"Ill-judged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into their accustomed duties in the diminished school, apparently without difficulty. As the Doctor had not sent those ill-judged letters he of course received no replies, and was neither troubled by further criticism nor consoled by praise as to his conduct. Indeed, it almost seemed to him as though the thing, now that it was done, excited less observation than it deserved. He heard ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... Both are ill-judged and odious; but did you ever meet with a woman of the world, who did not abuse most heartily the whole race ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... records of the subtle deliberations of the synod, and the absurdity of its decisions, increased, if possible, the hearty contempt which they had long entertained for popery, and laid open to their controversialists new and hitherto unnoticed points of attack. It was an ill-judged step to bring the mysteries of the church too close to the glaring torch of reason, and to fight with syllogisms for the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... been enough surely for one short life-time to have been the greatest pictorial humorist of his age, to have tried to climb above Allegri and Titian, and to have traced in thought Beauty's self to her hidden source; but behold our ill-judged artist plunging now, with equal assurance and courage, into that tumultuous sea of English eighteenth-century political strife. The result was this time fatal to his peace, and probably even to his life. John Wilkes was not a very safe man to attack carelessly, nor yet likely to remain quiescent ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... mass-people, it may well be guessed that he was a perfect terror to his own political advisers and generals. Undoubtedly a large share of responsibility for the failure of German diplomacy before the war, and of German strategy during the war, must be laid to the account of his ever-changing plans and ill-judged interferences. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine a character more dangerous as a great nation's leader. But out of dangers great things do often arise. A kind of fatality, as I have said, has enveloped the whole situation, ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... he had heard that others of no greater abilities or better character than himself had already done. A more extravagant project was never formed, and indeed all his acts, during the six weeks that followed his marriage, were more or less eccentric and ill-judged. This he admitted, when relating them to me, and probably would not have been sorry to place them to the score of actual mental derangement. The only redeeming touch in his conduct, at that, the blackest period of his life, was his leaving, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Euphrasius was made master of the offices, both being Gauls, and men of known accomplishments and good character. The government of the camp was intrusted to Gomoarius and Agilo, who were recalled to military service with that object—a very ill-judged appointment, as was seen by ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... hope,—the opportunity for which they had prayed,—was near at hand; the hour in which they would show themselves worthy of the honor of being associated with the Army of the Potomac. They rejoiced at the prospect of wiping off whatever reproach an ill-judged prejudice might have cast upon them, by proving themselves brave, thereby demanding the respect which brave men deserve. For three weeks they drilled with alacrity in the various movements; charging upon earthworks, wheeling by the right ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... said Emily, wishing to interrupt this ill-judged, but well-meaning harangue; Theresa's loquacity, however, was not to be silenced so easily. 'And when you used to grieve so,' she added, 'he often told you how wrong it was—for that my mistress was happy. And, if she was happy, I am sure he is so too; for the prayers of the poor, they say, reach ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... of my father's workmen? Well, Miss Barry, I happen not to be hand-in-glove with them. I can relegate them to their proper place when an ill-judged vanity ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... of 'The Dancing Book'" (Life of James, p. 135). In reply to this view of the subject we shall, for the present, conclude with Dr Whitaker's remark, that "The King was little aware of the effects which the ill-judged licence was likely to produce on the common people. The relics of it are hardly worn out to this day; and there is scarcely a Sunday evening in any village of the county of Lancaster which does not exhibit symptoms of obedience ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to be always read by somebody is better than to be read first by everybody and then by nobody. Indeed, it is hard to fancy a pleasanter destiny than to join the company of lesser authors. All their readers are sworn friends. They are spared the harsh discords of ill-judged praise and feigned rapture. Once or twice in a century some enthusiastic and expansive admirer insists upon dragging them from their shy retreats, and trumpeting their fame in the market-place, asserting, possibly ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... better judgment as against that of the public. At this very time he was already on other points in painful conflict with many friends. In any case he submitted to Seward a draft despatch making the ill-judged proposal of arbitration. He gave way to Seward, but at the Cabinet meeting on Christmas Eve, at which Seward submitted a despatch yielding to the British demand, it is reported that Lincoln, as well as Chase and others, was at first reluctant to agree, and that it was Bates and Seward that persuaded ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Romans, and regain his lost Macedonian territory. Perseus, his son, followed in the same path, having slain his brother Demetrius, who was a friend of Rome. The war broke out in 171. For several campaigns the management of the Roman generals was ill-judged; but at last L. AEmilius Paulus, son of the consul who fell at Cannae, routed the Macedonians at the battle of Pydna. Immense spoils were brought to Rome by the conqueror. Perseus himself, who had sat on the throne of Alexander, adorned the consul's triumphal procession ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... was a most ill-judged and mistaken indulgence, that led you to suppress the story of my disaster. Give me to know it. It may be distressful, it may be tremendous. But be it as it will, there is not a misfortune in the whole ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... and history, are too much intermixed, and the author himself confesses this fact in calling his work a novel. But while denying to "Venetia" the right of being styled a biography, we must admit that it is both a deep, true, and at times admirable study of the fine and so ill-judged character of Lord Byron. The extraordinary qualities with which he was gifted, both in heart and in mind, his genius, his amiability, his irresistible attractions, his almost supernatural beauty, are all set forth with consummate ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... procure the abolition of the slave-trade, let them prefer their petitions to the State legislatures, who alone have the power of forbidding the importation; I believe their applications there would be improper; but if they are any where proper, it is there. I look upon the address then to be ill-judged, however good the intention of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... used no arguments to dissuade him, Mr. Bultitude remembered his position in time, and prudently refrained from such ill-judged generosity. Sixpences were of vital importance now, when he expected to be starting so soon ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... publishing his mistrust and dislike. It must be confessed that the gentlemen who directed the Administration party were no match as tacticians for such file-leaders as Jefferson and Burr. Many of their pet measures were ill-judged, to say the least. The provisional army furnished a fertile theme for fierce declamation. The black cockade became the badge of the supporters of government, so that in the streets one could tell at a glance whether friend or foe was approaching. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... when they attribute a precedent disturbance to a subsequent measure, they take other ground, almost as absurd, but very common in modern practice, and very wicked; which is, to attribute the ill effect of ill-judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to dissuade us from it. They say, that the opposition made in Parliament to the Stamp Act, at the time of its passing, encouraged the Americans to their resistance. This has even ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... must be very young!" he said forbearingly.. "In a little time you will grow out of all this ill-judged fanaticism for an Art, the pursuance of which is really only wasted labor! Think of the absurdity of it!—what can be more foolish than the writing of verse to express or to encourage emotion in the human subject, when ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Cashel really expect Mat Tierney to play la grace with the Miss O'Joscelyns?—Well, the time will come to an end, I suppose. But in truth I'm more sorry for you than for any one. It was very ill-judged, their getting such a crowd to bore you at such a time," and Lord Kilcullen contrived to give his voice ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... of this opportunity to enter my protest against the ill-judged and mischievous practice of those patients who confide upon many occasions in the opinion of their nurse, rather than that of their medical attendant, and who, in consequence, often injure themselves essentially by deceiving the latter. With respect to this mistaken ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... secretly making partisans, representing the hard life of the colonists at San Domingo, and the ease and revelry in which they passed their time at Xaragua. Many of the crews had been shipped in compliance with the admiral's ill-judged proposition, to commute criminal punishments into transportation to the colony. They were vagabonds, the refuse of Spanish towns, and culprits from Spanish dungeons; the very men, therefore, to be wrought upon by such representations, and they promised ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... undertake to force the lines of the American militia with two or three thousand marines. In allusion to this, Latour says: "If the British commander-in-chief was so unmindful of what he owed to his country, and to the army committed to his charge, as to yield to the ill-judged and rash advice of the Admiral, he sacrificed reason in a moment of irritation; though he atoned with his life for having acted contrary to his own judgment." Undoubtedly the English made their last and most fatal ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... said the singer. "The serenade was perhaps ill-judged. These boors have no sense ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the two schooners was an act as ill-judged as it was insubordinate, for which Chauncey was in no wise responsible. His bearing up was certainly an error, which unfortunately lent itself to the statement, contemporaneously made by an American ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... after passing from Lake Catahoula by Little River into the Tensas, ascending that stream to the neighborhood of Richmond and occupying that town on the 3d of May, were roughly handled on the 7th in an ill-judged attempt to take Young's Point and Milliken's Bend. Then, leaving Walker with orders to do what damage he could along the river bank—which was not much—and, if possible, as it was not, to throw supplies of beef ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... unfriendly acts, including the furnishing of bogus passports to German reservists and spies, the incitement of rebellion in India and in Mexico, the preparation of dynamite outrages against Canada, the placing of bombs in ships sailing from American ports, and many other ill-judged ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... last illness of Sir Walter Scott, Lockhart was eminently dutiful in his attendance on the illustrious sufferer. As the literary executor of the deceased, he was zealous even to indiscretion; his "Life of Scott," notwithstanding its ill-judged personalities, is one of the most interesting biographical works in the language. His own latter history affords few materials for observation; he frequented the higher literary circles of the metropolis, and well sustained the reputation ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... touching the set of her lips. And it may be this was so much the worse for her. In the absence of any recognised duty she knew of no distraction save her visits to her mother, regarding which she felt a certain furtiveness to be necessary, by reason of my ill-judged show of impatience in this matter, and my refusal to open my own arms to the woman who, for years, had made Fanny's ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... then Belisario Cardi, yet he seemed no nearer discovery than ever. Norvin had no idea how to proceed. He could only wait for some word from his new ally, Vittoria Fabrizi. It might be that she would find a clue, and he feared to complicate matters by any premature or ill-judged action. Meanwhile, he encountered the results of Bernie Dreux's garrulity. He found himself generally regarded as Myra Nell's accepted suitor, and, of course, could make no denial. But when he telephoned to the girl herself and asked when he might call he was ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... How did he employ the interval of rest after the termination of this war? What important regulations did he introduce into the government? What was his most impolitic measure? What was the consequence of the ill-judged marriage of his daughters? What stratagem did Tarquin make use of to gain possession of the throne? In what manner did he behave to her aged father? How did Tullia act upon seeing the bleeding body of her father in the street? Give me ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... there is ill-will against him," said the father. All this was ill-judged on behalf of Mr. Jones. Peter, the old butler, who had lived in the family, was in the room. Peter, of course, was a Roman Catholic, and, though he was as true as steel, it could not but be felt that in this absurd contest he was on the ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the whole proceeding is savage, barbarous, inhuman, and therefore utterly unworthy of rational men. I believe it is this growing horror of legalised carnage which prevented the late President of the United States' ill-judged message leading to any rupture between our two countries. It was felt that Englishmen and Americans deliberately setting about the destruction of each other's property and taking one another's lives would amount to a scandal positively unthinkable—a fratricidal horror to ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... this ill-judged, very ill-judged. It will lead to misapprehension. It will deceive people into the belief that you are a ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... which is now placed as the main conclusion of the "Crown of Wild Olive": and with it, very attentively, the close of my inaugural lecture given here; for the matter, no less than the tenor of which, I was reproved by all my friends, as irrelevant and ill-judged;—which, nevertheless, is of all the pieces of teaching I have ever given from this chair, the most pregnant and essential to whatever studies, whether of Art or Science, you may pursue, in this place or ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... with a look half resentful, half reproachful, and immediately turned his back upon me; from which, and sundry winks and nods and shakes of the head from the others, it seemed that my remark had been ill-judged. And after we had sat silent for maybe another five minutes, the Ancient appeared to notice Job's presence for the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... from Bolla, Sedalia, and Versailles, to do the work which General Fremont stood ready to do last November. After three months of experience and reflection, the enterprise which was denounced as aimless, extravagant, and ill-judged, which was derided as a wild hunt after an unreal foe, an exploration into desert regions, is now repeated in face of the obstacles of difficult roads and an inclement season, and when many of the objects of the expedition no longer exist,—for, unhappily, the loyal inhabitants of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... were so much hurt by walking, that he could scarcely travel ten doors from his own without a post-chaise—the result was, he became such an adept in riding, that in a few months, he rode triumphant into the Gazette. Being quickly scoured bright by the ill-judged laws of bankruptcy, he rode, for the last time, out of Birmingham, where he had so often rode in: but his injured creditors were obliged to walk after the slender dividend of eighteen pence in the pound. The man who can use ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... having so ill-judged him," said Aramis. "Oh, the wisdom of man! Oh, millstone that grinds the world! and which is one day stopped by a grain of sand which has fallen, no one knows how, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... peculiar state of misery which is not exactly grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the course between the beginning of a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... coming to the fore. There are clubs and suffrage meetings, lectures; women have even invaded churches, and preach; and colleges for higher education are springing up everywhere. There are poets and philosophers, there are teachers and orators; some of them ill-judged, because they are fond of notoriety; but there are always some wry sheep in the best of flocks. Have men always been honest and wise and honourable ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... judgment was his undiscriminating generosity. Of the value of money as a store against possible needs, he had no appreciation at all, and he gave away what he earned beyond his most pressing requirements in secret and often ill-judged charities, whenever an occasion of doing so presented itself, though he never sought one. For himself, he was able to subsist on bread and water, and the meagre fare was scarcely a privation to his hardy constitution. If he chanced to have no money to spare for fuel, he bore the cold and buttoned ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... to clear the bridge, but gently and gradually. The crowd was retiring as fast as its numbers would permit, when some of the municipal guard rode through the ranks of the dragoons and set themselves, with ill-judged roughness, to accelerate the operation. The crowd grew angry, and stones began to be thrown at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... its fullness in this life. That were a time too short for an Evolution so magnificent. In this world only the cornless ear is seen; sometimes only the small yet still prophetic blade. The sneer at the godly man for his imperfections is ill-judged. A blade is a small thing. At first it grows very near the earth. It is often soiled and crushed and downtrodden. But it is a living thing. That great dead stone beside it is more imposing; only it will never be anything else than a stone. But this small blade—it doth not ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... reached the age of sixty that he was to prove these gifts in the highest sphere, in the handling of an army in the field and in the direction of a campaign. But the offer of a command in India roused his indomitable spirit, the more so as trouble was threatening on the north-west frontier. An ill-judged interference in Afgh[a]nist[a]n had in 1841 caused the massacre near K[a]bul of one British force: other contingents were besieged in Jal[a]l[a]b[a]d and Ghazni, and were in danger of a similar fate, and the prestige of British arms was at its lowest in the valley ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Rhadamiste, "The piece would be perfectly clear were it not for the exposition." To me it seems that their whole system of expositions, both in Tragedy and in High Comedy, is exceedingly erroneous. Nothing can be more ill-judged than to begin at once to instruct us without any dramatic movement. At the first drawing up of the curtain the spectator's attention is almost unavoidably distracted by external circumstances, his interest has not yet been excited; and this ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... prevailed in regard to this fight, that Johnston had been goaded into a precipitate and ill-judged attack by the adverse criticisms of a portion of the press. No one who knew aught of that chivalric and true soldier would for an instant have believed he could lend an ear to such considerations, with so vast a stake in view; and the more reasonable theory came to be accepted—that he ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... warring creeds, though not initiated by Cassiodorus, seems to have thoroughly commended itself to his reason and conscience. It is from his pen that we get those golden words which may well atone for many platitudes and some ill-judged display of learning: Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus[30]. And this tolerant temper of mind is the more to be commended, because it did not proceed from any indifference ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... were fired, as were those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very original device for the recovery of freedom,—one, we think, which, to most readers of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... gushing, but it did not offend Beth, because she associated gush with Aunt Grace Mary, who had always been kind to her. Gushing people are usually weak and amiable, gush being the ill-judged outcome of a desire to please; but at that happy age it was the amiable intention that Beth took into account. Her desire to be pleased, which had so seldom been gratified, had become a danger to her judgment by this time; it made her apt to respond ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... afraid of the devil and the gallows, to say nothing of the chance of losing her fortune. Whether, as Lamb maintained, the conclusion in which the mystery is cleared up is a mere forgery, or was added by De Foe to satisfy the ill-judged curiosity of his readers, I do not profess to decide. Certainly it rather spoils the story; but in this, as in some other cases, one is often left in doubt as to the degree in which De Foe was ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... was still as cold as a potato towards my beast of burden. She was pretty enough to look at; but then she had given proof of dead stupidity, redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes of sorry and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own this new discovery seemed another point against her. What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she could not carry a sleeping-bag and a few necessaries? I saw the end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of intelligence touched the crowd, and Coaldust was instantly forward in proposing an informal vote of condolence, which was seconded by a bare-armed lady in a deerstalker cap. But the policeman, evidently roused by our friends' ill-judged and precipitate attempt to strike camp, suddenly produced a pocket-book from his tunic, ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... time sent Sir William Stanley with 1200 men to be governor of Deventer. These appointments gave rise to much criticism that proved later to be fully justified, for both these officers were Catholics and had formerly been in the Spanish service. Leicester had also taken other steps that were ill-judged. West Friesland had for many years been united to Holland and was known as the North-Quarter. The governor-general, however, appointed Sonoy Stadholder of West Friesland, and was thus infringing the rights and jurisdiction of Maurice of Nassau. Maurice also held the post of ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... thoroughly astounded upon seeing Mary kneeling by John Grange's side that he had made a quick sign to Barnett to come away; and as soon as they were at a short distance from the door he felt that his action had been ill-judged, and likely to excite the derision of his companion, whom he had begun now to think of ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... always smouldering between the two men, at this ill-judged interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his offspring, his long upper lip pulled down for all the world like a monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... refer the major to his mother for a full explanation of the circumstances. Those odious bills must be removed from every barn-door and wall in the county. At the present moment his anger against his son was chiefly directed against his ill-judged haste in having put up those ill-omened posters. Then he paused to consider what must be his wish as to the verdict of the jury. He had pledged himself to abide by the verdict, and he could not but have a wish on the subject. Could he desire in his heart that Mr Crawley should be ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... commences any reform which at last becomes one of transcendent importance and is crowned with victory, is always ill-judged and unfairly estimated. At the outset he is looked upon with contempt, and treated in the most opprobrious manner, as a wild fanatic or a dangerous disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and advances to its sure triumph; and in proportion as it nears ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Wordsworth's mind is obtuse, except as it is the organ and the receptacle of accumulated feelings: it is not analytic, but synthetic; it is reflecting, rather than theoretical. The EXCURSION, we believe, fell stillborn from the press. There was something abortive, and clumsy, and ill-judged in the attempt. It was long and laboured. The personages, for the most part, were low, the fare rustic: the plan raised expectations which were not fulfilled, and the effect was like being ushered into a stately hall and invited to ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... neighborhood from the foragers. With the tidings of their progress up the Combahee, the American light brigade, under General Gist, was ordered to oppose them. It was here that one of those events took place which furnished a conclusive commentary upon the ill-judged resolution by which the cessation of hostilities was rejected, and the British denied the privilege of procuring supplies in a pacific manner. Hearing of the movement of Gist, Col. Laurens, who was attached to his brigade, and was always eager for occasions of distinction, rose from a sick bed to ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... been expecting it. From the very moment those ill-judged words had passed the fellow's lips, I had had a presentiment that a determined effort would be made to elect me as the goat, and I braced myself to resist ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... narrow-minded &c 481; bigoted &c (obstinate) 606; giddy &c (thoughtless) 458; rash &c 863; eccentric &c (crazed) 503. [Applied to actions] foolish, unwise, injudicious, improper, unreasonable, without reason, ridiculous, absurd, idiotic, silly, stupid, asinine; ill-imagined, ill-advised, ill-judged, ill-devised; mal entendu [Fr.]; inconsistent, irrational, unphilosophical^; extravagant &c (nonsensical) 497; sleeveless, idle; pointless, useless &c 645; inexpedient &c 647; frivolous &c (trivial) 643. Phr. Davus sum non [Lat.] [Oedipus]; a fool's bolt is soon shot [Henry V.] clitellae ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of the thought was to see Ardea and have it out with her at once. Reconsidered, it appeared the part of prudence to wait a little. The muddiest pool will settle if time and freedom from ill-judged disturbance be given it. But we, who have known Thomas Jefferson from his beginnings, may be sure that it was the action-thought that triumphed. They also serve who only stand and wait, was meaningless comfort to him; and when ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... danger was likely to commence, or to obtain the leadership of the expedition himself, is difficult to determine. He had been sowing dissension in the camp from an early period. My son was so much engaged in his scientific avocations that he knew little of what was going on; but when Mr. Landells was ill-judged enough to talk plain sedition to him, he saw at once, and clearly, the state of affairs. Mr. Burke was of a generous and unsuspecting nature; he trusted every one until practical experience opened his eyes, and then he naturally became angry, almost to violence. ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... Roby from behind; but the six men halted before obeying the ill-judged command. For, in response to the Boer's threat, Lennox had sprung forward to strike at the presented piece, the edge of his sword clicking loudly against the barrel of the rifle, turning it sufficiently aside to disorder the desperate man's ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... It was then that Harold burst in, very dusty, his stockings at his heels, and the channels ploughed by tears still showing on his grimy cheeks; and Selina was at last permitted to know that he had been thinking of her ever since his ill-judged exhibition of temper, and that his sulks had not been the genuine article, nor had he gone frogging by himself. It was a very happy hostess who dispensed hospitality that evening to a glassy-eyed stiff-kneed circle; and many a ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... always turning towards her; and when he spoke at all, always with the view of supporting her hopes and raising her spirits. In general, his voice and manner were studiously calm. To spare Henrietta from agitation seemed the governing principle. Once only, when she had been grieving over the last ill-judged, ill-fated walk to the Cobb, bitterly lamenting that it ever had been thought of, he burst ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Heaven, and which the latter enjoyed, not only from the same source, but as a just consequence of her long and steady self-denial, application, and a proper appreciation of her duty to herself, was denied one who, in ill-judged compliance with the customs of a society that has no other apparent aim than the love of display, had precluded herself from enjoyments that none but the intellectual can feel. Still Grace was beautiful and attractive; ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... mean that it will reduce him to an abstraction of perfection, as ill-judged worshipers of George Washington attempted to do with him. Theodore Roosevelt was so vastly human, that no worshiper can make him abstract and retain recognizable features. We have reached the time when we will not suffer anybody to turn our great ones into gods or demigods, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... there he was ready to execrate his folly for not having retraced his steps along the ledge and made good his escape by way of the mouth of the cavern, instead of continuing his journey, as he had done; for his ill-judged action had resulted in placing him at the wrong end of the cavern, and, to escape, he would be obliged to make his way along the whole of that narrow ledge again, with the possibility that the monster, recovering from its discomfiture, might snatch him off before he had traversed ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Her ill-judged concern, however, had the unfortunate effect of calling Miss Rowe's attention to the piece ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... of death, for the proofs were positive, and the law not less so; and Chevalier Gonault fell a victim to his ill-judged devotion to a cause which was still far from appearing national, especially in the departments occupied by the allied armies, and was executed according ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... your guides, you can pronounce the respondent guilty. I declare that I have seen no case of wilful and corrupt official misconduct, set forth according to the requisitions of the constitution, and proved according to the common rules of evidence. I see many things imprudent and ill-judged; many things that I could wish had been otherwise; but corruption and crime ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... commonplace, second-rate story, quite trivial and middle-class, and how tragic! He had gambled, played cards, lost, then fallen back on the resource of the ill-judged and independent-minded—gone to the professional lenders. Mr Clay was not the sort of man who would ever become a sponge, a nuisance to friends. He was far too proud, and though he had often helped other people, he had never yet asked for help. In a word, the poor ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... faro senza Euridice' Change its expression by the smallest discrepancy of time or modulation, and you transform it into a tune for a puppet-show. In music of this description a misplaced piano or forte, an ill-judged fioriture, an error of movement, either one, will alter the effect of the whole scene. The opera must, therefore, be rehearsed under my own direction, for the composer is the soul of his opera, and his presence is as necessary to its success as is that of the sun ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... prayer came round. On learning the cause he rebuked the cadi for neglecting, on his account, his duty and his religion, and warned him that if he should visit him in his kingdom he would find no such ill-judged deference. He showed no dissatisfaction, it is said, with the inscription which declared that Saladin had purified the city from those who worshipped many gods, or any displeasure when the Mahometans in his train fell on their knees at the times for prayer. His thoughts about the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... 'the better.' 'It is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist, which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in us.' George Eliot pushed this repugnance to criticism beyond the personal reaction of it upon the artist, and more than disparaged its utility, even in the most competent ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... enquiries on the subject is, that the late combination was produced by British intrigue and influence, in anticipation of war between them and the United States. It was, however, premature and ill-judged, and the event sufficiently manifests a great decline in their influence, or in the talents and address, with which they have been accustomed to ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... his being perverted from his allegiance, Edward felt as if he should do his uncle's old friend injustice in removing from a house where he gave and received pleasure and amusement, merely to gratify a prejudiced and ill-judged suspicion, He therefore wrote a very general answer, assuring his commanding-officer that his loyalty was not in the most distant danger of contamination, and continued an honoured guest and inmate of the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... bishop's happiness was so great that he wanted the Carmelite, with Cadiere's help, to look after Girard's other penitents, and bring them also back to their senses. They should go to the country-house; how unwillingly, and with how ill a grace we can easily guess. In truth, it was strangely ill-judged to bring those women before the bishop's ward, a girl so young still, and but just delivered from ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... to nullification, that ill-judged and premature attempt at secession made by the Calhoun wing of the slave power, which was then the most exciting topic in South Carolina. Thomas Grimke was one of the few eminent lawyers in the State who, from the first, denounced and resisted ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... upon his right flank, committed great havoc among the forty thousand men under Ney, which he had first of all encountered, at Gross-Gorschen. This place was alternately lost and regained owing to his ill-judged plan of attack by single brigades, instead of breaking Napoleon's lines by charging them at once with the whole of his forces. The young Prussian volunteers here measured their strength in a murderous conflict, hand to hand, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... that his brightest girls were the ones who in after years, impatient of the little life gave them to satisfy the capacities and demands aroused and developed during the brief period of school life, and fed afterwards by their own ill-judged and ill-regulated reading, were found fallen into lives of vice. Have our women, old or young, who make and circumscribe the opportunities of social intercourse and enjoyment, nothing to search out ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... dear young lady, my remark was ill-judged. It was there, above all, and particularly in your presence, that they would keep silence with regard to this association—and yet to it alone did the Princess de Saint-Dizier owe her formidable influence in the world, during ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... know it," thundered back the constable, with ill-judged severity. "Who killed her? tell ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... distinguished for the energy of virtue. On the primary treatment of such men, everything depends; and their first master determined whether they were to become active and intelligent agriculturists, or by pernicious indulgence, and not less ill-judged severity, to pass rapidly, by a reckless and resentful temper, from the triangle ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... literature from that of Denmark. Bjornson, and with him most of the soberer spirits amongst Norwegian writers, had realised that the door which had so long shut out Norway from the literature of Europe must be, as he put it, opened from the inside; and he rightly considered that the ill-judged "Bonde-Maal" movement could only have the result of wedging the ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... head with a solemn air. "A day will come," said she, "when you will repent of having so ill-judged me. On that day, it is I who will pray God to forgive you for having been unjust toward me. Besides, I shall suffer so much that you will be the first to pity my sufferings. Do not reproach me with that happiness, Monsieur d'Artagnan; it costs ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... monotony he brooded over the money he had sunk for other people until it seemed like a colossal disgrace for which there was no excuse and that he could never live down. In his bitter condemnation of himself for his inexperience, his ill-judged magnanimity, he felt as though his was an isolated case—that no human being ever had ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... with these ill-judged remarks and compliments, and to tell me where you are taking me, in this strange, outrageous manner, against my will, and, in despite of all the ordinary ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... forced to work is an individual and social menace; and because working-women as an unenfranchised class are continually used to lower the standards of men. The League in particular protested against the ill-judged activities of the anti-suffrage women, "a group of women of leisure, who by accident of birth have led sheltered and protected lives, and who never through experience have had to face the misery that low wages and ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... weak-willed irresponsibility of conduct with the older one's quiet self-control and firmness of principle. Larry's love for Ruth was the real thing. Ted could see that, and it made his own random, ill-judged attraction to Madeline Taylor look crude and cheap if nothing worse. He hated to remember that affair in Cousin Emma's garden. He made up his mind there would be no more things like that ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... not much to choose between forty miles and a hundred. Better not move at all, better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very ill-judged measure." ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... always smouldering between the two men at this ill-judged interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for all the world, like a monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and then "Get ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... division, which was not taken till late on a Thursday night. A relative in the House had undertaken to telephone the event to me at the earliest moment, so that I should have plenty of time to chronicle a victory for common sense, or deplore the first step in an ill-judged constitutional revolution. When the telephone-bell rang and the figures of the division were given, they showed a majority against the rejection of the Bill. It was not a large majority, but it was sufficient, and ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... circumstances there is no reason why Engels' remarks should affect even the timorous, although it must be remembered that a very able English socialist philosopher is reputed to have damaged his chances irretrievably by an ill-judged quotation from ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... in London, with Dr. Franklin, and William Whateley, and Joseph Whateley, in 1774. This relates to a duel with Mr. Temple, by a brother of Thomas Whateley. In some of the Lives of Dr. Franklin, it appears, that inflammatory and ill-judged letters were written by George Hutchinson, and others, to Thomas Whateley, Esq. private Secretary to Lord Grenville, respecting some disturbances in America, concerning Lord Grenville's Stamp Act. On the death of Thomas, these letters were placed ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... government, but, according to history, he himself voted for the dissolution of Parliament, though the play is accurate in laying the necessity of the dissolution at the door of old Vane. It was truly his ill-judged vehemence, for, not able to brook the arguments of the Commons, "He rose," says Gardiner, "to state that the King would accept nothing less than the twelve subsidies which he had demanded in his message. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... truths, but let me hear no more of your sheepish timidity. I know the world a little. I know what they will say of my poems; by second sight I suppose; for I am seldom out in my conjectures; and you may believe me, my dear Madam, I would not run any risk of hurting you by any ill-judged compliment. I wish to show to the world, the odds between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for your information, both the pieces go in. One of them, "Where braving angry winter's storms," is already ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of the long neglect, wilful vandalism and ill-judged restoration which the Alhambra has endured, it remains the most perfect example of Moorish art in its final European development, —freed from the direct Byzantine influences which can be traced in the cathedral of Cordova, more ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... defended himself on the practice of his predecessors, ii. 279. his ill-judged attempt to establish the rites of the Church of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... compelled to contend with the results of the ill-judged zeal of politicians, who forced ahead his flatboat and rail-splitting record, with the homely surroundings of his earlier days, and thus, obscured for the time, the other fact that, always having the heart, he had long since acquired ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... interrogated the Colonel, looking severely at his nephew, 'am I to understand that you married this girl without undeceiving her as to the children's, or rather Miss Rylance's, most ill-judged practical joke—that you stood before the altar in God's House, the temple of truth and holiness, and won ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... transformed its dignity into clumsiness, its grace into vulgarity. Had she been at home in New York, she would have said frankly that she neither knew nor cared anything about the America; being in Boston, she had a superstitious feeling that such frankness would be ill-judged, and she therefore contented herself ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... before would have shot him if they could have come at him, and in making a collection for their refreshment, of wine, linen, money, etc., in the town where he lived. * * * The capture of the privateer was, solely owing to the ill-judged lenity and brotherly kindness of Captain Johnson, who not considering his English prisoners in the same light that he would French or Spanish, put them under no sort of confinement, but permitted them to walk the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... ignorance of the world's ways and whose confiding tenderness appeal to him for protection even against himself. In nearly all the instances we have known of such marriages, the results proved the step to have been ill-judged, imprudent, and highly injurious to the reputation of one party, and in the long run detrimental ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... between the imaginary communities which the political economist expects to see grow up, in conformity with his theories, and acting in obedience to his dictates, and the nations of flesh and blood which exist around us, of which we form a part, and which are immediately affected by ill-judged or inapplicable measures of commercial regulation. Nations were planted by the hand of nature; they were not sown, nor their place allotted by human foresight. They exist often close to each other, and under apparently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... consideration with which I am treated, in Deadham, entirely to you.—Yes, yes," she cried in rising exaltation, "I do not deny that I went to Harchester yesterday—went—Dr. Horniblow thus expressed it when inviting me—'as representing The Hard.' I was away when Damaris made this ill-judged excursion across the river to the Bar. Had she confided her intention to me, I should have used my authority and forbade her. But recently we have not been, I grieve to say, on altogether satisfactory terms, and our parting yesterday was ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the collection of the sacred treasures. It was while he was engaged in this unpopular work that a spirit of disaffection showed itself; the East took arms no less than the West; and in Persia, or upon its borders, the avaricious monarch was forced to retire before the opposition which his ill-judged measures had provoked, and to allow one of the doomed temples to escape him. When he soon afterwards sickened and died, the natives of this part of Asia saw in his death a judgment upon ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... persuaded the King, still connecting his case with their own, that it was impossible my brother should ever forgive the affront he had received, and not seek to avenge himself with the first opportunity. The King, forgetting the ill-judged steps these young men had so lately induced him to take, hereupon receives this new impression, and gives orders to the officers of the guard to keep strict watch at the gates that his brother go not out, and that his people be made to leave the Louvre every evening, except such of ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... lost and won is too well known to need description in detail here. Whether the Lancastrian army could have held the field before the Yorkist veterans had they been skilfully generalled will never now be known; but the fiery and impetuous Duke of Somerset, whose ill-judged ardour had forced the battle upon his followers, undoubtedly lost the day for them by his intemperate and reckless disregard of the dictates of common prudence. After opening the fight by a discharge of ordnance, he was mad enough to leave ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... exhorting the Indians to behave with humanity and moderation, the general took a most ill-judged step, which not only did the English cause great harm, but was used by the Americans with much effect as a proof of the cruel way in which England warred against the colonists. He issued a proclamation threatening to punish ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... in this house to make the most sacred ties of life the butt for ill-timed and ill-judged joking. No knight of old thought or spoke more reverently or with greater reserve of his lady love than did Brian of Erica. He regarded himself now as one bound to do her service, consecrated from that day forward as ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... began seriously to attend to his own affairs, and repented heartily of his ill-judged prodigality while at Otaheite. He found at Huaheine, a brother, a sister, and a brother-in-law; the sister being married. But these did not plunder him, as he had lately been by his other relations. I was sorry, however, to discover that, though they were too honest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... Algernon made a second attempt, and pleaded the expense he had been at in bringing up and educating his son, and demanded a moderate remuneration for the same. To this ill-judged application, Mark Hurdlestone returned for answer, "That he had not forced his son upon his protection; that Algernon had pleased himself in adopting the boy; that he had warned him of the consequences ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... BAUTZEN, 30th July, 1757. "MY DEAR BROTHER,—Your bad guidance has greatly deranged my affairs. It is not the Enemy, it is your ill-judged measures that have done me all this mischief. My Generals are inexcusable; either for advising you so ill, or in permitting you to follow resolutions so unwise. Your ears are accustomed to listen to the talk of flatterers only. Daun has not flattered you;—behold the consequences. In ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... doubts at Washington, interference by Stanton, ill-judged orders from Halleck, and some not very judicious rejoinders from Hooker himself, who became rather peevish, to Lincoln's alarm. So when, on the twenty-seventh of June, Hooker tendered his resignation, ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... enough that Brother Basil was in one of his absent-minded fits. There was no beguiling him into talk at such times. If any of those under his direction presumed upon his mood to do careless or ill-judged work, they found his eye as keen and his word as ready as usual. But his mind—his real self—was not there. Padraig wondered whether this could have any connection with the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... taking from ten to twenty animals, until one day, after exceptionally wet weather, I protested that it was not possible to round up the stock in the then state of the camp and destroy so much grass for a small bunch of cows. Unlucky thought and ill-judged protest! For when he urged that the inhabitants of the town were starving, and that a small point of half-breed heifers would do to go on with, I received orders to let him part out from our best herd. Twenty fine half-bred Herefords did he pick while I almost ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... sufficient quantity of food, which they have not been able to secure by their own industry, either through the badness of the bee-pasturage, the inclemency of the seasons, the weakness of the colony, or the spoil made by their enemies; and sometimes by the ill-judged management of their owners, in robbing the bees beyond the ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... peculiarities of temper. They may be subject to accidental ill humor, or to whimsical complaints. Blemishes of this kind often shade the brightest character; but they are never destructive of mutual felicity, unless when they are made so by an improper resentment, or by an ill-judged opposition. When cooled, and in his usual temper, the man of understanding, if he has been wrong, will suggest to himself all that could be urged against him. The man of good nature will, unupbraided, own his error. Immediate contradiction is, therefore, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... brother-in-law, asking where the object of our charity now was, if he were still alive. The reply was that his ingratitude did not surprise the writer—that he was a hopeless drunkard, a remittance man, whom the family had to ship off as soon as possible when our ill-judged kindness sent him to England. At that time he was in Canada, but it was not worth while to give any address. When Mr. Bowyear started the Charity Organization Society in Adelaide, he said I was no good as a visitor; I was too credulous, and had not half enough of ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... words," said he, "which, if you have come here with any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to prove extremely prejudicial to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that you or somebody like you would in certain circumstances be after a certain lady. I thought it to be an ill-judged speech, and as your particular friend I heard it with ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... though he disarmed malice by the spirit and heroism with which he endured them. The news of his impudence spread like wildfire, and not five boys in the school approved of what he had done, while most of them were furious at his ill-judged threat of informing Mr. Gordon. There was a general agreement to thrash him after roll-call ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar |
