"Tactless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that what he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that remarks which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was charmant. Even if Anna ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hitherto been loyally Baileyite. Quite her best writing up to the present, at any rate, is in those papers, and no doubt Altiora had had not only to read her in those invaded columns, but listen to her praises in the mouths of the tactless influential. Altiora, like so many people who rely on gesture and vocal insistence in conversation, writes a poor and slovenly prose and handles an argument badly; Isabel has her University training ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Negoro rebellion of 1825, which was caused by the insulting behavior of an incompetent and tactless resident toward a native prince, to suppress which cost Holland five years of warfare and the lives of fifteen thousand soldiers, the Dutch Government has come more and more to realize that most of the disaffection and ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... say that you love the Count?" inquired Schmidt, surprised beyond measure by the girl's words and rendered thereby even more tactless ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... it?" she said. "Why, when they were all laughing about it just now" ("I was right, then," thought Miss Mapp, "and what a tactless woman!"), "I said I believed it. And ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... the newspapers say, but Rigby the tactless and the petty had shown that there was rumour concerning the relations of Byng and his wife, which Jasmine, at least, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he never ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... that She needed change of diet, In search of such disturbed this much- To-be-desired quiet. To say the least, this tactless beast Was apt to rudely roister: She tapped his shell, and called him—well, A name ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... find himself discarded and despised by his intended tool, the King was still more exasperated to find that the King's servant proposed to be the King's master. Grenville was a good lawyer and a good man of business, but he was extremely dull and extremely tactless, and he was at as much pains to offend the King as if he intended offence. He was overbearing in manner to a monarch who was himself overbearing; he badgered him with long rambling discourses upon his royal duty; he deliberately wounded him in his two ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the feelings of another. Eweword, despite his shapely and imposing bulk, had not developed his athletic possibilities so much as those of the gourmand, and, reddening to the roots of his stubbed hair, he looked the reverse of pleased with the tactless young woman,—an expression usually to be found on the countenance of one or more members of a company following the publication ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... afternoon. Everybody is very concerned for you, they mean to be awfully decent in their way; but I know how they try you. They can't help it. Such a thing takes them out of their daily round, and beggars their experience, and makes them excited and tactless. There's no precedent for them, and you know how most people depend on precedent and how they're ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... watching in growing exasperation ever since. When six struck and nobody showed the least sign of going away he could bear it no longer, and touched the little muffled electric bell that connected him to Mrs. Bilton in what Anna-Felicitas called a mystical union—Anna II. was really excessively tactless; she had said this to Mrs. Bilton in his presence, and then enlarged on unions, mystical and otherwise, with an embarrassing abundance of imagery—by buzzing gently against her knee from the leg of ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... on. Apropos of Adjutants and Company Commanders, Private Wamphray, whose acquaintance we made a few pages back, was ultimately relieved of his position as a Company Signaller, and returned ignominiously to duty, for tactless if justifiable interposition in one of these ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... bedroom window, sir,—they look pretty fresh!" interpolated the Padre, a sincere but somewhat tactless Christian. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... her." When I caught Dora up and asked her: "Why did you run away?" she tossed her head and said: "That sort of company does not suit me." "What on earth do you mean, you were so awfully fond of Mad., and besides she is really lovely." That's true enough, she said; but it was awfully tactless of her to tell me of all that—you know what. Such an intimacy behind her parents' backs cannot possibly lead to happiness. Then I got in such a fearful temper and said: "Oh do shut up. Father and Mother did not know anything about Viktor either, and you were happy enough ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... and conclusions were undoubtedly with Bates, and I felt that I had not acquitted myself creditably in my effort to fix the crime on him. My abuse of him had been tactless, to say the least, and I now tried another ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... curious to know all about you—who you are, and how you came to the Astons, and who was your mother, and when and where Aymer met her. You see," he added confidentially, "I used to be about with Aymer a good bit and I thought I knew all——" He stopped abruptly. If he were being purposely tactless he realised he had gone ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... military self-effacement was not happily worded, and the enemies of Davis seized on his phraseology as further evidence of his instinctive autocracy. The Mercury compared him to the Emperor of Russia and declared the tactless remark to be "as insulting to General Beauregard as it is false and presumptuous in ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... Violet would get on well together," remarked the young lady with the short hair. "They both have a good many tastes in common. Neither likes the country, for one thing." The other ladies looked at one another, and the speaker, realizing that she had been tactless, stopped abruptly. "How is Violet?" she added lamely. "Do you think she will be ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... little tense jerk of outraged pride at this rather tactless speech. It sounded too much as if Francis might possibly tire of her—which it wasn't his place ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Till an Indian paper found that he could write: Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark, When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm, In that Indian paper—made his seniors squirm, Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth— Was there ever known a more misguided youth? When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame; When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore, Boanerges ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to get back to Daddy and Mummy again?" crooned Mrs. Momeby; the preference which the child was showing for its dust and buttercup distractions was so marked that the question struck Clovis as being unnecessarily tactless. ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... agreeable light. Doggie took him delightedly round the pictures, expounding their merits and their little histories. He found that Oliver, although unlearned, had a true sense of light and colour and tone. He was just beginning to like him, when the tactless fellow, stopping before the collection of little dogs, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... same lack of sense and reason that marks the loafer's gravitation toward a lighted groggery. Moreover, in the beetle phase, it is sure to appear at the most inopportune times and unsuitable places, creating the inevitable commotion which the blunder and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan himself could scarcely produce a more complete ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... surged to her face, and then left it pallid. The shadow of her sorrow had been forgotten during the strenuous moments she had gone through; the tactless remark brought it back upon her with cruel emphasis. She turned aside and slipped through the door at the back of the hut while the doctor, oblivious to his blunder, went out ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... seldom more. It is not often that she is spoken of, unless it is to praise her cooking. If she made incomparable biscuits and her coffee was fit to be the nectar of the gods, there are apt to be frequent and tactless comparisons, until painful experience teaches the sinner that this will ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... said reproachfully, "was mighty tactless. I don't know how. But I know I'm not going to stick my head over the ramparts for 'em to shoot at. I'm no African Dodger—I'm an impresario. Maybe they'll hit me in the eye, all right, but I'm not going to give 'em a ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... their faces, in the gleam of the electric light which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless activity, were transfigured so that I marveled at the ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... questionable chaff or talking at the possible lovers. Older people who have forgotten how tender their own sensibilities once were are rather fond of cracking jokes, and make tactless, pointed remarks. The old friend of the family who slaps the prospective suitor on the back, and in the lady's presence challenges him to kiss her under the mistletoe, only succeeds in making them both uncomfortable. ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... a King may do in the height of his power,"[23] he was but giving expression to a conception of the royal prerogative which had been lodged in the mind of every Tudor, but which no Tudor had been so tactless as publicly to avow. The first two Stuarts confidently expected to maintain the same measure of absolutism which their Tudor predecessors had maintained—nothing more, nothing less. There were, however, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... altercation with Brettschneider, not only from personal feeling for the bombardier, but also from annoyance that his best candidate for a non-commissioned officer's post was lost to him through a piece of such tactless mismanagement. Brettschneider had complained about this reprimand, but no notice had been taken of his complaint, and that in itself spoke volumes for the accused. Guentz and Reimers were very warm in their praise of ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... intention to offend you, my dear Challenger," cried our tactless friend, "You can't be held responsible for your own physique. If nature has given you a short, heavy body you cannot possibly help having ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unpardonable sin by Harrow boys. Briefly it means that six hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore, when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance and visibly annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure by derisive cheers. Rutford, ever tactless where boys were concerned, was unwise enough to make a speech from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style, a demonstration which he ought to have known he was quite powerless to punish or to prevent. When ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... all these pleasant things would one day be his own. His mind was occupied at the moment, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, by the recollection of that painful scene in Bow Street Police Court. The magistrate's remarks, which had been tactless and unsympathetic, still echoed in his ears. And that infernal night in Vine Street police station . . . The darkness . . . The hard bed. . . The discordant vocalising of the drunk and disorderly in the next cell. . . . Time might soften these memories, might lessen the sharp agony of them; but ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... violently to some of his sentiments, which the German was tactless enough to keep thrusting in our faces. He was as offensive to our English friends on the subject of England as he was to us concerning America, but one of the Englishmen sang and couldn't play a note, so Jimmie let the German stay, because ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was Mamie. I admit it was a tactless performance. "When you know our friend a little better," was not happily said; and even "keep him in good order, for he needs it," might be construed into matter of offence. But I lay it before you in all confidence of your acquittal: was the general tone of it "patronising"? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he had most in mind, and singularly serene in face of his sense of their impediment. It was as if for all the world she didn't take it for one, the immobility, to say nothing of the seeming equanimity, of their tactless companion; at whom meanwhile indeed our friend himself, after his first ruffled perception, no more adventured a look than if advised by his constitutional kindness that to notice her in any degree would perforce be ungraciously to glower. He talked ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... and made a remark in her turn; but, without waiting for his reply, she looked round at Gianluca and spoke to him, interrupting something which he was trying to say to Veronica. In almost any situation, such a proceeding would have been tactless; but Bianca had seen the result of the meeting between Gianluca and Veronica on the former occasion, and she guessed rightly that if they were forced into the necessity of exchanging commonplaces, there would ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... standing there an instant, the dog came over and threw himself down at the stranger's feet as if publicly adopting him, the white story-teller dared not meet Peetka's eye. He was privately most uneasy at the Nigger dog's tactless move, and he hurried on about how Brother Paul caught the Shaman, and about the Penitential Journey—told how, long before that, early in the Fall, Nicholas had got lost, making the portage from St. Michael's, and how the white camp had saved him from starvation; how ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Lionel Sackville-West, the British Minister, fell into a Republican trap and wrote to a pretended naturalized Englishman, who called himself Murchison, that a vote for Cleveland would best serve Great Britain. His tactless blunder caused his summary dismissal from Washington and aided the Republican cause much as the Burchard affair had ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... forts at Gravesend. His leisure hours he devoted to helping the people round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only playground and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a drawer of his ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... He suppressed the tactless impulse to say that he preferred a rope on the wrists to one about his neck, realising that the jest could only shock and not amuse her ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... frankness which had prompted this warning and saw that she had made a tactless blunder, but she ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... should scarcely occasion surprise, for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some endeavor was made to live up to the promises so loudly made that henceforth the rights of the weak were to receive as much attention as those of the strong. Commissions were formed to study various aspects of the questions involved in the peace ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... never knows How or When. There are times in the lives of all of us when it bores us to be talked to of home or friends or wife or husband or mother or religion. There are times when nothing but a large, comfortable silence can soothe the worry and fret of a trying day. At such times let the tactless woman and the thoughtless man beware, because everything they say will be ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... a wild, stormy morning of January, that a letter at length arrived for Antoine from Cherbourg. The news was blurted out with tactless plainness. 'La pauvre petite' was no more. In proportion as she grew calmer in mind, it appeared, Marie had grown weaker in body: and a cold she had contracted soon after her arrival in Cherbourg, had settled on her lungs, ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... evince sympathy for Mr. Farron, but was afraid that, if she did, it would be like intimating that he was as good as dead. She was caught between the negative danger of seeming indifferent and the positive one of being tactless. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... pink cushions in the bows, pensively twirling a Japanese parasol, one arm flung round the shoulders of her companion—a fellow-student; fair and stolid and good-humoured. Broome summed her up mentally: "Tactless but trustworthy. Anglo-Saxon to the last button on her ready-made Shantung coat and the blunted toe of her white ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and the lady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general why they had "cut it so close" at the station. The two daughters called her "Ma" several times, toned her down in a tactless, effective way, and drove her at last to the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. Presently she looked up. "Lor!" she said, "I didn't bring them!" Both the daughters said "Oh, Ma!" But what "them" was ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... gave the girl a glance of apology; he was a tactless individual in shading facts. "Of course, all that Three C's bunch is liars, and Craig worst of all. But I did hear him say that Latisan is loafing in New York and is prob'ly in jail ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Never fear. You're all descended from the ancient kings: I know that. [Complacently] I'm not so tactless as you think, my boy. [Earnest again] I expect to find Miss Reilly a perfect lady; and I strongly advise you to come and have another look at her before you make up your mind about her. By the way, have ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... colonies, collapsing shortly afterwards before the powerful coalition of Fox and North; in 1784, on his retirement from politics, was created Marquis of Lansdowne; was a Free-Trader, supporter of Catholic emancipation, and otherwise liberal in his views, but rather tactless in steering his way amid the troublous politics of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... him either. Rose said nothing. He had indeed left her nothing to say. But there was a look of perplexity in her eyes—as if she were casting about for some stupidly tactless act or omission of her own to account for his ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... issued his celebrated manifesto, "To my noble and heroic Serbian people," FERDINAND in the Sobranje was publicly denouncing the Serbians as obstinate, treacherous, and tyrannical. The KAISER considers this conduct extremely tactless, and threatens, if it continues, to spell ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... mentioned that about the bandits. Both were aware that when shaved and washed of their round-up grime they could look very engaging. The two cow-punchers rode out, not angry, but grieved that a man come here to dwell among them should be so tactless. ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... questions she drawled slightly, and smiled in a manner that, although not contemptuous, might permit them to guess that they had made a tactless mistake. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... that rose behind the group, was sharply unhappy, and filled with a burning jealousy of Elizabeth, who queened it there in the middle of them—so self-possessed, agreeable, and competent. How well Arthur had been getting on with her! What a tiresome, tactless idiot she, Pamela, must seem in comparison! The memory of her talk with him made her cheeks hot. So few chances of seeing him!—and when they came, she threw them away. She felt for the moment as though she hated Elizabeth. Why had her father saddled ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my little squirrel here, and then KROGSTAD and I knew each other in early youth; and when two people knew each other in early youth—(a short pause)—h'm! Besides, he will address me as, "I say, TORVALD"—which causes me most painful emotion! He is tactless, dishonest, familiar, and morally ruined—altogether not at all the kind of person to be a Cashier in a Bank ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... flashed upon him in a glance of surprise, and the colour rose in her cheeks also. She was evidently not pleased, and he felt that he had been guilty of a breach of English propriety. When an Englishman does a tactless thing he generally hastens to make it worse, becomes suddenly shy, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... am always so unhappy, so dreadfully wretched, that I say things I do not altogether mean. I am not quite myself to-night, either. Coming here, to the place where my poor boy was lost, has upset my nerves; and, really, your aunt Chrysophrasia is so very tactless. She always was like that. I remember the way in which she treated my poor husband before we were married. It was she who made all the quarrel, you know. It broke up my life at the very beginning, and we two sisters never saw each other ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... II. himself writes, he (being then Duke of York) 'press'd the King and Lord Treasurer several times that the letters' (letters forged by Oates) 'might be produced and read, and the business examined into at the Committee of Foreign Affairs.'** Mr. Pollock calls the Duke's conduct tactless. Like Charles I., in the mystery of 'the Incident,' he knew himself guiltless, and ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... formidable Church party. It would be certain to cause displeasure among the priesthood; and in those days it was a ticklish business to offend the priesthood, even for a monarch. And, if Merolchazzar had a fault, it was a tendency to be a little tactless in his dealings with that powerful body. Only a few mornings back the High Priest of Hec had taken the Vizier aside to complain about the quality of the meat which the King had been using lately for his sacrifices. He ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... mortification; Balzac, crippled and handicapped, with his teeth set hard, his powers concentrated on one point, that of winning Madame Hanska, was at times hardly master of himself. There was indeed some excuse for his irritation, when his family wrote something tactless, or involved themselves in fresh misfortunes, just as matters perhaps seemed progressing a little less unfavourably than usual. Their letters were always read aloud at the lunch table at Wierzchownia, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... way. She felt in her inmost soul, though she would have been loath to admit the fact to herself, that a woman whom she had invited to make calls with her at her expense had really no right to wear a finer bonnet—that it was, to say the least, indelicate and tactless. Therefore she remarked, rather dryly, upon the beauty of a new pansy-bed beside the drive into which they now turned. The bed looked like a bit of fairy carpet in royal purples ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... spoke thus falteringly was a little fellow in white gaiters, with an albino's face and scanty hair that stood erect in bunches. But that tactless friend's interruption simply furnished Le Merquier with a pretext for an immediate and natural transition. A hideous smile parted his flabby lips. "The honorable Monsieur Sarigue refers to the Caisse Territoriale; we proceed to answer him." The Paganetti den of thieves seemed ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the table. All were so used to the lady's tactless remarks that they only amused. They had long ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... evening. Margaret was glad of this for various reasons, some definable and others vague. She felt that she must have misjudged Claudius a little, and she was glad to see that her exhibition of displeasure on the previous night had been sufficient to keep him away. Had he been as tactless as she had at first thought, he would surely have sought an early opportunity of speaking to her alone, and the rest of the party were so much used to seeing them spend their mornings together that ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... This tactless prelate made matters worse by an arrogant attitude, and afterward spoke of the King, who received him in sombre silence, as "that debaser of coinage, that proud and dumb image that knows nothing but to stare at ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Rapp, Senior, at the three wild swings he had made before—in an excess of caution—he had struck the ground back of the immune ball and raked it a pitiful five feet to one side. He heard, too, the pleased laughter in the background, high, musical peals of tactless women and the full-throated roars of brutal men. He felt again the hot flush on his cheeks as he had slunk from the dreadful scene with a shamed effort to brazen it out, followed by the amused stare of Gideon Whipple. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Tactless, blunt, and direct, Annixter was quite capable of calling even Magnus a fool to his face. But before he could proceed, S. Behrman in his single buggy turned into the gate, and driving leisurely up to the porch halted on the other side of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... are innumerable clinical observations as to the effect of emotional excitation on the temperature of patients. A rise of a degree or more is a common result of a visit from a tactless friend. There is a traditional Sunday increase of temperature in hospital wards. Now the visitor does not bring and administer more infection to the patient to cause this rise, and the rise of temperature occurs even if the patient does not make the least muscular exertion ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... such tactless persistency, Penny pursed up his mouth, laid his head on one side, shrugged his shoulders, and held ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... all over and changed colour. Of course it was horribly tactless of me, but it's odd he should be so sensitive. I wonder if he has ever suffered from any cruel jokes of ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... against her propensity to dictate. He deferred to her, and contrived to thwart her, to do the very thing she would not have done, and to do it in the most obnoxious way. The puzzle was—could he help it? Was he one of those tactless persons who are for ever blundering, or had he the will to assert himself, and not the pluck to do it boldly? His refuge was in round-about manoeuvres, and my lady felt towards him as those intolerant ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... I was tactless enough to say that I thought there was a good deal in Lord Mulross's view. "Oh, how can you?" she cried. "Is there a close season for the wants of the people? It sounds to me perfectly horrible the way you talk of government, as if it were a game for idle men of the upper classes. ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... temper of the Argentine people, who have certainly never been unsympathetic to the Entente Allies' cause although they have shown some restiveness under rather tactless attempts on the part of a section of the United States press to tutor them into line. The best thought of Argentina has all along been with the Allies and this is exemplified by an article, "Neutrality Impossible," widely published and applauded in June of this year by the brilliant Argentine ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... at once directed itself toward Roddy partly because of the latter's tactless use of the word "even," and the two engaged in controversy, while Penrod was left free to continue the ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... with. The quarrel between Elizabeth Berry and young Kent was one of those, for he felt that, in a way, he was the cause of it. George had, of course, behaved like a foolish boy and had been about as tactless as even a jealous youth could be, but there was always the chance that some one else had sowed the seeds of jealousy in his mind. He determined to see Kent, explain, have a frank and friendly talk, and, if possible, set everything ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... offices, he was always in debt and died poor, at the age of seventy, in Accomac County in Virginia. He was far from being the best man to send to New England, but his natural obstinacy and his determination to overcome difficulties were intensified by the discourteous and tactless manner in which he was received by the Puritans. He had no sympathy with the efforts of the "old faction" to save the colony, and the people of Massachusetts responded with a bitter and ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... concluding, a tactless man sitting next to George, with whom he had progressed very slowly in acquaintance during the lunch, leaned towards him and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Molly Gaverick confirmed that item of the English Intelligence. Rosamond Tallant's condition was certainly far from satisfactory. Molly, however, seemed much more taken up with a recent illness of Eliza Countess of Gaverick than with that of Lady Tallant. Being a tactless and absolutely frank young person, she had no scruple in proclaiming her hope that 'old Eliza' would make Lord Gaverick her heir. This was the more likely, wrote young Lady Gaverick, because the old lady had lately quarrelled ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... a rule by the proprietor's own family, gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is the best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the parents a little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... waste, and I always make mine myself. I was most careful to keep them hidden. You are very tactless." ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... forth the blunt and tactless Tom Holtum, "I'd be ashamed of being valued at such a trumpery price. If you had priced him against a bit of lichen torn from the Head of Calloster, which might have cost us our lives to procure, that would have been more like the thing. But ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... the same. None of them have a taste for fighting—and with white men too! They are peaceable, kindly folk and would have seen me shot with extreme satisfaction. Wang seemed to think my insistence—for I insisted, you know—very stupid and tactless. But a drowning man clutches at straws. We were talking in such Malay as we are ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... perfect tact. Without any attempt at propaganda, he has greatly impressed American public opinion by his contributions to our press and his many public addresses. In none of them has he ever made a false step or uttered a tactless note. His words have always been those of a sane moderation and the influence that he has wielded has been that of truth. Apart from the vigor and calm persuasiveness of his utterances, his winning personality has made a deep impression upon all Americans who have been privileged ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... mono-lingual. At the railway station and the post office they removed the old Italian inscriptions and put up Croatian ones, they wrote to the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... continents and the Western Hemisphere. Great Britain might discharge her financial obligations by transferring to the United States the whole of British America! And Sumner seems actually to have believed that he was promoting the cause of international good will by this tactless proposal. ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... find the Age of Pericles in full swing; with all made anew, or in the making; and the time definitely set on its downward course. 'Reform' was busy at abolishing institutions once held sacred; was the rage;—that funeral speech of Pericles, with its tactless vaunting of Athenian superiority to all other possible men and nations, should tell us something. When folk get to feel like that, God pity and forgive them!—it is hard enough for mere men to. Aeschylus smote at imperialism in the Agamemnon—the first play of this last of his trilogies; and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... grown sick of having people say, "How pale you are!" "You've lost flesh, haven't you?" "Have you been ill, dear?"—those tactless observations that so many people feel it necessary to make, as if there were no mirrors or scales or symptoms for one's information ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... And while the tactless Gammire went on, "walking" a circle round him, Mr. Atwater's eye furiously searched the borders of the path, the lawn, and otherwheres, for anything that might serve as missile. He had never kicked a dog, or struck one with his hand, in his life; he had a theory that ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... turned her face to look at the soldier beside her. She had been tactless as usual in thus expressing her feelings about peace to a man who was a great warrior. But General Alexis did not appear angry. Indeed, there was no disagreement in the expression of his eyes, it was almost as if he too felt as Mildred did. Besides, ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... not so much tactless as envious. As she and Catia were well aware, Scott Brenton was the one really personable man upon the horizon of their village life, the only man who seemed to have it in him to translate a wife out of that humdrum ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... quoting that! However, even peasants in Holland break into English and German. Why shouldn't a Jonkheer spout Burns? But let me get to my point. I haven't found out what the trouble is, but I know you must have sinned against the girl in some way, or done something tactless, which is worse, and made her angry. Or else she felt it was her duty to be angry, and has been living up to it ever since. Talk of the 'way of a man with a maid!' The way of a maid with a man is funnier and more subtle. Nell Van Buren is an adorable ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... said the mate, who was somewhat tired of this tactless question; "I had to stand by the ship, and besides, he was a much better swimmer than I am—I did the ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... that in this instance she spoke not without reason, and he was vexed, moreover, as many another had been before him, by the note of indulgent patronage in Ogden's voice. His fingers twitched a little eagerly, and he looked sullenly at his tactless junior. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... majority was approaching, the Regent's power seemed on the point of slipping from him; Marshal Villeroy, aged, witless, and tactless, irritated at the elevation of Dubois, always suspicious of the Regent's intentions towards the young king, burst out violently against the minister, and displayed towards the Regent an offensive distrust. "One ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I did the thing very well, but I am sure that it would have sounded better and that I shouldn't have ended so lamely if Matilda hadn't been so tactless as to laugh in the middle. Somehow I got the idea that the apology hadn't been accepted in the spirit in which it had been tendered. Suspicious sounds came from within, including the click of a water jug; also the German family opposite seemed to be under the impression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... Egyptians or the foreigners had been more to blame; whether there were real symptoms of sedition, as reported, or whether the young men of the suspected places had merely resented with roughness some discourtesy of tactless tourists. Fenton had seized upon the idea that, as Egyptian lecturer and conductor—a sort of super-dragoman—on board Lark's Nile boat, he might find a plausible pretext for his secret errand. "Why do you travel?" would be the question he must expect from suspicious leaders of ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... splendid little letter has come from you! It is warmly and eloquently written, and every thought in it is true. To talk now of laziness and drunkenness, and so on, is as strange and tactless as to lecture a man on the conduct of life at a moment when he is being sick or lying ill of typhus. There is always a certain element of insolence in being well-fed, as in every kind of force, and that element finds expression chiefly in the well-fed man preaching to the hungry. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... husband and wife whom her conduct had assisted to alienate, it was scarcely to be expected that such a mediator would meet with success in such a task. Of the luckless Princess, however, Mrs Stanhope was for long a distinct partisan; and on March 19th of that same year she wrote a description of the tactless Caroline which shows that, on occasions, the Princess could assume a dignity foreign to the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... "The tactless fool!" Hampden thought, but dared not say. Of course the Texas clown would rush in where angels feared to tread. Didn't the fathead have any conception of pride of uniform and pride in a nation's accomplishments? ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... be tactless, if not positively dangerous, if we children's librarians openly expressed our views when certain people point boastfully to themselves as shining products of mediocre story book childhoods. So I would hastily ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... taste," returns Molly, who, though angry, finds a grim amusement in watching the flounderings of this tactless old person. "If we are to believe that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, I may certainly flatter myself I shall be the best dressed woman in the room. But there may be some who will not ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... and Prince Albert took place amid great splendour and general rejoicings on the 10th of February; the general satisfaction being unaffected by the tactless conduct of Ministers who, by not acting in conjunction with the Opposition, had been defeated on the question of the amount of the Prince's annuity, the House of Commons reducing ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... sigh rewarded him. Since SHE had said nothing, He said nothing, and Clara's words in the hall seemed to him singularly tactless: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... indifferent subjects. The minister only checked himself in time from making a passing reference to the Marathon Race, remembering that the Vizier had a Persian grandmother and might consider any allusion to Marathon as somewhat tactless. Presently the Minister broached the ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... war. "The attendance was in every case enormous, but the meetings were all orderly and calm. The police had taken extensive precautionary measures. The speakers were mostly members of the Reichstag or the Berlin Town Council. Throughout they were guilty of the most fiery and tactless attacks on Austria, to whom alone they ascribed the guilt for the warlike developments. Each meeting adopted a resolution against war. The chief of police had forbidden all processions or demonstrations to take place after the day ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... My Three Years in America (SKEFFINGTON). Of course awkward incidents did occur, which have to be explained away or placidly ignored, but really, if the warlords at home had not been so invincibly tactless in the matter of drowning citizens of the United States, this simple and ingenuous diplomat might very well have succeeded, he would have us believe, in persuading President WILSON to declare in favour of a peace-loving All-Highest. As an essay in special pleading the book does not lack ingenuity, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... toe at the question. A piece of ice dropped down her back could not have startled her more. It was apparently tactless, and yet it was anything but tactless. She looked up quickly, directly, but his strong eyes were too ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... General John Pope, who had taken over a newly created Union Army made up of the commands of McDowell, Banks and Fremont, issued a bombastic and tactless order to his new command, making invidious comparisons between the armies in the west and those in the east. He said, "I hear constantly of 'taking strong positions and holding them,' of 'lines of retreat,' and of 'bases of supplies.' Let us discard all such ideas. Let us study the probable lines ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... apparently, for she found no words in which to tell him that it was his affair. Her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes downcast, she seemed shrunken together, overcome by his tactless intrusion. ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the territory which had been conquered and occupied at such cost, and those who noticed it were astonished at the evacuation by it of the sandjak of Novi-Pazar. At the same time Baron Achrenthal little foresaw what a hornet's nest he would bring about his ears by the tactless method in which the annexation was carried out. The first effect was to provoke a complete boycott of Austro-Hungarian goods and trading vessels throughout the Ottoman Empire, which was so harmful to the Austrian export ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... we have to deal with had something excessive about him; he was headstrong, tactless, impractical, enormously energetic, a prodigious worker, a conceiver of grandiose projects, and a relentless hunter of patrons. He was at home with his social superiors and had some pretentions to literary culture, he had a coarse gift for the vivid phrase in ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... Conversation." In the fashion of the age of Chesterfield they portray the perfect gentleman. He is always to remember the presence of others and not to move, read, or speak without considering what may be due to them. In the true spirit of the time he is to learn to defer to persons of superior quality. Tactless laughter at his own wit, jests that have a sting of idle gossip, are to be avoided. Reproof is to be given not in anger but in a sweet and mild temper. The rules descend even to manners at table and are a revelation of care in self-discipline. ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... of it, the more she shuddered at the tactless way in which the detective would perform the act of "charity" by discovering the lost girl—and ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... your cousin does not wish to tell you himself, I ought not to," he said, "though I should like you to know. But there are two things that you can do. One is not to be impatient with your cousin when he makes tactless mistakes about—about how you are to be entertained. He depends on you and Janet for a little ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... trembling Langsdorff. The naturalist was enfolded in a gorgeous Japanese dressing-gown, purple brocade embroidered with gold, that he had surreptitiously bought in the harbor of Nagasaki. To Rezanov it was like a red rag to a bull; but the professor was oblivious at the moment of the tactless garment. His eyes were glaring and the extended tip of his nose worked like a knife trying to leap from its sheath. But although he occasionally ventured upon a retort when goaded too far in conversation, he was able ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... the picnic tea you invited me to the other day. If I'd known how the land lay, I shouldn't have sent a substitute. I'm afraid, perhaps, that was rather—tactless ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... which looked into an inner garden. This vault was devoted to us and to our play-boxes: by a tacit law, no master entered it. One evening, just at dusk, a great number of us were here when the bell for night-school rang, and many of us dawdled at the summons. Mr. B., tactless in his anger, bustled in among us, scolding in a shrill voice, and proceeded to drive us forth. I was the latest to emerge, and as he turned away to see if any other truant might not be hiding, I ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... foresaw, the shrinkage of the great empire into the realm of old France filled many patriotic Frenchmen with disgust, a feeling fed every day by stories of the presumption of returning emigres and of the tactless way in which the Bourbon princes treated veterans of the Grande Armee. Napoleon in time felt certain that he could count once more upon the loyalty of the French nation. That he would not be obliged to encounter again the combined forces of the European Powers he inferred from his knowledge of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... one's arm; nor for a school desk out of a purse and bear it away on one's head. Only in the book-lined study were trifling transactions occasionally carried out and these very rarely, constituting something of an event (and an event greatly deprecated by the Reverend Sebastian Fortune), the tactless misadventure of some pedagogue or student on excursion to the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... although polite, is as pertinacious, quite, As the tactless Teuton pig. I'll yet spoil their little game. Triple Alliance? Fudge! If that girl is a good judge, She will make a third with Me and my latest Gallic "flame." Pst! Come along with me, My dark Italian belle! We shall make ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... The Evening News to give so much space to the distressing story of the real Duchess who could not get a seat at Olympia—(surely they might have thrown out a common person to make room for her?)—but it was tactless to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... Tatiana's birthday. Onegin feels bored and out of sheer ennui he begins to flirt with Olga. The thoughtless girl willingly yields to the young man's attentions and promises to dance the cotillion with him, in order to punish her lover for his jealousy.—This tactless behaviour enrages Lenski to such a degree, that he challenges Onegin to a duel. The whole assembly is terrified, Tatiana is most indignant and mortified, while Olga vainly tries to pacify her lover. Onegin recognizes at last, that he has gone too far, having not only given pain to a sweet and innocent ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... just there that the tactless waitress interrupted us so rudely. It was in vain that I tried to lead him back to the subject. Almost his last words to ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... the other party are now to have their turn. There are periods when the country is well satisfied with the general policy of a government but not with the men who carry it on. Ministers of excellent principles prove inefficient, tactless, or unfortunate, or quarrels and jealousies arise among them, or difficult negotiations are going on with foreign nations which can be best brought to a successful termination if they are placed in the hands of fresh men, unpledged and unentangled by their past. The country ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... with flats. To please me and to show her open-mindedness, she went with me to look at flats, but there was a tactless integrity about her criticism. I discovered that she judged of everything from a nursery point of view; and when I ventured to suggest that, as there were no children, a nursery was not of very great importance, she said, "You never can tell." In this instance I felt I could most distinctly ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... daughter—her first-born. "Haven't you noticed how all mother's little peculiarities are growing on her? She is getting so much more dictatorial and preachy. Of course, we know that mother means to be kind and helpful, but she has always been so—tactless—and blunt; and it's ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... not much older than Christine when you were married," he blurted out. He regretted the unhappy remark almost before it left his lips. She turned away her face, and no word came in response for a full minute. Then she ignored the tactless announcement. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... nervous twitter to get rid of him, I suppose I was pretty abrupt and tactless. He began to get angry, and then by some unlucky chance his eye fell on that car. He recognized it, too, and, being in a savage mood, he began making fun of the doctor. "Old Goggle-eyes" he called him, and "Scatchy," and oh, the awfullest ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... colony, and from that time onwards there was a slow but steady influx of English speaking colonists. The Government had the historical faults and the historical virtues of British rule. It was mild, clean, honest, tactless, and inconsistent. On the whole, it might have done very well had it been content to leave things as it found them. But to change the habits of the most conservative of Teutonic races was a dangerous venture, and one which has led to a long series of complications, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... compiler, Mr. Chrystal Croftangry, is a thing which I should be disposed to put on a level with his very greatest work. Much is admittedly personal reminiscence of himself and his friends, handled not with the clumsy and tactless directness of reporting, which has ruined so many novels, but in the great transforming way of Fielding and Thackeray. Chrystal's early thoughtless life, the sketch of his ancestry (said to represent the Scotts of Raeburn), the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... in accordance with the instructions given to him on the supposition that the French would be found in occupation of territory in Tasmania, was, in the circumstances, tactless to the point of rudeness, though it caused less indignation than amusement among them. It is to be noticed that the flag of the Republic had not been erected over the tents of the visitors, nor anywhere on the island. Otherwise, we may suppose, Acting-Lieutenant ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... came Sir Hookum Bannerjee, judge of the circuit court—likely to have a lot to say without much meaning in it, and certainly anxious to please. Next after him Sita Ram showed in Norwood, superintendent of police; one disliked calling in policemen, they were so interfering and tactless, but Norwood had his rights. Then came Topham, acting assistant to Samson, loaned from another state to replace young Wilkinson, home on sick leave, and full-back on the polo team—a quiet man as a rule, anxious to get back to his own district, and probably reasonably safe. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... I must, I shall have to fight For the love of a bounding Balkanite; But O what a tactless choice of time, When the bathing season is at its prime! And how I should hate to miss my chance Of wallowing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... change, though she was perfectly well aware that Gouache had intended to correct her manner of addressing the young man. The latter was slightly annoyed. What difference could it make? It was tactless of Gouache, he thought, for the lady ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset Mr Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in restraint of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the prospects of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr Goble wished Wally ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... and Laura formed no exception. Pin, her most frequent companion, had to bear the brunt of her acrimony: hence the two were soon at war again. For Pin was tactless, and took small heed of her sister's grumpy moods, save to cavil at them. Laura's buttoned-upness, for instance, and her love of solitude, were perverse leanings to Pin's mind; and she spoke out against them with the assurance of one who has public opinion at his back. Laura ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... resentment vanished and she felt a languid sense of well-being in this enveloping atmosphere of the tactless imperious male, so foreign to her experience; of freedom from the necessity for independent action; and the prospect was certainly enchanting. Moreover, she would be able to avoid seeing Hohenhauer in ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... leave the stage clear for the leading parts. She may even have flattered herself that she was showing tact—keeping an unconscious Gerry out of the way, who might else interfere with the stars in their courses, in the manner of the tactless. Rosalind suspected this of Sally, that whatever she might think she thought, and whatever parade she made of an even mind no sentiments whatever prevailed in, there was in her inmost heart another Sally, locked in and unconfessed, that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... "Hope!... How tactless!... Hope for peace! What good has a general to expect from peace? Could not this civilian understand that a commander-in-chief is only a commander-in-chief in war-time, and that in peace-time he is nothing more than a professor with a collar of ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... is in great measure a natural gift, but it can be cultivated, and is well worth the trouble. Nothing can be so utterly painful in society as the tactless person who is perpetually "doing those things which he ought not to have done, and leaving undone those things which ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... pause after he had spoken his tactless words. It was broken by a thrice-repeated cry ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... called them, summer showers. Once there was a hailstorm. We were "out home," and after supper Mother brought forth a telegram, saying, "I did not give you this until after you had eaten." Even I was conscious of the tactless way she did it, the household looking on. With drawn face Father slowly opened and read: "Hailstorm, grapes all destroyed." How limp Father felt! He said: "I had complimented myself when I looked at those grapes. I had seen several statements that grapes would ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... when there are ten to make to win, or five minutes left to make a draw of a losing game, is fully as impressive a ceremony as the launching of the latest battleship. An interested crowd harasses the poor victim as he is putting on his pads. 'Feel in a funk?' asks some tactless friend. 'N-n-no, norrabit.' 'That's right,' says the captain encouragingly, 'bowling's as easy ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... flattering manner on several occasions. To him they were a heavy, ignorant lot, unrefined, and only a step removed from the beasts of the field. He had expected at the outset of his address that he would say something which would arouse the anger of the people of Rixton, and so was not surprised at his tactless remarks. He noted the feeling of indignation which was pervading the room, and the whispered ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... so tactless, that she saw little hope other doing anything but setting him against his relations; but her husband was in no frame to hear objections, so she made none, and only trusted she should not be very foolish. At least, the walk ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... naval victory were not only exaggerated," Lutchester said calmly; "they were untrue. Our own official announcement was clumsy and tactless, but you will find it amplified and ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and pursue his suit. So he had no business to get his heart entangled with the line, and his legitimate affections disengaged with the string he was clearing, under Circe's azure eyes; and why need he, in that tactless manner, talk of her at tea as "The Lady of the Lake"? which, if such a senseless sobriquet was worth having at all, Miss Janet Cameron considered she had an indisputable right to, for could she not row, swim, dive, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the abyss following her as she went down the hall. Her comforting words meant nothing pleasant to her son, who felt that her optimism was out of place and tactless. He had no intention to be "all right," and he desired nobody to ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington |
