"Unpromising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is perpetually imbibing, cannot be easily distinguished from the pertinacity of the mere plodder. We often hear, from the early companions of a man of genius, that at school he appeared heavy and unpromising. Rousseau imagined that the childhood of some men is accompanied by this seeming and deceitful dulness, which is the sign of a profound genius; and Roger Ascham has placed among "the best natures for learning, the sad-natured and hard-witted child;" that is, the thoughtful, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... chiefs were already there. They had arrived early in the morning, but with unpromising tidings of Bruce. The state of his wound had induced a constant delirium. But still Wallace clung to the hope that his country was not doomed to perish—that its prince's recovery was only protracted. In the midst ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and led the way into the club waiting-room. A club waiting-room is always a gloomy, unpromising place for a confidential conversation, and so Stanbury felt it to be on the present occasion. But he had no alternative. There they were together, and he must do as he had promised. Trevelyan kept on his hat and did not ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... thanks of the Governor and Committee for my "laudable exertions;" while his Excellency intimated, in language not to be misunderstood, that my promotion depended on my successful management of the affairs of Ungava, "which he regretted to find were still in an unpromising state." ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... relaxed his efforts to do what any one asked of him. There must be even now some still living who know what no one else knows, how much they owe, with no direct claim on him, to Charles Marriott's inexhaustible patience and charity. The pains which he would take with even the most uncongenial and unpromising men, who somehow had come in his way, and seemed thrown on his charge, the patience with which he would bear and condone their follies and even worse, were not to be told, for, indeed, few ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... was enough to illumine the room distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the cottage was superior to what might have been expected from so unpromising an exterior. It also showed to Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light quiver and flap of the flames nothing moved ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... ideal nor for our minds the vocation of Carl himself in these matters. In art, as in all other things of the mind, again, much depends on the receiver; and the higher informing capacity, if it exist within, will mould an unpromising matter to itself, will realise itself by selection, and the preference of the better in what is bad or indifferent, asserting its prerogative under the most unlikely conditions. People had in Carl, could they have understood it, the spectacle, under those superficial braveries, of ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... that purpose, without making any effort to reduce them to practice. It was reserved for a young physician of Zurich, Doctor Louis Guggenbuehl, whose practical benevolence was active enough to overcome any repugnance he might feel to labors in behalf of a class so degraded and apparently unpromising, to be the pioneer in an effort to improve their physical, mental, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Marion was unpromising. At birth he was puny and diminutive in a remarkable degree. Weems, in his peculiar fashion, writes, "I have it from good authority, that this great soldier, at his birth, was not larger than a New England lobster, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... never knew before,—indeed, which are not commonly known! How will he be for ever eliciting unsuspected facts,—detecting undreamed of coincidences, but which are as important as they are true,—accumulating materials of value quite inestimable for future study in Divine things! However unpromising a certain collection of references may be, he is careful to extend it,—convinced, like a wise householder, that there will come an use for it after many days. His whole aim is to master thoroughly the record which he has ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... were not likely to become permanent occupants of their land grants. An opportunity, as a matter of fact, was given to them to supply information as to whether or not they wanted to settle. At that time things looked unpromising, and most of them answered, "No." When it became apparent to the Government that there was a desire to settle, further instructions were issued by which officers were allowed to take up land, but the permission was given without providing ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... stopped a few minutes near the gate to talk about his treasures to Clifton, who had been walking with him, but the concourse becoming rather greater than Clifton found convenient, he presently moved away, and Louis was following him, his bag in one hand and two unpromising-looking stones in the other, when Casson arrested ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... characteristics of the animal itself. This will often save the great and useless outlay which has sometimes been incurred in raising calves for dairy purposes, which a more careful examination would have rejected as unpromising. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... prevail, but tile-draining, bones and guano, and the best methods of modern tillage, have greatly increased the produce. Indeed, in no part of Scotland has a more productive soil been made out of such unpromising material. Farm-houses and steadings have much improved, and the best agricultural implements and machines are in general use. About two-thirds of the population depend entirely on agriculture . Farms are small compared with those in the south-eastern counties. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... yet penetrating observance of her. A number of reflections were passing rapidly through his mind. The operation was a most unpromising one, but it was clearly the surgeon's duty to try it. The chances were that it would prolong life which was now speedily and directly threatened, owing to the proximity of the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... English investigator Layard, then a young and enthusiastic scholar on his Eastern travels, passing through Mosul in 1842, found Mr. Botta engaged on his first and unpromising attempts at Koyunjik, and subsequently wrote to him from Constantinople exhorting him to persist and not give up his hopes of success. He was one of the first to hear of the astounding news from Khorsabad, and immediately determined to carry out a long-cherished ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... the poor and helpless alone who are the victims of imposition. There are fools in all walks of life. Many a well-dressed man or woman can be found in the rooms of the clairvoyant or the Chinese "doctor." In matters of health, especially, men grasp at the most unpromising straws. In certain cities of California there is scarcely a business block that did not contain at least one human leech under the trade name of "healer," metaphysical, electrical, astral, divine or what not. And these will thrive so long as men seek health or ...
— California and the Californians • David Starr Jordan
... month—and as the festival was to be celebrated in a beautiful grove of elms and chestnuts, almost in sight of Le Bocage, Edna went over very early to aid in arranging the tables, decking the platforms with flowers, and training one juvenile Demosthenes, whose elocution was as unpromising as ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... very white and crystalline, with ferruginous, clayey joints, and—from a miner's point of view—of most unpromising or 'hungry' appearance." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... another within a few days of their birth, as if his family were under a blight. When the Queen had advanced to an age which precluded hope of further offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm girl, the unpromising aspect became yet more alarming. The life of the Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not live, and the King had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... much resorts, and where a good deal of money is taken. There was British Jack, a little maudlin and sleepy, lolling over his empty glass, as if he were trying to read his fortune at the bottom; there was Loafing Jack of the Stars and Stripes, rather an unpromising customer, with his long nose, lank cheek, high cheek-bones, and nothing soft about him but his cabbage-leaf hat; there was Spanish Jack, with curls of black hair, rings in his ears, and a knife not far from his hand, if you got into trouble with him; there were Maltese Jack, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... effect was unpromising. Most of the men had their hats on. All of them were fresh from the corn-fields, and their hands were hard as leather, and cracked and seamed, and lumpy with great muscles. Every man wore cots upon his fingers, which were ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... admitted, was not a handsome sheet at the outset. Its four pages contained but five columns each, and measured only nine by fourteen inches. But, unpromising as was its appearance, it was really the liveliest of the Boston dailies from the hour of its birth, and received praise on all hands for the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really worthy one to ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... Mr. Roe and Mr. Cunningham examined the river as far as the boat could penetrate. From Mr. Roe's report the country was low and of unpromising appearance. The river took its course by a very tortuous channel through a low country: for two or three miles from the entrance its banks are overrun with dense forests of mangroves; but beyond this they are superseded by red earthy cliffs, on which was growing abundance ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... sour old spinsters would have doubted her. A charming and capable performance. Mr. DONALD CALTHROP made love quite admirably on the lighter note; a little awkwardly, perhaps, on the more serious. Miss SYBIL CARLISLE handled an unpromising part with great skill. Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS as the ineffable Lady Tonbridge was as competent as ever, and had a coat and skirt in the Third Act which filled the female breast with envy. Looks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... corner can hardly be conceived. The outline of the adjacent mountains was dreary and uninviting, with very little cultivation in the valley, which also bore a most desolate aspect—it was barren and unpromising, without participating in the wild and grand features which generally characterize these regions. Fuel was with difficulty procured, and our camp was but scantily furnished with ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... dying one after another within a few days of their birth, as if his family were under a blight. When the queen had advanced to an age which precluded hope of further offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm girl, the unpromising prospect became yet more alarming. The life of the Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not live, and the king had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. At present such a difficulty ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... precisely what sort of a play this promised comedy, "half in prose, half in blank verse," will prove itself to be; but it is to be hoped with The Promise of May still fresh in the memory of many a playgoer, that the forthcoming effort may not, after all, turn out to merit the unpromising title ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... all. For the subject, as unpromising as it seemeth at first view, is no less than that of Lucretius, to free men's minds from the bondage of religion; and this not by little hints and by piecemeal, after the manner of those little atheistical tracts that steal into the world, but in a thorough ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestive faculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use in it; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless, if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdroeckh, and we by means of him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and through the Clothes-screen, as through a magical Pierre-Pertuis, thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... where "interesting cases" outlived the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality,—for your "preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were various semi-possibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flatheaded, variegated ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... afraid; in language and life they were untruthful and filthy. The women, who wore no clothing save a small piece of native cloth made of palm fibre, were mere beasts of burden. All the young people went naked. Most unpromising material they seemed. Yet they never ceased to draw out the sympathy and hope of the White Mother of Okoyong; there was no people, she believed, who could ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... unpromising day is our one opportunity to see Chinon, and as luck will have it Miss Cassandra is laid up in lavender, with a crick in her back, the result, she says, of her imprisonment at Loches yesterday, and what would ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... despair &c n.; disconcert; dash one's hopes, crush one's hopes, destroy one's hopes; hope against hope. abandon; resign, surrender, submit &c 725. Adj. hopeless, desperate, despairing, gone, in despair, au desespoir [Fr.], forlorn, desolate; inconsolable &c (dejected) 837; broken hearted. unpromising, unpropitious; inauspicious, ill-omened, threatening, clouded over. out of the question, not to be thought of; impracticable &c 471; past hope, past cure, past mending, past recall; at one's last gasp &c (death) 360; given up, given ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... white cap, tied under her chin, set off to the worst advantage her sharp, yet kindly, features. Not an end of ribbon or edge of lace could be seen to point to one hair-breadth of indulgence in the vanities of the world by this strict old Puritan, who, under this unpromising exterior, possessed the kindliest heart in Christendom. Her dress, if of rigid severity, was of saintly purity, and almost pained the eye with its precision and neatness. So fond are we of some freedom from over-much care as from over-much righteousness, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the cock hole; one hour strong boiling will be sufficient for the succeeding wort, if single ale be wanted; the remainder of the process for both worts is the same as already directed for such quality of drinks. It was further stated to me that unboiled beer will appear very turbid and unpromising for some time after it is brewed, and will take three months at least to come round; but that after that period it will improve rapidly, and become transparently fine; when second worts are found too weak, they may be assisted with good Muscovado sugar, of which eight pounds is considered ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... his second futile attempt to class himself with a recognized order of society. Nay, strictly speaking, the third. The close of his thirteenth year had seen him a pupil at Polterham Grammar School; not an unpromising pupil by any means, but with a turn for insubordination, much disposed to pursue with zeal anything save the tasks that were set him. Inspired by Cooper and Captain Marryat, he came to the conclusion that his destiny was the ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... as far as Port Arthur was concerned. The weather, though so bitterly cold, was far from stormy, yet the difficulty of rowing was increased naturally when we got out into the heavier waters of the sea. So unpromising in fact did our situation look, that I began to reflect whether it would not be better to stay about the mouth of the harbour, and allow ourselves to be taken by some Japanese ship, than wander off I knew not ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... country seemed unlimited in all directions. I therefore travelled south-south-west and afterwards southward; until we once more entered among the yarra trees on the more open ground by the river, and encamped after a journey of about twelve miles. The country we had this day traversed was of so unpromising a description that it was a relief to get even amongst common scrubs, and escape from those of the Eucalyptus dumosa. This species is not a tree but a lofty bush with a great number of stems, each two or three inches in diameter; and the bushes ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... at night. Tam's master, one Charles Begg, was a drunken London workman, who had wandered gradually north; a good shoemaker, but a quarrelsome, rowdy fellow, loving nothing on earth so much as a round with his fists on the slightest provocation. From this unpromising teacher, Edward took his first lessons in the useful art of shoemaking; and though he learned fast—for he was not slothful in business—he would have learned faster, no doubt, but for his employer's very drunken and careless ways. When Begg came home ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... unhappy. The piteous little drama is played, both the actors are dead, and the issue of the piece is unknown and, for the present, unknowable. Bitterly opposed as I was to the suit of Merchison, justice compels me to say that, under the cloak of a rough unpromising manner, he hid a just and generous heart. Had that man lived he might have become great, although he would never have become popular. As least something in his nature attracted my daughter Jane, for she, who up to that time had not been moved ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... to work, dinner-pails in hands and shawls over heads. Anne drove carefully, often throwing a smile at a group of children or slowing down more than the law decreed to avoid making some weary-faced woman hurry. And when at length she drew up before a dingy brick tenement house, of a type the most unpromising, King discovered that her "friend" was one ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... with the ball once more in possession, started to wake things up. Past the forty yards again she went, throwing tackles and full back at every point in the Tiger's line for short gains, and showing no preference. But, all said, it was slow work and unpromising with the score board announcing five minutes to play. The Yale supporters, however, found cause for rejoicing, and cheered gloriously until there was a fumble and the Blue lost four yards on the recovery. Time was called and the trainers and water carriers trotted on ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... gone he turned back towards the scene of his planting, and could not help saying to himself as he walked, that this engagement of his was a very unpromising business. Her outing to-day had not improved it. A woman who could go to Hintock House and be friendly with its mistress, enter into the views of its mistress, talk like her, and dress not much unlike ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... own father. Mr. Lyons opened the cause very briefly.... And now came on the first trial of Patrick Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak,[53] and curiosity was on tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly, and faltered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commencement; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion, from his seat. But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others of a very different ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... saw of any of them. He was hurried up a tiled path, none too clean between swarthy and lack-lustre laurels; the steps had not been "done"; the door wore the nondescript complexion of prehistoric paint debased by the caprices of the London climate. One touch of colour the lad saw before this unpromising portal opened and shut upon him: he had already passed through a rank of pollard trees, sprouting emeralds in the morning sun, that seemed common to this side of the road, and ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... jewsharps—as I suppose I must call them—about a foot long, and with a string to fasten to the ear, as it seems, are much like two from Fiji in the Smithsonian. There are plenty of drums from Amboyna, Timor and the islands adjacent. The most unpromising and curious of all, however, is the anklong of Sumatra, which is all of bamboo, and has neither finger-holes, keys, strings nor parchment. Three bamboo tubes, closed below, are suspended vertically, so that studs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... tragedy like that of Gisli or of Grettir, because every one knew that Glum was a threatened man who lived long, and got through without any deadly injury. Glum is well enough fitted for the part of a tragic hero. He has the slow growth, the unpromising youth, the silence and the dangerous laughter, such as are recorded in the lives of other notable ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... cheerless as his mood. It had rained during the night and was still raining, or sleeting, and freezing as fast as it fell. The sky was a leaden grey; the drops that came down only went to thicken the sheet of ice that lay upon everything. No face of the outer world could be more unpromising than that which slowly greeted him, as the night withdrew her veil and the stealthy steps of the dawn said that no bright day was chasing her forward. Fast enough it lighted up the slippery way, the glistening fences, the falling sleet which sheathed fields and houses with glare ice. And ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... in again her aunt was still reading the letter. But her look, Ellen felt, was unpromising. She did not venture to speak; expectation was chilled. She stood till Miss Fortune began to fold ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... work, and his first job came from a small Jewish merchant, named Guth, who offered him a hundred dollars to do the assessment work on a tundra claim. For twenty days Folsom picked holes through frozen muck, wondering why a thrifty person like Guth would pay good money to hold such unpromising ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... sank deep in my heart—deeper than words had ever sunk before into that somewhat unpromising soil; and although she had purposely left me in the dark with regard to many important matters, I now resolved to win her esteem, and bind her yet more closely to me by correcting those faults in my character she had pointed out with so ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... willing aid. From that time the North formed their chief point of attraction, and the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, were their great resorts. Even New England was no longer forbidden ground to them, and they began to spread themselves over its rocky and unpromising surface, to effect there a greater moral change than probably anywhere else in the country. In 1827, during the first pastoral visitation of Bishop Fenwick, when he erected, on the spot made memorable by the apostolic labors of Father Rasles, a monument ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Portsmouth and could obtain no volunteers. Setting his gangs to work, he got together a scratch crew of the wretchedest description; yet so marvellous were the personality and disciplinary ability of the man, that with only this unpromising material ready to his hand he intercepted the Spanish trade off Cape Finisterre and captured four successive prizes of very great value. The Pallas returned to Portsmouth with "three large golden ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... his coadjutors in the undertaking,—the persons into whose hands the religion came after his death? A few fishermen upon the lake of Tiberias, persons just as uneducated, and, for the purpose of framing rules of morality, as unpromising as himself. Suppose the mission to be real, all this is accounted for; the unsuitableness of the authors to the production, of the characters to the undertaking, no longer surprises us: but without reality, it is very difficult to explain how ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... to acknowledge his title, were at that very time in actual rebellion against his family, and would be sure to intrust very little authority in his hands, and scarcely would afford him personal liberty and security. As the prospect of affairs in Ireland was at that time not unpromising, he intended rather to try his fortune in that kingdom, from which he expected ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... and have been only able to attend to this work about three hours a day.—Since my arrival here I have had two letters from my dear Mary. Harriet Culliford, one of the Orphans, and formerly one of the most unpromising children, has been removed. She died as a true believer, several of the brethren who saw her being quite satisfied about her state. Surely this pays for much trouble and for much expense! My wife also mentions some fresh instances of the Lord's blessing resting upon my Narrative.—I ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... merciful dispensation of Providence; for, where he himself was concerned, there had been no lack of eloquence on Bill's part. In the brief period in which he had known him, Bill had talked all the time and always on the one topic. As unpromising a subject as the tariff laws was easily diverted by him into a ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... an encouraging and cheering thought; and, inspired with fresh hope, I rode on, wondering that, though the veldt looked so unpromising, some one had not taken up land, if only in the hope of finding minerals where the soil forbade the fruits of fertile earth; but no. All was barren and strange; even the granite blocks and kops were rare, and I looked still in vain for some sign of human ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... simultaneously become two sources of confusion. In the university only the student of tried worth is permitted to take a seminar course. In the upper classes in college, mediocre students are often welcomed into a seminar course in order to help float an unpromising elective. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... chance of using the powers, of which by this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God and the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, must have tended ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... that the Messiah had been found in Jesus of Nazareth, asked: "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"[272] The incredulous query has passed into a proverb current even today as expressive of any unpopular or unpromising source of good. Nathanael lived in Cana, but a few miles from Nazareth, and his surprize at the tidings brought by Philip concerning the Messiah incidentally affords evidence of the seclusion in which Jesus ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of the past. Our pioneer heritage ought never to be forfeited to indifference. It is a heritage that could come only out of pioneer life. Such courage to face sacrifice, such devotion to God, such loyalty to government, such consecration to the task of conquering an unpromising and forbidding desert, such determination to secure the advantages of education, such unselfish devotion to the welfare of their fellows—where could we turn for such inspiration to ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... The unpromising aspect of the shore did not lessen as the explorers approached it. If they had not made an easy landing, on a gravelly strip between two rocky points, they would have felt that their labor had been wasted. From the sea to the ice-tipped mountains ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the bottom of the crescent very bad. Proceeded and examined the large field on the ascent to the westward: here are about twenty-five acres of wheat, which from its appearance we guessed would produce perhaps seven bushels an acre. The next patch to this is in maize, which looks not unpromising; some of the stems are stout, and beginning to throw out large broad leaves, the surest sign of vigour. The view from the top of the wheat field takes in, except a narrow slip, the whole of the cleared land at Rose Hill. From not having before seen an opening ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... so small," I said, "from elements of thought so fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they put forth views ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... by day she found Harold Quaritch's society more congenial. Herself by nature, and also to a certain degree by education, a cultured woman, she rejoiced to find in him an entirely kindred spirit. For beneath his somewhat rugged and unpromising exterior, Harold Quaritch hid a vein of considerable richness. Few of those who associated with him would have believed that the man had a side to his nature which was almost poetic, or that he was a ripe and finished scholar, and, what is more, not devoid of a certain ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... who is unfamiliar with the distinctive peculiarities of Spanish-American architecture, nothing, at first, is more surprising than the contrast between the gloomy and unpromising exterior of a Cuban residence and the luxury and architectural beauty which one often finds hidden behind its grated windows and thick stuccoed walls. It is more surprising and striking in Santiago, perhaps, than in most Spanish-American ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... water after it; they will dispute with each other over it; it is a morsel they love above everything else. With such bait I have seen the born angler (my grandfather was one) take a noble string of trout from the most unpromising waters, and on the most unpromising day. He used his hook so coyly and tenderly, he approached the fish with such address and insinuation, he divined the exact spot where they lay: if they were not eager, he humored ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... It was under these unpromising circumstances that little Benjamin grew up, his destiny being apparently nothing more than to work on the little farm beside his poor and ignorant parents. When he was approaching manhood, he went, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not be acting in accordance with man's idea of strict justice, we should be following pretty closely upon God's idea of it. He breaks not the bruised reed nor quenches the smoking flax; and if He thus declares his readiness to give even the most doubtful and unpromising of His creatures another trial, I really do not see that we are called upon to be more strict than He is. My proposal, therefore, is that we should accept these men's proffered assistance; that we should do what we may be able to do for them ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... unpromising, and Annie concluded to follow the woman's suggestion, and travel on as far as the small funds would carry her. But in the two years she had been at the west, the facilities for travelling had improved, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... October, 1815, the Northumberland reached St. Helena, which presents but an unpromising aspect to those who design it for a residence, though it may be a welcome sight to the seaworn mariner. Its destined inhabitant, from the deck of the Northumberland, surveyed it with his spy-glass. St. James' Town, an inconsiderable village, was before ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... closely to the rocks, and walk back on a shelf on the other side to a considerable area of finely broken rocks, thirty feet above the torrent, where there was room enough for a camp. Rain fell at intervals, and the situation was decidedly unpromising. While Andy and the others were getting the cook outfit and rations around the point, I climbed the cliffs hunting for wood. I found small pieces of driftwood lodged behind mesquite bushes fully one hundred feet above the ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... old gentlemen held out their lights towards it, and each of them thought, "I am glad my brother does not know that the cask is nearly empty;" for it returned a most unpromising sound when it was struck, and the patch of moisture beneath it showed that it had evidently been leaking for ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... attempt passing through Straits le Maire. The two opposite coasts of the Straits exhibited very different appearances. The land of Tierra del Fuego hereabouts, though the interior parts are mountainous, yet near the coast is of a moderate height and, at the distance we were from it, had not an unpromising appearance. The coast of Staten Land near the Straits is mountainous and craggy, and remarkable for its high peaked hills. Straits le Maire is a fair opening which cannot well be mistaken; but if any doubt could remain, the different ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... that there was a heart beneath that dirty uniform, a soft kernel inside of the rude, unpromising husk. His family were on the car; and as he sat in a lounging attitude, conversing with his comrade (they had both been discharged, I heard them say, from the '6th New York'), a little girl came staggering along the passage way, holding herself up by the seats on either side. As ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with a heavy swell; and to-day it was accompanied with foggy weather and occasional showers of rain. Notwithstanding this, such was the confidence which the erection of the beacon had inspired that the boats landed the artificers on the rock under very unpromising circumstances, at half-past eight, and they continued at work till half-past eleven, being a period of three hours, which was considered a great tide's work in the present low state of the foundation. Three of the masons on board ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that {p.121} nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of The Justice of the Peace. I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... A more unpromising place for a well could not have been selected in all his extensive grounds; but he was not a man to be patiently baffled even by Nature herself, and he stood looking with grim satisfaction at the hole which rapidly widened and deepened under the vigorous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... our hopes, to the closer consideration of which we intend to return in the future, though it must be expected that the happiest consensus will be long quarantined from most schools. Meanwhile a second way, however unpromising, is still open. Noble types of character may rest on only the native instincts of the soul or even on broadly interpreted utilitarian considerations. But if morality without religion were only a bloodless corpse or a plank in a shipwreck, there is now need enough for teachers ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... coal-oil lamp she puzzled over the roughly sketched map with its cryptic signs and notations. There were a half-dozen samples, too—chips of rough, heavy rock that didn't look a bit like gold. "High grade," her daddy had called them as he babbled incessantly upon his death-bed. But they looked dull and unpromising to the girl as they lay upon the table. She returned to the sketch. With the exception of a single small dot, placed beside what was evidently the principal creek of the locality, the map consisted only of lines and shadings which evidently indicated creeks and mountains—no cross, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... ought to have settled our bivouac had long passed, yet we were still on the road. The path we were treading was flat and unpromising, and the water from the cave, with which we had filled our gourds, was so unpleasant in taste that we longed to find a spring. Being unable to get a clear view of the horizon, I directed l'Encuerado to climb to the summit of a lofty tree. The Indian ascended to its topmost branch, ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... speaking terms for two years. Truman could not like him, yet had had no open rupture. Cranston and he were personally and officially antagonistic. One and all, the officers regarded this detail under his command as one of the most unpromising of their experience, and could hardly contain themselves when Warren left. As for Warren, his relations with the senior troop commander had been of the stiffest and most formal character ever since ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... at the mention of strikes, regarding them as calculated rather to hinder than help the emancipation of labor. Bred as I was in these prejudices, it may not seem strange that I was taken aback at finding such unpromising subjects selected for the highest ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... bad case; a very bad case. He said, in fact, that he never came across a more unpromising case for a client of his since he set himself ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... timber-line but not too high for comforting by succulent small herbs and golden tufted grass. A granite mountain does not crumble with alacrity, but once resolved to soil makes the best of it. Every handful of loose gravel not wholly water leached affords a plant footing, and even in such unpromising surroundings there is a choice of locations. There is never going to be any communism of mountain herbage, their affinities are too sure. Full in the runnels of snow water on gravelly, open spaces in the shadow of a drift, one looks to find buttercups, frozen ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... taken by the zealous pedestrian. Some of the dry, steep sides of the first range of mountains were hard climbing, but it was necessary to make the effort in order to discover their avian resources. One of the first birds met with on these unpromising acclivities was the spurred towhee of the Rockies. In his attire he closely resembles the towhee, or "chewink," of the East, but has as an extra ornament a beautiful sprinkling of white on his back and wings, which makes him look ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... look at, although so artificial, and after all it was only full-length portraits of ladies that Reynolds treated in this way. They were a small part of his whole output. But he and Velasquez worked in a totally different spirit. Velasquez made the subject before him, however unpromising, striking because of its truth. Reynolds liked to change it on occasion into something quite different, for the sake of making a picture pretty. Nevertheless, his strength lay in straightforward portraiture, and in ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... such unpromising materials has the painter made a picture that would challenge attention among any. If we knew nothing as to the identity of this woman, sitting oblivious of the children at her knee, wrapped in her own dark thoughts, we should certainly want to know something of her story and of the story of the ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... meeting her, with that mock smile of imbecility upon her lip, filled me with a dismay that made my walk any thing but agreeable. It was consequently a positive relief when the entrance to the mill broke upon my view, and I found myself at my journey's end unwatched and unfollowed; nor could the unpromising nature of my task quite dash the spirit with which I began ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... feted by the people. We brought away three old and twelve new scholars, refusing the unpromising old scholars. There is, I hope, a sufficient opening now at Ambrym and Leper's Island to justify my assigning these islands to ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... force of philosophic poetry—when he unfolds his ideas upon 'Justice' or 'Happiness', for instance, under the form of a debate where masterly resources of phrase and image are compelled to the service of a rigorous logic; or in the brief cameo-like pieces on 'Memory', 'Habit', 'Forms', and similar unpromising abstractions, most nearly paralleled in English by the quatrains of Mr. William Watson. But the cameo comparison is still more aptly applied to the marvellously-chiselled sonnets of Heredia—monuments of a moment, as sculpture ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had a known weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire the Colonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whatever you thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, and making it was no mean achievement, and the man at the head of the table looked capable of it, ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... (three) including Edward V. and Henry VIII., in all ten plays. There remain, therefore, to be done, with the exception of a single scene or two that should be adopted from Marlow—eleven reigns—of which the first two appear the only unpromising subjects;—and those two dramas must be formed wholly or mainly of invented private stories, which, however, could not have happened except in consequence of the events and measures of these reigns, and which should furnish opportunity both ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... "sign-post" criticism—that which, under the guise of directing the reader's taste, often seems intended to call attention mainly to the acuteness of the critic's own perception or his delicacy of phrase—the study of Dante would seem to be a very unpromising field. The sentimentalist and the elegant craftsman in words seem out of place in the company of this uncompromising seeker after realities, this relentless ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... only to learn that she was now somewhere on her way between Singapore and Hong Kong. This was decidedly disappointing, but as most of the cases in which I have been ultimately successful have had unpromising beginnings, I did not take it too seriously to heart. Leaving the Shipping Office, I next turned my attention to Hatton Garden, where I called upon Messrs. Jacob and Bulenthall, one of the largest firms in the gem trade. We had had many ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... says, that it was particularly sacred to Aphrodite. [663][Greek: Aphrodite d' echei en spelaioi timas.] In this cavern divine honours were paid to Aphrodite. Parnassus was rendered holy for nothing more than for these unpromising circumstances. [Greek: Hieroprepes ho Parnassos, echon antra te kai alla choria timomena te, kai, hagisteuomena.][664] The mountain of Parnassus is a place of great reverence; having many caverns, and other detached spots, highly honoured ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... nearly sixteen; she had emerged from the somewhat unpromising age, and had developed into remarkable beauty. Distinguished as were all the St. Legers for fine personal appearance, none had ever equalled this child of Della, given to God ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... Odes, Translations, Paraphrases of Horace, and other authors; Elegiac Verses, Imitations, Parodies, Familiar Epistles, &c.—Mr. Oldham was tall of stature, the make of his body very thin, his face long, his nose prominent, his aspect unpromising, and satire was in his eye. His constitution was very tender, inclined to a consumption, and it was not a little injured by his study and application to learned authors, with whom he was greatly conversant, as appears from his satires ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... This was unpromising either for relief to a distressed England or for Northern acceptance of an armistice, yet Russell, commenting on Clarendon's letter to Palmerston, containing Derby's advice, still argued that even if declined a suggestion of armistice ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... the transformation of one of the most unpromising looking berries imaginable into the choicest of sweetmeats, the richest of the cups "that cheer but not inebriate;" lastly, one of the best and most nourishing of the lighter kinds of food—we ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... implying a purely personal change of ideas as to the cause of disillusionment and depression. So that, jumping at the opportunity to prove that she counted his inclinations as higher than mere money, she would have accepted any scheme, however unpromising; but in fact the enterprise appeared to her judgment as quite gloriously hopeful. Every moment increased the charms that it presented; above all, its complete novelty fascinated, and with surprising quickness she found herself thinking almost exactly what her husband had thought ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... consisted of fifteen persons all told, namely, Wilfrid Earle, the chief and leader; Dick Cavendish, his lieutenant; Peter, Earle's negro cook and a chef of surpassing skill, capable of concocting appetising dishes out of the most meagre and unpromising materials; and the twelve recruits from Conceicao, one of whom, named Inaguy, at once the most masterful and intelligent of them, Earle immediately appointed headman of the gang, with a small increase of pay, at the same time making him responsible for the good behaviour ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... are raising a company of artillery for the defence of the colony on the Continental establishment. These things, when accomplished, with other smaller matters, and with the arrival of some gunpowder, the prospect of which is not unpromising, will enable us to face our enemies with some countenance." Lee, with due consideration, replied to the committee that he should comply with their request about the troops, and do nothing ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... truth on October 4: "Give me leave to say, sir, (I say it with due deference and respect, and my knowledge of the facts, added to the importance of the cause and the stake I hold in it, must justify the freedom,) that your affairs are in a more unpromising way than you seem to apprehend. Your army, as I mentioned in my last, is on the eve of its political dissolution. True it is, you have voted a larger one in lieu of it; but the season is late; and there is a material difference between voting ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... calm and unruffled, was rather unpromising. George looked at her a trifle anxiously, as if hardly sure ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... people whom they had never seen, that Colonel Prowley and his sister had taken into their hands, that it really made a greater impression upon me than if the parties had been less unlikely to come together. A Professor of Calisthenics! Could anything be more unpromising? Yet, when my friend copied for me some extracts from the lady's letters that were sensible and feminine, I thought how odd it would be, if something should come of it, after all. I often found myself skipping Colonel Prowley's accounts of old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... was still trying everywhere and under all circumstances however unpromising. On that day he cast anxious glances through the open door of the log court-house at the horses which Tommy Dye, in a forlorn hope, was having paraded up and down the forest path. He turned away with a sigh, and went on talking to the United States Attorney ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... mignonette, sprout in the crevices where snakes and lizards harbour. The grass around is gemmed with blue pimpernel and convolvulus. Gladiolus springs amid the young corn-blades beneath the almond-trees; while a beautiful little iris makes the most unpromising dry places brilliant with its delicate greys and blues. In cooler and damper hollows, around the boles of old olives and under ruined arches, flourishes the tender acanthus, and the road-sides are gaudy ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... settlement, since it was mostly surrounded by very poor land, and water was scarce.[82] The governor, accordingly, went in person to examine the two neighbouring harbours of Port Jackson and Broken Bay, and upon drawing near to the entrance of the former the coast looked as unpromising as elsewhere, and the natives on shore continued shouting, "Warra, warra,"—Go away, go away. Captain Cooke, passing by the heads of Port Jackson, thought there might be found shelter within for a boat but Captain Phillip ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... A good telescope he must have, and as he could not buy one he resolved to make one. It was alike fortunate, both for Herschel and for science, that circumstances impelled him to this determination. Yet, at first sight, how unpromising was the enterprise! That a music teacher, busily employed day and night, should, without previous training, expect to succeed in a task where the highest mechanical and optical skill was required, seemed indeed unlikely. But enthusiasm and genius know no insuperable difficulties. From ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... abnormally silent, perhaps because of her depressing prenatal experiences as well as the forlorn environment of the rooming-house,—perhaps because of physical and spiritual anaemia. "She's a puny mite of a child," Mrs. John Clark said complainingly, unpromising like everything Clark; nevertheless, the last of the sturdy ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... her face, a little timidly, and he kissed her. Afterwards, he watched her turn with slow, reluctant footsteps to the unpromising abode which she had pointed out. Aynesworth made his way to the inn, cursing his impecuniosity and Wingrave's ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... DOWN and CAME TO LIFE AGAIN. False delicacy, adieu! The true sort, which this lady has manifested—by an expedient which at first sight might seem a little unpromising, has cured me of the other. We are ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the truth, the vicinity appeared rather unpromising. The cliffs offered no ledge upon which they might have climbed out of reach of the rogue, the jungle might have afforded them a temporary shelter; but although it had concealed the elephant from their eyes, it could not long conceal them from the eyes of such a sagacious creature as their antagonist ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... unpromising atmosphere of national hostility the war came down on us, in July 1914, like a thunderbolt. In spite of grave warnings few or none in this country were at that moment giving a thought to it. On the contrary, we were thinking of all manner of immeasurably smaller things, for Great ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... of the Recollects, in both peace and war. Convents are founded by these missionaries at Bolinao and Cigayan. At the latter place, one of the fathers is slain by an Indian, and the church is burned by the revolting natives; but the indefatigable missionaries return to the unpromising field, again subdue the wild Indians, and restore what these had destroyed. Another residence is established at Cavite, which accomplishes great good among the seamen who ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising symptom of youth."—Blair's Rhet., p. 14. "Well met, George, for I was looking of you."—Walker's Particles, p. 441. "There is another fact worthy attention."—Channing's Emancip., p. 49. "They did not gather ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... were proposed. The six elected included Spokes and Braider, and it was evident, from the half- nervous, half-gratified manner in which these two undertook their new responsibilities, that the Hermit had found out the trick of bringing out the good points even of the most unpromising boys. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... my head, that after having postponed our journey from week to week on one account or an other, if we did not begin it this day we never should go at all: and, therefore, though the afternoon was most unpromising, we left Mr. May's at half-past four o'clock, that we might reach Campinha, the first stage, to sleep; for, alas! these horses are not like my Chilian steeds, that would carry me twenty leagues a day without complaining. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... worker. It is the unfailing history of great souls that they seem to destroy themselves most in relation to the world's happiness when they most deserve and acquire a better reward. He was starving, but he steadily wrote. He was weary of the pinched and unpromising condition of our daily life, but he smiled, and entertained us and guided us with unflagging manliness, though with longer and longer intervals of wordless reserve. I was never afraid to run to him for his sympathy, as he sat reading in an easy-chair, in some one of ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... but the right one. We saw its resemblance to this portwine-bottle-glass in an odd way at the Ojo de Agua, where the wall of the hacienda was armed at the top, after our English fashion, apparently with bits of old bottles, but which turned out to be chips of obsidian. Out of this rather unpromising stuff the Mexicans made knives, razors, arrow- and spear-heads, and other things, some of great beauty. I say nothing of the polished obsidian mirrors and ornaments, nor even of the curious masks of the human face that are to be seen in collections, for these were only laboriously ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... pursuit of the policy would be a bartering of the substance for the shadow of power, and with explanations of the impracticability of an effective electoral campaign. Pace, in fact, went very little beyond sounding the Electors and declaring the results to be extremely unpromising; a state of things to which we may infer that neither he nor Wolsey had any objection. In the end, the influence of England was employed in favour of Charles, who was chosen Emperor in the middle of summer. The three sovereigns, Charles V., ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... occasionally spoken of by some irreverent spirits who had had dealings with him, and in whom familiarity had bred its proverbial result perhaps), who was reputed to be rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good quantity of blood out of the stones of several unpromising courts and alleys. After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became convinced that the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed a hopeless one, and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again. He had no hopeful ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... enlightened age of Greece, and in Athens, the most illustrious of her cities. He was born in the middle ranks of life, the son of a sculptor. He was of a mean countenance, with a snub nose, projecting eyes, and otherwise of an appearance so unpromising, that a physiognomist, his contemporary, pronounced him to be given to the grossest vices. But he was of a penetrating understanding, the simplest manners, and a mind wholly bent on the study of moral excellence. He at once ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... College and the University of Paris began to loom larger than it had seemed in the halcyon summer-time, and the classic group of noble piles receded further and further into the prophetic haze. But West's fine energy and optimism remained. And he continued to see in the college, unpromising though the outlook was in some respects, a real instrument ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... low spirits; and, as a natural consequence, so were Aunts Martha and Jane and little Ailie. It seemed utterly incomprehensible to the males of the party, how so good a case as this should come to wear such an unpromising aspect. ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... room, and the two men, watching her vivid face as it glowed above her furs, noting the capable, womanly way she had of looking at the best side of everything and discerning in a flash of imagination and intuition what could be done with unpromising material, appreciated her with that full masculine appreciation which it is so well worth the trouble ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... the flanking movement from which Sherman had hoped good results. Johnston had also been able to stretch out his right so that the works in front of McPherson seemed to be held in force enough to make an assault unpromising. On the reports of subordinates as to their uneasiness at the stretching of their lines, Thomas suggested to Sherman that the lines be contracted and strengthened. [Footnote: Id., p. 581.] At the same time reports ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... in coxcombry, and educated in coxcombry. It is only after his coxcombry is rubbed off by the changes and chances of the world, that the really valuable material of the national character is to be seen. He always reminds me of the mother-of-pearl shell, rude and unpromising on the outside, but by friction exhibiting a fine interior. However it may be thought a paradox to pronounce the Frenchman unpolished, I hold to my assertion. If the whole of "jeune France" sprang on their feet and clapped their hands to the hilts of their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... 24-pounder carronades, mixed with short 18-pounder guns. As a redeeming feature, she was commanded by a Frenchman, Captain Beaurepaire, who had contrived to rally round him some of his own countrymen, mingled with native Brazilians—in which he displayed considerable tact to free himself from the unpromising groups elsewhere to be ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... however, are not to be debarred from sport by considerations of that kind. They take all reasonable precautions and leave the rest to chance, with the result that they snatch some amusement out of circumstances that seem unpromising. This afternoon the Gordons had a Gymkhana, and got through it merrily to the entertainment of many friends before a discordant note was heard from Boer batteries. The bombardment did not begin until half-past six, and lasted only until dusk, the final ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse |
