"Undignified" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he left my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him that he did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been aroused. For once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I would have won for the Arch-Enemy Mr. Dammit's little head—for the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... really care", said Cynthia in a quieter tone. "That is all I want to know! I want to be with you, and see you every hour and every minute. I can't help saying it, though it is really very undignified for me to be making love to you. I did many silly things on earth, but never anything quite ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the advantage lay with the defenders of Acre. The besieging monarchs withdrew down the ladder to hold a council of war, while the sultan's wives and troops—it was difficult to distinguish them—crowed triumphantly. They even did a little undignified ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Father Payne, "but you know perfectly well that you knew it before I told you. Why be so undignified? You need not want to astonish or amuse the whole civilised world. You probably won't do that; but you can fit a bit of the mosaic in, if you have it in you. Now look you here! I know exactly what I am worth. I can't write—though I think I can when I'm at it—but I can perceive, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... multitude cheered and clapped its hands frantically. It reflected truly the spirit of the whole nation. The Speaker, who under ordinary circumstances would have suppressed the clapping of hands as unparliamentary and the demonstrations of the galleries as undignified, let the patriotic outburst go on to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... in the arms of her gaping brother-in-law, Lord Launcelot, while everybody else, except Holmes, myself, and the Earl, grew red and white by turns; and Uncle Tooter, in attempting to arise suddenly, fell out of his chair and tumbled on the floor in a very undignified manner. ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... true; sometimes only a handful of dandelions, sometimes a huge bunch of lilac flowers, which could not be persuaded to stay in the glass without the help of the wall, against which it leaned in very undignified style; sometimes the bouquet was of really delicate and beautiful wild-flowers. All ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Our poets and our thinkers do not view the world with a settled gaze either of appreciation or of contempt: they look at it with the wild eye of a man who cannot imagine where he has put his gloves. Their condemnations and suggestions are alike undignified, whirling and flimsy. They pick up and throw down in the same space of time every human institution: they are in a hurry to question everything and they have not the patience to wait for an answer ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... very jovial, until at last she danced a jig on the platform at the railway station amid the applause of her exhilarated friends, who had accompanied the young husband and wife to the train, as they started on their wedding-journey. What a sorrowful and undignified beginning to ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... He—and the other pioneers of his kind— would have been tempted immediately to pack up and move on to some freer locality where a man could retain his personal liberty and pursue his happiness in a manner as noisy, as intemperate, and as undignified as suited his ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... followed, upon which much controversial and patriotic ink has been spilt by a succession of French and German biographers. To an English reader it is clear that in this little comedy of errors none of the parties concerned can escape from blame—that Voltaire was hysterical, undignified, and untruthful, that the Prussian Resident was stupid and domineering, that Frederick was careless in his orders and cynical as to their results. Nor, it is to be hoped, need any Englishman be reminded that the consequences of a system of government in which ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... visage, I long to repeat the Dauphin's undignified offense. I would like to see this royal parcel of melancholy jump and dance; change that ever-frowning and mournful aspect of his. Indeed, I would like to treat him to one of the anecdotes that made the Duchess ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... result. Less than one-tenth of the electors used their franchise; and the extreme party won great successes. By the middle of September the new deputies were reaching Paris. The Legislative in its last moments was feeble and undignified. Marat threatened it with massacre, and declared that its members were as much the enemies of the country as were the imprisoned aristocrats. Under this menace the Legislative watched the massacres of September ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... not at all a bad amateur. His monstrous self-conceit did the rest. Besides singing to the harp, he was prepared to perform upon the flute and the bagpipes, and to give a dance afterwards. All this, of course, was undignified and ridiculous, but it was scarcely tyranny. Doubtless there was sufficient suffering among the audience, but that cruelty was hardly deliberate. In the Roman noble, whose ideal of behaviour included dignity and gravity, these ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... Assam and Gokul near Muttra must be struck with the total absence in the shrines of anything that can be called beautiful, solemn or even terrible. The general impression is of something diseased, unclean and undignified. The figure of the Great Goddess of life and death might have fired[82] the invention of artists but as a matter of fact her worship has paralyzed ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Horner dexterously unrolled the shirt, and drew back just in time to avoid a vicious slash from the talons of his indignant prisoner. The latter, after some violent tugging and flopping at his tether and fierce biting at the wire, suddenly seemed to conclude that such futile efforts were undignified. He settled himself like a rock and stared unwinkingly at ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... say the Frankfurters; 'in particular, they had burnt gradually all the corn-mills in the country; within many miles not one mill standing when they left us,'—and four horses all the conveyance power we had. Soltikof lodges in great pomp, much soldiery and cannon parading before his doors; not an undignified man, or an inhuman or essentially foolish, but very high in his ways, and distasteful to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and nothing long," having been the first to observe the impression the mignonne maid-of-honour had made on the King's susceptible fancy, had little hesitation in attaching to his diplomatic office the very undignified one of Sir Pandarus, and therefore with a brave defiance of decorum bent all his efforts to overcome the scruples, if any there might be, lingering in the mind of Louise with regard to transferring herself to the service of the Queen of England, poor ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Johnson, whose labour of kindness had been untiring throughout, "for a name to Goldy's play." [See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 14, 1773.] What now stands as the second title, The Mistakes of a Night, was originally the only one; but it was thought undignified for a comedy. The Old House a New Inn was suggested in place of it, but dismissed as awkward. Sir Joshua offered a much better name to Goldsmith, saying, "You ought to call it The Belle's Stratagem, and if you do not I will damn it." When Goldsmith, in whose ear perhaps a line ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... call it undignified to be a man among men?" she asked; adding quickly: "But I know you don't. And what other way is open ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... remedying the injustices due to the mean and dishonest way in which Fonteius Capito had issued promotions and reductions. The soldiers did not judge Vitellius' actions as those of a mere ex-consul: they took him for something more, and, while serious critics found him undignified,[95] his supporters spoke of his affability and beneficence, because he showed neither moderation nor judgement in making presents out of his own money and squandering other people's. Besides, they were so greedy ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... honoured me by your acquiescence in the arrangement. But learning, as I do, from a quite indisputable source, that my presence in your house is distasteful to Mrs. Rose, I have no option but to ask you to release me from a position which is not only unpleasant but undignified. If you will be kind enough to waive the question of notice, I would prefer to terminate the engagement ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... is anything, any little thing I should have said, that tries a woman more than the changes in her own face, a woman that has just attained two score and—an unmarried woman. Prudence Pomeroy was discovering these changes in her own face and, it may be undignified, it may be unchristian even, but she was tried. It was upon the morning of her fortieth birthday, that, with considerable shrinking, she set out upon a voyage of discovery upon the unknown sea of her own countenance. It was unknown, for she had not cared to look upon herself for some ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... man as he was, in such a little house as he had. People always wanted her. Her frankness in running after him showed him her sense of her position, her popularity, her attraction. How could she think she was undignified? No doubt she thought him an oddity who must be treated unconventionally. He felt savage, but ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... adopt the tactics of stationary defence, varied by occasional sallies forth from our cantonments to pursue assassins or to punish depredators by destroying houses and crops, is to assume a somewhat impotent and undignified attitude, hardly creditable in the case of a mighty empire worried by mere highland caterans. The Indian Government, therefore, finds itself placed in a dilemma: to advance or to stand still is equally difficult; nor is any practicable ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and down the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run about after him, though it was rather undignified. ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... might appear to a cool spectator a little undignified; but then we are understood to be, like Menenius, old friends of the family, and too much carried away with the excitement of the moment ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... should you ever swear at a soldier—not only is this taking a mean, unfair advantage of your position, but it is also undignified, ungentlemanly, and unmilitary. It is even more improper for you to swear at a soldier than it is for a superior to swear at you—in the latter case the insult can be properly resented; in the former, it must be ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... how it is, dear; couldn't get through with a proposal without crying a little, eh? Rather undignified, I must say, but perfectly natural for unexperienced girls, I suppose. Allow ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... uneasiness hung about his mind all the morning. Dyce had his ideal of manly independence; it annoyed him that circumstances made the noble line of conduct so difficult. He believed himself strong, virile, yet so often it happened that he was constrained to act in what seemed rather a feeble and undignified way. But, after all, it was temporary; the day of his emancipation from paltry necessities would surely come, and all the great qualities latent in him ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... Parker's shop was in Pall Mall. At No. 29, New Bond Street, in 1730, we find J. Brindley, a reputable bookseller of his time, and who was one of a society formed in 1736 'for the encouragement of learning,' which had a chequered and an undignified career. His shop was at the sign of the Feathers, and in 1747 he describes himself as 'Bookseller to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.' The only example of his catalogue which we have seen is dated 1747, and it includes 4,289 lots, among which were long selections of books at 1s. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... power: let us henceforth be more to each other than we have been; let us not be pupil and teacher; let us be friends. Do not think that I invite you to an unequal exchange of good offices: you may be the heir to wealth and a distinguished name; I may seem to you but an unknown and undignified priest; but the authority of the Almighty can raise up, from the sheepfold and the cotter's shed, a power, which, as the organ of His own, can trample upon sceptres and dictate to the supremacy of kings. And I—I"—the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... victoriously eminent to the last. The principal defect of this and all other memoirs of Kant is, that they report too little of his conversation and opinions. And perhaps the reader will be disposed to complain, that some of the notices are too minute and circumstantial, so as to be at one time undignified, and at another unfeeling. As to the first objection, it may be answered, that biographical gossip of this sort, and ungentlemanly scrutiny into a man's private life, though not what a man of honor would choose to write, may be read without blame; and, where a great man is the subject, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Zoological Gardens of London. Milton has made his hero, Satan, assume the forms of a cormorant, a toad, and a serpent, and I cannot see that this creation of semi-divine Vanars, or monkeys, is more ridiculous or undignified. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... back-stairs, and cut across the fields, should men be sent out from the City to collect money. Rosenstein's store was under her little apartment, and she knew she could trust him not to betray her. The dressmaker was in these days fairly tragic in appearance, with a small and undignified, but none the less real, tragedy. It was the despair of a small nature over small issues, but none the less despair. Carroll would have paid that bill first of all, had he had the money, but none but himself knew how little ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... one occasion they proceeded to acts of personal violence to each other in her presence. Luckily no one else was by, and she was able to pacify and reconcile them; but she could hardly avoid feeling ashamed of having been called on to exert herself in such a cause, or contrasting the undignified boisterousness (to give it no worse name) of such scenes with the decorous self-respect which, with all their simplicity of character, had always governed the conduct ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... may not have to take up the leavings of exhaustion. In the king's speech, observe the set and pedantically antithetic form of the sentences when touching that which galled the heels of conscience,—the strain of undignified rhetoric,—and yet in what follows concerning the public weal, a certain appropriate majesty. Indeed was he not a ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... off merrily enough, and when the bride and bridesmaids left the table, and the dining room door was safely shut, there was much girlish laughter in the hall, and an undignified scamper up the stairs, also a tussle as to who should take the first pin from the bride's veil and be married next, and much amusement when Mrs, Frayling's elderly maid unconsciously appropriated it herself ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a squabble with the military. At the drawing-room on Thursday they refused to let his carriage pass through the Horse Guards, when he ordered his coachman to force his way through, which he did. He was quite wrong, and it was very unbecoming and undignified. Lord Londonderry called for an explanation in the House of Lords, when Brougham made a speech, and a very lame one. He said he ordered his coachman to go back, who did not hear him and went on, and when he had got through he thought it was not worth while to ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... would be needless to report, and not only needless, but a vast deal worse—shabby, interloping, meddlesome and mean, undignified, unmanly, and disreputably low; for even the tanner and his wife (who must have had right to come forward, if anybody had) felt that their right was a shadow, and kept back as if they were a hundred miles away, and took one ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... guided his pony up the bank and upon the Down, and on they trotted fast, for Marian was actuated by a very undignified fit of terror lest she should meet Mr. Faulkner, towards whom she felt positively guilty, nor did she wish to be ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... was nothing to do but to put it on again. Before I had finished this operation Billali himself arrived with undignified and unusual haste. I asked him what was the matter, and he answered inconsequently that the Black One, the slayer of Rezu, was at the door "with ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... won't get blood," she wailed. Then, realizing she was acting undignified before a ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... some very valuable papers. I 'd suggest now that you get up, seize your deeds and accompany me to the palace of justice. Otherwise, that partner of yours will have to eat dinner in a place called in undignified ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... work and resolved that he would seek his entertainment elsewhere in future. It was to this theatre that John went on the day after his arrival in Cottenham. The town itself depressed him immeasurably. It was the most shapeless, nondescript, undignified town he had ever seen, and yet it was one of the richest places in England. There was no seemliness in its main streets; little huckstering shops hustled larger and more pretentious shops, but all of them had an air of ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... instant, struggling in such an undignified position and unable to extricate myself, the chair having closed upon me, the door suddenly opened, and the man Reckitt, with his ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... of the Society came to the same conclusion, and it was generally said that Fletcher had done himself no good by his undignified resentment. His parting taunt levelled at Harry was regarded as mean and ungenerous, and only strengthened the sentiment in favor of our hero who bore his honors modestly. In fact Tom Carver, who was fond of fun, conceived a project ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... other where we were going, and what we were going to do, whenever we separated for a time; but on this occasion I had purposely omitted this precaution. The dog had found me on the lower pathway doubled up, or as Alec put it, "Standing on my head in a very undignified position, with my ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... up, and promised great rewards in the event of his success. But it was all in vain. She listened to the mendicant artist's story, and gazed at his marvellous make-up, till she could contain herself no longer, and went into the most undignified contortions for relief, ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... unfailing regularity, and showing, to outward appearance, a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life. In private he was good-humoured and good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, easy, and unrestrained, and the letters written by them to him are similarly plain and business-like, as if the writers knew that the person whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... "All the same it won't be very nice if the case comes into court. Madame had far better settle it. Just think of the newspapers. They'll crack silly jokes about it for weeks and there'll be pictures of Madame in most undignified ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... assigned to unsuccessful commanders in Persia, he sent an ambassador to Byzantium in the spring of A.D. 556, and commenced negotiations which he intended to be serious. Diplomacy seems to have been as averse in the days of Chosroes as in our own to an undignified rapidity of proceeding. Hence, though there could be little to debate where both parties were substantially at one, the negotiations begun in May A.D. 556 were not concluded till after the commencement of the following year. A complete ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... information would be forthcoming, and in all likelihood new phases of the crisis would have arisen, to induce his colleagues to change or modify their views. He also thought his immediate resignation, if not a cowardly, would be an undignified course, as it would be sure to create excitement and even panic ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... tower as it was doing on this night, and such a contingency had been over-looked. Sometimes this obscure corner received no inhabitant for the space of two or three years, and then it was usually but a pauper, a poacher, or other sinner of undignified sins. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Pompeius in presence of these daring demonstrations, as well as the undignified and almost ridiculous position into which he had fallen with reference to Clodius, deprived him and the coalition of their credit; and the section of the senate which adhered to the regents, demoralized by the singular inaptitude of Pompeius and helplessly left to itself, could not prevent the republican-aristocratic ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... smiling monk. In the Liang dynasty there was a monk called Pu-tai (Jap. Hotei) who was regarded as an incarnation of Maitreya and became a popular subject for caricature. It would appear that the Bodhisattva himself has become superseded by this cheerful but undignified incarnation.] ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... nodded her acceptance. She put out her hand to his. "Quick!" she cried; "let's git that place near the door—it's head, and we can be opposite Sarah and Nelse Baker." He followed her across the room. He felt as undignified as if he were romping with a child. The room was not large enough for two sets, so only one of four couples was formed. Old Mack noticed that three couples were left sitting, and cried out, autocratically, "Double on de sides!" Two couples sprang eagerly ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... what you mean,—and what you fear. That I shall say something, or do something undignified, or possibly wrong. But that, with God's help, I shall never do. Such happiness as I can procure, aside from my husband, and which I had a right to expect through him,—such enjoyment as comes from intellectual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... contempt for public service. It has identified public spirit with spasmodic acts of public beneficence. The American political ideal became a Cincinnatus whom nobody sent for and who therefore never left his plough. There has ensued a corrupt and undignified political life, speaking claptrap, dark with violence, illiterate and void of statesmanship or science, forbidding any healthy social development through public organisation at home, and every year that the increasing facilities of communication draw the alien nations closer, deepening ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... it was pointed out, was competent to perform only the crudest work and most menial tasks, it followed that free labor was indispensable to the material progress of the new State. "Slave labor," Battelle said, "drove out free labor and tended to make all labor undignified and despised. It should, therefore, be dispensed with." In reply to the assertion that since the system was destined to die a quick and certain death no action on the part of the State was necessary, Mr. Battelle ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... her seat and flung her stool at the dean's head, crying with a loud voice, "Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" The unpremeditated deed acted as a signal; the whole congregation was immediately in an uproar; the dean fled and the service came to an undignified conclusion. ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... will not be dictated to! I will carry out my own plans! I do not mean to marry Mr. Ratcliffe. If I had meant it, I should have done it before now. But I will not run away from him or from myself. It would be unladylike, undignified, cowardly." ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... two rams were once more tied in his father's stable. On Saturday, then, they would have the tournament. To get Mammy's help, Margaret had to tell the plan to her, and Mammy stormed against the little girl taking part in any such undignified proceedings, but imperious Margaret forced her to keep silent and help make sashes and a tent for each of the two knights. Chad would be the "Knight of the Cumberland" and Dan the "Knight of the Bluegrass." Snowball was to be Dan's squire and black Rufus, Harry's ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... now found to do must have been singularly distasteful to one who had seen war on a great scale under such captains as William and Conde. It was at once undignified and dangerous; and though danger was all to his taste, it was one thing to risk one's life in open battle with enemies worthy of a soldier's steel, and another and very different thing to run the chance of a stray bullet from behind a haystack or through a ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... happy in her company, she was permitted to play with him to her heart's content. Sometimes with a string around his neck she led him about the clearing and, though the big animal could easily have broken away, he made no effort to do so. He was fed with good things until his gait became an undignified waddle. Moreover he loved the petting which was lavished upon him by this ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... Agent, Malone told himself, had no business smoking cigars and looking undignified. But as a messenger from Castelnuovo, he could do as he pleased. He almost reached for one before he realized that maybe, sometime in the future, Palveri would find out who Kenneth J. Malone really was. And then he'd remember Malone ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... So ended, in an undignified way, as worn-out institutions are wont to end, the hermit life in the British Isles. Will it ever reappear? Who can tell? To an age of luxury and unbelief has succeeded, more than once in history, an age of remorse and superstition. Gay gentlemen and gay ladies may renounce the world, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... rum, and the oath was offered again. He refused it. This had not been looked for. It had been taken for granted that he would abjure his fealty to the king at the first tightening of the cord. A conference was held, and it was declared that retreat would be undignified and unsafe, so the Tory was swung up again, this time with a yank that seemed to "mean business." He hung for some time, and when lowered gave no sign of life. There was some show of alarm at this, for nobody wanted to kill the old fellow, and every effort was made to restore consciousness. At ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... rejoiced Emma Dean, using her bath towel as a scarf and performing a weird dance about the room. "I know I shall go chortling through my classes this morning in a highly undignified manner. To think that dear old Semper Fidelis will hold forth again in the same old haunts! And the most beautiful part is that there will ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added enormously to that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I have recently dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of the people. As to my demeanour when I emerged, ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... rims of them, broken in two, hung from his ears. His nose was bleeding profusely, as he leaned against the fence, holding his head down. He was covered with mud, his clothes were torn, and he was as miserable, damaged and undignified a piece of man as ever dreaded being taken at disadvantage by the idol of his affections. He would have made a pact with the powers of evil for a friendly wall or a clump of trees when he saw the car coming back. There was nothing but ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... while looking round to enjoy the scenery, taken just one step more than there was any necessity for, and walked off the punt altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was left clinging to it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignified position for him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chum to "hurry up and see real ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... always had a sufficiency of Charans and servants (Jangar) in their villages to perform all necessary manual labour, and would not themselves work for a remuneration otherwise than by carrying grain, which was and still is their legitimate occupation; but it was not considered undignified to cut wood and grass for the household. Both Mathuria and Labhana men are fairer than the Charans; they wear better jewellery and their loin-cloths have a silk border, while those of the Charans are of rough, common cloth." The ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... what she said, and he was never in awe of the judge's opinion, and never looked for opposition from any source, because he could not anticipate an opinion different from his own. He merely dropped the argument for the moment because he saw the urgent necessity of bringing an undignified scene to a speedy close, and could not see any other or better way of ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... beauties of nature, and have seen her surrounded by the pomp of ceremony; but I have never known her less than herself; nor has the interest first inspired by her character ever been diminished by an undignified sentiment ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... was by no means undignified, taken as an explanation of the ideals that animated the rebels, but it was simply ridiculous when judged by the hard common-sense standards of stern reality, though it was probably never meant for anything more than a rhetorical protest in the name of the fast-ebbing ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... that the place was comparatively empty, that the great political convulsion of the last few days had reduced transactions to an unprecedented minimum. In one huge place were long avenues of roulette tables, each with an excited, undignified crowd about it; in another a yelping Babel of white-faced women and red-necked leathery-lunged men bought and sold the shares of an absolutely fictitious business undertaking which, every five minutes, paid a dividend ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... to draw a coach and why not a man! So the velocipede was constructed for the rider's feet to just reach the ground, and by pressing first one foot on the ground and then the other he managed in this undignified attitude, to propel ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... hypotheses rise and fall; it is difficult to anticipate which will keep their ground, and what the state of knowledge in relation to them will be from year to year. In this condition of things, it has seemed to me to be very undignified for a Catholic to commit himself to the work of chasing what might turn out to be phantoms, and in behalf of some special objections, to be ingenious in devising a theory, which, before it was completed, might have to give place to some theory newer still, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... you," she added, wickedly, the moment she was free. And then to save herself from a second undignified surrender she had to capitulate quickly, and add, "At least, not ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the dog reappeared on a tearing gallop, white flag tossing, glorious in his new liberty, enchanted with the confidence this tall young man had reposed in him—this adorable young man, this wonderful friend who had suddenly appeared to release him from an undignified and ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... home. There was an unusually large number of them, and as is usually the case with these insects, they proved very ferocious. Nothing loth, however, we attacked with cheers, only to be driven back time and again and finally we were compelled to make a very undignified retreat, at full speed in the direction of home. Not to be beaten, however, we secured reinforcements and more ammunition, in the shape of old rags, brooms and so forth, and returned to the charge, and although we were driven back several ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... crazy ye are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!" said Judy, whose notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified levity of her partner; "the likes of you I never seed; ye are too foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the stools for the gintlemens, while I ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... burning with the impotent fury in her soul. She was wise enough to see that he was not to be beguiled. If he, like other men, had his price, nothing that she could offer would pay it. He did not mean to let her go up on deck, and it would be as useless as undignified to attempt carrying out her will with a high hand. If there were any hope, it was in stratagem. Without breaking another lance against the impenetrable armour of his obstinacy, she turned her back upon him, swept into her cabin, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... elation which was distasteful to her. Could it be that reverses of fortune with reference to moderate sums of money, such as this which was now coming into his hands, would always affect him in the same way? Was it not almost unmanly, or at any rate was it not undignified? And yet she tried to make the best of it, and lent herself to his holiday mood as well as she was able. "Shall I write and thank papa?" she ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... would have wept could he have seen it. The dingy decanters could not disguise the vile hue of wine bought by the pint at the nearest wineshop. The table-napkins had seen a week's use. In short, everything betrayed undignified penury, and the equal indifference of the husband and wife to the decencies of home. The most superficial observer on seeing them would have said that these two beings had come to the stage when the necessity of living had prepared them for any kind of dishonor that might bring luck ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and steel-like claws, tearing asunder roots, and casting aside stones, and the ease and rapidity with which it disappears in soft soil are astonishing. The horrific array of prickles presented as it digs an undignified retreat, and the tenacity with which it holds the ground, have given rise to the fiction that no dog is capable of killing an echidna. No ordinary dog is. He must be cunning, daring, brave, insensible to pain, and resourceful. Then the feat is quite ordinary. Indeed, once the trick is ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... companion, but admires herself a little more than is considered modest, and she positively refuses to catch mice," explained Margolotte. "My husband made the cat some pink brains, but they proved to be too high-bred and particular for a cat, so she thinks it is undignified in her to catch mice. Also she has a pretty blood-red heart, but it is made of stone—a ruby, I think—and so is rather hard and unfeeling. I think the next Glass Cat the Magician makes will have neither brains nor heart, for then it will not object to ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... impracticable in England. And, even if people with enthusiasm enough could be found to put it in practice by importing swift light-footed Arabian or pampa horses, and careering about level parks on dark starry nights, probably a shout of derision would be raised against so undignified a pastime. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... we had just left that Mashauana, who always prided himself on being an adept at balancing himself in the canoe on water, and so sure of foot on land that he could afford to express contempt for any one less gifted, came down in a very sudden and undignified manner, to the delight of all whom he had previously ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... line, her father hailing from Phaeacia's isle?—or from Fitzalan and De Vere, her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it was the gift of Heaven—a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other things opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life in Budmouth ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... been new to this sort of thing she would have said she wasn't crying, had a cold in her head, or told any other feminine fib proper to the occasion. Instead of which, that undignified creature answered, with an irrepressible sob, "Because ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... grave above reproach from grammatical gossip. Whenever I have risen from the splendid psychological perspective of old Job, the solemn introspective howls of Ecclesiasticus and the generous living philosophy of Shakespeare it has always been with the desire—of course it is undignified, but it is human—to go and get an English grammar for the pleasure of spitting upon it. Let us be honest. I understand everything about grammar except what it means; but if you will give me the living substance and the proper spirit any gentleman who desires the grammatical rules ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... choke him with a whole mouthful of "frills," the paper kind you put on ham at Christmas; but as I had none handy, I thought it would only lead to undignified controversy to allude ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... nothing, but he was secretly almost distressed. He though it such a mistake for his distinguished friend to go wandering about in Soho alone with a mere boy. It was undignified. It was not the thing. He could not understand it unless really she was losing her head. And then he remembered her past. Although he never spoke of it, and now seldom thought about it, Braybrooke knew very well ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... a passage to New York for your daughter in a pilot-boat that has been out privateering, but has come in here, and is refitting merely to get to New York. My only fears are that Governor Alston may think the mode of conveyance too undignified, and object to it; but Mrs. Alston is fully bent on going. You must not be surprised, to see her very low, feeble, and emaciated. Her complaint is an almost incessant ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... most respectable tradition. Even now, when the realistic capering of free verse has emboldened the ordinary man to speak his mind freely, a reviewer hesitates to apply even to bad poetry so undignified a word as trash. The essay family is equally respectable, to be noticed, when noticed at all, with some of the reverence due to an ancient and dignified art. The sermon family, still numerous to a degree incredible to those who do not study the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... said the collector, and I looked out for at least one individual with turban of fine texture, decent robes, and venerable appearance; but a man of gigantic stature, and rude aspect, wearing a grey peasant's turban, welcomed us with undignified cordiality. We followed him down the street, and sometimes crossing the mud on pieces of wood, sometimes "putting one's foot in it," we reached a savage-looking timber kiosk, and, mounting a ladder, seated ourselves ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... making his usual, though undignified, entrance over the railing of the porch, and seating himself with a sigh of content in one of the big chairs. "Say, what was all the row about?" he added, looking with interest at Mollie's still threatening needles, and Betty's general air of preparation for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... little voice that made even me shiver in the other room, that she did not desire to be read to or sung to, and that she did not wish to play games. She had called her daughter-in-law in to have a serious talk with her. Then she told her, still very polite, that she was noisy an' childish, an' undignified, an' that it was not only silly, but very wrong for her to expect to have her husband's entire attention; that he had his own work, an' it was a very important one. He was going to be president of the college some day, like his father before him; an' it was her place to ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... day she saw the father hurrying up the oleander avenue. The wind tossed his gown, and blew his hat backward and sideways, and compelled him to make undignified haste. And such little things affect the mental poise and mood! The Senora smiled at the funny figure he made; and with the smile came a feeling of resistance to his tyranny, and a stubborn determination to defend her ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... indeed a special branch of education, in which experts are only gradually becoming developed. The phenomena are as massive and wide-spread as is anything in Nature, and the study of them is as tedious, repellent and undignified. To reject it for its unromantic character is like rejecting bacteriology because penicillium glaucum grows on horse-dung and bacterium termo lives in putrefaction. Scientific men have long ago ceased to think of the dignity of the materials they work in. When imposture has been checked ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... much nonsense and has doubtless often chewed the bitter cud of reflection in deploring her undesired popularity. First she was forced (very much against her will, no doubt) to jump over the moon to the undignified strains of "Hey Diddle, Diddle." Then, just when beginning to breathe easily again after that astounding performance, Gelett Burgess came along and gave her more notoriety by raising the question as to whether there was such ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... before everything was dark and quiet, and Ringfield, extremely baffled and uneasy, turned to go home. But Alexis Gagnon, supposing the minister upstairs and asleep, had locked the door, and now the only mode of entrance possible was the undignified one of climbing the rude fence and scaling the well-remembered balcony which led to his room. This brought him very close to Pauline's chamber, looking on the familiar balcony, but he could detect nothing wrong or unusual; Poussette was ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... blue eyes and looked curiously at the dark princess. She knew nothing of what had passed the night before, save that the king had seen Nehushta for a few moments, but she knew his character well enough to imagine that his frank and, as she thought, undignified manner might have struck Nehushta even in that brief interview. The idea that the princess was already deceiving her flashed across her mind. She smiled more tenderly than ever, with a little added air of sadness that gave her ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... of the "weedy-trophies," the quaint and even uncouth lines which disfigure the work. We must, however, in considering and judging them, remember that many words and even phrases which at present seem rather ludicrous or undignified had, in the sixteenth century, significations which have now become obsolete, and which were then neither vulgar nor unpoetical. I also have been forced to take my selections from a copy of Sternhold and Hopkins ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... large platform, which was much like a miniature stage, Charles-Norton appeared for a moment in undignified pantomime. Leaning over the shining rail, chin thrust out, he shook both fists at the receding city, and ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... something in the way he expressed himself which delighted Priscilla. He had reverted to the phraseology of an undignified schoolboy of the lower fifth. The veneer of grown manhood, even the polish of a prefect, had, as it were, peeled off ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... Italy and Dalmatia; yet they persuade him that I have not modified any of my demands! It is thus that they have led on the Emperor Francis to war; it is thus that they will finally bring him to ruin!" He refrained, however, from replying to the Emperor Francis's letter. "It were undignified for me to say to a prince, 'You don't know what you say;' but that is what I find myself compelled to say, since his letter is founded upon an error." "Leave vain repetitions and silliness to the Austrians," he wrote to Champagny. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... painful and somewhat undignified, there is no reason that it should not be sure and strong. But it must be consistently pursued. Dynamite in the hands of a child is not more dangerous than a strong policy weakly carried out. The reproach which may be justly laid upon the rulers of India, whether at home or abroad, is that ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... animal's sides. The harness is more or less rich according to the means of the donkey driver and the rank of his customers, but I am speaking merely of asses which stand for hire. No one in Cairo considers it undignified to ride an ass,—old men, grown men, dignitaries, townspeople, all use them. Women ride astride, a fashion which in no wise compromises their modesty, thanks to the enormous folds of their broad trousers which almost ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... when at the age of twenty-eight he accompanied Sir Harford Jones as private secretary, in 1808-1809, on that mission from the British Court direct which excited the bitter jealousy and provoked the undignified recriminations of the Indian Government. After the Treaty had been concluded, James Morier returned to England, being accompanied by the Persian envoy to the Court of St. James, who figures in this narrative as Mirza Firouz, and whose droll experiences ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... perfectly. You only carried me as far as Red Bridge, in a position the most comfortable for yourself and the most undignified for me. You borrowed that sixpence from me and never paid me again; and we were both punished with dry bread for breakfast, because we were seen ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... and leapt towards them. He leapt badly; he made a series of somersaults in the air, whirled right over them, and vanished with an enormous splash amidst the cactus bladders. What the Selenites made of this amazing, and to my mind undignified irruption from another planet, I have no means of guessing. I seem to remember the sight of their backs as they ran in all directions, but I am not sure. All these last incidents before oblivion came are vague and faint in my mind. I know ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... wild night the unrepentant winds were full of mischief. A monstrous dignity of fleecy clouds scudded undignified across the blue. The precious park became a tossing waste of woodland, teased into flurried liveliness, full of false starts and misdirection, instantly buffeted for every blunder and bellowing good-natured ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... thought if a prelate and his suffragan ran nimbly out of a palace gate in a cathedral close, with little bells tinkling, whips cracking, and reins of red ribbon drawn in to repress the curvetting of the gaitered steed? There is nothing in reality more undignified about that than in hitting a little ball about over sandy bunkers. If the Prime Minister and the Lord Chief Justice trundled hoops round and round after breakfast in the gravelled space behind the Horse Guards, who could allege that they would not be the better for the ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... tribe increase!—are indignant because one Edmund Gosse, in his introduction to the late edition of "Heroes and Hero Worship," alludes to the lion of modern literature as "an undignified human being, growling like an ill-bred collie dog." They take Mr. Gosse too seriously—dignify him with their displeasure. James Anthony Froude—a literary gun of much heavier caliber than Mr. Gosse appears ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Mrs. Force would entertain such a plan for a moment. They would consider it indelicate and undignified in all parties concerned to marry their daughter to any other suitor, even though that suitor were Mr. Leonidas Force, so soon after the breaking off of her marriage ceremony with her late bridegroom-expectant," ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... have been a satisfaction to Susan's pride to refuse. She knew that Ella really needed her this afternoon, and would have liked to punish that lady to that extent. But hurry was undignified and cowardly, and Stephen's name was a charm, and so it happened that Susan found herself in the drawing-room at five o'clock, in the center of a chattering group, and stirred, as she was always stirred, by Stephen's effect on the people he met. He ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... it must be mentioned that, from the great length of the staff, you cannot, very often, get out of the way by the ordinary retreat, as above described, but may have to make an undignified jump back for five or six feet, to avoid a quick return or, possibly, an unexpected lead-off. In a stiff bout this jumping, with all the heavy impedimenta indispensable to the game, takes it out of one considerably, and, on this account, it is a first-rate exercise ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... She heard only the "teuf-teuf" of her own taxi, and the snort of a big gray car which had at that instant come to a stop close by. Miss Blackburne was used to odd adventures, and prided herself on "keeping cool," but she could not help giving an undignified jump as a man sprang out of the gray limousine and laid a hand on ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... up the Propeller, "though it means that I must assume a most undignified attitude, for helicopters[2] I never approved of. In order to ascend more quickly the Pilot will deflect the Elevator, which, by the way, you see hinged to the Tail. By that means he will force the ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... professing a misanthropy which he is very far from feeling, for he is quite unsuspicious, and disposed to think the best of every one; hasty when vexed, but thoroughly kind-hearted; very blunt, very undignified, never happy (he says) out of the wilds; thoroughly well disposed to the Chinese and Malays, but very impatient of their courtesies, thoroughly well meaning, thoroughly a gentleman, but about the last person ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... "but beastly undignified. Fancy a Roman, of equestrian rank, moving in Rome's best society circles, a friend of the Emperor, sprawling on a pavement playing with a stinking leopard, letting her tousle him and rumple his clothes, and letting her slobber her foul saliva all over ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... heard the harsh treble voice, and knew it. But he was as comically anxious as Thomas Hall himself that he and the fair Tabitha should not cross each other's path that evening. To run away he felt to be an undignified proceeding, and if Tabitha had set her mind on speaking to him, utterly useless. Accordingly, he kept his back carefully turned to her, and professed an absorbing interest in ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... Triplet's hour of triumph. His exultation was undignified, and such as is said to precede a fall. He inquired gravely of Mrs. Woffington, whether he had or had not shown a spirit. Whether he had or had not fired into each a parting shot, as they sheered off. To repair which, it might be advisable for them ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... over her determination had changed. She had reflected that the vicar would think her morbid, that, with his usual good sense, he would say there was no necessity for telling the squire anything; indeed, that to do so would be undignified. If the squire were indeed going to lead the life of a recluse as he proposed doing, he was not really a man to cause her any apprehension. If he had travelled about the world for forty years, without having his heart disturbed by any of the women he must have met in that time, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... seen, with nothing on but pyjamas and a towel? I suppose he thinks 'You can't be too careful.' It makes one humble to live with a dog. I always blush when I see a dog dreaming, because I'm afraid they give us an undignified place in their dreams. Your Hound, Russ, dreams of you plunging into the Serpentine after a Canadian Goose, with your topper floating behind you, or Anonyma with her tongue hanging out, scratching at a little ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... appearance of one big, bejewelled ball, and it was no easy matter to disentangle one from the other. The different owners, however, showed a marvellous quickness in recognising even a fragment of their lost treasures, and their exultation was somewhat undignified as they turned and twisted and coaxed the dainty threads, and finally clasped their lost treasures, safe and sound, and all the time Darsie sat back on her heels, with her golden hair hanging in heavy masses over her shoulders, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
