"Unbecoming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it—yet still a kinsman, and at the present time your nearest relative and protector, seeing that where you had the right to look for help and protection, you found only treachery and insult. As for poetry, I may say that I consider it unbecoming for a man of my years to devote his faculties to the making of verses. Poetry is rubbish. Even boys at school ought to be ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... discovered her in the part of a petty, spiteful lawbreaker, dressed in an outlandish and unbecoming garb, did not trouble him. If he was conscious of it at all, indeed, the hurrying turmoil of his thoughts pushed it aside like drifted leaves by the way. The wonderful thing was that he had found ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... for myself, a man of the late nineteenth century, I, of course, should reason differently; I say so plainly, and therefore you need not jeer at me nor mock me, gentlemen. As for you, general, it is still more unbecoming on your part. In the second place, and giving my own personal opinion, a child's flesh is not a satisfying diet; it is too insipid, too sweet; and the criminal, in making these experiments, could have satisfied neither his conscience nor his appetite. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... any difficulty about an individual, and so he gave the monk his freedom. Mochuda thereupon set out alone, which, Molua's monks observing, they remark:—"It were time for that aged man to remain in some monastery, for it is unbecoming such a (senior) monk to wander about alone." They did not know that he, of whom they spoke, was Mochuda, for it was not the custom of the latter to make himself known to many. "Say not so," said Molua (to the censorious brethren), "for the day will come when our community and ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... principal town of the province of Caux, the women of which dress their heads in a very peculiar, and in my humble opinion, unbecoming manner. I made a hasty sketch of one of them who entered the yard of the inn ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... expectation. But there is that in it which I have seen in no other, but which I can imagine to have been common to the Romans of old, the dignity that arises from self-control—an expression which seems removed from the elation of joy, the depression of sorrow—not unbecoming to one who has known great vicissitudes of Fortune, and is prepared alike for her ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the Earth,' takes occasion to observe that every thought is attended with a consciousness and representativeness; the mind has nothing presented to it but what is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, which tells you whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This act of the mind discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour in those whose consciousness goes no farther than to direct them in the just progress of their present state or action; but betrays an interruption in every second thought, when the consciousness is employed ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... of people who can keep a secret; and I must do her the justice to say, that she never directly or indirectly betrayed her trust. And whenever she reproved the girls for what she called rompish tricks, which, she insisted, were very unbecoming in young ladies, she constantly endeavoured to look at Constantia as expressively as she did at the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Britain, we see a harshness of individual character in the general view of it, which is perceived and acknowledged by all Europe; a spirit of unbecoming censure as regards all customs and institutions not their own; a ferocity in some of their characteristics of national manners, pervading their very pastimes, which no other modern people are endued with the blunted sensibility to bear; an universal self-assumed superiority, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... prophesied Ernest. "It is a quality of love that it doesn't stand still, John; and something is going to happen very shortly. Either it will be given out that they are betrothed, or else the thing will fade away. Sabina has very fine instincts; and on his side, he would, I am sure, do nothing unbecoming ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of a paper edits the mind of those that take it. He cannot help being in a sort of close communion. Perhaps he mainly borrows the very indignation, not so very pure and independent, with which he reproves some ingenuous satirist of what may appear indecent in our fashions of amusement, or unbecoming in the relations of the sexes or the habits of the young. "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." He is two and more, as we all are, while he is one, and must not be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... a word which it were unbecoming a maiden to hear, and especially a daughter of Lady Cochrane." And Jean grew hot with indignation. "His talk was about the ceremonies and the dresses; there was no mention of any wrongdoings. Nor ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... Bachelor, living with widowed mother. Fair record on the whole. Reprimanded once, not for negligence, but for some foolish act unbecoming his position. Thorough acquaintance with the museum and its exhibits. A valuable man, well liked, notwithstanding the one lapse alluded to. At home and among his friends regarded as the best fellow going. A little free, perhaps, when unduly excited, but not given to drink and very fond ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... participated at a meeting of instructors and instructresses, which had been arranged without the necessary permit, and that you sang there with them songs of a worldly and reprehensible character. Therefore, dear sir, I beg you in the future not to permit yourself similar actions unbecoming to your schoolmaster's vocation, and I herewith warn you that at a repetition of such behaviour you will be immediately ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... grievous and provoking evils, which will justly offend all the observers of them. 2. Sullen, sour, and churlish language and behavior, which is offensive unto all sorts of persons; for this is an evil altogether unbecoming the followers of Jesus Christ. 3. A cross, captious, and contradictive spirit and conduct, delighting in opposition to the judgment of the church and her rulers. This is very scandalous to the brethren, and very reproachful unto ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... In fact, she hinted that it was good to be brave, but bad to be quarrelsome. Then as to my personal appearance, she acknowledged that I was larger and handsomer than she, and that my rough, shaggy coat was far from unbecoming; but when I laughed at her finical cleanliness, and called her affected for not keeping her own white fur as rough and muddy as mine, she reminded me that it was that very neatness, so despised by ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... of war has been treated as a bugbear. This levity is, at least, unseasonable, and, most of all, unbecoming some who resort to it. Who has forgotten the philippics of 1794? The cry then was, reparation—no envoy—no treaty—no tedious delays. Now, it seems, the passion subsides, or, at least, the hurry to satisfy it. Great Britain, they say, will not ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... it, he must have the promise of my assistance. As he spoke this with a gay and negligent air, I imagined it a thing of no great consequence, or if it were, he was a man of too much honour, and also knew me too well to desire or expect I would engage in any thing unbecoming that character: indeed I could think of nothing but an amour or a duel, tho' I was far from being able to guess of what service I could be to him in the former. I was, however, unwarily drawn in to give my word, and he then made me the confident of a passion, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... I-II, Q. 73, A. 3) a sin which is against God is, in its genus, graver than other sins. Hence presumption whereby a man relies on God inordinately, is a more grievous sin than the presumption of trusting in one's own power, since to rely on the Divine power for obtaining what is unbecoming to God, is to depreciate the Divine power, and it is evident that it is a graver sin to detract from the Divine power than to exaggerate ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... displease me—that I should not pay. I answered in the same tone, and to cut short all arguments I placed the money on the table. She then tried to snatch out of Rolf's hand the note I had given him. I told her I thought her interference very unbecoming. ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... courtiers whom she placed about him,—men who led him to waste his intellectual as well as his physical vigor, thus bringing on a malady which was purely fortuitous and not constitutional. Under these harrowing circumstances, Charles IX. displayed a gloomy majesty of demeanor which was not unbecoming to a king. The solemnity of his secret thoughts was reflected on his face, the olive tones of which he inherited from his mother. This ivory pallor, so fine by candlelight, so suited to the expression of melancholy thought, brought ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... turban of dark cloth spotted with white, folded to stand up straight from the forehead, and looking somewhat as if it was made of pasteboard. This is very unbecoming, and younger men often abandon it and simply wear the now common felt cap. They usually have long coats, white or dark, and white cotton trousers. Well-to-do Parsi women dress very prettily in silks of various colours. The men formerly shaved the head, either entirely, or leaving a scalp-lock ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... slipped quickly from under her blanket and hurried down to the water-hole to bathe her hands and face and set herself in order. Her flying fingers found her little mirror; there wasn't any smudge on her face, after all, and her hair wasn't so terribly unbecoming that way; tousled, to be sure, but then, nice, curly hair can be tousled and still not make one a perfect hag. It was odd about his mare being named Helen. He must have thought the name pretty, for obviously he and his horse were both intimate and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... as (Theology) the knowledge of so much of the stars as we can know wisely; not the attempt to define their laws for them. Not that it is unbecoming of us to find out, if we can, that they move in ellipses, and so on; but it is no business of ours. What effects their rising and setting have on man, and beast, and leaf; what their times and changes are, seen and felt in this world, it is our business to know, passing our ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... kept its unbecoming gloom on the homeward way, even though she pressed very close to Terry for protection whenever they came near the feeding horses, or one of them trotted up to be petted and stroked. She knew she was disapproved ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... cause is mine. You will soon perceive the interest I take in your situation, almost unexampled in judicial records. For the moment I will give you a letter to my notary, who will pay to your order fifty francs every ten days. It would be unbecoming for you to come here to receive alms. If you are Colonel Chabert, you ought to be at no man's mercy. I shall record these advances as a loan; you have estates ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... millennial dream, Potts," responded Merril. "You may possibly persuade the men to make themselves disagreeable for pity's sake, but it is quite too much to expect that a woman would deliberately put herself in an unbecoming light, if it were to save a world from ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... miserable, cowardly French,—sinner ye," said the Elder, struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better folks than me, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... order as she or you can wish. Thus you will divert the calamities that are hanging over our heads, and have the merit of saying the principality of Otranto from destruction. You are a prudent man, and though the warmth of my temper betrayed me into some unbecoming expressions, I honour your virtue, and wish to be indebted to you for the repose of my life and the ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... drawled Clinton, with a shudder. "I don't know what they are. Mr. Vane, those trousers you have on are very unbecoming. Let me introduce you to my tailor. He'll fit you out in ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... had any right to infer such a thing from a likeness!" said the Duke, angrily. "Really, Evelyn, your talk is most—most unbecoming. It seems to me that Mademoiselle Le Breton has already done you harm. All that you have told me, supposing it to be true—oh, of course, I know you believe it to be true—only makes me"—he stiffened his back—"the more determined to break off the connection between her and ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... how long he might have continued to roar we know not, but between his tears his eye suddenly caught sight of the cow, who, either intoxicated by all the fresh sweet grass she had eaten, or having risen in particularly good spirits, was indulging in a series of antics, equally ludicrous and unbecoming in such a sober creature. With the tears rolling down his cheeks, he clapped his hands and shouted with glee. Smart took advantage of the favourable moment, and said, in a commanding voice, "Sir, I'll thank you to catch us some fish to-day; they are jumping in buckets-full, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... details which would be unbecoming to the modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other more important groupings were during the course of these months, and which were the columns that took part in them. Of French's drive in the south-east, and of Blood's incursion into the Roos-Senekal district ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ascetic face was dyed with an unbecoming flush. "Oh!" And then the barriers fell with a crash and she hurried on, the words tumbling over one another, as her memory, its inhibitions shattered, swept back into the dark vortex of her secret past. "Oh, Mary! You don't know! You don't know! You, who've had all the ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... in consequence of his policy he would himself be removed as soon as the term for which he had been elected had expired. But entreaties and threats were alike of no avail. Even Clay could not get the removal of a naval officer guilty of unbecoming conduct. In his zeal for nonpartizanship Adams fairly leaned backwards, with the result that incompetents were shielded and the offices were left in the hands of men who, in a very large number of cases, were openly hostile to the President and ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Fersen, writing to his father, says: "His fine and majestic countenance, at the same time honest and sweet, answers perfectly to his moral qualities. He has the air of a hero. He is very reserved and speaks little, but is polite and frank. There is an air of sadness about him which is not unbecoming, but renders him more interesting." A few evenings after the French gave a grand ball to Washington, which he opened with the beautiful Miss Champlin, at whose house he had taken tea on that evening. The gallant Frenchmen seized the instruments from the band and themselves played ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... therefore, touched by the spur of ambition, usually stimulating on such occasions; and yet I ought to stand exculpated from the charge of ungracious or unbecoming indifference to public applause. I did not the less feel gratitude for the public favour, although I did not proclaim it; as the lover who wears his mistress's favour in his bosom is as proud, though not so vain, of possessing it as another who displays the token of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... writes more decorously. Miss Nussey, as usual, had been thinking unwarrantable things, and had made a most unbecoming joke about Jupiter and Venus, which outraged Charlotte's "common sense". "The idea of the little man," says Charlotte, "shocks me less. He still sends his little newspaper; and the other day there came a letter of a bulk, volume, pith, judgment and knowledge, fit to have been the product ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... the room, Claggett," he went on, in too quiet a voice to be otherwise than poisonous, "until you are more yourself. Your conduct and tone are unbecoming to a gentleman," Osterbridge said, with his head held ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... dismission of this complaint Major de Barner requested of the Governor satisfaction and punishment upon the accuser, and a notary, one Robin, who prepared notarial acts, in an unbecoming affrontive manner. This request was made under three heads: first, that Despin might be exemplarily punished, not merely for a false dishonoring accusation of Major de Barner, a commanding officer and injurious to his whole battalion, but ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... disappointment even in her inmost soul would be flying in the face of providence; her spirits struggled up to their normal high level, and once more she was the happiest of women. It was another fortnight before she could leave the house, but the languor was a new and pleasant sensation and not unbecoming the weather. Warner read aloud instead of to himself, and they wondered that they had never discovered this firm subtle link in comradeship before. The rainy summer is the winter of the tropics, and ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... walk for a student. He sent up his name, and asked whether he could be of any use, but he did not receive encouragement. Lady Markland sent her thanks, and was quite well ("she says," the old butler explained, with a shake of the head, so that no one might believe he agreed in anything so unbecoming). The Honourable John had been telegraphed for, her husband's uncle, and everything was being done; so that there was no need to trouble Mr. Warrender. He went back, scarcely solaced by his walk. He wanted to be doing something. Not Plato; in the circumstances Plato did ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... searchingly, her face darkening and hardening from annoyance to real anger and distrust. 'Wilhelmine,' she said harshly, 'explain your extraordinary appearance. Where have you been, and why do you come home in this strange and unbecoming manner?' ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... the election and the opening of the National Assembly, which is very natural, but he gives no hint as to how far his Government will insist respecting the conditions of peace. It is, of course, impossible for me to argue the point with him—such a discussion would be unbecoming both on his part and mine. I understand his reserve, but I can neither accept the reasons for it nor its results. It is therefore to you that I address my further observations in support of my letter of January ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... and then the lugger is Guernsey built, and carries a good King George's commission. In my part of the world we never take gold unless we sell something of equal valie. Gifts and begging we look upon as mean and unbecoming, and the next thing to going on to the town as a pauper; though if I can sarve you lawfully, like, I'm just as willing to work for your money as for that of any other man. I've no preference ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... may be presumed that the dress altogether is not unbecoming when accompanied by blue flames, for Augustus Staveley and Lucius Mason thought the same thing of Miss Furnival, whereas Peregrine Orme did not know whether he was standing on his head or his feet as he looked at Miss Staveley. Miss Furnival ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... manner of dogs. Such a one has probably something round his heart which tells him that if so attacked he could defend himself; but he knows that he has no aptitude for making such onslaught, and is conscious that such deeds of arms would be unbecoming to him. In many, perhaps in most of such cases, he may, if he please, have recourse to the laws. But any aid that the law can give him is altogether distasteful to him. The name of her that is so dear to him should be kept quiet as the grave ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... characterized as the secret of great operations and of great successes. "I have not a thought," he writes to the minister at Genoa, "on any subject separated from the immediate object of my command, nor a wish to be employed on any other service. So far the allies," he continues, with no unbecoming self-assertion, "are fortunate, if I may be allowed the expression, in having an officer of this character." He felt this singleness of mind, which is so rare a gift, to be the more important, from his very consciousness ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... consuls, when they saw one of the consuls and the son of the other wounded, and the scanty remains of this unfortunate expedition returning to the camp. The death of Marcellus was an event to be deplored, as well from other circumstances which attended it, as because that in a manner unbecoming his years, for he was then more than sixty, and inconsistently with the prudence of a veteran general, he had so improvidently plunged into ruin himself, his colleague, and almost the whole commonwealth. I should launch ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... takes command; Burr acts as brigade major; Arnold resolves on demanding a surrender of Quebec, and that Burr shall be the bearer of a sealed message; refuses, without first reading its contents; after reading, considers it unbecoming an American officer, and declines delivering it; receives complimentary letters for his intrepidity in the attack; letter from Ogden; army moves to the mouth of the Sorel; Burr determines on leaving it, which Arnold forbids, but he persists; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... he is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of this more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is sadly in want of occupation. He has no taste for any of those field sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago. He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had never really liked, and what inducement was there for him to study at Battersby? He reads neither ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... year had passed could Sweden bring herself to consign the remains of her Gustavus to the dust. Then came a hero's funeral, with pomp not unmeaning, with trophies not unbecoming the obsequies of a Christian warrior, and for mourners the sorrowing nations. In early youth Gustavus had loved the beautiful Ebba Brahe, daughter of a Swedish nobleman, and she had returned his love. But etiquette and policy interposed, and Gustavus ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... with her gray hair in neat little curls, deranged one so with convulsive hand that it came all down her cheek, and looked most rakish and unbecoming. Even Zoe and Fanny had turned from lambs to leopardesses— patches of red on each cheek, and eyes like ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... assumed such portentous and awful gravity that he set her off again to such a degree that the dowagers in the other room looked at her rebukingly. It was bad enough, they thought, that she should talk to old Houghton's son at all, but to show such unbecoming levity-well, it was not what they would "expect of a Bodine." Ella saw their disapproval, and felt she was losing her self-control. The warnings she had received against her companion embarrassed her, and banished the power to be her ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Sully next proceeded to upbraid her with her unbecoming conduct towards the Queen; assuring her that every word or act of disrespect of which any were guilty towards the wife of the sovereign was an offence against his own person, and was likely to entail upon the culprit a very severe penalty. He then reproached her for her ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... communion—the vicegerent of God must drink the blood of the Lamb. But still the pope remains sacred; he cannot, like other mortals, make use of his earthly feet; he must not, like them, approach the altar. Sitting upon his throne, he has partaken of the holy wafer, and, as it was unbecoming his dignity to descend to the altar in order to come to Christ, the latter must decide to ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... lords, on the distresses of my country, when I observe the security and arrogance of those whom I consider as the authors of the publick miseries, I cannot always contain my resentment; I may, perhaps, sometimes start out into unbecoming transports, and speak in terms not very ceremonious of such abandoned, such detestable— But as this is, perhaps, not the language of the house, I shall endeavour to repress it, and hope that the bounds of decency have never been so far transgressed by me that I should ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... she holds too tight. Loosen your mouth, Bella; it might be very sweet if you gave it a chance. And she has a sharp chin—not pretty, your chin, but—look! If you'd soften your hair, pull it over your ears and forehead—Why do you brush it back that way? It must be unbecoming. And, Bella, it's curly, or would be with a little freedom. What color is ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... compared with English drama. Yet, when he comes to his own contemporaries, and sometimes even in reference to earlier writers, we find him slipping into those purely arbitrary severities of condemnation, those capricious stigmatisings of this as improper, and that as vulgar, and the other as unbecoming, which are the characteristics of the pseudo-correct and pseudo-classical school of criticism. He was a great admirer of Cowper, and yet he is shocked by Cowper's use, in his translation of Homer, of the phrases, "to entreat Achilles to a calm" (evidently ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... under arrest, Foster, for firing on the Scorpius, for insubordination, and for conduct unbecoming an officer. Get out of that suit and get flaming. ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... Egyptian authorities once refused to pay the travelling expenses of an official travelling on duty from Alexandria to Cairo in connection with Colonel Gordon, yet they insisted on this occasion that it would be unbecoming to the dignity of a governor to travel by an ordinary steamer, so a special one was set apart for this purpose. Gordon afterwards calculated that had he been allowed his own way, he would at the outset have ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... ethical views. He deals, too, with Mr. Wallace's objections to the doctrine of Evolution by natural causes when applied to the mental faculties of Man. Finally, he devotes a couple of pages to justifying his description of the 'Quarterly' reviewer's "treatment of Mr. Darwin as alike unjust and unbecoming." ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... and perceived in his way that if mankind were to be saved it could not have been done otherwise. In the meantime some bad Christians infused various cavils; but to these he gave no attention, remarking that this was not strange, since in the life of the body they had imbibed unbecoming ideas on the subject, and until they got rid of these they could not admit ideas that confirmed the ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... bills. He had declared that the Congress was a Congress of only a part of the states, because Representatives from the states reconstructed according to his ideas were not admitted. He had used language toward his opponents that was fairly described as indecent and unbecoming the chief officer of a great nation. Especially he had refused to be bound by the Tenure of Office Act. Ever since the formation of the government the Presidents had removed officers when they saw fit. The Tenure of ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... because of practice every Sunday. Oh, Joshua, I never can be sure which you are greatest in—the Lessons or the Sermon. But before you begin I will shoot the bolt a little, as if it had caught by accident. Eliza does rush in upon us sometimes in the most unbecoming, unladylike way. And I never can get you to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... indignantly. The conscience-stricken culprit of a few minutes before had disappeared, leaving in his stead an arrogant young man, demanding explanations in a voice of almost unbecoming loudness. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... tells you that your gown does not fit, that you dress your hair in such an unbecoming manner, that your management of your household is not what it should be, she takes an unwarrantable liberty. If traced back, the source of these remarks would be found in a large percentage of instances, in a disagreeable ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... more and she was devouring it with a gusto which, had manners been greatly considered in the days when the earth was young, might have seemed unbecoming in the wife of a great chief. Never before had she eaten anything that seemed to her half so delicious. It was the food she had all her life been craving. Her two little boys, pulling at her, aroused her from her ecstasy. She gave them each a fragment, which they swallowed ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Martial duly sat, and in a most formal manner Kaiser Bill was tried and convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and of traitorously destroying the American flag, and was sentenced to be shot at sunrise the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... spurring a willing horse, and you have not only spoiled your only chance of making excuses for declining, but have enabled me to press work upon you without feeling ashamed at asking the favour. For it would be equally unbecoming for me to hesitate about accepting your offer as for you who made it to look upon it as a bore. However, you must not expect anything of an original kind from a lazy man like me. I shall only ask you to find time to again look through the speech which I made to my townsfolk ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... by Buloz at five hundred francs per sheet, should forget myself to the point of handing you a novel from my pen for a thousand crowns? You cannot have reflected on your offer, Monsieur; and I should be entitled to look upon your step as unbecoming in the highest degree, were it not that your frankness in a ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... introduction reads (R. 274), because "the instruction of youth" in the country had "come to be greatly neglected" and "the young people were growing up in stupidity and ignorance." The King, therefore, issued the new regulations "to the end that ignorance, so injurious and unbecoming to Christianity, may be prevented and lessened, and the coming time may train and educate in the schools ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... for the child, if I may, madam," Deta said, after giving Heidi a little blow for her unbecoming answer. "The child has never been in such a fine house and does not know how to behave. I hope the lady will forgive her manners. She is called Adelheid after her mother, ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... weren't there. So, you are nineteen to-day!" Her eyes shone as she looked at him. There was a singular brilliance of expression in her face, due partly to the exercise, partly to the restless animation of her features. She was at the unbecoming age when the child is merging into the woman, but her lack of grace was redeemed by ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... as tokens of our friendship and as pledges of the sincerity of our professions. Being conferred in the presence of all the hunters their acquisition was highly gratifying to them, but they studiously avoided any great expression of joy, because such an exposure would have been unbecoming the dignity which the senior Indians assume during a conference. They assured us, however, of their being duly sensible of these tokens of our regard, and that they should be preserved during their lives with the utmost care. The chief evinced much penetration and intelligence ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... handsome young man of twenty-two. To the judge's questions he replied that he was very fond of Prosper, was once very intimate with him, and had always regarded him as a strictly honorable man, incapable of doing anything unbecoming a gentleman. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... his British uniform, with loose Turkish trousers, a red turban, red boots, with a white bornouse over all, as a shade from the sun, and this, though not strictly according to orders, was by no means an unbecoming dress. Boo Khaloom was mounted on a beautiful white Tunisian horse, a present from the bashaw, the peak and rear of the saddle covered with gold, and his housings were of scarlet cloth, with a border of gold six inches broad. His dress consisted of red boots, richly embroidered ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... "I will answer you frankly. The man whom I punished last night, I punished because I have proved him to be guilty of conduct unbecoming to a gentleman. I punished him because he broke the one social law which in my country, at any rate, may not be ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... later than the Cantoria, though they do not show any technical superiority to the large Bargello Amorino; but they have not quite got that freshness which cannot be dissociated from work made between 1433 and 1440. Madame Andre has another superb Donatello—a marble boy: his attitude is unbecoming, but the modelling of this admirable statue—the urchin is nearly life-sized—is almost unequalled. There is a similar figure in the Louvre made by some imitator. It need hardly be said that Donatello's children, especially the free-standing ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... protection, and submit to his will with patience and resignation of soul. It gives the law, not only to his words and actions, but to his very thoughts and purposes; so that he dares not entertain any which are unbecoming the presence of that God by whom all our thoughts are legible. It crushes all pride and haughtiness, both in a man's heart and carriage, and gives him an humble state of mind before God and men. It regulates the passions, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... a fact, sir, which I shall always recollect with an humble sense of my own unworthiness; but so long as I discharge its duties conscientiously and truly, I shall also recollect it with honor. Of the note you allude to in such unbecoming words, I know nothing; and as to your threats, I ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... He too felt as if he had been betrayed into unbecoming levity; and though he would not dispute, his heart had only become the heavier. However, he did not forget, and when Cherry again breathed a little sigh as to what Wilmet would think of their first day, he stoutly averred ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... need continue no longer, than while the court is content to connive at or neglect them. Surely a pension would not be ill employed on some men of wit, learning, and virtue, who might have power to strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage, from plays already written, as well as those that may be offered to the stage for the future. By which, and other wise regulations, the theatre might become a very innocent and useful diversion, instead of being a scandal and reproach to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... is not necessary for me to take notice of that language, so ill suited to the persons to whom it has been attributed, and so unbecoming the place in which it is said to have been uttered, concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of provisions during the greater part of the year 1796. I presume it is only to be ascribed to the intolerable license with which the newspapers ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with a smile and sauntered over to the piano. The unbecoming blush mounted slowly to Ruth's face and her eyes were bright as she watched him. When his hands touched the ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... "That's no way to look at things. It's unbecoming of a man of your importance to cherish animosity for an insignificant chap like I am. If we can't be friends, you might at least be big enough ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... rubbed him and wrapped him in a rabbit-blanket, the fur turned inside, and a wolverine skin over that. The Colonel at intervals poured small doses of O'Flynn's whisky down the Boy's throat in spite of his unbecoming behaviour, for he was both belligerent and ungrateful, complaining loudly of the ruin of his clothes with only such intermission as the teeth-chattering, swallowing, and rude ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the thing, and not whether we hit the right manner, &c. But a sense of the imperfection of our worship, apprehension that it may be, and a degree of fear that it is, in some respects erroneous, may perhaps be a temper of mind not unbecoming such poor creatures as we are, in our addresses to God. In proportion as we are assured that we are honest and sincere, we may rest satisfied that God cannot be offended with us, but indifference whether ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler
... the elegant abandon which was the foundation of this compliment. By means of her instinct, however, she had guessed that there was a kind of contempt of bon ton in what was said to her, altogether unbecoming in a conversation with a person of her rank and station. She replied, then, that she thought she had sufficient claims on the Marquis's love for him never to forget them ... that if such a misfortune should befall her, she would find in her heart and conscience no reason ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... The police-courts have only become odious by the clamour of feminine complainants since the disappearance of the bonnet. It was awful as the helmet of Minerva, inviolable as the cestus of Diana. Nor was the bonnet of thirty-years ago an unbecoming headgear—a pretty face never looked prettier than when dimly seen in the shadowy depths of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... like a winter's wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon—the mother of L'Aiglon at twenty—married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon's death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... to be married, you say," pursued the Alderman. "Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you're married, you'll quarrel with your husband, and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... is often high and biting, and I was much annoyed with wisps of hair around my eyes, and also with my hair coming down while on horseback, until I hit upon the device of tying a brown liberty silk veil over the hair and partially over the ears before putting on a sombrero. This veil was not at all unbecoming, being the same color as my hair, and it served the double purpose of keeping unruly locks in order and keeping my ears warm. A hair net ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... Her excited, fluttering manner blew about her almost with a commotion of the atmosphere, and reminded Adams at times of a tempestuous March breeze shaking a fragile wind flower. It was unnatural, overdone, unbecoming, but it seemed at last to have got quite beyond her control, and the pretty girlish composure he remembered as one of her freshest charms, was lost in her general violence of animation. Of late he knew that she had fought off her natural exhaustion by the frequent use of stimulants, and it seemed ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... few words spoken what is seasonable. But it is unbecoming for me to converse with ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... come, the snow five and a half feet deep—the greatest depth of snow within the memory of the "oldest inhabitant"—the mercury full ten degrees below zero. I had just changed my dress for the fifth time, and sister Anna was offering me this consolation, "I must say, Clara, that that is the most unbecoming dress you have, you look like a perfect scare-crow," when the sound of sleigh-bells coming up the avenue, sent my heart up in my throat, and myself quicker than lightning down to the "hall-door," there to welcome—not my darling Edgar and his proud, beautiful sister, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... appointed, during the reign of Edward, to the see of Glocester, and made no scruple of accepting the episcopal office; but he refused to be consecrated in the episcopal habit, the cymar and rochet, which had formerly, he said, been abused to superstition, and which were thereby rendered unbecoming a true Christian. Cranmer and Ridley were surprised at this objection, which opposed the received practice, and even the established laws; and though young Edward, desirous of promoting a man so celebrated for his eloquence, his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... herself at ease therein. She then put up her veil, displaying a long, narrow face, cold, pale, arrogant eyes, a nose inclined to redness at the tip, and a thin, close-set mouth lined with little sarcastic wrinkles, which came into prominent and unbecoming play as soon as she began to speak, which she did ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... halt! Steady!" and Jean Paul's mount came to a standstill with Jean Paul sitting upon its haunches, and Jean Paul's eyes snapping, and Jean Paul's teeth biting his tongue to keep from uttering words "unbecoming an officer and a gentleman;" for "being overhauled by a girl" after he had "made a confounded fool of himself trying a land-lubber's stunt" was not a role which seemed in any degree an ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... were to be prosecuted, were adopted, for the first time, upon this occasion. In an early stage of the proceeding, the criminal desired to be heard. He was heard; and he produced before the bar of the House that insolent and unbecoming paper which lies upon our table. It was deliberately given in by his own hand, and signed with his own name. The Commons, however, passed by everything offensive in that paper with a magnanimity that ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... you've recently been guilty of conduct grossly unbecoming a soldier. But you've served your guard house period, and you'll be busy, for many weeks yet to come, in working out the fines imposed against you. For breaches of discipline it is the intent of the authorities ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... ten years ago, and placed ourselves upon them boldly, as it was our duty to have done, we would have no trouble in this country to-day; but instead of declaring the great truths enunciated in these resolutions, we went off upon issues unbecoming the Democratic party. A portion of our leaders wandered and went astray, and asserted that the people of a Territory had the right to prohibit slavery whenever, in their judgment, it ought to be prohibited; a power which Congress even does not possess, and consequently ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... toilsome duties of a courier for two years, having been every where with orders and letters. I was tired of this troublesome and unbecoming business. I sent to the king petition after petition, asking for my discharge, and soliciting for a more honorable appointment. But I was repeatedly refused, for his majesty did not think my abilities would warrant promotion. He condescended ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... keep us in practice for bearing great misfortunes, so that we may not become completely enervated by a career of prosperity. A man should be as Siegfried, armed cap-a-pie, towards the small troubles of every day—those little differences we have with our fellow-men, insignificant disputes, unbecoming conduct in other people, petty gossip, and many other similar annoyances of life; he should not feel them at all, much less take them to heart and brood over them, but hold them at arm's length and push them out of his way, like stones that lie in the road, and upon no account think about them ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... old figure of "the people's attorney," "If the people think I have managed their case for them well enough to trust me to carry it up to the next term, I am sure I shall be glad to take it." He evidently dreaded the rebuke that would be implied in a failure to be renominated; yet it seemed unbecoming to him, in the critical condition of the country, to make any personal effort to that end. To these considerations were added his extreme weariness and longing for release from his oppressive burdens. He was also, as Mr. Welles records ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... facts. I myself recognise this necessity with infinite regret, and with something, perhaps, rather deeper than regret. But it is not the Government, either here or in India, who are the authors of this necessity, and I should not at all mind, if it is not impertinent and unbecoming in me to say so, standing up in another place and saying exactly what I say here, that I approve of these proceedings and will do my best to ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... went to her own room, turned on an unbecoming but searchingly clear toplight, and frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out her hairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and pulled at it with unsteady hands. In spite of them, the pale gold braids, rearranged, looked almost as well as before, if no better, and the heightened colour ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... unbecoming for a gentleman of fashion to pay any regard to that old superstitious ceremony of what is commonly called 'going to church'—or, at most, of attending more than half a day in the week. To attend public worship more than ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... If it be unbecoming, as I acknowledge that for the most part it is, to speak disrespectfully of Works that have enjoyed for a length of time a widely-spread reputation, without at the same time producing irrefragable proofs of their unworthiness, let me be forgiven upon this occasion.—Having ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... rushed in, circling gaily about a diminutive knight in shining silver armor, with a green plume. He marched proudly, but with some difficulty, for his helmet was down and his sword, which was much too long for him, had an unbecoming tendency to trip him up. When his hesitating steps had brought him to the middle of the gymnasium, the knight, apparently perceiving the Indian for the first time, dropped his encumbering sword and rushed ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... official atmosphere at this meeting, I saw no one caper. But it must be borne in mind that most of the people there were officials and wives of officials, serving a great empire, so perhaps it might be unbecoming for such to laugh and play; and I take it there is even a limit to the degree of a smile when you are on the official ladder, that it is then seemly, even expedient, to walk with a certain dignity of pace—so you show the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... that our eyes are not closed to the schemes on foot for the suppression of republican government on this continent. While our present necessity compels us, as of course, to act with great circumspection, yet it would be unbecoming our dignity to quietly ignore the spoliation of Mexico. It is often said that President Lincoln, in his letter accepting the Baltimore nomination, has repudiated this resolution. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... wound. The Ayletts were a stately race, and the few who, while she was in her teens, had carped at her lack of pride because of her disposition to choose friends from the walks of life lower than her own, and criticised as unbecoming the playful familiarity that caused underlings and plebeians—the publicans and sinners of the aristocrat's creed—to worship the ground on which she trod—the censors in the court of etiquette conferred upon her altered demeanor the patent of their approbation, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... his disappointment, he was not seated near her at the very jolly little supper which was served later, but was placed instead between Kitty and a sallow, angular, vivacious woman with an unbecoming blue fillet in her hair. He had been talking to Mrs. Habersham and Hampton, and had not really happened to glance at Kitty since they had entered the room, but after they were seated at the table, he turned to speak to her and was ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... seeking to attract too early the notice of royalty, dash out in a flock, and are driven back with jeering and hooting, as they deserve to be. Then the pigs stagger by: their garlands are excessively unbecoming. Such of the family of swine as are too young to stagger are wheeled in handcarts in the rear; and so the ceremonies are closed, except for a couple of races which take place immediately, and with no great eclat. The burgher races these are called, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... necessary shall not go unrewarded in those that first begin the attempt. And let my first argument to move you to it be taken from what probably some would think reasonable to dissuade you, I mean the constancy and patience of these Jews, even under their ill successes; for it is unbecoming you, who are Romans and my soldiers, who have in peace been taught how to make wars, and who have also been used to conquer in those wars, to be inferior to Jews, either in action of the hand, or in courage of the soul, and this especially when you are at the conclusion ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... arrival at Firgrove, Miss Turner had gone carefully through their clothing,—adding a number of fresh garments to their stock, discarding others which had been purchased according to Perry's idea of fitness as being entirely unbecoming or unsuitable, laying aside for distribution among her poor a goodly quantity that had grown either so small or so shabby as to be altogether unfit for further wear—by Captain Dene's children and Miss Turner's young relatives, that is ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... State Constitutions, the judges of the highest courts are now often expressly forbidden to accept other office,[Footnote: See Chap XXII.] but in the absence of such a prohibition it would be considered as unbecoming. Formerly and during the first third of the nineteenth century this was in many States not so. Some were then judges because they held legislative office and as an incident of it. Others did not ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... committed by some wandering Indians, and they agreed to attend a council at Springfield to reassure the whites. The Indians who attended the council were asked to lay aside their arms. Tecumseh haughtily refused, thinking it unbecoming the dignity of a warrior chief. When the request was repeated, the wily Indian replied that his tomahawk was also his pipe and that he might wish to smoke. Thereupon a gaunt American advanced and offered Tecumseh his own pipe. Taking the earthen ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... have so often endeavoured to ridicule, that you have perverted your friend's understanding."—"I wish," cries Thwackum, in a rage, "I wish, for the sake of his soul, your damnable doctrines have not perverted his faith. It is to this I impute his present behaviour, so unbecoming a Christian. Who but an atheist could think of leaving the world without having first made up his account? without confessing his sins, and receiving that absolution which he knew he had one in the house duly authorized to give him? He will feel the want ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... drained. He had recovered sense and consciousness, but still a dim and misty depression clung to his nerves and darkened his mind. His natural courage, and the Greek nobility of pride, enabled him to vanquish all unbecoming apprehension, and, in the judgment-court, to face his awful lot with a steady mien and unquailing eye. But the consciousness of innocence scarcely sufficed to support him when the gaze of men no longer excited his haughty ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... becomes me than so to speak to my Lord. At the same time, the love I bear my Lord sometimes so consumes me that I am beside myself, till I scarce know what I say or do; and then I find myself making such unbecoming complaints that I am amazed our Lord endures them at my hands. Eternal praise to ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... the ground, Ulick, Mick, and the Captain were already there: Quin, flaming in red regimentals, as big a monster as ever led a grenadier company. The party were laughing together at some joke of one or the other: and I must say I thought this laughter very unbecoming in my cousins, who were met, perhaps, to see the death of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it is perhaps a too reckless indulgence in draw poker," said the Colonel, musingly; "not unbecoming a gentleman, understand me, Mrs. Scott, but perhaps too reckless for his own good. George played a grand game, a glittering game, but pardon me if I say an UNCERTAIN game. I've told him so; it's the only point ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... rang her bell. Presently Miriam came in, attired in a flannel dressing-gown which was hopelessly unbecoming. Barbara was moved to hysterical laughter, but ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... rubbing her hands, 'if Mrs Nickleby took the apartments without the means of paying for them, it was very unbecoming a lady.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... House with messages to friends. These latter instantly roused up, yawned, and began to look alert. The moment the floor was unoccupied, Mr. Buckstone rose, with an injured look, and said it was evident that the opponents of the bill were merely talking against time, hoping in this unbecoming way to tire out the friends of the measure and so defeat it. Such conduct might be respectable enough in a village debating society, but it was trivial among statesmen, it was out of place in so august an assemblage ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... brilliant Memoires de la Vie du Comte de Gramont became the historian of the amorous intrigues of the court of Charles II. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1670-1741), who in the days of Mme. de Maintenon's authority had in his sacred Cantates been pious by command, recompensed himself by retailing unbecoming epigrams—and for epigram he had a genuine gift—to the Society of the Temple. He manufactured odes with skill in the mechanism of verse, and carefully secured the fine disorder required in that ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the pantalon collant, which is a most unbecoming and trying costume, being of black cloth fitting very tight and tapering down to the ankle, where it finishes abruptly with a button. Any one with a protruding ankle and thin legs ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... involuntary pathos in the last lines, which is so unbecoming to my balanced and calm nature. But it is hard to restrain myself when I recall the road I have travelled. I hope, however, that in the future I shall not darken the mood of my reader with any outbursts of agitated feelings. Only he shouts ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... the street; though as this rather unreasonable rule has been steadily ignored by foreigners, chiefly, no doubt, from unacquaintance with it, the Chinese themselves make no attempt to observe it so far as foreigners are concerned. In like manner, it is most unbecoming for any "read-book man," no matter how miserably poor he is, to receive a stranger, or be seen himself abroad, in short clothes; but this rule, too, is often relaxed in the presence of foreigners, who wear short clothes themselves. Honest poverty is no crime in China, nor is it in any way regarded ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... boy. To hang calls for a rope and the yard-arm, and there's nothing tangible about the weather. You should say—that is, if you wish to be ungentlemanly and use language unbecoming to an officer in His ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... to dress for dinner, and Mr. Tudor went to his hotel. I was rather sorry when I came downstairs to find that Jill had made rather a careless toilet. She wore the flimsy Indian muslin gown that I thought so unbecoming to her style, with a string of gold beads of curious Florentine work round her neck. She looked so different from the graceful young Amazon who had ridden up an hour ago that I felt provoked, and was not surprised to hear the old sharp tone ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ships upon the seas And some of them were good and some were not; In German, P & O's and Genoese, But the Khedive's was the worst one of the lot. We never got a moment's peace in her For everybody'd howl or pray or bellow; She threw us on our heads or on our knees, And turned us all an unbecoming yellow." ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... work is public, I must be considered as directing myself to the generality of the world: for, Sir, I have the pleasure to say, that your conduct in your family is unexceptionable; and the pride to think that mine is no disgrace to it. No one hears a word from your mouth unbecoming the character of a polite gentleman; and I shall always be very regardful of what falls from mine. Your temper, Sir, is equal and kind to all your servants, and they love you, as well as awfully respect you: and well does your beautiful and considerate ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... toward the batteries, and advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his war whoop you advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw out any side-remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... company, where only the leader enjoys the privilege of a family name, the like would be unbecoming its least member. So I take the name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus—the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... never been seen within its walls before. We can understand that the embassy was not acceptable to the thrifty middle-class trading burgess, when we read that it was accompanied by a swarm of pedlars and petty hucksters who showed an unbecoming anxiety to do business in hats, caps and other merchandise, which under colour of the embassy had been smuggled into the country duty free.(1081) The foreign retail trader was at the best of times an abomination to the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... temperament of an ancient woman. As Alexa ran through the heather in the morning, she looked not altogether unlike a peasant; her shoes were strong, her dress was short; but now she came and went in a soft-colored gown, neither ill-made nor unbecoming. She did not seem to belong to what is called society, but she looked dignified, at times almost stately, with an expression of superiority, not strong enough to make her handsome face unpleasing. It resembled her father's, but, for a woman's, was ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... Piccolomini. If we except the Scene of the setting sun in the Robbers, I know of no part in Schiller's Plays which equals the whole of the first Scene of the fifth Act of the concluding Play. It 50 would be unbecoming in me to be more diffuse on this subject. A Translator stands connected with the original Author by a certain law of subordination, which makes it more decorous to point out excellencies than defects: indeed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... lifted her big blue eyes to his. "It wasn't her 'complete muscular atrophy' that I was thinking about!" she said. "It's her panties that are so unbecoming!" ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... to the Dorcas, where I will read them your most instructive letter. How true, dear aunt, your idea is, that in their rank of life they should wear what is unbecoming. I must say it is absurd, their anxiety about dress, when there are so many more important things in this world, and in the next. I am so glad your flowered poplin turned out so well, and that your lace was not torn. I am wearing ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... was laid out a few years ago, the householders along the water's edge absolutely refused to turn their front windows away from Beacon Street. Furthermore, they ignored the fact that their back yards and back windows presented an unbecoming face to such an incomparably lovely promenade, and the inevitable household rearrangement—by which the drawing-rooms were placed in the rear—was literally years in process of achievement. But such conservatism is one of Boston's idiosyncrasies, which ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... gallantly out, the untameable children of the forest, the lords of the lake and of the river, some of them absolutely handsome, their costume being in the highest degree chivalric; many, unluckily, are clad in a mixed fashion, half Indian, half American,—grotesque, but unbecoming when compared with the gaudily turbaned and kilted Creek, or the plumed and painted Winnebago, who, leaning on his rifle beneath a forest tree, and listening with a keen, unwearying aspect for the coming tread of his foe or his prey, looks like a being never ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... just received and read your letter of the 12 instant. Its language is, as you say, unusual; its arguments and statements utterly one-sided, and its insinuations as unfounded as they are unbecoming. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... of the 9th of October. Under these circumstances, her majesty's government are prepared to admit that your continuance in the government of British North America could be attended with no beneficial result." Lord Durham's manifesto was deservedly condemned by all parties, as unbecoming the office and character of the queen's representative: it procured for him, in the Times newspaper, the unenviable title of "the lord-high seditioner." In Canada, however, it increased the golden opinions entertained of him greatly. Public meetings were convened, and addresses ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... unbecoming costume, selected from a recent issue by an Oxford Street firm, the lecturer asked, Why did women think small waists beautiful? Was it because big-waisted women were so frequently fat and forty, old and ugly? A young girl had no waist, and did not need stays. As the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... the party was enlivened by the sound of music; and a band, consisting of the harp, lyre, guitar, tambourine, double and single pipe, flute and other instruments, played the favorite airs and songs of the country. Nor was it deemed unbecoming the gravity and dignity of a priest to admit musicians into his house, or to take pleasure in witnessing the dance; and seated with their wives and family in the midst of their friends, the highest functionaries of the sacerdotal order enjoyed the lively scene. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... don't see anything remarkable. That is a neat, plain suit; the materials are good, and it's not unbecoming, if you want her to look like a little school-girl; but it has not a particle of style, and no one would ever give it a second glance," said Mrs. Clara, feeling that her last remark condemned the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... however, help saying that: and she, and your aunt Hervey, will have it—[they would fain favour you, if they could] that I may have provoked from you the answer they nevertheless own to be so exceedingly unbecoming. I am now learning, you see, to take up the softer language, where you have laid it down. This then ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... head; she may fancy what she pleases, but I set her and all her attractions at defiance: I have made my escape, and shall set off for Quebec in an hour. Flying is, I must acknowledge, a little out of character, and unbecoming a soldier; but in these cases, it is the very best thing man or woman either can do, when they ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... has returned aboard. My worst fears are realized. For a long time he has been irritable and uncommunicative with me and has indulged in sly, furtive little tricks unbecoming to a dog of the service. I have suspected that he was concealing a love affair from me. This it appears he has been doing and his guilt is heavy upon him. I realize now for the first time and not without a sharp maternal pang that he has reached an age at which ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... prison for the term of years provided by the law for the crime he had been convicted of and five years additional for perjury, he having violated his oath of office that he would be honest and upright in all things so help him God, and any officer could be reduced to the ranks for conduct unbecoming a gentleman as the result of a trial before a jury of twelve men drawn by ballot from any other command than his own. No sashes, jewelry or regalia of any kind was permitted to ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... tastes were extremely simple, and his abstemiousness incredible; he was indulgent to others and most lenient in his judgments. I must admit that on the score of good cheer the persons of his suite made no pretense of imitating the Holy Father, but, on the contrary, took most unbecoming advantage of the Emperor's orders, that everything requested should be furnished. The tables set for them were abundantly and even magnificently served; which, however; did not prevent a whole basket of Chambertin being requested each day for the Pope's private table, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... haranguing the old man, evidently as spokesman for the party of impudent malcontents grouped about him. I heard him demand that his men be led against the British without further delay. I heard him condemn delay as unreasonable and unwarrantable, and the terms of speech he used were unbecoming to an officer. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers |
