"Indelicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... TO WOMEN.—So far from being in the least gross or indelicate, its proper exercise is pure, chaste, virtuous, and even an ingredient in good manners. It is this which renders men always more polite towards women than to one another, and more refined in their society, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... lively and amorous turn, was the widow of a Dutch merchant, and partly occupied the time not engaged in literary pursuits in political or gallant intrigues. Her comedies are her best works, and although some of her scenes are often indecent, and not a few of her expressions indelicate, yet her plots are always lively and well sustained and her dialogues very witty. The date of her birth is unknown, but she died on the 16th of April, 1689, and was buried in ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... addition which had been made, her wrath and indignation knew no bounds. As for Patty, she was nearly heart-broken at the affair. She genuinely liked Miss Rowe, and could not bear her to think that she would have been so cruel and indelicate as to call attention to her one blemish. Even Vera was penitent, for though she had had the bad taste to alter the drawing, she certainly had not intended it to fall into the hands of the mistress herself. The hard part ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... This should be quickly performed, with as little working of the butter as possible; for if it be too much beaten and turned, it will become tough and gluey, which greatly debases its quality. To beat it up with the hand is an indelicate practice, as the butter cannot fail to imbibe the animal effluvia: a warm hand especially will soften it, and make it appear greasy. If the heat of the weather should render it too soft to receive the impression of the mould, it may be put into small vessels, and allowed to swim in a ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Viceroy sighed whimsically. "I almost forget how to speak in plain words now," he said. "We have grown so polished in these latter days, that mere bald truth would be hissed as indelicate. But for the memory of those early years, when we expended as much law and thought over the ownership of a hay-byre as we should now over the fate of a rebellious city, I will try and speak plain to you even now, Deucalion. Tell me, old ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... intilligence. An', fists er shticks, er knives, er guns, that's the thing that marks the man. 'Tis not Patrick Mooney that'll fault a gintleman for ways that he can't help owin' to his improper bringin' up. Av ye don't mind, will ye tell me fwhat they call ye? I'll not be so indelicate as to ax yer name. Fwhat they ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none, for they set me all afire." What genuine and reckless passion! The "thou" and "you" maybe strangely jumbled; the grammar may be mixed and bad; the language may even be somewhat indelicate, as it sounds in other passages than those given: but the meaning would be strong enough incense for the most ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... is only a temple; I am trying to find a house.' And then he told me with indelicate haste that the lamp outside his house was green, and that there was a red post at ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... her). But what on earth am I to say? (Stopping as she disappears, and turning to Charteris grumbling) Now really you know, Charteris, this is devilish awkward, upon my life it is. That was a most indelicate thing of you to say plump out before us all—that about you ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... it is needful sometimes to call spades spades, and not to be ashamed to tell men plainly how ugly are the vices which they are not ashamed to commit. No doubt some of the drunken priests and false prophets in Jerusalem thought Isaiah extremely vulgar and indelicate, in talking about staggering teachers and tables swimming in 'vomit.' But he had to speak out. So deep was the corruption that the officials were tipsy even when engaged in their official duties, the prophets reeled while they were seeing visions; the judges ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... person might be rendered miserable by the simple question: What would become of us if the circulating libraries ceased to exist? It is a horrid and almost indelicate supposition, but let us be brave and face the truth. On this earth of ours nothing lasts. Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse. Imagine the utter wreck overtaking the morals of our beautiful country-houses should the circulating libraries ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... gone off in regular sequence to their engagements. There had never been any secret with them about their affairs. On this matter the practice is very various among different people. There are families who think it almost indelicate to talk about marriage as a thing actually in prospect for any of their own community. An ordinary acquaintance would be considered to be impertinent in even hinting at such a thing, although the thing were an established fact. The engaged young ladies only whisper the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... caricaturist ventured to publish a sketch showing Pitt as Adam conducting Eve to the nuptial bower in the garden of Eden, while behind it squatted Satan as a toad, leering hatred through the features of Fox. It is to be hoped that Auckland did not know of this indelicate cartoon when he replied to Pitt. That letter has very properly been destroyed. But we have Pitt's second letter to Auckland, in which he again assures him how deeply he is affected by hearing of "the sentiments of another person, unhappily too nearly interested in the subject in ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... behind every chair in company, with a proper provision of waste paper, that individuals may make themselves easy without parting company. I insist upon it, that this practice would not be more indelicate than that which is now in use. What then, you will say, must a man sit with his chops and fingers up to the ears and knuckles in grease? No; let those who cannot eat without defiling themselves, step into another ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... warriors repose from their exertions, after the termination of one of these wild dances, the women of the tribe will occupy their place; but in general their postures and movements are indelicate in the extreme. But modesty is hardly to be looked for in the amusements of ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... improprieties are very seldom to be seen among them. Many Frenchmen, as was already observed, are rough and even ferocious in their manners; and the language and behaviour of most of them, particularly in the presence of women, appears to us very frequently indelicate and rude; yet there are limits to this freedom of manner which they never allow themselves to pass. Go where you will in Paris, you will very seldom see any disgusting instances of intoxication, or any material difference of manner, between those who are avowedly unprincipled and abandoned, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... half-hidden smile which I was unable to interpret, according to the instruction I had received in the ways of good breeding, save as a mark of infinite disgust; and her hand, at the same time, sketched in the air an indelicate gesture, for which, when it was addressed in public to a person whom one did not know, the little dictionary of manners which I carried in my mind supplied only one meaning, namely, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... would prefer not to take any part in the discussion, and everybody suddenly remembered that Mrs. Bird had thought of naming the baby Lucy, for Grandma herself; and, while it would be indelicate for her to favor that name, it would be against human nature for her to suggest any other, under ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... other party a wrong notion of my sentiments toward him. At that, I guess Otto wouldn't make any mistake since the time I give him hell last summer for putting my evening gowns in his show window every time he'd clean one, just to show off his work. It looked so kind of indelicate seeing an empty dress hung up there that every soul in town knew belonged ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... or Scandinavian term which came to us from our forefathers is more seemly to our mind than the modern Latin importation. Nowadays any word is better than one drawn from our old English tongue. We may not speak of anything so indelicate as a belly, but we can mention an abdomen in the politest society. Provided we denote them by their Latin or Greek names, we may even mention any parts of our viscera (I may not say bowels) without raising a blush. Mention them in English, and we are at once ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... story without ceremony, and converse more like an equal than an inferior; and if he has a petition he talks in a loud and boisterous tone and fearlessly sets forth his claims. Both the peasantry and the better classes are often coarse and indelicate in their language, and many of the proverbs, which they are fond of introducing into conversation, are extremely gross. In general the Marathas, and particularly the cultivators, are not possessed of much activity or energy of character, but they have quick perception of their own interest, though ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... that Governments are accustomed to publish in their various white, gray, or orange papers "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." This is nowhere done, for there are many bits of information which come to a Government through its diplomatic connections which it would be indelicate, discourteous, or unwise to give to the public. The official documents on American foreign relations and all white, gray, or orange papers are "edited." They are understood to be so by Congress, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... that in what remains of his compositing, he is clumsy without strength, and violent without spirit. He was the first that deviated from the great masters of his art. He despised all method and regular arrangement; indelicate in his choice of words, he paid no regard to decency; eager to attack, he left himself unguarded; he brandished his weapons without skill or address; and, to speak plainly, he wrangled, but did not argue. And yet, notwithstanding these defects, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Bold, I am going to tell you something which you may perhaps think indelicate, but yet I know that I ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by the invitation, and less clear-headed than usual, was sufficiently trusting to accept. She soon, however, discovered that his Excellency's intentions were strictly dishonourable, for he made her, she afterwards said, "a most indelicate proposition." Her response was to laugh in his face, and to tell him that "she had no wish to become his toy." Thereupon, Paskievich, furious at such a repulse (and unaccustomed to being thwarted by anyone, must less by a ballet-dancer), dismissed her with threats of reprisals. The ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... me to get these treats. I had seen as already said, the cunts of my aunt and cousins, young ladies and others bathing, etc. (and as I shall tell of, have since seen a noble lady frig herself.) I have seen in fact modest ladies at their most decent, as well as the most indelicate of their toilet performances, and think I prefer looking at them under such circumstances, rather than at the beautiful voluptuous creatures who undress willingly in my presence, for those are so ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... was the effect of that question's existence and overshadowing importance on the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed throughout England that that country might again become the theatre of a civil conflict as extensive, as bloody, and as destructive of material prosperity and moral excellence as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you say the truth, my child. Hurts are not new to me. No, my Karen, no. It is nothing for us to speak of. I understand. But your husband, Karen, he must have found it thoughtless in me, indelicate, to force myself in when he had hoped so ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... satyrs, and swains, fulsome flattery of titles, and foolish adoration of painted shepherdesses: poor weak hobbling lines, eked out by 'eds and expletives, often terminated by false rhymes, and made lamer by triplets and dreary Alexandrines; ill-selected subjects, laboured, indelicate, or impossible similes, passions frigid as Diana, wit's weapons dull as lead. Yet these (many exceptions doubtless there were, and many redeeming morceaux even in the worst, charitable reader, but as ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... did nothing but storm at everybody, for my lady, with her head under the clothes, was serving him out at no small rate. She wouldn't, she declared, allow any man to come into the cabin to hoist her up again. So indecent, so indelicate, so shocking—she was ashamed of Sir Hercules—to send for the men; if they didn't leave the cabin immediately, she'd scream and she'd faint—that she would—there was no saying what she wouldn't do! Well, there we waited just outside until at last Sir Hercules and my lady came to a parley. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... bitter, he was in his youth; he saw the grosser facts of life, so often lamentable and tender, in the spirit of a Voltaire doubled by a Rabelais. There is honest and also shocking laughter in these early illustrations. A fantaisiste, graceful, delicate—and indelicate—emerged after the lad went up to Paris, as if he had stepped out of the eighteenth century. Rops summed up in his book plates, title-pages, and wood-cuts, illustrations done in a furious speed, all the elegance, the courtly corruption, and Boucher-like luxuriousness that may be ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Clibborn, I understand! I'm afraid you've been very much upset. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was; but I felt it would be perhaps indelicate." ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... ail'd him, Only the glory of his house had fail'd him; Besides, some tumors on his noddle biding, Gave indication of a recent hiding. Our Prince, though Sultauns of such things are heedless, Thought it a thing indelicate and needless To ask, if at that moment he was happy. And Monsieur, seeing that he was comme il faut, a Loud voice muster'd up, for "Vive le Roi!" Then whisper'd, "'Ave you any news of Nappy?" The Sultaun answer'd him with a cross question— ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... never see nobody so little and gauzy as was willin' to do such indelicate work! But I shouldn't wonder, now, if she was to catch some. Fishes and all things is curious ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... was, I do not think I should have been so indelicate as to have asked this question if I had not come to fancy that Nurse made out the story worse than it really was, for my behoof. Aunt Isobel was so cheerful and bright with us!—and I was not at that time able to believe that any one could ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... about my fellow-men—how they bear pain, how they confront the prospect of death, the hopes by which they live, the fears that overshadow them, the stuff of their lives, the influence of their emotions. It has long been thought, and it is still thought by many narrow precisians, indelicate and egotistical to do this. And the result is that we can find in books all the things that do not matter, while the thoughts that are of deep ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... be asleep in the morning, so that she should get up first—shyly anxious to be dressed before he awoke. So morning after morning he would watch her through his eyelashes. He never felt that, as she obviously wished for privacy, he was mean or indelicate. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Villeroi had the head of the afflicted marchioness rested, in the eventful hour of her sad bereavement, and in less than six months did he supply to her the place of her departed lord. This event occurred, it was then deemed, prematurely, and the precise and censorious blamed the indelicate haste with which Victorine had exchanged her weeds for bridal attire; but the kind-hearted observed, "Poor young creature, all Paris knows that Villeroi was the elected of her heart, long ere she was forced into a marriage with Montespan; no wonder therefore is it, that the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... Compare the singular anecdote in VI. 22 where the Buddha quite unjustifiably suspects a Doctor of making an indelicate joke. The story seems to admit that the Buddha might be wrong and also that he was sometimes ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... such,' wrote Manning long afterwards, 'that I never heard out of his mouth a word which might not have been spoken in the presence of the most pure and sensitive—except,' he adds, 'on one occasion. He was then forced by others to repeat a negro story which, though free from all evil de sexu, was indelicate. He did it with great resistance. His example gave me a ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... crowd on her deck, when there was a sound of a rolling chain and a slight rocking of the boat, which provoked an indelicate man near me to take off his helmet and pretend to be sick in it. There was a rumbling of the engines as their wheels began to revolve, and a throbbing of the Redbreast's heart as though she found difficulty in getting under way with such a load. Then a sudden and alarming snort from her ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... reason for a gentleman's prying. Montaiglon caught that smile once: his chagrin at its irony was blended with a pleasing delusion that the frank and genial domestic might proffer a solution without indelicate questioning. But he was soon undeceived: the discreet retainer knew but three things in this world—the grandeur of war, the ancient splendour of the house of Doom, and the excellent art of absent-mindedness. When it came to the contents of Doom, Mungo ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... involved, Malcolm Monroe would have been at her elbow, advising, commending. As it was, her happiness, her life, her children, her whole future might be jeopardized or secured with no sign from him. Interference from her mother or sisters would have been considered indelicate. So Martie stood alone. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... what he thought, that it was almost indelicate in her to be here so often. He was out of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... the top of the left shoulder, leaving the right breast bare, formed their covering, while a smaller one was thrown over the head, which hung down to their shoulders, or was thrown back at pleasure; notwithstanding the apparent scantiness of their habiliments, nothing could be farther from indelicate than was their ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... supposed very different to what they are in reality. I am a better physiognomist than you, and you must be quite certain that I have not acted thoughtlessly, for I never thought you capable, I will not say of crime, but even of an indelicate action. You must have read on my features the signs only of giddy impudence, and that is not my nature. You may be the cause of my death, you will certainly make me miserable for the remainder of my life, if you do not justify yourself; on my side I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "Nothin' so indelicate, sir. Your revered an' lovely relative—God bless her jolly old heart!—expressed her doubt in re leopards an' buffaloes. I'm goin' out, sir, into the wilds—amidst dangers, Ham, old feller, that only seasoned veterans like you an' me can imagine—to ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... when the husband was alone in that street waiting. He can do nothing for you now, little nursery governess, you must fight it out by yourself; when there are great things to do in the house the man must leave. Oh, man, selfish, indelicate, coarse-grained at the best, thy woman's hour has come; get ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... had not revealed, and could not reveal to any one. The more she thought over Houghton's words and manner, the more sure she became that his interest in her was not merely a passing fancy. Maidenly reserve, however, forbade even a hint of what might seem to others a conceited and indelicate surmise. She therefore gave only the humorous side of her meeting with Houghton again, and laughed at Mara's vexation. So far from being afraid of her friend, she rather enjoyed shocking her. At last she said, "There, Mara, don't take it so to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... married, you say," pursued the Alderman. "Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you're married, you'll quarrel with your husband, and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... had better arrange it with him in such a manner as may be least offensive to his feelings, and so as not to have the appearance of officiousness nor obtrusion on my part. I hope you will be able to do this, as I should be very sorry to do any thing by him that may be deemed indelicate. The sum Murray offered and offers was and is one thousand and fifty pounds:—this I refused before, because I thought it more than the two things were worth to Murray, and from other objections, which are of no consequence. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a source of mortification to him. To love, without any possible hope of return; to love, knowing that the person you loved regarded you with less than indifference, and, what was worse, that this person was passionately attached to another man—no, there was something indelicate about it, at which his blood revolted. It was the kind of thing that it suited poets to make tragedies of, but it did not—should not—happen in sober, daily life. And if, as it seemed in this case, it was beyond mortal's power to prevent ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of missionaries to hold services in every ward, and the sending out of what were really confessors, appointed for every block, to inquire of all—young and old—concerning the most intimate details of their lives. The printed catechism given to these confessors was so indelicate that it was suppressed in later years. These prying inquisitors found opportunity to gain information for their superiors about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one use they made of their visitations was to urge the younger sisters to be married to the older men, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... was deluged with anonymous letters, all referring to the alleged passion of the curate for the vicar's daughter, and the intrigue they were carrying on together. Some of the letters were frankly indelicate in their expression and, as the whole parish seethed with the scandal, the vicar appealed to the police ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... wife, she began to talk about the funeral preparations, and the persons to be invited. But such sorrow overtook him afresh, that even his wife, herself inconsolable over her loss, was surprised at the depth of his grief for one who was no relative. It seemed to him indelicate, almost heartless of her to talk so soon of burying the dear one but just gone from their sight: it was unnecessary dispatch, and suggested ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... with former administrations, interspersed, illustrated, and seasoned pleasantly with Mr. Lincoln's stories, anecdotes, etc. And here I feel called upon to vindicate Mr. Lincoln, as far as my opportunities and observation go, from the frequent imputation of telling indelicate and ribald stories. I saw much of him during his whole Presidential term, with familiar friends and alone, when he talked without restraint; but I never heard him use a profane or indecent word, or tell a story that might not be repeated in the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... at this indelicate remark; and raising her head with that modest dignity which only belongs to the purest mind, gently but firmly said, "I obey you, madam; and he whom I have seen will be too generous, not to pardon the effects of so unexpected a weight of gratitude." ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... are far from being indelicate or unchaste. On the banks of the Niger, they are tolerably industrious, have a considerable share of vivacity, and at the same time a female reserve, which would do no discredit to a politer country. They are modest, affable, and faithful; an air of innocence appears in their looks and ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... proprieties. Miss Swinkerton was strongly of opinion that bygones should be allowed to be bygones, and was author of a theory which found much acceptance among the villas—namely, that Lady Tristram would consider any reference to her immediate predecessor as inconsiderate, indeed indelicate, and not such as might be expected to ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... variety of subjects. He thought portrait-painting an improper employment for a woman[1082]. 'Publick practice of any art, (he observed,) and staring in men's faces, is very indelicate in a female.' I happened to start a question, whether, when a man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house of another friend, with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join them ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Leigh Hunt has not failed in the Manciple's Tale, which I myself modernised many years ago; but though I much admire the genius of Chaucer as displayed in this performance, I could not place my version at the disposal of the editor, as I deemed the subject somewhat too indelicate for pure taste to be offered to the world at this time of day. Mr. Horne has much hurt this publication by not abstaining from the Reve's Tale. This, after making all allowance for the rude manners of Chaucer's age, is intolerable; and by indispensably softening down the incidents, he has killed ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... round expectantly, the pen poised in her hand. There was rather an awkward pause. The question seemed at first blush a little indelicate. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... would Bob have removed his coat, though there had never been a time in his young life when he would have welcomed more a greenback. He did not intend to be indelicate while alone with a young woman in a bedroom. The very thought of it made him scarlet to the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... gasped. "Don't be indelicate, Ham! Why, she might never forgive me, dear old thing! Suppose she walked out of the office in a huff? Great Scotland! Great Jehoshaphat! It's too ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... nation, and who, on vacating his seat in the Cabinet, was elevated in the Peerage, is reported as having had certain overtures made him, the nature of which may be conceived, but which, under present circumstances, it would be indelicate in us to ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... appropriate to the theme. A vain, ill-mannered, and untrustworthy egotist, defending his own sordid doings with his own cheap and weather-beaten philosophy, is very likely to express himself best in a language flexible and pungent, but indelicate and without dignity. But the peculiarity of these loose and almost slangy soliloquies is that every now and then in them there occur bursts of pure poetry which are like a burst of birds singing. Browning does not hesitate to put some of the most perfect lines that he or anyone else have ever ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... It is of the essence of cake not to be plain. As well say, acid sweetness. Nor did I like the hereditary election-cake of my ancient State and city. Fat pork I could not swallow; nor onions nor cabbage,—gross, indelicate vegetables! And even now, as well present upon my table that other diabolic cabbage of the New England swamps,—in old legend said to have been conjured up out of the ground by the Indian pow-wows, to beautify and perfume the dank and gloomy resorts where Satan was wont to drill ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... pardon and intercession to a statuet of the Virgin Mother, of whom he was a very devout adorer. He had always regarded himself as her especial champion in the Church of England; and now he had been faithless to her, and indelicate into the bargain. And yet, in spite of his contrition, he felt that he was having a tremendous spiritual experience, which he would not for worlds have missed. The climax of it was the composition of his Sunday sermon, the labor of which secured him a sound sleep that night. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... written with her pen. She did, Mrs. Fisher had supposed, know how to behave. Now it appeared that she did not know, for was this behaving, to come dressed—no, undressed—like that to a meal? Such behaviour was not only exceedingly improper but also most inconsiderate, for the indelicate creature would certainly catch a chill, and then infect the entire party. Mrs. Fisher had a great objection to other people's chills. They were always the fruit of folly; and then they were handed on to her, who had done nothing ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... rudeness of character, is unseemly. This negative description of one of the characteristics of charity is sufficiently comprehensive, if exhibited in all its details, to fill a volume. It conveys the idea of an exquisite propriety of deportment, free from everything indelicate, obtrusive, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... alone covered them, timing her graceful steps to the clang of the silver cymbals which she waved and clashed with her bare arms above her stately head, and showing off the beauties of her form in attitudes more classically graceful, more studiously indelicate, than the most ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... reflect on the past of those we love. A bundle of letters found after years of happy union creates no sense of insecurity in the present; and yet it will pain a man sharply. The two people entertain no vulgar doubt of each other: but this pre-existence of both occurs to the mind as something indelicate. To be altogether right, they should have had twin birth together, at the same moment with the feeling that unites them. Then indeed it would be simple and perfect and without reserve or afterthought. Then they would understand each other with a fulness impossible otherwise. There would be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a knowledge of the human heart not to realize that she was completely vanquished. For where in this world is not refinement instantly beaten by coarseness, gentleness by rudeness, all delicacy by all that is indelicate? What can the finest consideration avail against no consideration? the sweetest forbearance against intrusiveness? the beak of the dove against the beak of the hawk? And yet all these may have their victory; for when the finer and the baser metal are forced ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... theatre was too contemptible for mention, and in the pantomime, or rather spectacle, became latterly so indelicate, that I found it necessary to withdraw. I should hope that the performances are not always of the same character: perhaps something must be allowed for the occasion. The French, however, have no idea of humour as separated from indecencies. In this respect they might take a very useful lesson ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... things. We must not talk about religion, for that is illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is talking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we must not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last. Something must break this strange indifference, this strange dreamy egoism, this strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must break it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... have enow to do, I can tell thee." This was one of the little incidents of his life upon which he was accustomed to advert with pleasure; and often has he, with much good humour, contrasted it with the rude and indelicate conduct of persons of great pride and importance. No man that ever lived required less entreaty to oblige his convivial friends with his charming singing. Of the families where he was treated with friendship and free hospitality he delighted to promote the happiness, and to them his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... not have stooped to quote Shakespeare, considering him very irreligious and sometimes quite indelicate, and having forbidden the reading of him in the Gordon family. Nevertheless the unspoken thought of her mind was his—that the lady did protest ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... who had a habit or rather a natural infirmity common to children of that age. On this account her master and mistress would pinch her ears with hot tongs, and throw hot embers on her legs. Not being able to accomplish their object by these means, they at last resorted to a method too indelicate, and too horrible to describe in detail. Suffice it to say, it soon put an end to her life in the most excruciating manner. If further testimony to authenticate what I have stated is necessary, I refer you to Dr. Robert Mitchel who then resided in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Yes, I do. If Salome is to be taken mostly from me, I couldn't bear to have him like anybody but you. It would be indelicate." ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... him from repeating the other, the bitter part. It had occurred to him that it was perhaps indelicate to insist. He had recognised in me a ship's officer, very possibly looking for a berth like himself, and so far a comrade, but still a man belonging to that sparsely-peopled after-end of a ship, where a great part of her reputation as ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... expedient to an individual of high birth and position, the companion of princes, and the associate of Court ladies. Nor is it the least singular feature of the tale that the chronicler by whom it is told indulges in no expression of disgust, either at the indelicate selfishness of Richelieu, or the undignified complaisance of his adherent; although he evidently seeks to infer that the Cardinal did not venture to request so monstrous a concession from himself; ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... reproach you. No, not one bit. Positively you are not aware of anything reprehensible or even indelicate in what you are about. Thinking of the matter, as you carefully scan the books of record, you regard it precisely as you would any other investigation. To you it is essential that the girl you are to marry should have money. If she has, you will love ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... an indescribably unpleasant effect. Several persons have indirectly questioned the Marchese on this subject, but he evades or turns off their enquiries with all the tact of a consummate man of the world. Of course it would be indelicate, if not unfeeling, to ask her about it. Meantime the public amuses itself with all sorts of absurd suppositions. First it is a vow; then she has got a pig's face; then her waiting-maid had said that she had once caught her unmasked, and that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... Parson's language became grossly indelicate, after the fashion of those days. He closed his peroration by slamming the front door on his visitors; and they went down the hill "blushing" (as they said) "all over, at ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "And this indelicate and unfeminine rhapsody, Captain Ludlow has seen proper to ascribe to me!" she said, while her voice trembled ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... among lions, a victim with no way of escape. That she was a lamb among lions, and a victim with no way of escape, she was still prepared to believe; only the preliminaries puzzled her. Instead of being crude, direct, indelicate, they were subtle and misleading. After twenty-four hours in Miss Towell's spare room there was still no hint of ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... was the very stronghold of her authority. It seemed terrible to her, indelicate, ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... did so reluctantly. Lyman put his hand on the young man's shoulder. "My dear boy," said he, "don't you know it would be very indelicate, not to say vulgar, for us to print a sensational account of that marriage? For a day it might be a news victory, but afterwards it would be a humiliating defeat. To tell you the truth, I am about ready to confess my regret that it happened." He was silent for a moment, ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... nearer and nearer I feel something rising and rising within me that enables me to face anything; and so when I had confronted the bull for a little time I felt inclined to carry the war into the enemy's country, and advance upon him. But of course all this is very indelicate and unfeminine; and it would have been far more virtuous and lady-like to have run shrieking away like Miss Molasses, or laid down and given in at once like poor Lady Scapegrace, who was quite resigned to being tossed ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... branch of the legislature in a matter which peculiarly concerned the elective branch. The subject, they said, is one which especially belongs to us; we have considered it; we have come to a decision; and it is scarcely parliamentary, it is certainly most indelicate, in their Lordships, to call upon us to reverse that decision. The question now is, not whether the duration of parliaments ought to be limited, but whether we ought to submit our judgment to the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... forthwith proceeded, and proved to be the attempt of a gentleman of fashion to compromise the honor of a lady of the Court whom he had mistaken for a courtesan. The audience laughed at every indelicate artifice of the libertine, and screamed when the demure maiden let fall certain remarks which bore a double significance. Finally, when the lady declared her interest in a cage of birds, and the gentleman drew from his pocket a purse of guineas, and, shaking them before ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... of generosity were extremely refined, he was shocked at the indelicate insinuations of Mrs. Trunnion, and felt all the pangs of an ingenuous mind that labours under obligations to a person whom it contemns. Far from obeying her injunction, or humbling himself by a submissive answer to her reprehension, his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... memory. But I care little for his journey to Brundusium, and his account of a bad dinner, or of his low quarrel between one Rupilius whose words he says were full of poisonous filth, and another whose language was imbued with vinegar. I have read with much distaste his indelicate verses against old women and witches; nor do I see any merit in telling his friend Maecenas that if he will but rank him in the choir of lyric poets, his lofty head shall touch the stars. Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. For my part, ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... think they're a little bit—indelicate?" ventured Missy, remembering her mother's recent invective ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... whole, hurt as I was in some sort by the idea which had taken hold of me, that the Gironacs, through a false and indelicate idea of advancing my welfare, were endeavouring to promote a liking between myself and the Count, I cannot deny, that the evening on the whole, was a pleasant one, and that, if at first it had been my impression that De Chavannes was agreeable, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... me give a reason for every thing. Well then, I think that it is indelicate in women to leave their proper sphere and descend to the level of men, and this any woman must do in assuming the masculine garb. If I am not mistaken, the common law bears me out, and inflicts a penalty upon such deviations from established usage. ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... which society should be governed. The same unhappy psychological condition which makes the dance an unclean thing in their jaundiced eyes renders it impossible for them to enjoy art or literature when the subject is natural, the treatment free and joyous. The ingenuity that can discover an indelicate provocative in the waltz will have no difficulty in snouting out all manner of uncleanliness in Shakspeare, Chaucer, Boccacio—nay, even in the New Testament. It would detect an unpleasant suggestiveness ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... rest assured that M. de Bois was totally ignorant of her intention to leave us. And, if you will allow me to make a suggestion, I would charge you not to let him suspect, when you meet, that you for a moment imagine he was in Madeleine's confidence. It would be highly indelicate,—the very supposition would be derogatory to her dignity. I have said all that was necessary to him, and, as he had nothing to do with the affair, it is a topic which cannot with ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... accustomed to his teasing, blushed, wondering if she had really been guilty of an indelicate presumption, but Helen spoke up quickly ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... l'air!" Then thrice she stamp'd the trembling ground, And thrice she waved her wand around; When I, endow'd with greater skill, And less inclined to do you ill, Mutter'd some words, withheld her arm, And kindly stopp'd the unfinish'd charm. But though not changed to owl or bat, Or something more indelicate; Yet, as your tongue has run too fast, Your boasted beauty must not last. No more shall frolic Cupid lie In ambuscade in either eye, From thence to aim his keenest dart To captivate each youthful heart: No more shall envious misses pine At charms now ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... say what you like to him, though, for the matter of that, I think it a very indelicate thing for a lady to go about raising such questions at all. But perhaps you have known him a long time, and I have nothing to do with what you and he choose to talk about. If he is behaving bad to any friend of yours, go and tell him so. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... marriage with a woman of his own nation. The unadorned fact was that both she and Sir Nigel were infuriated by the simplicity which made Rosalie slow in comprehending that it was proper that the money her father allowed her should be placed in her husband's hands, and left there with no indelicate questioning. If she had been an English girl matters would have been made plain to her from the first and arranged satisfactorily before her marriage. Sir Nigel's mother considered that he had played the fool, and would not believe that New York fathers were such touchy, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... strange as it may sound, almost any beggar can raise it. People have no idea how much of the charity they lavish on street beggars goes in this way. The amusement afforded at these places ranges from indelicate hints and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... you first, because I had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force yourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in your heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that ... because it would be tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, I launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties a la George Sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, you are good, you ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... all—I mean moral courage. That was his supreme characteristic, and it was with him, like others, from the first. A contemporary of his at Eton once told me of a scene, at which my informant was present, when some loose or indelicate toast was proposed, and all present drank it but young Gladstone. In spite of the storm of objurgation and ridicule that raged around him, he jammed his face, as it were, down in his hands on the table and would ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... I think proper," replied the lady; "and I'll thank you for none of your indelicate insinuations." So saying, the lady bounced out of the room into her own, and our midshipmen then made a noise in the passage, to intimate that they had come in. They found Mr Hicks looking very red ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... it not indelicate to linger about the house of the unsuspecting farmer till the lamp revealed the family at supper, and then modestly approach and knock at the door. As the good-hearted man knew that his guests were "posted" about ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... example, which is very little better than drabbing baulor; whilst the softer part is mostly about the slips of its females among the broom, so that no upholder of Scotch poetry could censure Ursula's song as indelicate, even if he understood it. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... stray hint or an indelicate expression for the poor fellow's two shillings. The fraud, was complete. It was not like the ground coffee, pepper and mustard in a London shop—in which there is as often as not a pinch of real coffee, mustard and pepper to a pound of chicory and bullock's blood, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... hair, and felt that even yesterday at the moment of intense hatred and anger he could not have shot a man. Fearing that the bullet might somehow hit Von Koren by accident, he raised the pistol higher and higher, and felt that this too obvious magnanimity was indelicate and anything but magnanimous, but he did not know how else to do and could do nothing else. Looking at the pale, ironically smiling face of Von Koren, who evidently had been convinced from the beginning ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... this last matrimonial observation has not been to advise all men of superiority to seek for women of superiority and we do not wish each one to expound our principles after the manner of Madame de Stael, who attempted in the most indelicate manner to effect a union between herself and Napoleon. These two beings would have been very unhappy in their domestic life; and Josephine was a wife accomplished in a very different sense from this virago ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... speak of it, Lula," he exclaimed, seizing the despairing hand. "As much as I hate to mention a matter so indelicate, I must, because it concerns us." They looked at each other like ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in kid gloves? Like ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... there will, let us hope, be no more tragedy of the undesired. It seems almost indelicate to apply this phrase to the noble army of British spinsters, for the most part dignified, worthy women, comprising ratepayers, householders, philanthropists, mothers-in-all-but-fact—working parochially, among the poor, in hospitals, schools, homes, offices, and ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... land for Mr. Crawford, and that he was agoing to fence it in, and raise a cotton crop in and around these stockades. There are thousands who know how this soil has been ensanguined and enriched. I had frequently walked over these grounds, and seen evidences of what is both too indelicate and too horrible to be described. I confess that my indignation was roused to the highest degree. I sat down immediately and wrote a statement of these facts to Hon. J. M. Ashley, and begged him to call on ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... fond of his brother, and grieved to the heart to find that he spoke so discouragingly of his health. Nor did the squire for a moment hesitate at accepting the proposal to join his distinguished relative at Bath. Lucy also—who had for her uncle, possibly from his profuse yet not indelicate flattery, a very great regard and interest, though she had seen but little of him—urged the squire to lose no time in arranging matters for their departure, so as to precede the barrister, and prepare everything ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... performed in the most capricious manner. One strong, old-fashioned, English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles, is changed for a softer synonyme in some passages, and suffered to stand unaltered in others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an indelicate subject, an allusion so faint that, till Mr. Croker's note pointed it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which we are quite sure that the meaning would never be discovered by any of those for whose sake books are expurgated, is altogether omitted. In another place, a ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... some pious and judicious hand will gather, and choose from our dear Spedding's Letters: no fear of indelicate personality with him, you know: and many things which all the world would be the wiser and better for. Archdeacon Allen sent me the other day a Letter about Darwin's Philosophy, so wise, so true, so far as I could judge, and, though written off, all fit to go as it was into Print, and do ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... genius half-unconsciously purify materials like those which Hesiod presents in the crudest form? Mr. Grote says: "How far these stories are the invention of Hesiod himself it is impossible to determine. They bring us down to a cast of fancy more coarse and indelicate than the Homeric, and more nearly resemble some of the holy chapters ((Greek text omitted)) of the more recent mysteries, such, for example, as the tale of Dionysus Zagreus. There is evidence in ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... familiar question to ask—almost an indelicate question, under the circumstances A certain furtive expression in Mr. Zant's fine dark eyes seemed to imply that it had been put with a purpose. Was it possible that he suspected Mr. Rayburn's interest in his sister-in-law to be inspired by any motive which was not ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... of this admirable young thing—to whom, she also declared, she had quite "come over"—she was ready to pass with all the world else, even with the Prince himself, the object, inconsequently, as well, of her continued, her explicitly shameless appreciation, for a vulgar, indelicate, pestilential woman, showing her true character in an abandoned old age. The Colonel's confessed attention had been enlisted, we have seen, as never yet, under pressure from his wife, by any guaranteed imbroglio; but this, she could assure him she perfectly knew, was not a bit because ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... and then come back to England and escape censure. The very popularity of Paine in certain high circles centered attention on him. And Pitt, who certainly admired Paine's talents, referred to his stay in England as "indelicate." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... ring and voiced in no uncertain tones what its editor thought, thinking men and women stopped and listened. Editors of magazines refused my manuscript because they said it was too plain, too blunt, sometimes indelicate—it would give offense, subscribers would cancel, et cetera. To get my thoughts published I had to publish them myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said they would cancel. The readers wanted brevity and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... personally wrong,—some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could be called unfeminine, indelicate, or undutiful. But she had high ideas of what was due to herself, and conceived that she would be wronged by her father, should her father take advantage of her sense of duty to crush her heart. She had her own rights and her own privileges, with which grievous and cruel interference ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... wife's parents, who lived a long way off, were always writing and asking all sorts of indelicate questions; they were longing to have a grandchild. Louisa ought to remember that the institution of marriage existed for the benefit of the children, not the parents. Louisa held that this view was an old-fashioned one. Mama asked her whether she ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... had a guilty feeling that the whole situation, with Natalie pouring out her woes beside her, was indelicate, unbearable. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... male virile member. This word has been the subject of much debate among the learned. Some read solopachium, meaning a "mannikin eighteen inches high"; Saumasius proposes salopygium, a "wagtail"; several editors have salaputium, an indelicate word nurses used to children when they fondled them, so that the exclamation would mean, "what a learned little puppet!" Thus Augustus called Horace ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... Frenchmen, a love without gallantry,—a love without anything of that fine flower of youthfulness and gentility which places it, if not among the virtues, among the ornaments of life. Instead of this passion, naturally allied to grace and manners, they infuse into their youth an unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdness,—of metaphysical speculations blended with the coarsest sensuality. Such is the general morality of the passions to be found in their famous philosopher, in his famous work of philosophic ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... unfrequent and vigorously punished. A couple of soldiers were hung for having robbed a peasant of a small quantity of wine.[146] Public prayers were said morning and evening; and, instead of profane or indelicate songs, nothing was heard but the psalms of David. Such were the admirable fruits of the careful discipline of Admiral Coligny, the true leader of the Protestant party; and they made a deep impression ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Mrs Bold, I am going to tell you something which you may think indelicate; but yet I know that I am right ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... continuous travelling in the United States I had abundant opportunity of testing both of these. In all I must have slept in over two hundred different beds, ranging from one in a hotel-chamber so gorgeous that it seemed almost as indelicate to go to bed in it as to undress in the drawing-room, down through the berths of Pullman cars and river steamboats, to an open-air couch of balsam boughs in the Adirondack forests. My means of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an Adirondack canoe, the back ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... certain adventure that she undertook to narrate. She had scarcely finished this recital when she entered on another. Mme. de Lorcy was on thorns. She knew by experience that the anecdotes of Princess Gulof were ordinarily somewhat indelicate and ill-suited to maiden ears. She watched Antoinette anxiously, and, when she saw the approach of an especially objectionable passage, she was suddenly seized with a fit of coughing. The princess, comprehending the significance of that, made an effort to gloss over, but her glossings ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... it to me, your chief friend? You think the question indelicate, but why should I shrink from asking a question on which, perhaps, the happiness of your life depends? If—if you have set your heart on Mr. Beauclerk——" She stops, checked by something in ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... card-playing clergyman ought to be stripped of his gown without hesitation. Any right-minded person would recoil with horror at such a character. It is a great disgrace to the profession; no clergyman ought to enter into any kind of improper dissipation. Your ideas are very light and indelicate." ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to 'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"—and sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... Muse as a stripling, Immured in a Bloomsbury flat, And yearned for the kudos of KIPLING For fees that were frequent and fat; But editors, far from discerning The worth of the pearls that I placed At their feet, had a way of returning The same with indelicate haste. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... unwise. No, she won't: she never speaks so to you. She'll say I've been very dishonest or indelicate, or something of that kind. No, she won't either: she doesn't say such things, though I'm sure she thinks them. I don't know ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... my word," said Elmore, to whom his wife had transferred the letter, "this is very indelicate of Hoskins! I must say, I expected something better of him." He looked at the note with a ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... accounted foolishness.—Tho', if he should object to Scripture authority, he will find, in the laugh and contempt of Mankind, the real folly of those who, in the midst of affluence, by the most bare-fac'd and indelicate proceedings, obtain and continue to grasp at every ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John particularly favoured me,—the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... their comradeship sharply home to him. It was as if she understood his weariness and knew that the fire was infinitely comforting. Anthony frowned; he did not wish to be understood. It was irritating—indelicate. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... suggested to Socrates this: "If you prize the female nature so highly, how does it happen that you do not instruct Xantippe?"—a rather indelicate proposition to put to a married man. And Socrates, quite unruffled, replied: "My friend, if one wants to learn horsemanship, does he choose a tame horse or one with mettle and a hard mouth? I wish to converse with all sorts of people, and I believe that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... page, you were very likely to escape criticism. I never finished "Osceola, the Seminole," because my aunt looked over my shoulder and read a rapturous account of a real fight, in which somebody kicked somebody else violently in the abdomen. My aunt reported to my mother that the book was very "indelicate" and after that Beadle's "Dime Novels" were absolutely forbidden. At school, we were told that any boy who read Beadle's was a moral leper; but as most of us concluded that leper had something to do with leaper, the effect was ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... Atherton, "of the sense I've had that it was indelicate in me to keep it, while I felt as I've grown to feel—towards you." He stopped: "If I take it back, you must come with it!" ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... stopped. She ascribed the difficulty to her own mental and clerical defects, but I think it lay quite as much in the nature of the relation. How was she to express confidence when she distrusted? how express distrust when her maidenly promptings told her it was an indelicate solicitation? She could say Brindle had gone dry and the blind mare had foaled, or that crops were good; but what was that to say when her heart was thirsting and drying up? She blotted the paper and her eyes and her hands, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... the instruments of her choosing—the man Meadows, perhaps, or—" (He stopped short of mentioning Ned Faringfield, whose trustworthiness on either side he was warranted, by much that he had heard, in doubting.) "In any case," he resumed, "'twould be indelicate to imply that her judgment of men, her confidence in any one, could have been mistaken. We'd best merely tell her, then, that the rebels were on the alert, and fell upon us before we could ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... if she loved me, could she join with the marchesa against me? Was I not induced by my love for her to pay her aunt's debts? Answer me that, my father. Why did she insist upon this ill-omened marriage?—a proceeding as indelicate as it is—" ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... intense curiosity in seeing "The Christian," and will declare, "By G—d, you are beautiful, more handsome than our men." They admire the most trifling thing I have, and add, "God alone brought you amongst us." Their language, though indelicate to us, is not so to them. It is the undisguised ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... incomplete. I have employed one of the first miniature painters of the day to take them, of course, at my own expense, as I never allow my acquaintance to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine. To mention this may seem indelicate; but when I tell you a friend of ours first refused to sit, under the idea that he was to disburse on the occasion, you will see that it is necessary to state these preliminaries to prevent the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London—I don't always live in trees—for weeks; and I gave ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... mean, Randal?" demands his aunt, with a snort that would have done credit to a war-horse. "To whom are you addressing your remarks? Are you calling me indelicate?" ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... but regarded them indulgently, very much as if they had been the irresponsible friskings of a lamb in a meadow. Waitstill had more than the usual reserve in these matters, for in New England at that time, though the soul was a subject of daily conversation, the heart was felt to be rather an indelicate topic, to be alluded to as seldom as possible. Waitstill certainly would never have examined Patty closely as to the state of her affections, intimate as she was with her sister's thoughts and opinions about life; she simply bided her time until Patty should confide in her. She had ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his readers? Are not, perhaps, his characters too real? and do they not often degenerate, without motive, from the sublime into the ridiculous? Would Hamlet have appeared less interesting or less mad had he not spoken indelicate and cruel words to Ophelia? Would Laertes have seemed less grieved on hearing of the death of his sister had he not made so unnecessary ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... hackneyed type of sentence, which makes him avoid triteness of expression. It is that something in him which compels him to avoid affectation, to love beauty and grace, born of simplicity, unadornedness. It is that inborn sense of good taste that restrains the writer from indelicate, personal allusions so offensive to men and women of refinement. All this and more is delicacy of expression, and blest is the journalist who has it. The reporter who wrote the following had ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... cripple: and Byron never allows us to forget, because he himself never forgot it. Accounts differ as to the extent and origin of his deformity; and the doubts on the matter are not removed by the inconsistent accounts of the indelicate post-mortem examination made by Mr. Trelawny at Mesolonghi. It is certain that one of the poet's feet was, either at birth or at a very early period, so seriously clubbed or twisted as to affect his gait, and to a considerable extent his habits. It also appears that the surgical ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... which promises to be immortal. Dundas, on the occasion when Fox and Burke called for papers by the aid of which they proposed to demonstrate the iniquity of the scheme by which the ministry proposed to settle the debts of the Nabob of Arcot, pretended that the production of such papers would be indelicate,—"that this inquiry is of a delicate nature, and that the state will suffer detriment by the exposure of this transaction." As Dundas had previously brought out six volumes of Reports, generally confirming Burke's own views of the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... complexion is Dr. Gregory's advice respecting delicacy of sentiment, which he advises a woman not to acquire, if she has determined to marry. This determination, however, perfectly consistent with his former advice, he calls INDELICATE, and earnestly persuades his daughters to conceal it, though it may govern their conduct: as if it were indelicate to have the common ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... so!" exclaimed her mother. "A female of fifteen run with a boy, indeed! The very idea is indelicate. Now, as soon as thou hast put on thy slippers and goloe-shoes, go to thy father, who has been told of thy misbehaviour, and who will reprove thee for it." And with this last damper on the "lightness of young people," as Mrs. Meredith phrased ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the town inviting every one to make complaints.[5] In this business-like way they collected thirty women at the town hall, stripped them, and put them to the pricking test. This cruel, not to say indelicate, process was carried on with additions that must have proved highly diverting to the base-minded prickers and onlookers.[6] Fourteen women and one man were tried (Gardiner says by the assizes) and found guilty. Without exception they asserted their innocence; but this availed not. In August ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... talked in ordinary society around her,—as, that it is right to admit girls to common schools, and equally right to exclude them from colleges; that it is proper for a woman to sing in public, but indelicate for her to speak in public; that a post-office box is an unexceptionable place to drop a bit of paper into, but a ballot-box terribly dangerous? No cause in the world can keep above water, sustained by such contradictions as these, too ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... something excessively indelicate in a young lady's moving about a room without having a gentleman's arm to lean on! I always feel as if such a person was out of her place, and ought to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... how this false relation could have been dissolved more tenderly, more delicately, or more nobly. How pleased Richardson and all his set would have been had you made a scene out of it and been highly indelicate in the display of delicate sentiments! I have but one little objection to raise: Theresa's courageous and determined resistance to the person who wishes to rob her of her lover, even although the possibility is thereby reopened to her of possessing Lothar, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... his hand with outspread fingers, and shook it slowly from side to side from the wrist, with the palm turned towards his interlocutor—a gesture which seemed to indicate that the subject was an unpleasant, almost an indelicate, one. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... Dave Darrin. He was disgusted enough over the action of the first class cadets, but, being in the service himself, he felt it indelicate in him to criticise the action of the cadets of the ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... sorry, then, that my aunt Legge listens to any such unworthy gossip!" I indignantly cried. "My life on it, Anneke Mordaunt never contemplated so indelicate a thing!" ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the author of Clarissa replied by writing a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the "dear Ladies," and minutely justifying his foregone conclusions from the expressions they had used. He refers to Fielding again as "a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spirited Man;" and he also trusts to be able to "bestow a Reading" on Tom Jones; but by a letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed in Barbauld, and dated December 1749, it seems that even ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson |
