"Discourtesy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of her class were more orderly, and fonder of her than Sophy's of the grave young lady whose earnestness oppressed them, and whose shyness looked dislike and pride. As to finding fault with their dress, she privately told Albinia that she could not commit such a discourtesy, and was answered that no one but Mrs. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as I said, upon business; but, had I come looking for pleasure, I could not have been more displeased with my reception nor more dissatisfied with my company. You, sir," addressing Mr. Rolles, "you have treated your superior in station with discourtesy; you, Vandeleur, receive me with a smile, but you know right well that your hands are not yet cleansed from misconduct.—I do not desire to be interrupted, sir," he added imperiously; "I am here to speak, and not to listen; and I have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and could not escape without discourtesy, of which she was quite incapable; "Or," he added, "may I not rather talk first to Colonel Penhallow, and later to you? It is, I take it, his view of this very grave matter which ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... is the intolerable discourtesy you have shewn to me all to-day—and before servants, too. I put myself to great pains to get you out of that stinking hole called Whitehall; I risked His Majesty's displeasure for the same purpose: I have been at your disposal ever since noon; and ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... mistake, of Miss Sinnet, faintly returned to him as he swiftly mounted the steps to his porch. Poor old lady. He would make amends for his discourtesy when he was quite himself again. She should some day hear, perhaps, his infinitely tragic, infinitely comic experience from his own lips. He would take her some flowers, some old keepsake of his mother's. What would he not do when the old moods and brains of the ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... street. It was Mr. Lynville's blessed privilege, under Providence, to save Miss Minford's life; but he would not be selfish and base enough on that account to obtrude himself on Miss Minford's notice. Mr. Lynville would die sooner than be guilty of that discourtesy. He is not presumptuous enough to ask an answer to this letter. His only object in writing it, is to inform Miss Minford that he will not venture again upon the impropriety of speaking to her first when they next meet. Miss Minford will therefore be free to drop his acquaintance, or continue ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, because that would predicate a sense of guilt on my part and lend some support to the popular assumption that my wife is not a virtuous woman. I could not possibly oblige my father on this point because to do so would be a violent discourtesy to my wife. I am not ashamed of her, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... just before he came into the world, the hounds had chased his mother from the thicket, and how old Reveller, the leader of the pack, had headed the reckless puppies, and, rating them for their discourtesy, had led them away to scour another part ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... Marah Adams to-day, and I felt strangely drawn to her. Her face would express all goodness if it were not so unhappy. Unhappiness is a species of evil, since it is a discourtesy to God to ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tragedy in it, but Philip was powerless. He could not storm the house. He had no visible grievance. There was nothing to fight. He had simply run against one of the invisible social barriers that neither offer resistance nor yield. No one had shown him any discourtesy that society would recognize as a matter of offense. Nay, more than that, it could have no sympathy with him. It was only the case of a presumptuous and poor young man who was after a rich girl. The position itself was ignoble, if ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the Count stood pausing on my threshold, whilst we craned our necks to contemplate him as though he had been an object for inquisitive inspection. Then a smothered laugh from the brainless La Fosse seemed to break the spell. I frowned. It was a climax of discourtesy whose impression I must at all ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... first time her stepfather had ever asked her to ride with him, and she hated doing it. It was the first time she had ever been asked to ride with anyone but her father or Roderick Vawdrey. Yet to refuse would have been impossible, without absolute discourtesy to her mother's husband and her mother's guest. So she sat in her place and said nothing; and Lord Mallow mistook the angry carnation for the warm red of happy girlhood, which blushes it ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... "in spite of your discourtesy in allowing a servant to address me, I offer you a last chance to leave this room undisgraced. Will you give me ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... landed on a soft rubbish heap below, and one was unhurt; the other, though much injured, survived. Their secretary was hurled after them, and is said to have apologized to his masters, even as he landed, for his unavoidable discourtesy in alighting upon them. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... especially if it relates to themselves, the poor vicar took his seat in silence. Then, observing in Mademoiselle Gamard's face the visible signs of ill-humour, he was goaded into a struggle between his reason, which told him that he ought not to submit to such discourtesy from a landlady, and his natural character, which prompted him ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... very plain speaking, and by no means comfortable to Lopez. What of personal discourtesy there had been in the lawyer's words,—and they had not certainly been flattering,—he could throw off from him as meaning nothing. As he could not afford to quarrel with his father-in-law, he thought it probable that he might have to bear a good deal of incivility from the old man. He was ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... a paternal pat on the shoulder. Yes—I was a real live author at last, and signed myself, by special request, in the * * * * Magazine, as "the author of Songs of the Highways." At last it struck me, and Mackaye too, who, however he hated flunkeydom, never overlooked an act of discourtesy, that it would be right for me to call upon the dean, and thank him formally for all the real kindness he had shown me. So I went to the handsome house off Harley-street, and was shown into his study, and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... them till he had written his legal opinion and had handed it courteously to the young Seigneur. They were all silent. There had been a discourtesy, and it lay like a cloud on the coterie. De la Riviere opened the door to go out, after bowing to the Cure and the avocat, who stood up with mannered politeness; but presently he turned, came back, was about to speak, when, catching sight of a miniature of Valmond on the avocat's desk, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Miss Chatterton; and her eyebrows intimated that she saw pathos in his appearance. As for Frida, her good-by was so curt and cold that Durant, who had suffered many things in redeeming the discourtesy of his former attitude to her, was startled and not a little hurt. His plain, lean face, that seemed to have grown still plainer and leaner under the lashing of the rain, set again in its habitual expression ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... altogether. Three weeks ago she would have given up half her income to have been able to steal out of London without leaving a trace behind her. Three weeks ago Mrs. Carbuncle was treating her with discourtesy, and she was left alone nearly the whole day in her sick bedroom. Things were going better with her now. She was recovering her position. Mr. Camperdown, who had been the first to attack her, was, so to say, "nowhere." He had acknowledged ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... company halted. It was many months since Sergius had stood before that door, and he could not, without grave discourtesy, refuse the invitation to enter. Well, what mattered it? Marcia cared nothing; why should he? Then, too, the stimulus of the dictator's approval was still upon him, as the warning cry of the porter bade those nearest stand back while the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... do a great discourtesy to estimation if they sought to justify it. It is all other acts that need justification by this one. The good greets us initially in every experience and in every object. Remove from anything its share of excellence ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... to a rapid catechism. Gissing, in a state of mind curiously mingled of excitement and awe, found himself assenting to much that, in a calmer moment, he would hardly have admitted; but having plunged so deep into the affair he felt it would be the height of discourtesy to give negative answers to any of the Bishop's queries. By dint of hasty mental adjustments and symbolic interpretations, he satisfied ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... first place, yo' can't show discourtesy to a stranger, an' yo' know that if he doesn' do things jes' the way yo' like to have 'em done, it's because he doesn' know, an' so he's not to blame. I like your spirit about the census, Hamilton," the old mountaineer ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I struggled long ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... went forth, therefore, with reluctance, to join precisely such a party as he had many times made one of with pleasure and elation. To-night, however, he found the greatest difficulty in concealing his boredom, and he more than once caught himself upon the verge of actual discourtesy, because of his tendency to become absent-minded and let the merry-making flow by him without taking ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... took the mildest course in my power, consistently with the dignity, position, and interests of the British government. I purposely left an opening to the Lahore government to remedy, through its Vakeel, the discourtesy it had shown, by affording to that government the facility of making any explanation it might desire. The plain construction to be put on the silence of the Lahore government, in reply to the demand for explanation, evidently was, that the intentions of that government ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... "I mean no discourtesy," said Dave. "And I hope you will let me say now, what I should have said before, that it was with the deepest regret I learned from your conversation of the death of Dr. Hardy. He was a gentleman ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... Renfrew coming in at the gate sent Peter to his room. The hour was near twelve, and it had become a little point of household etiquette for the mulatto and the white man not to be together when old Rose jangled the triangle. By this means they forestalled the mute discourtesy of the old Captain's walking away from his secretary to eat. The subject of their separate meals had never been mentioned since their first acrimonious morning. The matter had dropped into the abeyance of custom, just as the old gentleman ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... carriage had gone, their exit not being expected till two hours later. Ethelberta, nothing daunted, swept along the pavement and down the street in a turbulent prance, Lord Mountclere trotting behind with a jowl reduced to a mere nothing by his concern at the discourtesy into which he had been lured ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... in every instance more than lived up to its agreement. No great criticism can be found with the organization. A man who wanted to work and serve had the opportunity. Just criticism for incompetence was local, and for discourtesy and ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... abstinence may not be a very severe penance for an island on which the rainfall averages 124 inches per year; but when vegetation suffers from the cruelty of four almost rainless months, promises and slights amount to something more than mere discourtesy. How genuine the thanksgiving to the soft skies after an incense-stimulating shower. Insects whirl in the sunshine. Among the pomelo-trees is a cyclone of scarcely visible things. Motes and specks of light dance in disorderly figures, to be detected as animated ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... The train was not yet signalled, and neither stationmaster nor porter had emerged into view. Without absolute discourtesy it was impossible for Eliot to avoid speaking to her, and Ann's heart quickened its beat a little as, after one swift, almost perturbed glance, he approached her. He looked rather tired, and there was a restless, thwarted expression in his eyes. So might look the eyes of a man ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... mastery of detail were remarkable. Deficient perhaps in sentiment, though in such silent men deep wells of feeling often unsuspectedly exist, he was, by those who served under him, always recognised as fair and just, and no one had ever to complain of the slightest discourtesy at his hands. Like Lord Byron, he was lame from birth, and while this may have affected his character and pursuits, it never, I am told, in business, which indeed was practically his sole occupation, impeded his activity. ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... was explaining that he had intended no discourtesy to Sir Thomas Lipton by declining to attend the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club dinner; Major Delmar had failed to beat Lou Dillon's time, on the same track; the National Dressmakers' Association had declared that the kangaroo walk and Gibson shoulders ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... plans, the sequel showed that nothing effectual could be done. All their traditions and instincts were against making themselves disagreeable or showing discourtesy to their elders. The young man's French and Irish and Chippewa blood, and the young girl's French and Cree blood exhausted all their inherited diplomacy. But as steadily as the waters set like a strong tide through the strait, in spite of wind which combed them to ridging foam, ...
— The Mothers Of Honore - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... been politeness itself," said Anstice, rather bitterly. "And in return for your forbearance I will relieve you of my unwelcome presence immediately. Luckily my profession makes it easy for me to behave with what, in another man, would appear discourtesy." ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... means exclusively enough. Now Scott, though the most good-natured of men and only too easy to lead, was absolutely impossible to drive; and his blood was as ready as the 'bluid of M'Foy' itself to be set on fire at the notion of a cock-laird from Fife not merely treating a Scott with discourtesy, but imputing doubtful conduct to him. He offered to throw up the Swift, and though this was not accepted, broke for a time all other connection with Constable—an unfortunate breach, as it helped to bring about the establishment of the Ballantyne publishing business, and so ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... refused to be driven out of the Poketown School by the unkindness and discourtesy of the larger girls. Her unpopularity, however, made her respond the more quickly ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... of the discourtesy of asking each guest, before you begin to carve, to choose between roast lamb and warmed-over beef, or between pie and pudding, or whatever you may have, and thus cause a guest who may have chosen the lamb or the pie the discomfort of knowing that ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... Chair was one of a party in a stage-box during a fine performance of one of the plays in which the acting of the manager was most effective. It was a gay party, and with the carelessness of youth it made merry while the play went on. As the box was directly upon the stage, the merriment was a gross discourtesy, although unintentional, both to the actors and to the audience; and at last the old Wallack, still gayly playing his part, moved towards the box, and without turning his head, in a voice audible to the offenders but not to the rest of the audience, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... trouble," declares Florence, in a somewhat distressed fashion, turning her head restlessly to one side. "I wish you would dispossess yourself of that idea. And, do not stay here, they—every one, will accuse you of discourtesy if you absent yourself from ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... time. But you must watch the door while I carry up the box. If any one should steal my tools, it would be a beautiful day's work. Without them I should be in the middle of the street. You will understand, Signora. It is not to do you a discourtesy, but my tools are my bread. Without them I cannot eat. There is also the left boot of Sor Ercole. If any one were to steal it, Sor Ercole would go upon ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... and gratified, 'you do not understand. It is I who am in the wrong; for I had no business to conceal my name and lead on these gentleman to speak of me. And it is I who have to beg of you that you will keep my secret and not betray the discourtesy of which I was guilty. As for any fear of me, your friends are safe in Gerolstein; and even in my own territory, you must be well aware ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of these Virgin Islands is St. Thomas's. And there ended the first and longer part of a voyage unmarred by the least discomfort, discourtesy, or dulness, and full of enjoyment, for which thanks are due alike to captain, officers, crew, and passengers, and also to our much-maligned friend the North-East wind, who caught us up in the chops of the Channel, helped us graciously on nearly to the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... being investigated in the House of Commons. What admixture of elements, think you, would avail to obtain so much as decent hearing (how should we then speak of impartial judgment?) of the cause of working men, in an assembly which permits to one of its principal members this insolent discourtesy of language, in dealing with a preliminary question of the highest importance; and permits it as so far expressive of the whole color and tone of its own thoughts, that the sentence is quoted by one of the most temperate and accurate of ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... confusion of manner had come from the fear that her refusal of a check might seem tainted with the discourtesy of suspicion. Now in the face of actual opposition it stiffened instantly into hostility. The perplexity died from her face and her eyes blazed. For a moment she met the excited gaze of the man who towered over her and then in a coldly scornful voice she spoke, not to him, but to ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Bradley's doing. She had been tactlessly insistent in her demand to see the beautiful old garden and the famous artist-Baronet, who had so boldly flouted tradition. Helen's lame excuses had been airily dismissed, and the discourtesy of a point-blank ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... no danger, at the hands of the trail men, of any discourtesy to Joel, but to relieve any timidity, the foreman saddled his horse and accompanied the boy a mile or more, fully reviewing the details of his errand. Left behind, and while rubbing the wounded limb, ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... gold-rimmed glasses, and his whole figure placed as if for instant combat. It was probably by an inadvertence that he hung his umbrella upon the Speaker's mace, but it was certainly counted as an act of intentional discourtesy against him. He was sent to Coventry from the first, and he was so sore and angry that he was almost fore-doomed to bring ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... or no conception of the greatness of Abraham Lincoln. As time went on, he began to show plainly his contempt of the President, frequently allowing him to wait in the ante-room of his house while he transacted business with others. This discourtesy was so open that McClellan's staff noticed it, and newspaper correspondents commented on it. The President was too keen not to see the situation, but he was strong enough to ignore it. It was a battle he wanted from McClellan, ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... letter permit me in the first place to absolve myself from a suspicion which, under the circumstances, you could scarcely have failed to entertain—a suspicion of discourtesy toward yourself, in not having more promptly replied to you.... I could not help feeling that should you see my letter to Mr. Willis—in which a natural pride, which I feel you could not blame, impelled me to shrink from public charity, even ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... While I could, I defended it. He thought our revolution was only a rebellion. I told him that all revolutions were only successful rebellions, and that we bore with the tyranny of his country as long as we could. "I don't like the Americans," said he; he blushed as he thought of the discourtesy of saying this to me, and then added, "they are so inconsistent; they call themselves republicans, and then hold slaves, and that is so wicked and absurd." He went on to say all he thought and felt about the wickedness of slavery. I heard him to the end, and then said, "There is ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... refuse to face danger for a lady, and a lady whom a man loves—you meant that, my lord?—goes by another name. I forgive discourtesy sooner than ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... but domestic authority, which is apt to be magnified on "the girls," overruled Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother—who reasoned with us far more than she commanded—convinced us of how much selfishness there was in this, as in all acts of discourtesy. ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... left his worn old face. He moved uneasily and walked to the fireplace, where he stood with his unsteady hands moving idly, almost nervously, among the ornaments on the mantelpiece. He committed the rare discourtesy of almost turning his back upon ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Solari's took their order—a porter-house steak with mushrooms, peas, cold asparagus, a pint of extra dry—in honor of the day, Jack insisted, although Sam protested to the verge of discourtesy—together with the usual assortment of small drinkables and long ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Malcolm, turning as red as loss of blood permitted, 'she had not kept her hands off me; therefore when she stood between me and the door, I told her that discourtesy was better than trust-breaking, and while she jeered at my talking out of a book of chivalry, I e'en took her by the hands, lifted her aside, opened the door, ran down-stairs, and so to the stables, where I mounted with the only three men ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... means, to obtain a commission for the rest." Had Michelangelo ended at a line drawn halfway across the breadth of the vault, leaving the Prophets and Sibyls, the lunettes and pendentives, all finished so far, it would have been a piece of monstrous impudence even in Bramante, and an impossible discourtesy in gentle Raffaello, to have begged for leave to carry on a scheme so marvellously planned. But the history of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge, when first exposed, looked like a work complete in itself. Michelangelo, who was notoriously ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... hard matter for me to set a price on you, Prince," I said gravely. "I have never held one of your rank to ransom before, so that you will forgive seeming discourtesy if I have unwittingly done what was not fitting in the matter. What would the men of your land think ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... London. I did not suffer at all on the Channel, though my courtly friend the Letter and his pages were all quite distressed. He was unkind enough to say that my escape was probably due to the fact that I had nothing inside. I excused the discourtesy, under the circumstances, and was heartily sorry to part from him at London. Here I was taken out and given a breath of fresh air. But here, also, I suffered. Another clerk seized me, and struck me a violent blow on the breast. He certainly left a red mark upon me. I think that I ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the friendship is now finally sundered. Mr. GANDHI has been endeavouring to organise a boycott of the PRINCE OF WALES' visit to India, and, as Mr. MONTAGU observed more in sorrow than in anger, "Nobody who suggests disloyalty or discourtesy to the Crown can be a friend of any Member of this House, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... he said, "that you will not for a moment consider me guilty of any discourtesy to the Countess, for whom I have a great respect and liking. But it has come to my knowledge that the shelter of my roof and name were being given to proceedings of which I heartily disapproved. I therefore only a few hours ago formally ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... from my hon. friend. You are bound to look at the whole mass of the difficulties and perplexing problems connected with India, from a common-sense plane, and it is not common sense, if I may say so without discourtesy, to talk of Imperial Dumas. I have not had a word of thanks from that quarter, in the midst of a shower of reproach, for what I regard, in all its direct and indirect results and bearings, as one of the most ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... Justices of the Supreme Court and the law officers, the next to the Diplomatic Corps, and then to the Senators and Representatives in turn, according to official seniority, except in a very few cases where individuals had by discourtesy rendered such an invitation improper. Miss Lane and Mr. Henry issued the invitations and assigned seats to those who accepted them in order of precedence, which was rather a delicate task. Mr. Henry had also, in the short interval between the arrival of the guests in the parlor and procession into ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... poor and infirm. Confraternities of charity like that of Chatillon were established on all the de Gondi estates, Madame de Gondi herself setting the example of what a perfect Lady of Charity should be. Neither dirt, discourtesy nor risk of infection could discourage this earnest disciple of Vincent. In spite of weak health she gave freely of her time, her energy and ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... on our side Our challenged oceans fight, Though headlong wind and heaping tide Make us their sport to-night. Through force of weather, not of war, In jeopardy we steer. Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy Whereby it shall appear How in all time of our distress As in our triumph too, The game is more than the player of the game, And the ship is ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... still the ring I used to play with when a boy. I thought"—— and recollecting himself, he stopped, ashamed of his discourtesy in alluding to what must have been a ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... point of view," said Blood. "Ordinarily it isn't the kind of name I could suffer any man to apply to me. Still, considering that ye willingly did me a service once, and that ye're likely unwillingly to do me another now, I'll overlook your discourtesy, so ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... truth. How far my own conjecture, or the mode of putting it, fulfills these conditions, it is not necessary for me to discuss: but I hope the usefulness and interest of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" will not be marred by any discourtesy of one correspondent ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... lighter and pleasanter in his presentation of some not unfamiliar phases of manners. There is the self-complacency that deals with itself like a "truant reader skipping over the harsh places"; the frank discourtesy that finds something vicious in the conventions and "circumstance" of good breeding; the patronising insolence[X] that "with much ado seems to recover your name"; the egoism of discontent that "has an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in its fancy"; or ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... credit which Mr. Collier thought of consequence enough for him to do an unhandsome, not to say dishonorable, act to deprive an opponent of it. By referring to White's edition of Shakespeare, Vol. II. p. lx., another instance may be found of the same discourtesy on the part of Mr. Collier to Chalmers, with regard to a matter yet more trifling.] and that he thereby subjected himself self to open rebuke in his own country;[4] [Footnote 4: See Dyce's Strictures etc., 1859, p. 28.] and he found, we suppose, his justification ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... with the horse, in vain endeavouring to catch a glance from the implacable monarch. He sat down at the gate, weary and exhausted, and asked for a draught of water. Even this was refused by the royal attendants. The king afterwards blamed their discourtesy; but Kilspindie was obliged to return to France, where he died of a broken heart; the same disease which afterwards brought to the grave his unrelenting sovereign. Even the stern Henry VIII. blamed his nephew's conduct, quoting the generous saying "A king's face should give ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Pao-y promptly exclaimed, after hearing her explanations. "But how did I manage to go to sleep and show such utter discourtesy to her? I must go to-morrow!" he then went on to add. But while these words were still on his lips, he unexpectedly caught sight of Shih Hsian-yn walk in in full dress, to bid them adieu, as she said that some one had been sent from her home ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... his tone somewhat in reply to the uncourtly note of the soldier, as if allowing something for the rude manners of one whom he considered as not easily matched among the Varangians themselves, for strength and valour; qualities which, in despite of Hereward's discourtesy, Achilles suspected in his heart were fully more valuable than all those nameless graces which a more courtly ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... whom they worked, was a harsh, unreasonable bully who rather enjoyed his post as executioner, authority having exaggerated in him all the meannesses that lurked in his small, vindictive nature. Only the week before, Hal, enraged by his discourtesy and injustice to one of the women, had blurted out to his face a rebuke for his roughness. It was, to be sure, an unwise act and one that not only did the poor girl whose cause he championed little good but jeopardized his own position; ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... among a—to him—strange manner of men, took up his evangelistic cudgel and administered shocked reproof. It was, in a way, practice for the tasks the Methodist Board of Home Missions had appointed him to perform. But if he failed to convict these two of sin, he convinced them of discourtesy. Even a rude voyageur has his code of manners. Thereafter they ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... say, for how can that be which is not? Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offence. Moreover, he is as we are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the way of deliverance.' He halted at a little runlet among the fields, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... deck. In the same moment, he heard his name courteously sounded; and, to his pleased surprise, saw Don Benito advancing—an unwonted energy in his air, as if, at the last moment, intent upon making amends for his recent discourtesy. With instinctive good feeling, Captain Delano, withdrawing his foot, turned and reciprocally advanced. As he did so, the Spaniard's nervous eagerness increased, but his vital energy failed; so that, the better to support him, the servant, placing his master's ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... impudent, half-grown beggars of both sexes who helped to swell the riotous cortege. But through it all none of the insults were meant for me, so Lao Chang told me, and they did not mean to treat me with discourtesy. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... not, and the invaders sauntered on another mile before making camp for the night. It is difficult to regard the capture of Washington with the seriousness which that lamentable episode deserves. The city was greatly surprised to learn that the enemy actually intended a discourtesy so gross, and the Government was pained beyond expression. But beyond this display of emotion nothing was done. The war was now two years old but no steps whatever had been taken to defend Washington, although there was no room for doubt that a British naval ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... force me to do that to which I had no mind—so were the shame equal. Hold to your custom an ye will; I were more fain to fight than to let ye be, if but to fell your pride. I ask naught but peace, yet will I chastise your discourtesy, or die ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... suffrage, and, therefore, instead of being "sacramental," do not even belong to Professor Tyler's class of "wisest, truest and best." He thus selects for compliment on one page the very women whom he has traduced on another. His own witnesses testify against him. It is a pity that such phrases of discourtesy and unfairness should disfigure an essay which in many respects says good words for women, recommends that they should study Greek, and says, in closing, that their elevation "is at once the measure and the means of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... one's neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitution where we have taken from any, is always quick to seize his opportunity. And he is especially quick when acknowledgement is due to one who is socially our inferior. If an employee be guilty of some gross discourtesy towards his master, or a servant towards her mistress, the master or mistress may demand a prompt apology on pain of instant dismissal. But when it is the servant or employee who is the injured person he has no such remedy; yet surely, in Christ's eyes, his very dependence makes the duty of confession ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... foolish as to laugh at such a manifest truth as that," said the Angel. "Anyone who knows you even half as well as I do, knows that you are never guilty of a discourtesy, and you move with twice the grace of any man here. Why shouldn't you feel as if you belonged where people ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... departure, Adrien ordered the motor, and drove down to Barminster with the intention of offering an apology for his seeming discourtesy. He found all in confusion and excitement in view of the coming ball; and, whether by accident or design, he found it impossible to get a single word with ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... either of you much attracted me We could fall back upon phenomena And make a pretty story out of psychic Balances, but not to be too broad In my discourtesy, nor prudish neither (Since, really, I can hardly quite suppose With all your ghostliness you follow me), I feel no such attraction. Or if one Bows to my sympathy for the briefest space, Snap—it is gone! And, worst of ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... company, "if I seem to-day to partake alone and in a reserved fashion of certain viands that have been prepared for me, it is truly from no lack of courtesy to your distinguished company, but rather, I protest, to avoid the appearance of greater discourtesy to our excellent Jenkinson, who has taken some pains and trouble to comport his establishment to what he conceives to be my desires. Wherefore, my friends, in God's name fall to, the same as if I were not present, and ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... spoke a voice not less steady and sonorous than that of the elder lady, 'should you suffer any discourtesy in my house, it will come not from me, but from her who suggests its possibility, and whose mind is bent upon such things. Indeed, she has already scanted the respect she owes you in uttering these words. As for herself, remain ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... before the eyes of men. She was swollen-headed with her military pride. She preached the gospel of the swashbuckler. And now, after the declaration of this war, which was none of our seeking, how are they behaving, these Germans? Like barbarians. They have treated our Ambassador with infamous discourtesy. They have behaved with incredible insolence and boorishness to our Consuls. The barbaric nature of the enemy is revealed in a way which will never be forgotten. Fortunately, we have European civilization on our side. All the cultured races sympathize ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... TO DANCE. While a young woman may accept or decline any invitation to dance, it is considered an act of discourtesy to refuse one man for a dance and to accept an invitation thereafter for the same ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... somewhat understood it, for she had read of such cases. The more she thought, the more puzzled she became. Anyway, she was sure that he was a good man, and a gentleman, for not once could she remember the slightest discourtesy on ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... dinner guests enter the dining-room, it is customary for the butler to hold out the chair of the mistress of the house. This always seems a discourtesy to the guests. And an occasional hostess insists on having the chair of the guest of honor held by the butler instead of her own. If there are footmen enough, the chair of each lady is held for her; otherwise the gentleman who takes her in to dinner helps her to be seated. Ordinarily where ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... The discourtesy which you profess to discover in my letter I utterly disclaim. Having already discussed at length, in a correspondence with Major-General Forrest, the Fort Pillow massacre, as well as the policy to be pursued ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... He would speak his mind, sometimes even with startling bluntness, but he never tried to silence an opponent by dogmatism or bluster. The keenest argument, therefore, could not betray him into the least discourtesy. He might occasionally frighten a nervous antagonist into reticence and be too apt to confound such reticence with cowardice. But he did not take advantage of his opponent's weakness. He would only give him up as unsuited to play the game in ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... and I presume you expected me to speak from it. If I should go upon it, you would imagine that I was about to deliver you a much longer speech than I am. I wish you to understand that I mean no discourtesy to you by thus declining. I intend discourtesy to no one. But I wish you to understand that, though I am unwilling to go upon this platform, you are not at liberty to draw inferences concerning any other ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... fleece—moist with the noble element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his only fault, and when pressed to drink DOCH-AN-DORROCH to my ladyship's good health, it would have been ill taken to have refused the pledge; nor was he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I repeat, his only fault. Nor had we any great right to complain; for if it rendered him a little more talkative, it augmented his ordinary share of punctilious civility, and he only drove slower, and talked longer ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... Elizabeth, undisciplined and unused to war, could not resist his veteran troops, the heroes of a hundred battles, and led by the greatest general of the age. All this he insisted on. Europe should see what he could do. England should be punished for its heresy and Elizabeth pay dearly for her discourtesy. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... from the Government, were most gratefully appreciated by those self-denying, hard-working, and often sorely-tried women—many of them the peers in culture, refinement and intellect of any lady in the land, but treated with harshness and discourtesy by boy-surgeons, who lacked the breeding or instincts of the gentleman. Her genuine modesty and humility have led her, as well as her sisters, to deprecate any notoriety or public notice of their work, which they persist in regarding as unworthy of record; ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... my courtesy to women, let them be young or old, rich or poor, and I felt that in permitting myself to lose consciousness, even though it were but for a second, I had been guilty of a piece of gross discourtesy to a woman whom I was daily growing to respect and esteem more profoundly. Respect and esteem! Nay, those were cold words in which to express the feeling with which I was rapidly coming to regard this much vilified, much misunderstood ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... House of Commons, too, and in the bureaucracy, he had no inconsiderable strength; for Lumley never contracted the habits of personal abruptness and discourtesy common to men in power who wish to keep applicants aloof. He was bland and conciliating to all men of ranks; his intellect and self-complacency raised him far above the petty jealousies that great men feel for rising men. Did any tyro earn ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... her that it had been quite evident no discourtesy was intended; mentally, the while, congratulating himself upon not being "someone else," then quietly changed the subject. "I have not seen your brother since we left Oxford, Miss Verschoyle. Your only ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... would have been as well to keep such remarks till you were alone with my mother. I do not know how it may be in Cumberland, but they are not thought becoming to a gentlewoman here. Believe me, I am indeed sorry to be forced to the discourtesy of saying so; but you were ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... brought in several long, coarse cloaks or mantles, and one of them enveloping himself in these, stretched himself before the fire on the ground, to intimate to me that in such a manner I must pass the night. Another offered me a pipe of opium, which I knew it would be a great discourtesy, according to their ideas, to decline, although I was quite unaccustomed to the drug. I therefore took it and affected to smoke, and as I lay down, they left the little room in which they had placed me, and I heard ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... you shall not say I yield being silent, I would not speak. I pray you, spare me. Faith, I shall unfold equal discourtesy To your best kindness. One of your great knowing Should learn, ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... begin at once, but she had the good manners to restrain herself. Then his worship (as we called him), having shown us the chairs on either side, seated himself last of all, at the head of the table, facing our Moll, whom whenever he might without discourtesy, he regarded with most scrutinising glances from first to last. Then the door flinging open, two drawers brought in those same fat pullets we had seen browning before the fire, and also the pasty, with abundance of other good cheer, at which Moll, with a little cry of ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... had been bidden, or as we would say, invited, to the feast, were not of themselves discreditable, far less sinful; but to arbitrarily allow personal affairs to annul an honorable engagement once accepted was to manifest discourtesy, disrespect and practical insult toward the provider of the feast. The man who had bought a field could have deferred the inspection; he who had just purchased cattle could have waited a day to try them under the yoke; and the newly married man could have left his bride ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... works which aroused intense indignation in Germany. Much was made of the fact that Heine accepted an annual pension of 4,800 francs from the government of Louis Philippe. On the other hand, Heine made the terse observation that whenever he was treated with rude discourtesy he could be sure that he had met a German. In Paris, the poet was captivated by the charm of young Matilde Mirat, his "lotos flower," as he called her, or also "la mouche." The uneducated yet infinitely charming and loyal grisette was the good angel of Heine's later years. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Hebrews of old. It was sufficient justification for the undertaking of any enterprise or for any change of intention. Thus the departure of the Delaware delegation was shorn of all surprise or imputation of discourtesy. The head-men among the Cherokees felt it very definitely a relief to be freed from ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... "I have left the house without saying adieu to tante-gra'mere. My mind is distracted. She will as long as she lives remember this discourtesy." ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... appetite; and there remained with him a sense of being looked down upon and despised by the wealthy and eminent citizen who had honored him with an invitation, and who doubtless regarded his refusal to take wine with him as little less than a discourtesy. There were moments when he almost regretted that refusal. The wine which had been offered was of the purest quality, and he remembered but too well the theory advanced by Mr. Elliott, that the moderate use ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... such dignity that thou shouldest not do so." "Verily," answered he, "it is not my dignity that prevents me." "What is it then, O chieftain?" asked he. "By Heaven, it is by reason of thine own ignorance and want of courtesy." "What discourtesy, Chieftain, hast thou seen in me?" "Greater discourtesy saw I never in man," said he, "than to drive away the dogs that were killing the stag, and to set upon it thine own. This was discourteous, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Chairman, and half-a-dozen members of the committee, protested that the said University was a school of the devil, and several interchanges of discourtesy took place. ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... rumour that recently the Prince of Wales had introduced the custom of smoking in the dining-room after dinner. He was in a difficult position; nothing would induce him to tolerate such a practice, but how was he to avoid discourtesy to his Royal guest? My mother rose to the occasion. A little waiting-room near the dining-room was furnished and fitted up in the most attractive manner, and before the Prince had been an hour in the Castle, my mother showed him the charming little room, and told H. R. H. that it had been specially ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Dr. Leonard meant no discourtesy. The new arrangement means nothing further than that your trouble is more distinctively within my province. It is his custom, once he has thoroughly diagnosed a case, to assign it to the one of his ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... discourtesy, but Oscar was so uniformly polite to everyone that the incident simply shows how ineffably he ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... yellow, forsooth? Are you color-blind, friend? Cousin Geoffrey, we had believed you none other than the yellow-clad damsel who walks here at Hallow-e'en. Forgive us the discourtesy, I pray you. Here is my hand and good fellowship in it. I am to relinquish all right to Gamewell ground at the end of a year an I like—such were your father's terms. I do doubt whether I may stay so ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... successfully prevented the taxation of land ceded to the railroad by the State,—and then had to sue to recover his modest fee of five thousand, which was the largest he ever received. In the McCormick reaper patent litigation he was engaged with Edwin M. Stanton, who treated him with discourtesy in the Federal Court at Cincinnati, called him "that giraffe," and prevented him from delivering the argument which he had so carefully and solicitously prepared. Such an experience was, of course, very painful to his sensitive nature, ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... of their own, sometimes refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain hour. This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance. Being once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me, I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough for this pressure and preparation, to force ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... him was a lady of middle age, Mrs. Howard, of prominence in the town and a great friend of the Grahams. Harry realized suddenly that while the others were talking he had said nothing, and he felt guilty of discourtesy. He began an apology, but Mrs. Howard, who had known him very well since he had been in Winchester, learning to call him by his first name, merely smiled and the smile was at ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... do much good in your present charge in the subject to which you refer. In the matter of discourtesy to the native gentry, I can only say that Robert Martin Bird insulted them whenever he had the opportunity of doing so; and that Mr. Thomason was too apt to imitate him in this as in other things. Of course their example was followed by too many of ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... speak, been lost, but on the 29th the wind blew so strongly and persistently from the east, that D'Urville had to abandon the survey of Adelie Land. It was on this same day that he sighted the vessels of Lieutenant Wilkes. D'Urville complains of the discourtesy of the latter, and says that his own manoeuvres intended to open communications with them had been misunderstood ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... it might be so from never having heard him speak of his family," said Sir Ralph. "You have acted very imprudently, Harry, in bringing a man of his description here. Though I do not wish to act with discourtesy, I desire you will give him to understand that he is no longer welcome ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... colonel, and he laughed good-humoredly to relieve the strain that his host might feel on his account; but he was amazed just the same—the bud of a socialist blooming in those wilds! Arch Hawn's shrewd face looked a little concerned, for he saw that the old man's rebuke had been for the discourtesy to strangers, and from the sudden frown that ridged the old man's brow, that the boy's words had gone deep enough to stir distrust, and this was a poor start in the fulfilment of the purpose he had in view. He would ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... one person did more, unintentionally, to promote the enthusiasm of the convention than the Rev. Dr. Hawthorne, a Baptist preacher. He had felt called upon to denounce all woman suffragists from his pulpit, not only with severity but with discourtesy, and had been so misguided as to declare that the husbands of suffragists were all feeble-minded men. As the average equal-rights woman is firmly convinced that her husband is the very best man in the world, this remark stirred the women ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... no such discourtesy would I do the anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. But whether they ever lived or not, it is all the same with them now. Yet, grant that they lived; then, if death be a deaf-and-dumb death, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... haughty smile was yet on his lip when the door opened and the prince entered. The crowd, in parting suddenly, left Calderon immediately in front of Philip; who, after gazing on him sternly for a moment, turned away, with marked discourtesy, from the favourite's profound reverence, and began a low and smiling conversation with Gonsalez de Leon, one of ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the castle to observe the weather, he met Wallace and Edwin. They had already been across the valley to the haven, and ordered a boat round, to convey them back to Gourock. "Postpone your flight, for pity's sake!" cried Murray, "if you would not, by discourtesy, destroy what your gallantry has preserved!" He then told them that Lady Mar was preparing a feast in the glen, behind the castle; "and if you do not stay to partake it," added he, "we may expect all the witches in the isle will be bribed to sink ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Having accomplished that object with complete success, he decided to put an end to the Sung dynasty. The Chinese emperor, acting with strange fatuity, had given fresh cause of umbrage, and had provoked a war by many petty acts of discourtesy, culminating in the murder of the envoys of Kublai, sent to notify him of his proclamation as Great Khan of the Mongols. Probably the Sung ruler could not have averted war if he had shown the greatest forbearance and humility, but this cruel and inexcusable act ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... in half-sentences to her civilities, and did not look at her. Varvara Pavlovna soon realised that there was nothing to be got out of this old lady, and gave up trying to talk to her. To make up for this, Marya Dmitrievna became still more cordial to her guest; her aunt's discourtesy irritated her. Marfa Timofyevna, however, did not only avoid looking at Varvara Pavlovna; she did not look at Lisa either, though her eyes seemed literally blazing. She sat as though she were of stone, yellow and pale, her lips compressed, and ate nothing. Lisa ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... character, he was at that time old, and, from the first, was wholly at the mercy of the mutinous soldiery in Delhi, who were controlled by a council called the Barah Topi, or Twelve Heads. His papers, seized after the fall of Delhi, are full of senile complaint of the disrespect and discourtesy which he suffered from them. At the time of the assault he fled to the Tomb of Humayun, 6 m. from Delhi, where he was captured by Major Hodson. In January 1858 he was brought to trial for rebellion and for complicity in the murder of Europeans. The trial lasted more than ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... work "The Telegraph in America": "As Mr. Huntington's address contains some special thoughts showing the relationship of the painter to invention, and is, besides, a most affectionate and interesting tribute to his beloved master, Mr. Morse, it is deemed no discourtesy to the other distinguished speakers to give it ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... human sentiment. He may or may not have been a "cross man," but he certainly did not "drill well," for which his readers have reason to be thankful. Although Thoreau upholds the cross and the coarse man, one would really like to know with what grace he would have put up with gratuitous discourtesy or insult. I remember an entry in his Journal in which he tells of feeling a little cheapened when a neighbor asked him to take some handbills and leave them at a certain place as ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... discourtesy," answered Gilbert. "Be seated, sir. You call yourself an outcast. I am but little better than a ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... course, feigns to be totally unacquainted with the animal thus 'translated.' Gifts made to the governor become the property of the East India Company, as no servant of the Company is permitted to receive a private present; and it would be the height of discourtesy to refuse the wonted and time-honoured 'offering' made on the occasion of a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... ladies from the Convent of Santa Clara, Mr. Hathaway," explained Captain Stidger, naively oblivious of any discourtesy on their part, as he followed Hathaway's glance and took his arm as they moved away. "Not the least of our treasures, sir. Most of them daughters of pioneers—and all Californian bred and educated. Connoisseurs have awarded them the palm, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... coupled with his complete abandonment of Camden Street North it looked ominous indeed. Not that her faith in Bastian Cautley wavered for an instant. Because Bastian Cautley was what he was, he could never be guilty of spontaneous discourtesy; on the other hand, she had seen that he could be fierce enough on provocation; therefore, she argued, he had some obscure ground of offence ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... one day at the restaurant some ladies, who had been dining there, said "Complimenti!" on going out, with a grace that went near to make the beefsteak tender. It is this uncostly gentleness of bearing which gives a winning impression of the whole people, whatever selfishness or real discourtesy lie beneath it. At home it sometimes seems that we are in such haste to live and be done with it, we have no time to be polite. Or is popular politeness merely a vice of servile peoples? And is it altogether better to be rude? I wish it were not. If you are lost ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... have abused me," said he. "You have misunderstood me, and that is the only apology that you can make for your discourtesy. I was a fool to tell you what I knew, but you had no right to serve me as ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... religious woman out of your house," said the physician, "or I cannot save your daughters." And Dora was severely reprimanded by her mistress for the extreme discourtesy of offering to read to the young ladies ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... Committee of the Whole. Mrs. N. M. Carter presided and strong appeals were made by Mrs. Boyer, Mrs. M. A. Morrison, Mrs. Feuquay and Mrs. Bailey. A petition of 8,000 names was presented, which had been quickly collected, but it was treated with discourtesy, one member tearing up the sheets from his district and throwing them into the waste basket. The Speaker jestingly referred it to the Committee on Geological Survey. The attendance was so great the hearing had to be adjourned to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... were welcome to the wall for me, as I took care to tell them, for I could stand without the wall, which perhaps was more than they could do. Though I said this with the best intention, meaning no discourtesy, some of them were vexed at it; and one young lord, being flushed with drink, drew his sword and made at me. But I struck it up with my holly stick, so that it flew on the roof of a house, then I took him by the belt with one hand, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... but, when this work should be completed, he proposed to publish a treatise on Algebra in which he would disclose to the world all the rules he already knew, as well as many others which he hoped to discover in the course of his present work. He concludes: "This is the cause of my seeming discourtesy towards your excellency. I have been all the ruder, perhaps, because you write to me that you are preparing a book similar to mine, and that you propose to publish my inventions, and to give me credit for the same. This I confess ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... close of the year. Not long after his arrival he made an excursion to Ithaca, and, visiting the monastery at Vathi, was received by the abbot with great ceremony, which, in a fit of irritation, brought on by a tiresome ride on a mule, he returned with unusual discourtesy; but next morning, on his giving a donation to their alms-box, he was dismissed with the blessing of the monks. "If this isle were mine," he declared on his way back, "I would break my staff and bury my book." ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... his splendid train at a distance, he alighted and advanced toward him on foot. The punctilious Ferdinand, supposing this voluntary act of humiliation had been imposed by Don Gutierrez, told that cavalier, with some asperity, that it was an act of great discourtesy to cause a vanquished king to alight before another king who was victorious. At the same time he made him signs to remount his horse and place himself by his side. El Zagal, persisting in his act of homage, offered to kiss the king's hand, but, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... (with no offence to the unquestioned nobility of your pedigree) the bluest blood of Spain. But he can show, moreover, thank God, a reputation which raises him as much above the imputation of cowardice, as it does above that of discourtesy. If you think fit, senor, to forget what you have just, in very excusable anger, vented, and to return with me, you will find me still, as ever, your most faithful servant and host. If otherwise, you have only to name whither you wish your ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... world; at the very inadequate and foolish notions concerning this universe which are entertained by the majority of our authorised religious teachers; at the waste of energy on the part of good men over things unworthy, if I may say it without discourtesy, of the attention of enlightened heathens; the fight about the fripperies of Ritualism, and the verbal quibbles of the Athanasian Creed; the forcing on the public view of Pontigny Pilgrimages; the dating of historic epochs ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... movement, and my thoughts a new sequence; I was as a child learning to walk and think before I could take my place on equal terms with new companions. One incident of my walk struck me by way of humour and discovery. I had often strolled into bookshops toward evening, and had remarked upon the cold discourtesy with which my presence was regarded. Now I knew the reason; I had come at the clerk's hour, and the keen eyes of discriminating shopmen had recognised my low estate. I came now under altered auspices. To shop at three in the afternoon is to give proof of leisure; ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... the approaching steward, leaned forward in his armchair, and held out his hand. Peter, however, instead of advancing straight towards the hand extended towards him, retreated backwards all round the large oak table, to avoid the discourtesy of approaching his honour from the left hand; and, even when he got where he thought he ought to be, he remained standing before him, at three paces' distance, and ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... hope that you and your daughter will forgive the apparent discourtesy of our absence from you this afternoon and evening. I find it necessary to take Vane to London at once. His letter to Enid will ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... Flanders, hearing it in his palace, said, "Who is this that slays the tall game on my lands?" And he bade his son go forth and bring him in. The young prince coming with a haughty message to Sir Guy, the knight struck him with his hunting-horn, meaning no more than chastisement for his discourtesy. But by misadventure the prince fell dead at his feet. Thinking no more of the mishap, and knowing not who it was whom he had slain, Sir Guy rode on to the palace, and was received with good cheer at ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... perversely gay—with eye of radiant hazel, and fair locks half loosened from their formal braid—that it would have beguiled resentment from the most insensible—reconciled to danger the most timid. And yet there was really a grace of humility in the apologies she tendered for her discourtesy and thoughtlessness. As the girl reined her light palfrey by Darrell's side-turning from the young companions who had now joined her, their hackneys in a foam-and devoting to his ear all her lively overflow of happy spirits, not untempered by a certain ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... apology, Mr. Bordman," she said ruefully. "It won't take back the discourtesy, but—I'm ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... herself. Just then she was called to the telephone. When she came back she found Adelaide restored to her usual appearance—the fashionable, light-hearted, beautiful woman, mistress of herself, and seeming as secure against emotional violence from within as against discourtesy from without. But she showed how deep was the impression of Madelene's common-sense analysis of her romance by saying: "A while ago you said there were only three serious ills, disease and death, but you didn't name the ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... matter was being attended to, news reached Miaco of the departure of the ship from the harbor, and the skirmish with the Japanese over it, and of this they complained anew to Diafu. He showed that he was troubled at the departure of the ship and the discourtesy to it, and at the outrages committed by the Japanese. He gave new chapas for restitution of all the goods to be made; and sent a catan from his own hand with which justice should be performed upon those who had offended in this matter, [157] and ordered that ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence which contrasted singularly with his previous volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voice which we had heard in the road, and our friend in the chair was not responsible for the discourtesy. Yuba Bill, who re-entered the room after an unsuccessful search, was loath to accept the explanation, and still eyed the helpless sitter with suspicion. He had found a shed in which he had put up his horses, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... co-operated. The wound love had given him throbbed duller and duller. His success and the affection and admiration of his parents made him think more highly of himself, and resent with more spirit Margaret's ingratitude and discourtesy. For all that, she had power to cool him towards the rest of her sex, and now for every reason he wished to be ordained priest as soon as he could pass the intermediate orders. He knew the Vulgate already better than most of the clergy, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... a pantomime, while gazing in stupid wonder at the extravagant gambols of a harlequin, all at once electrified by a sudden stroke of the wooden sword across his shoulders. Little did I think at such times that it would ever fall to my lot to be treated with equal discourtesy, and that while I was quietly beholding these grave philosophers emulating the eccentric transformations of the hero of pantomime, they would on a sudden turn upon me and my readers, and with one hypocritical flourish metamorphose us into beasts! I ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... regulations by the Chinese Government and a threat to cancel their acceptance or our invitation, the rules were withdrawn and others more decent substituted. But the fact that they were prepared and seriously presented to China shows to what an extent of injustice and discourtesy our mistaken attitude and action in regard to Chinese immigration ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... trying to get away from facts," Mordaunt said. "But I do object—strongly—to discourtesy. You may be her brother, but that doesn't entitle you to insult her. Plainly, I won't have it from ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... under the lee of their piled-up saddlebags. On three nights I camped beside their caravans, and walked round their orderly lines of sheep and their neat walls of saddlebags; and, far from showing any discourtesy or rude curiosity, they held down their fierce dogs and exhibited their ingenious mode of tethering their animals, and not one of the many articles which my servants were in the habit of leaving outside ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... even by those over whom I subsequently passed by such standing as I established, although the fact meant promotion over them. The spirit of the officer and the gentleman, which disdained hazing, disdained discourtesy equally, and thrust aside with the generosity of youth the jealousy that mature years more readily cherishes towards competitors. The habit in those days was to distinguish classes, not by the year of graduation, but by that of entry—colloquially, the so-and-so "Date"—a manner ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... London cockneys in the first French Revolution. Their dress was top-boots with thick soles, knee-breeches, a dress-coat with long tails and high stiff collar, and a thick cudgel called a constitution. It was thought John Bull-like to assume a huskiness of voice, a discourtesy of manners, and a swaggering vulgarity of speech ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer |
