn, the sweet notes of the younger ones carried high on the stronger tones of the elder Sisters, while the three old nuns droned on in a sort of patient, nasal, half-mannish counter-tenor, scarcely pronouncing the words they sang, but making an accompaniment that was not wholly unpleasing. ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... meditations was assuming a not unpleasing aspect; and the undercurrent in time assumed almost the nature of self-congratulation. Even the ordeal which was yet to come when he would have to face Miss O'Donoghue and render an account of his short trust, could not weigh the balance down on ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... be inferred from the foregoing description that Miss Tyler was a young and ardent damsel in her teens; whereas she was considerably nearer forty than thirty, and possessed an uncomely aspect unpleasing to male eyes. Her own were of a cold grey, her lips were thin, her waist pinched in, and—as the natural consequence of tight lacing—her nose was red. Her scanty hair was drawn off her high forehead very tightly, and screwed ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... felt was that of pity for the poor land—pressed down and smothered under so deadly a weight: here and there, a strip of cliff protruded, black and bare, from the edge of the mer-de-glace, whose surface, rough and unpleasing, was of a sombre yellowish tint, with occasional masses of basalt protruding through it, like the uplifted hands of drowning men: it seemed Earth's prayer for light and life; but the ice, shroud-like, enveloped it, and would ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... words were caught, multiplied, misconstrued, and even fabricated and spread abroad to my injury; that he saw also, that there was such an opposition of views between myself and another part of the administration, as to render it peculiarly unpleasing, and to destroy the necessary harmony. Without knowing the views of what is called the republican party here, or having any communication with them, I could, undertake to assure him, from my intimacy with that party in the late Congress, that there was not a view in the republican ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of the philosophy of the complex vision to that modern tendency of thought which calls itself "pragmatism" and which also finds in personality its starting-point and centre? The philosophy of the complex vision seems to detect in the pragmatic attitude something which is profoundly unpleasing to its taste. Its own view of the art of life is that it is before everything else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help discerning in "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell-mell and "hand-to-mouth." It seems conscious of a certain outrage to its aesthetic ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... killed Alexander Hamilton, and now framing wild schemes for an empire in Mexico. Unscrupulous, restlessly active and cynical, he was a singular contrast to the placid philosopher, upon whom his confidences seem to have made an impression of not unpleasing horror. Burr's conversation suggested to Bentham a singular scheme for emigrating to Mexico. He applied seriously for introductions to Lord Holland, who had passed some time in Spain, and to Holland's friend, Jovellanos (1749-1812), ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... misconduct in any of the commanders of armed vessels under the American flag. Every authentic information of that kind will be strictly attended to, and every means be taken to punish the offenders and make reparation to the sufferers. The chief consolation we find in this unpleasing business is, that the most experienced States have not been able to restrain the vices and irregularities of individuals altogether. Congress has published a proclamation for the more effectually suppressing and punishing such malpractices. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... feature, Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature Which they hit off at once in the beginning, Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... original brightness they formed probably "the finest series of frescoes which Giotto ever produced"; but the hand of the restorer has spoiled them utterly, so that only the shadow of their former beauty remains, amid much that is hard or unpleasing. ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... Inis Gluaire. And the first night he came to the island, the children of Lir heard the voice of his bell, ringing near them. And the brothers started up with fright when they heard it. "We do not know," they said, "what is that weak, unpleasing voice we hear." ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the bantering remarks of his brother-drivers were borne with smiling equanimity, not to say pride; for Sam was well aware that Mrs. Dolly Page's brunette beauty, and his blonde-bearded style, together furnished a not unpleasing tableau of personal charms. Besides, Sam's motto was, "Let those laugh who win;" and he seemed to himself to be on the road to heights of happiness beyond the ken of ordinary ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... has duly exerted its influence, I should prefer the destroying it quickly and effectually to any other mode. The term caustic to a tender ear (and I conceive none feel more interested in this inquiry than the anxious guardians of a nursery) may sound harsh and unpleasing, but every solicitude that may arise on this account will no longer exist when it is understood that the pustule, in a state fit to be acted upon, is then quite superficial, and that it does not occupy the space of a silver penny. [Footnote: I mention escharotics ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... sea, and, to the dismay of the old woman who kept house for him, he began to neglect his food. A melancholy but not unpleasing idea that he was slowly fading occurred to him when he found that he could eat only two herrings for breakfast instead of four. His particular friend, Joe Harris, to whom he confided the fact, ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... inconceivable degree; he was soft, engaging even, and in a bright and constant good humour. The family consisted of the mother, two daughters, and the son, moi qui vous parle—all of whom looked to him with a sort of awe and reverence, which was not unpleasing to him. The two girls he professed to admire and love; the mother, a woman of the world, had won him by her speech at his dinner party, during which a loud crash came from the hall; he said nothing, but she saw the temper working within, and quoted ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... tangent, one after the other, and ending in a windowless closet and an open cistern. But the Agency gloried in its irregularities, and defied criticism. The original idea of its architect—if there was any—had vanished; but his work remained a not unpleasing variety to summer visitors accustomed to city houses, all built with a definite purpose, and one ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... thoughts upon the segment of the world which surrounds him cannot avoid being an egotist; but then his egotism is not unpleasing. If he be without taint of boastfulness, of self-sufficiency, of hungry vanity, the world will not press the charge home. If a man discourses continually of his wines, his plate, his titled acquaintances, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... could have been joined to the wild, shining ecstasy of Shelley's countenance itself—you would have had Mackworth's face before its time. I never beheld such spirituality in a fat man. His stoutness was not unpleasing. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... age was exactly thirty-five years and a half. He was a short, compact figure, and a little inclined to a localised embonpoint. His face was not unpleasing; the features fine, but a trifle too pointed about the nose to be classically perfect. The corners of his sensitive mouth were depressed. His eyes were ruddy brown and troubled, and the left one was round with more of wonder in it than its fellow. His complexion was dull ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... overhang the thatch, itself unseen Peeps at the vale below; so thick beset With foliage of such dark redundant growth, I called the low-roofed lodge the PEASANT'S NEST. And hidden as it is, and far remote From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear In village or in town, the bay of curs Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels, And infants clamorous whether pleased or pained, Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine. Here, I have said, at least I should possess The poet's treasure, silence, and ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... not die—not just then, anyhow. He lived to learn to speak, and to talk, and to put out his tongue at visitors, let alone interrupting his parents with unpleasing remarks and telling lies. It was early observed that he did all these things with a je-ne-scais-quoy and a verve quite different from the manner of his little playmates. When one day he moulded out, flattened and unshaped the waxen nose of a doll of his, it was apparent to all that it had ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... does not require them to destroy. And though their notion of compensation to a tortured insect or a cankered flower may seem to some of us a very wild crotchet, yet, at least, is not a mischievous one; and it may furnish matter for no unpleasing reflection to think that within the abysses of earth, never lit by a ray from the material heavens, there should have penetrated so luminous a conviction of the ineffable goodness of the Creator—so fixed an idea that the general laws by which He acts cannot admit of any partial injustice ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... little perverted in meaning when we are quite familiar with them. Quotations are as often applied in a sense which the author did not intend as in that which he did. The parody of the words of Shakspere or of the Bible, which has in it something of the nature of a lie, is far from unpleasing to us. The better known words, even if their meaning be perverted, are more agreeable to us and have a greater power over us. Most of us have experienced a sort of delight and feeling of curiosity when we first came ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... excellencies of collodion—that extreme minuteness of detail which from its excess becomes almost a defect at times,—toning it down by increase of size till the harshness is much diminished, and landscapes, always more or less unpleasing on collodion from that cause, are rendered somewhat less ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... his stanza. His style was, in his own words and peculiarities of phrase, and so remote from common use that Jonson boldly pronounces him to have written no language. His stanza is at once difficult and unpleasing: tiresome to the ear by its uniformity, and to the attention by its length. . . Life is surely given us for other purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away and to learn what is of no value but because it has been forgotten."[35] In his "Life of West," Johnson ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... sure, from what I have said, that it is not my wish that you should become mere learned women; mere female pedants, as useless and unpleasing as male pedants are wont to be. The education which I set before you is not to be got by mere hearing lectures or reading books: for it is an education of your whole character; a self- education; which really means a committing of yourself to God, that He may educate you. Hearing ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... scorn possible into her forced smile, and then, dropping full-length into the heather, she began to sing at the top of a shrill, unpleasing voice, mainly, of course, for the sake of harrying anyone in her neighbourhood ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... writer, who appears to have possessed much more industry than genius, and cannot at present be read with much pleasure. Yet it should be remembered that even such a writer as Robert de Brunne, uncouth and unpleasing as he naturally seems, and chiefly employed in turning the theology of his age into rhyme, contributed to form a style, to teach expression, and to polish his native tongue. In the infancy of language and composition, nothing ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... for Violet to speak, Mrs. Finch always kept the whole conversation to herself; but she could not but perceive that though the exaggeration and recklessness of style were unpleasing, yet it really was frank and genuine, and Theodora's declaration that Georgina was far preferable to Jane ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... best gown was not new nor expensive, and her jewels were conspicuous by their absence, the picture she made as she stood before the mirror giving the last touches to her hair was distinctly not an unpleasing one. Maggie, the maid, who entered the room to announce a caller, was extravagant in ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... meaning, when I refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals, That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this,—that there is not a single image from nature in the whole body of his works; ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... thought was not wholly unpleasing to her, that Bill Chester and the Comte de Virieu would not get on well together. She wondered if Count Paul had ever been jealous—if he were capable of jealousy? It would be rather interesting to see if anything or anyone could make ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... rose, waiting for the woman to come forward. This she did with a quick, natural step which insensibly prepared the mind for the brisk, assertive woman who now presented herself. Mr. Hammersmith, at sight of her open, not unpleasing face, understood for the first time the decided attitude of the coroner. If this woman corroborated her husband's account, the poor young girl, with her incongruous beauty and emotional temperament, would not have much show. He looked to see her quailing ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... not, my dear sir. Indeed, I am sure you would respect our poor friend's wishes, even if they were to take a form unpleasing to yourself, which is far from likely. But still it may be as well for Mr. Whitelaw and myself to be alone. In cases of this kind the patient is apt to be nervous, and the business is done more expeditiously if there is no third party present. So, my dear ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... was fairly big. I had a look at it no more than a dozen years ago. The house, too, was and is a not unpleasing one, situated within a stone's throw of Russell Square, Bloomsbury. Its spaces are ample, its fittings solidly good, and its area less subterranean than many. Near by is a select livery stable and mews of sub-rural aspect, with Virginia creeper climbing over a horse's head in stucco. Amelia ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... who in old times had been used to bear himself in that place with the utmost confidence and dignity, surrounded by the warmest affection of the people, amidst universal favour—how humble, how cast down he was then! How ill-content with himself, to say nothing of how unpleasing to his audience! Oh, what a spectacle! No one could have liked it but Crassus—no one else in the world! Not I, for considering his headlong descent from the stars, he seemed to me to have lost his footing rather than to have been deliberately following a path; ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... writing by unnecessary severity, but uses triplets and alexandrines without scruple. In his preface to Solomon he proposes some improvements, by extending the sense from one couplet to another, with variety of pauses. This he has attempted, but without success; his interrupted lines are unpleasing, and his sense, as less distinct is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... black and curly; he had thick lips and beautiful white teeth, which he was fond of showing. His eyes were large and black but deeply sunken; now bright and sparkling, again dull and glassy. His features, to me at least, were harsh and unpleasing; but he was evidently a man of great energy, to whom action was as the breath ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... Charles, probably, was secretly pleased with a system, which cramped the effusions of the tragic muse, and forbade, as indecorous, those bursts of rapturous enthusiasm, which might sometimes contain matter unpleasing to a royal ear.[5] But the merry monarch saw no good reason why the muse of comedy should be compelled to "dwell in decencies for ever," and did not feel at all degraded when enjoying a gross pleasantry, or profane witticism, in ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... yet, as if too remote to be reflected in the lagoon. Only to the west a setting planet shone through the red fog of the sunset glow. "It was supposed not to be good for me to have much freedom of action. So at least I was told. But I have a suspicion that it was only unpleasing to other people." ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... his room earlier in the day, and I went straight to him from the deck cabin. To find Holgate there was not unpleasing, as it seemed in a way to recall what I almost began to consider old times—the time that was in the "Three Tuns." Pye mixed the toddy, and we smoked more or less at our ease. I spoke of my patient, in answer to a question, as one suffering ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... thing that English people notice about German servants is, that they are allowed to dress anyhow, and that the results are most unpleasing. In Hamburg, the city that gives you ox-tail soup for dinner and has sirloins of beef much like English sirloins, the maids used to wear clean crackling, light print gowns with elbow sleeves. This was their full dress in which they waited at table, and fresh looking country girls ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... overstated Indian weaknesses in his Essay on Warren Hastings, where he has occasion to describe the character of Nand Komar, who, as a Bengali man-of-the-pen, appears to have been a marked type of all that is most unpleasing in the Hindoo character. The Bengalis, however, have many amiable characteristics to show on the other side of the shield, to which it did not suit the eloquent Essayist to draw attention. And in going farther North many other traits, of a far nobler kind, will be found more and more abundant. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... time to return homewards. The sun was setting. The lengthened shadows of the cliffs, and of the hills towering again far above them, cast a brown but not unpleasing tint over the waters of the bay. Further on the beams of the sun still maintained their splendour. Some of the sails of the distant ships, enlivened by its rays, appeared like white spots in the blue horizon, and seemed to ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... necessary. You have put the idea into my head, and it's not an unpleasing idea. Besides, it has evidently been in your head for a long time—and—I should like to see you happy—see you in a position such as you're entitled to grace. You are a very beautiful girl (there's no disguising that from you, as you know you are ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... no unpleasing task) the incomparable articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... ballads upon a barrel organ. Near the man, on the footpath, was a young girl of about fifteen years of age, fashionably dressed, with crinoline, mantle, and gloves, and a straw hat trimmed with gaudy feathers, but all old and terribly worn out, who, in a loud and cracked though not altogether unpleasing voice, was singing before a shop in expectation of a couple of kopecks. Raskolnikoff stopped and joined one or two listeners, took out a five-kopeck piece, and gave it to the girl. The latter at once stopped on a very high note which she had just ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... smiling, walking with head erect and shoulders thrown back in a free and unconstrained manner, with a steady gaze, large open nostrils, a vast mouth which inhaled the air in liberal draughts, his appearance was far from unpleasing. He was full of animation, well proportioned in all parts of his bodily mechanism, with quicksilver in his veins, and a most elastic step. He could never stop still in one place, and relieved himself with impetuous words and a superabundance ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... this foreword with the fear of one who knows that he cannot do justice to his subject, and the trembling of one who would not, for a good deal, set down words unpleasing to the eye of him who wrote Green Mansions, The Purple Land, and all those other books which have meant so much to me. For of all living authors—now that Tolstoi has gone I could least dispense with W. H. Hudson. Why do I ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... of kindly and sensible natures, who have been thoroughly spoilt as children, encouraged to talk, led to expect not only toleration, but active kindness and sympathy from all. The worst of it is that such kindness is generally reserved for pretty and engaging children, and it is the awkward, unpleasing, ungainly child who gets the slaps in public. But, as in Tennyson-Turner's pretty poem of "Letty's Globe," a child's hand should be "welcome at all frontiers." Only deliberate rudeness and insolence on the part of children should be publicly rebuked; and as a matter ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Chicksands. I could wish you a thousand little mischances, I am so angry with you; for my life I could not imagine how I had lost you, or why you should call that a silence of six or eight weeks which you intended so much longer. And when I had wearied myself with thinking of all the unpleasing accidents that might cause it, I at length sat down with a resolution to choose the best to believe, which was that at the end of one journey you had begun another (which I had heard you say you intended), and that your haste, or something else, had hindered you from letting me know it. In this ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... to bid wellcome; and so all to dinner. I sat near Proby, Baron, and Creed at the Merchant Strangers' table; where ten good dishes to a messe, with plenty of wine of all sorts, of which I drunk none; but it was very unpleasing that we had no napkins nor change of trenchers, and drunk out of earthen pitchers and wooden dishes.—[The City plate was probably melted during the Civil War.-M.B.]—It happened that after the lords had half dined, came ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... occupying the arm-chair, on the platform, was a man of not unpleasing appearance, somewhat less than fifty years of age, and dressed with considerable precision in the style prevailing among gentlemen of distinction at that day. His face was rather long, and surmounted by a high and well developed forehead, from the top of ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... those eyes, so frank and yet profound, and straight became a rebel. "Mademoiselle Olivia," said he, indifferently (oh, Cecile! oh, Cecile!), "they are considered not unpleasing; but for myself, perhaps acquaintance has ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... own family, the eldest of which was a stout young woman of three-and-twenty) should be put up to heaven morning and evening for the munificent friend whom God had sent to them. Such incense as this was not unpleasing to Mrs Proudie, and she made the most of it. She offered her general assistance to the fourteen unprovided babes, if, as she had no doubt, she should find them worthy; expressed a hope that the eldest ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... now, by long habits of idleness, become almost impracticable; his attention having been long amused by pleasing objects, and dissipated by jollity and merriment, is not readily recalled to a task which is unpleasing, because it is enjoined; and his limbs, enervated by hot and strong liquors, liquors of the most pernicious kind, cannot support the fatigues necessary in the practice of his trade; what was once wholesome exercise is now insupportable fatigue; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... Khorsabad display a purity of design and boldness of execution comparable to that of the best Egyptian art. The composition still shows traces of Chaldaean stiffness, and the exaggerated drawing of the muscles produces an occasionally unpleasing-heaviness of outline, but none the less the work as a whole constitutes one of the richest and most ingenious schemes of decoration ever devised, which, while its colouring was still perfect, must have equalled ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... from afar, his spirit he yieldeth, 50 His life on the shore, ere in he will venture To cover his head. Uncanny the place is: Thence upward ascendeth the surging of waters, Wan to the welkin, when the wind is stirring The weathers unpleasing, till the ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... and Isabel emerged at last from the cover of the woods at the head of the island, and glanced up the broad swift stream to the point where it ran smooth before breaking into the rapids; and as a soft pastoral feature in the foreground of that magnificent landscape, they found them far from unpleasing. Some such pair is in the foreground of every famous American landscape; and when I think of the amount of public love-making in the season of pleasure-travel, from Mount Desert to the Yosemite, and from the parks of Colorado to the Keys of Florida, I feel that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to propagate their animadversions concerning the "mysterious stranger," but on the contrary, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... not unpleasing voice of Malcolm Melvin began the reading of the stipulations in the contract to the three persons who were seated before him around the table in the lawyer's private office. The time was Monday morning, shortly after ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... man can find perfect satisfaction in the versification of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that 'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of alternate beats ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the young prince appeared at some of the court festivities, and I had many opportunities to observe him. He seemed sprightly, with a certain exuberance of manner in meeting his friends which was not unpleasing; but it was noticeable that his hearty salutations were by no means confined to men and women of his own age; he was respectful to old men, and that is always a good sign; it could be easily seen, too, that while he especially sought the celebrities of the Franco-Prussian War, he took ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!—O word of fear, Unpleasing to ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... regulated charms of feature, Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature Which they hit off at once in the beginning, Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, And pleasing, or unpleasing, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... soft, light, purple hue; now, as if changed by an enchanter's wand, it is of a sordid, sooty brown all over, and becomes momentarily darker and darker, or mottled with dark and pale patches of a most unpleasing aspect. Presently, however, the mental emotion, what, ever it was—anger, or fear, or dislike—has passed away, and the lovely green hue sparkles in the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of such a friend to her son, and regulated by the wish of appearing to advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude—artless, maternal gratitude—which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out, which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to feel that she could not regret it; for to her many other sources of uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the home in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... obsolete. But what makes a word obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and unpleasing by unfamiliarity? ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... thus: "My dearest dread; Though to the sword I bow this hoary head, Or if a dungeon be the pain decreed, I own me conscious of the unpleasing deed; Auxiliar to his flight, my aid implored, With wine and viands I the vessel stored; A solemn oath, imposed, the secret seal'd, Till the twelfth dawn the light of day reveal'd. Dreading the effect ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... left us yesterday. Roderick Abbott and I had had a charming time on board ship (more charming than Aunt Celia knows, because she was very ill, and her natural powers of chaperoning were severely impaired), and the prospect of seeing London sights together was not unpleasing; but Roderick Abbott is not in Aunt Celia's itinerary, which reads: 'Winchester, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Gloucester, Oxford, London, Ely, Peterborough, Lincoln, York, Durham.' These are the cathedrals Aunt Celia's curate ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... modified enthusiasm. Each held in his hand a smoking lump of flesh from some favored portion of the mammoth and each rent away an occasional mouthful with much content. Suddenly Ab ceased mastication and stood silent, gazing intently at a not unpleasing ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... unfit for friendly conference. A shed was therefore erected close to the Orang Kaya's house, wherein the ceremony was to take place. About nine in the evening we repaired to the scene; loud music, barbarous but not unpleasing, resounded, and we took our seats on mats in the midst of our Dyak friends. A feast was in preparation; and each guest (if I may call them such) brought his share of rice in bamboos, and laid it on the general stock. As one party came up after another, carrying ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... overspread with an apparently deep-seated and settled melancholy. He appeared, in short, to be a person who was suffering severely either in body or mind; but his affliction exhibited all the symptoms of being of the latter rather than the former. Yet was not the profound gravity of his manner of an unpleasing or repulsive character; it partook of a gentleness and benevolence that rendered it rather graceful than otherwise. The tones of his voice, too, corresponded with these qualities; they were mild and impressive, and singularly agreeable. Altogether, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... the prospect has been, it may clear up, and I could, if it was right, encourage hopes and anticipate a perspective that is not unpleasing to me. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... representing our Government at reviews and public ceremonials, and to our diplomatic officials upon the termination of their missions, or upon occasions of rejoicing, jubilees of sovereigns, etc. While the practice of exchanging such graceful souvenirs is not unpleasing among the nations which recognize and reciprocate the courtesy, it is entirely inappropriate that officials of this Government should accept, or desire to ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... saw in this stately cathedral was only a wooden model of this very edifice, which was made before the church was built, and which suggests some not unpleasing reflections when one compares it with the enormous ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... as arch enemy, arch heretic, arch hypocrite, arch rogue, it acquired a depreciatory sense, which has now become so weakened that archness is not altogether an unpleasing attribute. We may compare the cognate German prefix Erz. Ludwig has, as successive entries, Ertz-dieb, "an arch-thief, an arrant thief," and Ertz-engel, "an arch-angel." The meaning of arrant is almost entirely due to association with "thief." It means lit. wandering, vagabond, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... Cotswolds. I forgot, too, what had been my chief feeling since I left Glasgow, a sense of the absurdity of my mission. It had all seemed too far-fetched and whimsical. I was running apparently no great personal risk, and I had always the unpleasing fear that Blenkiron might have been too clever and that the whole thing might be a mare's nest. But that dark mountain mass changed my outlook. I began to have a queer instinct that that was the place, that something might be concealed ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... subjects, became more and more annoying, and we daily strengthened ourselves in our aversion from him. He could never have done with degrading religion and the sacred books for the sake of injuring priestcraft, as he called it; and thus produced in me many an unpleasing sensation. But when I now learned, that to weaken the tradition of a Deluge, he had denied all petrified shells, and only admitted them as lusus naturae, he entirely lost my confidence; for my own eyes had on the Baschberg plainly enough shown me that I stood ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... flattery, the surer with a country girl, he thought. But there was that in his tone, besides the freedom of sounding her praises in her own ears, which was unpleasing to Annie's ladyhood, and she held ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... that we need—imagination, independence, courage of conviction—every quality bespeaking her one great requirement in the characters of her chosen ones—originality—are to be fostered in a hundred ways not unpleasing to her. But this first quality, which may not be bought either by labor or by gold, has been made the mark whereby she knows and claims her own. Once self-ordained, a man finds himself subject gloriously to her: divinely driven to prayer and fasting, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the woman, and the chairman, are all huddled together in that part of the group which should have been the lightest; while the middle part, where the hand holds the door, wants strength and consistence. It may be added too, that the four heads, in the form of a diamond, make an unpleasing shape. All regular figures should be studiously avoided.—The light had been well distributed, if the bailiff holding the arrest, and the chairman, had been a little lighter, and the woman darker. The glare of the white apron is disagreeable.—We have, in this print, some ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... she had abilities which entitled her to hope for success. A series of early misfortunes had entendered her heart, without weakening the powers of her understanding. In retirement she had acquired tranquillity, and had almost lost the consciousness of those sorrows which yet threw a soft and not unpleasing shade over her character. She loved her young charge with maternal fondness, and their gradual improvement and respectful tenderness repaid all her anxiety. Madame excelled in music and drawing. She had often forgot her sorrows in these amusements, when her mind was too much occupied to derive ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... gilded barks with high prows, were seen surrounding the vessel; and as they exerted themselves in passing each other, their dress and action had the most picturesque appearance. Their language, a corrupted Arabic, is not unpleasing to the ear; and their costume is remarkably graceful. A red turban hangs droopingly on one side, and their waistcoats are loaded with large silver buttons, the only remains of their uncommon wealth during the war, when this little island was endowed with a fictitious importance, it can ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... life, though long, to sickness passed unknown, His death was instant, and without a groan. O grant me thus to live, and thus to die! Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I. O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine! Be no unpleasing melancholy mine: Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... loved her, but, it may be asked, did she love him? and that is the more difficult question to answer. Candidly speaking, Bell had an affection for Gabriel. She liked his good looks, his refined voice, his very weakness of character was not unpleasing to her. But she did not love him sufficiently to marry him for himself alone. What she wished to marry was the gentleman, the clergyman, the son of the Bishop of Beorminster, and unless Gabriel could give her all the pleasures and delights ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... when Sir Rufus went away, Dr. West attended him to the door, and they parted cordially, Sir Rufus saying something to the effect that he was glad his visit had dispelled the doubt arising from these unpleasing rumours, and he would recommend Dr. West to inquire into their source, with a view of bringing their authors to punishment. Dr. West replied that he should make it his business to do so. Dr. West, however, did nothing of the ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... religion; the priesthood has forgotten very little, and as a rule has only added new rituals and new interpretations to this legacy from the days of old. Nevertheless it must be confessed that there is a tone of ritualistic professionalism in the Brahmanas that is unpleasing; the priesthood are consciously superior to nature, God, and morals by virtue of their "Triple Science," and they constantly emphasise this claim. It is difficult for us to realise that these are the same men who have created the Brahmanic ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... as close as possible to her cousin's side, but compelled to make way continually for other passers-by, lost herself in a maze of fancies, to which the misty afternoon atmosphere, and the twinkling lights, and the quickly passing crowds lent a confused but not unpleasing background. She was glad that the noise made all talk impossible, and that she could dream on quietly as they glided and pressed their way through the current of people in Oxford Street and Regent Street, as undisturbed as if she had been shut up in her own room—nay, more so—for the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... sixpence!" The landlady glanced out at him with a friendly nod. He turned and smiled at her, but did not see me; for I stood in the shade behind the half-open door. He had a short black moustache and a not unpleasing, careless face. His features, I thought, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... but very shortly he had decided otherwise. Whatever his skill in reproduction, Charles Graham had the eye, the mind, and the heart of the portrait-painter; and now he read the little actress's behavior with a good measure of precision. Her restlessness, her chattering, the high, unpleasing pitch of her naturally lovely low voice, her assumption of the manner and speech of the blase young person of the stage, he saw to be primarily the cover of nervousness. He understood that the girl was troubled about something, was perhaps suffering, and tried to conceal ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... corpulency and unskilfully powdered face and arms made an unpleasing contrast with a badly fitting robe of black and yellow. She ran up to Frau Clara and squeezed her hand in her wobbly fingers, expressing joy at the invitation. To the gentlemen who sidled up to her one after the other she extended that ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Incident light, exhibited a number of small, but very vivid reflections; and having made use of my Microscope, I could perceive the whole surface of that cavity to be all beset with a multitude of little Crystaline or Adamantine bodies, so curiously shap'd, that it afforded a not unpleasing object. ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... higher effort of genius, than any other production of his. The hint was taken from Mr. Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, but as it is more general, so it is more pleasing. The Dunciad is so universally read, that we reckon it superfluous to give any further account of it here; and it would be an unpleasing task to trace all the provocations and resentments, which were mutually discovered upon this occasion. Mr. Pope was of opinion, that next to praising good writers, there was a merit in exposing bad ones, though it does not hold infallibly true, that each person stigmatized as a dunce, was ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... of that awful year 1348, which saw Europe, and Italy especially, desolated by the direst pestilence which history has recorded, accursed alike by the numbers and the celebrity of its victims, and yet strangely connected with some not unpleasing images by the grace of Boccaccio and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... she exclaimed, when she saw the plain, wooden, four-story hotel, the long, unpleasing business street, with its motley collection of frame and brick stores, the gaping stretches of houses, facing in most directions unpaved streets. Aileen in her tailored spick-and-spanness, her self-conscious ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser |
