"Distasteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... September 10, 1775. From previous experience it was well understood that such agreements as these, far more drastic than any which had yet been tried, would prove ineffective if they remained purely voluntary associations; and what made the non-intercourse policy of the First Congress distasteful to conservative men were the measures taken to enforce it. To this end it was provided that there should be appointed in "every county, city, and town" a committee of inspection "whose business it shall be to observe the conduct ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... distasteful to the old man, we said no more, but after the table was cleared away, we lighted our pipes and planned the business which was to occupy us early the next morning. Our arrangements were soon completed and agreed upon. We readily ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... aware that the conclusions arrived at in the work before us—namely, that man is descended from some lowly organized form—would be highly distasteful to many. The very persons, however, who regard the conclusions with distaste admit without hesitation that they are descended from barbarians. Darwin recalls the astonishment which he himself felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... adventure was very distasteful. He recollected the smell of the place, and the memory brought with it a sense of nausea. He thought of Lala Huang, and his ideas became grotesque and chaotic. Yet the solution of the mystery lay at last within his grasp, and ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... motions of the Past, I thank benignant nature most for this,— 570 A force of sympathy, or call it lack Of character firm-planted, loosing me From the pent chamber of habitual self To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, And through imagination to possess, As they were mine, the lives of other men. This growth original of virgin soil, By fascination felt in opposites, Pleases and shocks, entices and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... regulations were irksome, and the native police, who were often employed to bring in the labourers, seem to have abused their powers. To the genuine Matabili, who lived only for war and plunder, and had been accustomed to despise the other tribes, work, and especially mine work, was not only distasteful, but degrading. They had never been really subdued. In 1893 they hid away most of the firearms they possessed, hoping to use them again. Now, when their discontent had increased, two events hastened an outbreak. One was ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... sight of the fourth Flavia's face fell. Luke Asgill of Batterstown was the nearest Justice, and of necessity he was a Protestant. But it was not this fact, nor the certainty that Augustin was pouring his wrongs into his ears, that affected Flavia. Asgill was distasteful to her, because her brother affected him. For why should her brother have relations with a Protestant? Why should he, a man of the oldest blood, stoop to intimacy with the son of a "middleman," the son of one of those ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... use beginning to dispute with such indulged, unreasoning creatures: so I held my peace. I was accustomed, now, to keeping silence when things distasteful to my ear were uttered; and now, too, I was used to wearing a placid smiling countenance when my heart was bitter within me. Only those who have felt the like can imagine my feelings, as I sat with an assumption of smiling indifference, listening to the accounts of those meetings ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... mention one of his lifelong traits, which revealed itself at times. Watt was no man of affairs. Business was distasteful to him. As he once wrote his partner, Boulton, he "would rather face a loaded cannon than settle a disputed account or make a bargain." Monetary matters were his special aversion. For any other form of annoyance, danger ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... 26-27, 1849) was followed by the dissolution of the Kremsier assembly, and a proclamation in which the emperor announced his intention of granting a constitution to the whole monarchy "one and indivisible." On the 4th of March the constitution was published; but it proved all but as distasteful to Czechs and Croats as to the Magyars, and the speedy successes of the Hungarian arms made it, for the while, a dead letter. It needed the intervention of the emperor Nicholas, in the loftiest spirit of the Holy Alliance, before even an experimental unity of the Habsburg ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... denouncing England and all its works. Hatred of the "Island Kingdom" was apparently the consuming passion of his existence. On the whole, Von Tirpitz thus made no attempt to conceal his feeling that the purpose of the House mission was extremely distasteful to him. The other members of the Government, while not so tactlessly hostile, were not particularly encouraging. The usual objections to disarmament were urged—the fear of other Powers, the walled-in state of Germany, the vigilant ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... This may be exaggeration, but it is certain that the ample concessions proposed by the minister—concessions far outstripping those which had been brought forward by Mr. Burke and Lord Chatham, and which were opposed by government—were highly distasteful to the country gentlemen, and to the whole Tory party. Expressions of loud disapprobation were heard on their side of the house, and some bitterly complained that deception had been practised against them relative to American taxation. On the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to his feet, his face suffusing. "You sit there," he exclaimed, "and tell me that a member of my company finds the association so distasteful that she ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... mindful though we be of these ancient words of wisdom, how rarely do we apply them to our everyday reading! If we be in the mood for reading we pick up any book at random; if it please us at the moment, we continue to read it. If it be distasteful to us, we put it aside immediately. Possibly we recollect, next time that our eyes light upon a volume so discarded, that it was once displeasing, and we never take it up again. So, it may be urged, our mind exercises the power of ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... as was supposed, been sown on stony ground, though it took long in growing up. Adversity caused Pomare to think. He had been told that Jehovah is a God of purity and holiness, and he began to reflect that the life he and his people led must be very distasteful to such a God, and might be the cause of the sufferings he was enduring. The Holy Spirit seemed to apply the truth, so that he at length comprehended the nature of sin, and especially felt his own great sinfulness. He, therefore, wrote letter after letter, entreating ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... for any particular nominee. His son-in-law, Mr. William G. McAdoo, was highly thought of in connection with the nomination, and therefore the President felt that he must be more than ordinarily strict in insisting that we keep hands off, for anything that savoured of nepotism was distasteful to him and, therefore, he "leaned backward" in his efforts to maintain a neutral position in the Presidential contest and to take no part directly or indirectly that might seem to give aid and comfort to the friends of his son-in-law. While Mr. McAdoo's political ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... faint was over; the toddy had sent the blood tingling through the young girl's veins. The role of the invalid was an unaccustomed one for her to play, and the thought of supping in bed was peculiarly distasteful to her self-helping Northern training. It was not long before she began to ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... being distasteful to the Bretons, they continually rebelled against it; though, as far as can be known, the English were no hard task-masters, forcing them, as the Egyptians did the Israelites, to ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... which went on wherever the praetorian system was applied to the cases of foreign litigants. Probably no colour of ethical meaning belonged at first to the expression; nor is there any reason to believe that the process which it indicated was otherwise than extremely distasteful ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... seer made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed by the touch of a new creed, "You haven't the gift." He turned his back on her, leaving her completely mystified. And she went upstairs slowly, struggling with a distasteful suspicion of having been confronted by something more subtle than herself—more profound than the misunderstood and tragic ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... the marriage itself,—the proposed marriage with the breeches-maker's daughter,—the more Sir Thomas thought of it the more distasteful did it become to him. He knew that Ralph was unaware of all the evil that would follow such a marriage;—relatives whose every thought and action and word would be distasteful to him; children whose mother would not be a lady, and whose blood would be polluted ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... most celebrated engineers offered no opinion on the subject. They did not believe in the locomotive, and would scarcely take the trouble to examine it. The ridicule with which George Stephenson had been assailed by the barristers before the Parliamentary Committee had not been altogether distasteful to them. Perhaps they did not relish the idea of a man who had picked up his experience in Newcastle coal-pits appearing in the capacity of a leading engineer before Parliament, and attempting to establish a new system of internal communication in the country. The directors could not disregard ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... require them to serve as slaves. The best course to pursue, it seems to me, is to call for such as are willing to come with the consent of their owners. Impressment or draft would not be likely to bring out the best class, and the use of coercion would make the measure distasteful to them and to their owners. I have no doubt if Congress would authorize their reception into service, and empower the President to call upon individuals or States for such as they are willing to contribute with the condition of emancipation to all enrolled, a sufficient number would be ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... thought it mean, and my whole life has grown distasteful since I met you," he said, turning suddenly and ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... real answer to prayer is the increase of the joyful emotions, the decrease of the painful ones."[126-1] It would seem a simpler plan to make this directly the purport of our petitions; but to the modern mind this naked simplicity would be distasteful. ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... enabled her to struggle along in Earlscourt with an air of gentility, but not to procure any serious secondary education for her children, much less give the boy a profession. A clerkship at thirty shillings a week was beneath Freddy's dignity, and extremely distasteful to him besides. His prospects consisted of a hope that if he kept up appearances somebody would do something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as a private secretaryship or a sinecure of some sort. To his mother it perhaps appeared as a marriage to some lady ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... children, some hot-headed, imaginative youth, some independent nature rebellious in advance, in short, a refractory spirit, unwilling or incapable of being disciplined; a regular life, mediocrity, even the certainty of getting ahead, were distasteful to him; he would abandon the hereditary homestead or purchased office to the docile elder brother, son-in-law or nephew, by which the domain or the post remained in the family; as for himself, tempted by illimitable prospects, he would leave France and go abroad; Voltaire says[3317] that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ask Harriet if she were happy, if she had forgotten; but she dreaded reviving a distasteful subject. She would be glad never to hear it ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... I fancied I understood that he was afraid of appearing comical in my eyes, with his face smothered in lather; but he was wrong. I felt myself all in a quiver at being beside a man—the word man is rather distasteful to me, but I can not find another, for husband would not express my thoughts—at being beside a man in the making of his toilette. I should have liked him to go on without troubling himself; I should have liked to see how he managed ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... hope was still reserved for him, and that was Charlie's visit. But to Tom that prospect was becoming day by day mere distasteful. As the days wore on, and Tom sunk deeper and deeper into the snare prepared for him, the thought of a week in the society of one so upright and pure as Charlie became positively odious. The effort ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... genial humor, at once commanded the respect and secured the attachment of his men; who was watchful against danger and cool in the midst of it; who knew his duty as a soldier and loyally discharged it, however distasteful it might sometimes be to ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... grapes are on equal footing as to adaptability, Niagara and Concord rank the same. In hardiness of root and vine, Niagara falls short of Concord; it cannot be relied on without winter protection where the thermometer falls below zero. Niagara has much of the foxiness of the wild Labrusca, distasteful to many palates. Both bunches and berries of Niagara are larger than those of Concord and are better formed, making a handsomer fruit if the colors are liked equally well. The fruit shells as badly as that of Concord and does not keep longer. Both vine and fruit of Niagara are ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... the whole staff. At times Penton was absurdly pompous and uncommunicative before the boys; at other times he entered into a mysterious intimacy with them, a relationship distasteful to them. They preferred his professional tactics ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... dangerous person that Mr. E. accepted this task, proffered to him by private friends, on the assurance that the audience would be composed of his usual circle of private friends, and that he should be protected from any report; that a report is so distasteful to him that it would seriously embarrass and perhaps cripple or silence much that he proposes to communicate; and if the individual has bought tickets, these shall gladly be refunded, and with thanks and great honor of ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... demand for information regarding the origin of this outbreak, Rawlinson wrote him some home truths which were very distasteful. Rawlinson warned his chief earnestly of the danger which threatened the false position of the British in Afghanistan. He pointed out how cruel must be the revenue exactions which enabled Prince Timour's courtiers to absorb great sums. He expressed his suspicion that Shah Soojah ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... distasteful both to Montfichet and to this boastful youth," said the demoiselle Monceux, eagerly. "Send Ford, or one of the scullions from our kitchen, that they may know our contempt for them. And bid the young archer to us here; he should be whipped and put in the stocks," ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... completely peptonized milk distasteful? Not so in the case of young infants; older infants will take a few feedings without objection, but it cannot be used for children much ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... this arrangement so distasteful as to Quipsome Hal, who felt himself in some sort the occasion of the intrusion, and yet was quite unable to prevent it, while everything he said was treated as a joke by his unwelcome father-in-law. It was a coarse time, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... money from the French Consul-General, and to promise restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him again to quit his court,—this time peremptorily,—adding, that the United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... things are expected from a mountain constructionist and elicit no comment from headquarters, but the matter at the Spider was one that could hardly pass unnoticed. For a year Glover had been begging for a stenographer. Writing, to him, was as distasteful as soda-water, and one morning soon after his return from the valley flood a letter came with the news that a competent stenographer had been assigned to him and would report at once for duty ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... American teachers by his judicious selections from Rousseau's Emile. For the three-volume novel of a hundred years ago, with its long disquisitions and digressions, so dear to the heart of our patient ancestors, is now distasteful to all but lovers of the curious ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... than could have been expected, with such a distasteful enterprise before them, they resumed their way. It was disagreeable under foot and they presented an odd appearance, each one with a light. Mrs. Adams, old campaigner that she was, led the way for the ladies, elastic ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... tombs thrilling with prophetic powers; colourless passion, dignified by the high-sounding title of renunciation, and set to the accompaniment of tolling bells; a ceaseless whining of the 'Miserere'; how distasteful all that has become to me since then!" And—of Fouque's romances—"But our age turns away from all fairy pictures, no matter how beautiful. . . . This reactionary tendency, this continual praise of the nobility, this ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... combat are distasteful to him the pure Cerebral does not go out and fight for reform as often as the Muscular nor die for causes as often ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... caused injury to accrue to cattle; that he has used bad language. Here is a conflict of class against class—feeling against feeling. The point in dispute has, of course, to be decided by evidence, but whichever way evidence leads the magistrates to pronounce their verdict, it is distasteful. If the labourer is victorious, he and his friends 'crow' over the farmers; and the farmer himself grumbles that the landlords are afraid of the men, and will never pronounce against them. If the reverse, the labourers cry out upon ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... relished these stories almost as much as the boys and girls for whom they were written. They were really refreshing, even to us. There is much in them which is calculated to inspire a generous, healthy ambition, and to make distasteful all reading tending ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... marriage was celebrated. No one could tell, I am sure, so much of the magnificence and the food, of the pleasure and entertainment, at this wedding without falling short of the truth. Inasmuch as it would be distasteful to some, I do not care to waste further words upon the matter, but am anxious ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... failed to reflect with what a heavy heart the duke might now be entering upon his third sterile nuptials. Alfonso was childless, brotherless, with no legitimate heir to defend his duchy from the Church in case of his decease. The irritable poet forgot how distasteful at such a moment of forced gayety and hollow parade his reappearance, with the old complaining murmurs, the old suspicions, the old restless eyes, might be to the master who had certainly borne much and long with him. He only felt himself neglected, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... it would be no distasteful task to play upon his susceptibilities. He was not only personally attractive ("magnetic" was the catch-word of the period), but if half that Lady Diantha had hinted concerning him were true, to make a conquest ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... course of which two facts were clearly established, the first of which was that, by the law of succession, Myrra was now the Queen of Ulua; and the second, that the idea of being governed by a woman was utterly distasteful to the members of the Council of Nobles. Finally, it was decided that, since by immemorial custom, the Uluan wife was the subject of her husband, the only thing to be done was to request the queen to marry, when her husband would become virtually king. This ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... entered into the contest because he could not help it. Had he reached the village at the same time with his friends, he would have sternly forbidden any reference to his brilliant physical powers, and thus prevented the tournament that was so distasteful to him; but, as I have shown, the mischief was done before he came upon the scene. His reputation had been proclaimed, and naught remained but to prove that only the simple truth had been told ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... plan," said Mrs. Mayfield. "We are going to be married among the vines, and if such a temple is distasteful to you, sir—" ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... station in some not too prominent place, Bleak would mount the wheelbarrow and play Coming Through the Rye on a jew's-harp. This, his sole musical accomplishment, was exceedingly distasteful to him: all his training had been in the anonymity of a newspaper office, and he ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... restored to his parents—but with his adventures cut short. He was fond of his home, but it was always there, and he was keen for variety: his life had been very uneventful. On the other hand, if that advancing army conquered the Indians, might not his and Adan's captivity be far more distasteful than it was at present? He sprang up and called Anastacio. In a second that warrior was on his feet and had leaped over his ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... accompaniments. Compelled to recognize this change of sentiment and taste, the best troupes now frequently give, instead of the "act" just mentioned, some other one, which, while comical enough, is yet free from features distasteful to ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... say, gave inexpressible pleasure to Ruby, and was not altogether distasteful to Minnie, although she felt anxious about Mrs Brand, who would naturally be much alarmed at the prolonged absence of herself and the captain. However, "there was no help for it"; and it was wonderful the resignation which she displayed ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... and Russia, instead of becoming enemies, "will consolidate and perpetuate their friendly relations by the same just and pacific policy which has regulated their intercourse in times past." This article was very distasteful to the Democratic readers of the Union, and the editor denounced it. Mr. Pryor came back at him in the Intelligencer, declaring that he was not the eulogist of the Russian Empire, but setting forth at great ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... silence. The idea of remaining a mere spectator all day was distasteful to his active mind and body. He had almost made up his mind to ask one of the natives to lend him a kayak and change places, when a puff of wind sent a few cats-paws over ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... and did not distress his darling by admitting that it was still distasteful, then rose, slung his basket of frames over his shoulder, took Bo'sn's leading-string, and passed out to his afternoon's peddling and singing. But, though he had kissed her good-bye, Glory dashed after him, begging still another and another caress, and feeling the greatest reluctance to letting ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... school in his native village, and they were engaged to be married; but after coming to the city and forming new associations, visions of wealth dazzled his brain, and unsettled his mind, till the idea of love in a cottage grew distasteful to him. He had seen men with no more ability than himself who had come to the city almost pennyless, and who had grown rich in a few years, and he made up his mind that if possible he would do two things, ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... while it chilled him, and helped to make it nearly impossible for him to keep away from the theatre. In the beginning his attendance had not interfered with his social duties or pleasures; but now he came to find it distasteful after dinner to do anything but read, or walk the streets aimlessly, until it was time to go to the play. When that was over, he was in no mood to go anywhere but to his rooms. So he dropped away by insensible degrees from his habitual haunts, was missed, and began ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... then you wouldn't have her at all," he retorted. "Get it through your head that this whole thing is distasteful to Miss Burton. It's bad enough as it is, without asking her ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... asked to speak at the Forum! It was the most distasteful bit of information that had come Mrs. Salisbury's way in a long, long time! She felt in her heart a stinging resentment against Mrs. Sargent, with her mad notions of equality, and against Justine, ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... battles seems to be somewhat as follows: Of his own volition he has taken on a certain job and his dogged pride or obstinacy will not allow him to be beaten by it, however little enthusiasm it may arouse in him and however distasteful it may be to him at first. He offers no "ca' canny" service, but plods on and does his best in his own way. The lack of the enthusiastic temperament does not seriously retard the progress of his military education, and without much ado he becomes ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... these. The analogy between the characters and circumstances of the two men is in many respects singularly close. Succeeding to a rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's chief material dependence was the Huguenot party, whose doctrines sat upon him with a looseness distasteful certainly, if not suspicious, to the more fanatical among them. King only in name over the greater part of France, and with his capital barred against him, it yet gradually became clear to the more far-seeing ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... system of monarchy, introduced by Diocletian, was distasteful to the philosophic mind of Julian; he refused the title of lord and master, and attempted to restore in all its pristine simplicity the ancient government of the republic. In a campaign against the Persians he received a mortal wound, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... succeeding the birth, the mother must follow a very strict set of rules. Each day she is bathed with water in which certain herbs and leaves, distasteful to evil spirits, are boiled. [64] Beginning with the second day and until the tenth she must add one bath each day, at least one of which is in cold water. From the tenth to the twenty-fourth day she takes one hot ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... thing in a regular life that habit reconciles us to what was at first very distasteful. As the months went on Elizabeth's business difficulties lessened. The tenants got accustomed to her, and realized that she was neither going to impose upon them, nor yet suffer herself to be imposed upon. The women found her sympathizing and helpful in ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... Professor Whitney considers permissible, Ineed hardly say more; but having been cited by him before a tribunal which hardly knows me, to substantiate what I had asserted in my "Answer to Mr. Darwin," it may be better to go manfully through a most distasteful task, to answer seriatim point after point, and thus to leave on record one of the most extraordinary cases of what I can only ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... to the sofa in the parlor, and Hannah's expression was distasteful; but she slowly followed Calvin into ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... years and more since the friends had met; and each secretly wondered how they had ever come to be friends. Sylvia had a country, raw, spiritless look to Mrs. Brunton's eye; Molly was loud and talkative, and altogether distasteful to Sylvia, trained in daily companionship with Hester to appreciate soft slow speech, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... knew the members of that class, as he said, "experimentally." He slept in their houses, and ate at their tables, and observed at close quarters their books, their amusements, and their social life. Thus he judged of their civilization by intimate acquaintance, and found it eminently distasteful and defective. From 1832 to 1867 the Middle Class had governed England, manipulating the Aristocracy through the medium of the House of Commons; and the Aristocracy, though still occupying the place of visible dignity, had its eye nervously fixed on the movement, actual and impending, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... distracting sounds and made me feel as if my head were in a maelstrom. The bugler was so amiable a person that he always made it a point of standing close to my tent when launching forth to the world his shrieking calls. Happily I became acclimatised to my distasteful surroundings, or I fear I should have soon graduated as a patient for ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... was the supreme military authority in the country, and its resolutions were the law, all its infractions being punishable by fines. The minority of a Krijgsraad was obliged to assist in executing the plans of the majority, however impracticable or distasteful they might have been to those whose opinions did not prevail. There were innumerable instances where generals and commandants attended a Krijgsraad and afterward acted quite contrary to the resolution adopted by the council. In any other army such action would have been called disobedience ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... influence over him to nothing. Do you think I am exaggerating? Hear how it has ended. My husband absolutely refuses to leave this place. He cares no longer even to try for the prize. The idea of medical practice has become distasteful to him, and he has decided on devoting his life to discovery ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... to "hang around Dorothy," but she was too busy to notice the attention. Tavia, however, did not miss observing the young man's attempts to attract Dorothy, and she also noted that the same matter seemed distasteful to Ned. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... registered the edict of Charles's majority, notwithstanding some unpalatable provisions. Not so the Parliament of Paris. The counsellors of the capital were even more indignant at the slight put upon their claim to precedence, than at the proposed disarming of the Roman Catholics—a measure particularly distasteful to the riotous population of Paris.[294] The details of their opposition need not, however, find a record here. In the end the firmness of the king, or of his advisers, triumphed. At Mantes[295] Charles received ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... acknowledge that this provision is controversial. It is as distasteful to me as I suspect it is to you. In its defence, let me treat the Greek letter and math formula cases separately. Using LaTeX encoding for Greek letters is purely a stopgap until Unicode comes into common use on enough computers so that we ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... afterward, at discretion; and an initial account of the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as more remarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree at outset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may have of merit, whereas what you find distasteful in them you must impute to my delinquencies in skill rather than ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... he and the playmate of his childhood were not really suited to each other. It was the case. The conventionalities of English society in his own rank were part of D'Arcy's very life, but to Amabel they had been made so distasteful in the hands of Lady Craikshaw that her energetic, straight-forward spirit was in continual revolt; and it was not the least of Jan's merits in her eyes that his life had been what it was, that he was so different from the rest of the people amongst whom she ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... vision of the risen Christ will also lead to patient persistence in duty. If we have Him before us, the distasteful duty which He sets us will not be distasteful, and the small tasks, in which great faithfulness may be manifested, will cease to be small. If we have Him before us we have in that risen Christ the great and lasting Example of how patient ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... in church accommodation was soon felt, for the old church had before been but just sufficient for the inhabitants. Various proposals were made—to fill up the arches with galleries, and to choke the centre aisle with narrow pews; but all were equally distasteful to Mr. Woodbourne, who, placing some benches in the aisle for the temporary accommodation of his new parishioners, made every effort to raise funds to build and endow an additional church. He succeeded, as we have heard; and it was the tall white spire of the now Church of St. Austin's, which greeted ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him, trying to recollect where he was and what had brought him here. During the last two years, in which he had been forced to lead the roving life of an adventurer—common enough in those days, and by no means entirely distasteful to one of his temperament and training—he had slept in many strange places, and had known quarters far ruder than the unceiled, raftered ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... shoulders. He was amazed, bewildered, and afraid. He had never thought of loving her. He had never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient. He had had no single personal thought of her. Nay, this introduction of the personal element was very distasteful to him, a violation of his professional honour. It was horrible to have her there embracing his knees. It was horrible. He revolted from it, violently. And yet—and yet—he had not ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... had great difficulty in conveying himself, his horse and his servant across the swollen stream. The old man's age and misery aroused the Count's compassion, so that he asked him why he continued thus to perform a task at once so arduous and so distasteful. "Sir," replied the boatman, "I would gladly be excused, but that my master compels me to undertake this work." "And who, pray, is this tyrant of a master of yours?" indignantly enquired the Count. "Sir, it is my ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... not marry against her father's wishes, but she could leave the home now so distasteful to her. She had saved only a small sum from her mother's fortune, amounting to about one hundred dollars per year. With this, she retired to the Convent of the Congregation, and shut herself up with her books, and received only her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... a fine collation, pitied our poor father who would not partake of it, and pressed our mother to call him in; but she, more prudent than we, well knew how distasteful such gifts would be to him. In the mean time she had prepared some supper, and would readily have sent a portion up to his room; but he never tolerated such an irregularity, even in the most extreme cases: and, after ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the Princess's power," said Mrs. Bhaer, after he had watched Mrs. Jo sew on a button with an air of scorn for the whole system of fashionable education. "Jack is so unwilling to be classed with Stuffy and Ned, as distasteful to Bess, that he came to me a little while ago, and asked me to touch his warts with caustic. I have often proposed it, and he never would consent; but now he bore the smart manfully, and consoles his present discomfort by hopes of future favor, when he can ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... seven, before you had put off the white mantle of innocence and assumed the cloak of depravity. It has been my unhappy lot to be frequently in your company ever since, and, speaking from a long and distasteful experience of you and your ways, I am quite satisfied that, if you did meet with some slight contretemps, you made no whole-hearted effort to rejoin us in time to degrade your intellect by discussing the sort of topics which appeal to that ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... verandas, and plantations round Rockburg completely changed the character of the residence, which, on account of the heat and want of vegetation, had in former days been so distasteful to my wife. Flowering creepers overhung the balconies and pillars; while shrubs and trees, both native and European, grew luxuriantly in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the world, however, would she question her lover, to whom the subject of the trip was evidently distasteful. Still less would she ask the Countess behind ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... with contributions direct and indirect that famine was always imminent with them as well. Under whatever name the tax was known, license (octroi), bridge and ferry toll, road-work, salt-tax, or whatever it may have been, it was chiefly distasteful not because of its form but because it was oppressive. Some of it was paid to the proprietors, some to the state. The former was more hateful because the gainer was near and more tangible; the hatred of the country people for the feudal privileges and those ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... men, with but few exceptions, had undergone their baptism in German fire and had found the experience not distasteful. The division had esprit which made the members of every regiment and brigade in it vie with the members of any other regiment and brigade. If you had asked any enlisted man in the division, he would have told you that his company, battery, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... random. "Pen," he called across the room, "what about that drink?" The girl by him reached over and touched a bell. As she did so, Peter saw the curls that clustered on her neck and caught the perfume of her hair. It was penetrating and peculiar, but not distasteful, and it did all that it was meant to do. He bent, and kissed the back of her neck, still marvelling ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... however, kept pace with the increase in population. The number of freeholders qualified to vote for senator and governor, was, relatively, no larger; the power of the Council of Appointment had become odious; the veto of the Council of Revision distasteful; and the sittings of the Supreme Court infrequent. It was said that the members of the Council of Revision, secure from removal, had resisted the creation of additional judges, until the speedy administration of justice was a lost art. Gradually, the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Baronet. 'I am honoured indeed. But the sketch is most imperfect. I shall now have much to add. I can say that the Prince, whom I had accused of idleness, is zealous in the department of police, taking upon himself those duties that are most distasteful. I shall be able to relate the burlesque incident of my arrest, and the singular interview with which you honour me at present. For the rest, I have already communicated with my Ambassador at Vienna; and unless you ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... left Camp Chase, where every one had been uniformly polite and respectful in demeanor, and I had enjoyed privileges which amounted almost to liberty, the gloom of the penitentiary and the surly, ban-dog manner of the keepers were doubly distasteful, and the feeling was as if I were being buried alive. I found that, during my absence, the prisoners had been removed from the hall, which they had all the time previously occupied, to another in which the negro convicts had formerly slept, and this latter was ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the Chevalier, picking up his hat and thrusting his sword into its scabbard; "I dare say this moment is distasteful to ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... could not taste the stinging lash as the crystals melted on her tongue.[N] An ocean rolled between. She always endeavored to protect the slave by legislation; but the Custom of Paris, when it was gentle, was doubly distasteful to the men who knew how impracticable it was. Louis XIII. would not admit that a single slave lived in his dominions, till the priests convinced him that it was possible through the slave-trade to baptize the Ethiopian again. Louis XIV. issued the famous Code Noir in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... sickliness or irritability. He was sensitive to beauty in all its forms, but was never made unhappy or annoyed by the shadows in the picture of life. He had a happy power of escaping from everything that was distasteful, uncomfortable, and unlovely, and dwelling in regions of sunshine and bloom. His temperament was not impassioned; and this, though it may have impaired somewhat the force of his genius, contributed much to his enjoyment of life. Considering that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... woodcutter and his wife, and although she cried a good deal they were both forced to recognise that they had no right to interfere with the child's good fortune. Moreover, the gift of a purse full of gold (which the nobleman gave them) did not make the matter more distasteful. ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... between two masses diminishes more rapidly than would result from the inverse square law. In this way it is possible for the mean density of matter to be constant everywhere, even to infinity, without infinitely large gravitational fields being produced. We thus free ourselves from the distasteful conception that the material universe ought to possess something of the nature of a centre. Of course we purchase our emancipation from the fundamental difficulties mentioned, at the cost of a modification and complication of Newton's ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... dwellings; teach them to keep flocks.... Endeavour to develop the social qualities which nature has implanted in them.... Make them begin to practise the duties of humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... we didn't put it in that way," Mallard resumed, with a curious doggedness, as if her tone were distasteful to him. "My own part in the business is accidental. Please tell me: is it, or not, your own belief that a ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... imitative capacity of the magpie, he pays no higher tribute to the merits of the cat than that she is as capable of being amused as himself, and like himself, too, has her periods of gravity when recreative sports are distasteful. Her social qualities he does not allude to, though he, so eminently social himself, could scarcely have failed to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... our friendship greatly, Dr. Christobal," she said, speaking with a calm deliberateness that rang hollow in her own ears, "so greatly that I am compelled to utter this protest. Now, to end a distasteful controversy, let me tell you what I know to be true. When the ship was stranded, and we all thought our only chance of safety was to take to the boats, by a fluke, the accident of the moment, I was left alone in the captain's cabin. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... tracts would never have been contested, even though the requisite number of settlers had not been upon the lands to complete the grants at the specified period; and it is also probable there would have been, in proper time, the required number. But this transfer of dominion was exceedingly distasteful ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... a teacher in his father's school. He chose the lesser evil and qualified at once to become his father's assistant, which would also assure him a certain amount of leisure. We can imagine him installed as teacher of the infant class, and realize how distasteful was the daily round of school work, and how he longed to have it over, that he might put on paper all the lovely themes that had come to him through the school day. Other bright spots were the happy hours ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... invariable attitude towards a distasteful duty; and he decided not to let slip a second opportunity. Weak and unaided, he made what shift he could to deal with the intricacies of breakfast, choking back his irritability when he found himself grasping empty air in place of the teapot ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... evidently undecided whether chants or marches were Miss Keith's passion, and, perhaps, which propensity would render the young lady the most distasteful to herself. Ermine thought it merciful to divert the attack by mentioning Mr. Clare's love of music, and hoping his curate could gratify it. "No," Mr. Keith said, "it was very unlucky that Mr. Lifford did not know one note from another; so that his vicar could ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bid. Then I turned toward the distasteful work that lay before me. This was no time for fine compunctions, nor for a chivalry that these cruel demons would ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... termination. U75 is no longer in a state of efficiency, either for offence or flight. It therefore remains for us to save our lives by surrendering to the first English ship of war that we fall in with. It is a humiliating and distasteful step to take, but there is ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Babel in the rising sun. And then it was such an emotion to find the serene calm of an European place of worship in the midst of the distasteful turmoil of the Chinese country. Under the high white arch, where I stood alone with my sailors, the "Dies Iroe," chanted by a missionary priest, sounded like a soft magical incantation. Through the open doors we could see sights that resembled enchanted gardens, exquisite ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... uncompromising dislike of convention. He had no success at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Unlike Rodin, he entered those precincts and worked long within them, but never sympathetically or felicitously. The rigor of academic precept was from the first excessively distasteful to his essentially and eminently romantic nature. He chafed incessantly. The training doubtless stood him in good stead when he found himself driven by hard necessity into commercial sculpture, into that class of work which is on a very high plane for its kind in Paris, but for ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had neither money nor occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of the industrious Mr. Brewster; but the real bar was the fact that he had once adversely ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... military service compelling citizens by law to devote no matter how small a portion of their own time to military training, such proposals would at once be looked upon as simply an insidious way of creating conscription, a compulsory system of service—a form of service absolutely distasteful and foreign to us British, and even more so to British colonists. It was therefore necessary for me to take the greatest care very gradually to prepare and school the public mind so that the term "National Service," ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... swallowing something distasteful. "He was the last straw! But tell me, Palla, what are you doing these jolly ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... notion that their prestige value is in any degree conditioned by the material circumstances and the popular imagination of the underlying nation is distasteful to many of these vicars of the national honour. They will incline rather to the persuasion that this prestige value is a distinctive attribute, of a unique order, intrinsic to their own persons. But, plainly, any such detached line of magnates, notables, kings and mandarins, resting their ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... facts—the distasteful behaviour of our earliest visitors, and the case of the lady who rubbed herself upon the cushions—which would give a very false opinion of Marquesan manners. The great majority of Polynesians are excellently mannered; but the Marquesan ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Uncle Noah," the Colonel laid a gentle hand on the negro's shoulder, "that she doesn't know of our—er—financial crisis"—his halting utterance showed how distasteful the words were to him—"save, of course, that we must live with economy, as we have for years. Of the catastrophe of last fall she is ignorant, and a Fairfax Christmas without a turkey would—she must ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... all this sounded, and deep (Charlotte felt it to her soul) as was the moral significance which lay below it, expressions of this kind, on Ottilie's account, were most distasteful to her. She knew very well that nothing was more dangerous than the licentious conversation which treats culpable or semi-culpable actions as if they were common, ordinary, and even laudable, and of such undesirable kind assuredly were all which touched on the sacredness of marriage. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... curses which had been heaped upon us for disobedience were about to bear fruit. Now, strange, rough-looking men came to see my husband—persons whom I had not seen before. They seemed familiar with him; it was evident, however, that their presence was distasteful to him; he tried to keep them at a distance, he shrank from them. I said I did not like these acquaintances; he replied that they were commercial friends, and must be treated with respect. They had long and mysterious conversations together. They would go to the other ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... however, still continued, and they planned a division of the empire, a measure which was then distasteful to all the Romans, and which was only prevented from taking place by the tears and entreaties of their mother, Julia Domna. Geta, the younger son, who was of a gentle disposition, soon after, in A.D. 212, February 27th, was murdered by the cruel and relentless Caracalla. Twenty thousand of his ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... not a little ingratiate him with the people; who were much pleased to see him after his triumph take his place again among the Roman knights. On the other side, it was no less distasteful to Sylla to see how fast he came on, and to what a height of glory and power he was advancing; yet being ashamed to hinder him, he kept quiet. But when, against his direct wishes, Pompey got Lepidus made consul, having openly joined in the canvass and, by the good-will the people felt ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... on the 6th June. 'Think of the difference it makes, the enormous difference!' she gasped, jumping up again and standing in the middle of the room. She was so full of this idea that she did not spare a thought to the dead man or to anything which might strike us as peculiar or distasteful in her own attitude and the way in which she received the news. 'We shall be married directly,' she continued with that strange absence of shame or pretence which always marked her, 'and then it'll be all right, and nobody'll be able to say a ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... her mind she promptly retired, and did not show her face in the eagles' nest again for some time. But when she did return, the eaglet had eaten the fish, and when she dropped another in front of him he swallowed it at once, although it was plain that he found it very distasteful. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... no! your questions are so easily answered. I never encouraged the doctor to speak of my brother and his wife. The subject was too distasteful to me—and I don't doubt that Doctor Benjulia felt ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... be-all and end-all of Miss Martin's presence. It would be cruel, and unfair, if a girl of her age were forced into a distasteful prominence in connection with a crime with which she is no more related than with ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... into a different but equally distasteful channel,—the great distinction and antiquity of her own family. It really seemed as though she had a dread of Mr. Heathcote's leaving the country with some wrong impression on this important subject and was determined that he should be put in possession of all the information she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... detest red stockings; and I really cannot see why I should be compelled to wear any thing that is so distasteful ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... safety of action that he found in Switzerland, were the necessary qualifications. The need for a Bible was at first met by the version of Lefevre, printed in 1532. But the Catholic spirit of this work, based on the Vulgate, was distasteful to the evangelicals. Farel asked Olivetan, an excellent philologist, to make a new version, which was completed by February 1535. Calvin wrote the preface for it. It was dedicated to "the poor little church of God." In doctrine it was thoroughly evangelical, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... accompanying the dark color, which rendered what was poisonous to the white colored animals quite innocuous to the black. Dr. Ogle, however, observes that there is no proof that the black pigs eat the root, and he believes the more probable explanation to be that it is distasteful to them, while the white pigs, being deficient in smell and taste, eat it, and are killed. Analogous facts occur in several distinct families. White sheep are killed in the Tarentino by eating hypericum criscum, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... the only chance of any amelioration from this hard labour was by a course of good conduct; and they saw before them their own countrymen, who had once been similarly circumstanced, occupying better positions and employed on less distasteful work. They also heard from their fellows that several had attained to a ticket of leave, and were earning for themselves an honest livelihood in the place of their banishment. This, then, was their encouragement; but not a few at first, however, though carefully treated in hospital, ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... first a growing uneasiness hardened into distasteful certainty upon Stella. It had become her firm resolve to get what money was due her when Charlie marketed his logs and try another field of labor. That camp on Roaring Lake was becoming a nightmare to her. She had no inherent dislike for work. She was too vibrantly alive to be lazy. But she had had ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... heart, and wantonly adds to the store, already too great, of painful sensations."[218] In general Scott minimizes the effect of any moral that may be expressed in the novel, but occasionally he seems inconsistent, when he is talking of sentiments that are peculiarly distasteful to him.[219] But his thesis is that "the direct and obvious moral to be deduced from a fictitious narrative is of much less consequence to the public than the mode in which the story is treated in the course of its details."[220] In the Life of Fielding ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... appeared there at his worst—caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or, out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his parents. He could not ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... women; but these men had other wives; and, according to a saying in the country, "the tongues of women can not be governed," they made her miserable by their remarks. One man whom she chose was even called her wife, and her son the child of Mamochisane's wife; but the arrangement was so distasteful to Mamochisane herself that, as soon as Sebituane died, she said she never would consent to govern the Makololo so long as she had a brother living. Sekeletu, being afraid of another member of the family, Mpepe, who had pretensions to the chieftainship, urged ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... conceded that the circumstances from which it all proceeded were comparatively trivial in the extreme. Don Pacifico was a Maltese Jew and a British subject, dwelling at Athens. He had made himself distasteful to the people of Athens, and consequently his house was destroyed and robbed by a mob, April 4, 1847. He appealed to the government at Athens for redress, demanding over $150,000 indemnity for the loss of his property, among which "a peculiarly sumptuous bedstead figured ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... years old when he went first to Paris and he remained there, with occasional visits to Gruchy and Cherbourg, for the next thirteen years. Paris was, from the first, more than distasteful to him. He was thoroughly unhappy there. Outside the Louvre and the studios of a few artist-friends, he found nothing that appealed to what was deepest in him. His first experiences were unusually bitter. The struggle with poverty was hard to bear, but perhaps a more serious drawback ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... it cannot be wrought into life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the main element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has been uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which arise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for more intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst for these ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan
... mind. He saw that there was something in real religion into which he had not yet penetrated. He sought the society of these humble instructors, and learned from them much that he had not known before. He began to read the Bible with new avidity; and that portion which had formerly been most distasteful, the Epistles of Paul, now became the subject of his special study. A sect of Antinomians, who boasted that they could do whatsoever they pleased without sinning, now fell in his way. Professors of religion were rapidly embracing their opinions, and ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... illegal candidature for the consulship; but, having fortified himself by such alliances, he proceeded to carry out the main design of Drusus, namely, the complete enfranchisement of the Italians. [Sidenote: Pro-Italian measure of Sulpicius.] This, perhaps, would be especially distasteful to the Julii, as superseding the Lex Julia and the Lex Plautia Papiria, which to them, no doubt, seemed ample and more than ample concessions. Sulpicius, on the other hand, and the minority of the Senate which sided with him, saw that under the cover ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... us," he once said. "You may be subpoenaed. If you know nothing, you can tell nothing. If you know about the business, you might tell something which would ruin us." The mere presence of a stranger has always been distasteful to him. The custom of espionage has made him suspect that others are as watchful as himself. He has been described erroneously as a master of complicated villainy. He is, for evil or for good, the most single-minded man alive. He looks for a profit in all things. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... be her comrades at toil, with a friendly interest and curiosity. Some of her new mates regarded her with equal curiosity, though few with so kindly an interest as her own. The unconscious ease of Amy's bearing they esteemed "boldness," or even "cheek," and her air of superior breeding was distasteful to them. ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... motive was so distasteful that she made no reply, and left him to his conjectures, in which he did not appear unhappy. "How do you find ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... prey on the spirits; bring one's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; add a nail to one's coffin. Adj. causing pain, hurting &c v.; hurtful &c (bad) 649; painful; dolorific^, dolorous; unpleasant; unpleasing, displeasing; disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful; uninviting; unwelcome; undesirable, undesired; obnoxious; unacceptable, unpopular, thankless. unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable. distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; dismal, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... life distasteful? My life did and does smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved, and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me I'll complain. Must in death your daylight ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... perhaps months, until she gets her next engagement, more unpaid rehearsals, and perhaps another short run. There is always wearing anxiety, and the unpleasing, thankless, humiliating searching for work, under the most distasteful conditions possible. ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... knew where the interview with Dino was taking place. Mrs. Luttrell had lately been growing somewhat infirm: a slight stroke of paralysis, dangerous only in that it was probably the precursor of other attacks, had rendered locomotion particularly distasteful to her. She did not like to feel that she was dependent upon others for aid, and, therefore, sat usually in a wheeled chair in her dressing-room, and it was the most easily accessible room from her sleeping apartment. She was in her dressing-room now, and ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... by it became common town's-talk, and many a neighbor visited her with the purpose of gossiping about poor Mrs, Chantrey. But they found her averse to dwell upon the subject, as if gossip had suddenly grown distasteful to her. Many an hour when she was waiting for her drunken brother to come in from the Upton Arms, she pondered over what she could do to save the wife of her beloved Mr. Chantrey. She knew better than Mr. Warden, who had never ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... that these years of absence should have endeared to John Caldigate a place which, while it was his home, had always been distasteful to him, I cannot perhaps explain to those readers who have never strayed far from their original nests;—and to those who have been wanderers I certainly need not explain it. As soon as he felt that he could base the expression of his desires as to Folking on the foundation of substantial remittances, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... to fashionable congregations, are distasteful to most readers, and in no very high favor with us. A deep interest in the welfare of South Carolina, and the high esteem in which we held the better, and more sensible class of her citizens, prompted ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... sharp-sighted critics have noticed, though most have discreetly refrained from insisting on, his "thorn-in-the-flesh," the combination in him of very strong physical passions with the deepest sense of the moral and religious duty of abstinence. It is perhaps impossible to imagine anything more distasteful to a man so buffeted, than the extreme indulgence with which Fielding regards, and the easy freedom, not to say gusto, with which he depicts, those who succumb to similar temptation. Only by supposing the workings of some subtle influence of this kind is it possible to explain, even in so capricious ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... its power."). For example, in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the Supreme Court reversed defendant's conviction for wearing, in a municipal courthouse, a jacket bearing the inscription "Fuck the Draft." The Court noted that "much has been made of the claim that Cohen's distasteful mode of expression was thrust upon unwilling or unsuspecting viewers, and that the State might therefore legitimately act as it did in order to protect the sensitive from otherwise unavoidable exposure to appellant's crude form of protest." Id. at 21. This justification ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... yielding it somewhat more than its just share of power in Congress. Indeed, it was mainly on the ground of the undue advantage which the South would gain, politically, that the admission of Missouri was distasteful to ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... be a practicing physician," Beason declared, "just for that reason. That sort of business would be very distasteful ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... 'learned Greek, Latin, and French (Spanish was his mother-tongue), and had also got well on with Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic'; but in 1833, the East India Company having lost their Charter, his father removed him from the school and took him into his business. Office-work proving distasteful to him, he travelled for some years on the Continent and in America, rejoining his father's firm as partner in 1849. From his early years Mr. Henry Huth had been a collector of books, and on his return home he set energetically ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher |
