"Unpleasing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... small to receive them. We may leave Sidmouth immediately, or not at all. I shall soon be quite qualified to write a poem on the 'Pleasures of Doubt'—and a very good subject it will be. The pleasures of certainty are generally far less enjoyable—I mean as pleasures go in this unpleasing world. Papa is in London, and much better when we heard from him last—and we are ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... did not at once understand Katya. 'Why, of course, the property's all her sister's!' struck him suddenly; the thought was not unpleasing to him. 'How nicely you said that!' ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... small income which his mother had left him, and which his guardian paid him regularly, and so he was rather envied than pitied. And then, he was not one of those idiots with wild looks, and the manners of an animal, for he was by no means an unpleasing object, with his half-open lips and smiling eyes, and especially in his constant make-up in female dress. For he dressed like a girl, and showed by that, how little he objected to being ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... have been thoroughly spoilt as children, encouraged to talk, led to expect not only toleration, but active kindness and sympathy from all. The worst of it is that such kindness is generally reserved for pretty and engaging children, and it is the awkward, unpleasing, ungainly child who gets the slaps in public. But, as in Tennyson-Turner's pretty poem of "Letty's Globe," a child's hand should be "welcome at all frontiers." Only deliberate rudeness and insolence on the part of children should ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately set it a-singing; or, in other words, though it slumbers sometimes, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... pathetic only that it was impossible that so much egotism and bitterness should not choke the sympathy of the listener. But as the story came to Molly's twenty-first year, the strange, bitter self-defence (she had not yet explained why she should defend herself at all to Father Molyneux), all the unpleasing moral side of the story became merged in the sense of its ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... division, the principal reason being that most things are better received when seemingly of extempore invention and not suggestive of study, but arising in the pleading from the nature of the thing itself. Whence such figures are not unpleasing as, "I had almost forgotten to say"; "It escaped my memory to acquaint you"; and "You have given me a good hint." For if the proofs should be proposed without something of a reputation of this kind, they would lose, in the sequel, all the graces ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... Sabbaths and Canaan should teach men to look for further rest, which indeed is their happiness. What more welcome to men under personal afflictions, tiring duty, successions of sufferings, than rest? What more welcome news to men under public calamities, unpleasing employment, plundering losses, sad tidings, than ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... thought of him we shall never know. He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and Paine was voted an estate of 277 acres, more or less, and a sum of money. This ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... of a pistol would certainly have startled King James more, but could (setting apart the fright) hardly have been more unpleasing ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... possible that, as the years passed, she might have acquired some of the unpleasing qualities so apt to become the characteristic of the woman who has no one to come between her and the cares of business or the shifts and difficulties incident to the providing for a family whose means are limited. Coming in contact, as she had ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... further train of speculation when he remembered that he had never seen a servant in the house, and that the steps had struck him as dirty, and the doctor's waste-paper basket as very full. Pocket determined to make his own bed next morning. He had meanwhile an unpleasing suspicion that the young girl was clearing away, for the doctor took him back into the drawing-room after supper; and later, when they returned for a game of billiards on the toy board, which they placed between them ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... reproduce to us the matter of the world, which, not being our own work, the product of our creative spirit, can never have the beneficent operation of art, of which the essence is freedom. Serious indeed, but unpleasing, is the cast of thought with which such an artist and poet dismisses us; we feel ourselves painfully thrust back into the narrow sphere of reality by means of the very art which ought to have emancipated us. On the other hand, a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... severe and orderly music is the style in which to educate children, who, if they are accustomed to this, will deem the opposite kind to be illiberal, but if they are accustomed to the other, will count this to be cold and unpleasing. 'True.' Further, a distinction should be made between the melodies of men and women. Nature herself teaches that the grand or manly style should be assigned to men, and to women the moderate and temperate. So much for the subjects of education. But to whom are they to be taught, and ...
— Laws • Plato
... far as ever from looking handsome or pretty, but it must have been a dullard who proclaimed her face unpleasing. She had eyes of remarkable intelligence, something like Marcella's but milder, more benevolent. Her lips were softly firm; they would not readily part in laughter; their frequent smile meant more than that of the woman who ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Abbott and I had had a charming time on board ship (more charming than Aunt Celia knows, because she was very ill, and her natural powers of chaperoning were severely impaired), and the prospect of seeing London sights together was not unpleasing; but Roderick Abbott is not in Aunt Celia's itinerary, which reads: 'Winchester, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Gloucester, Oxford, London, Ely, Peterborough, Lincoln, York, Durham.' These are the cathedrals Aunt Celia's curate chose to ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... there was one of you ladies in the room that did not think so too; but yet the matter was all passed over with smiles, and with not a single insinuation that he had said any thing unpleasing or disagreeable." ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... on his side: I admitted it, yet still my doubts returned. It is thus, I believe, with all who have not the Gospel at heart, and who hate, or indulge resentments of any kind. The mind catches glimpses, as it were, of the truth, but as it is unpleasing, it is disbelieved the moment after, and the ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... and soundly with open mouth. A thick mass of hair escaped from beneath her cap, upon her brow; the moonlight fell, through the window-pane in the roof, upon her face. Otto bowed himself over her and examined the coarse, unpleasing features. The thick, black eyebrows appeared only like ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... accounted for its being quite unknown to the artistic world. He called attention to the fact that it was really a facsimile, rather than a copy, and he seemed pleased at the perfect reproduction of the injured points, which were few, and of the stains, which were faint and not unpleasing. But he never showed it to an artist ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... to cover this up, and also the angles made by line 3-4 as it crosses the radiating lines above 1-2. With a small mass at 11 to make the balance right, you have a basis for a composition, Diagram C, not at all unpleasing in arrangement, although based on a group of discordant lines drawn at random, but brought into harmony ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... falsehood, that there is nothing left but to stab you with short, sharp words. If I chide you without cause, if I censure that which is censurable, if I attribute to a class that which belongs only to individuals, if I intimate that ungentle voices, uncultivated language, and unpleasing manners are common when they are really uncommon, if I assume to demand more than every person who loves his country and believes his countrywomen has a right to demand, on me be all the blame. But for ten persons who give you flattery and sneers, you will not find one who will tell ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside. It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a voyage —beyond both ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... likely to look too stiff; the informal, too fussy, too wiggly. As far as paths go, keep this in mind, that a path should always lead somewhere. That is its business—to direct one to a definite place. Now, straight, even paths are not unpleasing if the effect is to be that of a formal garden. The danger in the curved path is an abrupt curve, a whirligig effect. It is far better for you to stick to straight paths unless you can make a really beautiful curve. No one can tell you how ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... sitting down to the table, Clarence's notice was arrested by a somewhat suspicious and unpleasing occurrence. The supper room was on the ground floor, and, owing to the heat of the weather, one of the windows, facing the small garden, was left open. Through this window Clarence distinctly saw the face of a man look into the room for one instant, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... think of this new style of painting?' asked Botticelli. 'To me it seems but strange and unpleasing. Music and motion are delightful, but this violent twisting of limbs to show the muscles offends ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... Margaret dominating the same emblem of evil with her cross in her hand. So, at least, the historians conjecture, anxious to find out some reason for her visions; and there is nothing in the suggestion which is unpleasing. The little country church was in the gift of St. Remy, and some benefactor of the rural cure might well have given a painted window to make glad the hearts of the simple people. St. Margaret was no warrior-saint, but she overcame the dragon with her cross, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devil would give half as much for the services of a sinner as he would for those of one of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a way to make them unpleasing.—That young girl wants a tender nature to cherish her and give her a chance to put out her leaves,—sunshine, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... history, that he was a man of undaunted bravery. In his person he was tall, and rather slight in figure. His features were regular, but there was a sternness in his countenance, and lines of deep thought on his brow, which rendered the expression unpleasing. It was only when he smiled that you would have pronounced him handsome; then he was more ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... her, but, it may be asked, did she love him? and that is the more difficult question to answer. Candidly speaking, Bell had an affection for Gabriel. She liked his good looks, his refined voice, his very weakness of character was not unpleasing to her. But she did not love him sufficiently to marry him for himself alone. What she wished to marry was the gentleman, the clergyman, the son of the Bishop of Beorminster, and unless Gabriel could give her all the pleasures and delights attendant on his worldly position, she was not ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... interview that had so deeply perplexed her, returning to her apartment, had shut herself up in solitude. Her reflections were gloomy and unpleasing; the new obscurity that hung about them had not contributed to lighten their pressure. But though she was melancholy, her melancholy was of a different hue from that of her ravisher. If virtue can ever be deprived of those glorious distinctions that exclusively belong to her, it must be when ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... younger judgment, I never greatly admired, so now (1642) much less." In the letter to Hartlib he denounces with equal fierceness the schools and "the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful." The alumni of the universities carry away with them a hatred and contempt for learning, and sink into "ignorantly zealous" clergymen, or mercenary lawyers, while the men of fortune betake themselves to feasts and jollity. These last, Milton thinks, are ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the habits of our day, And when I come to codify, their rules I mean to modify, Or Mrs. Grundy, p'r'aps, may have a word or two to say: For they hadn't macintoshes or umbrellas or goloshes - And a shower with their dresses must have played the very deuce, And it must have been unpleasing when they caught a fit of sneezing, For, it seems, of pocket-handkerchiefs they didn't know the use. They wore little underclothing - scarcely anything - or no-thing - And their dress of Coan silk was ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... and throw myself at her feet, to serve with her, if need should be, either against Rome or Persia. But habit has prevailed, and the generous friendship of Hormisdas, to keep me here. And why should I change this not unpleasing certainty for the doubtful future that must await me in Palmyra? Here I am in the very lap of luxury. I am, as I have said to thee, a man without wants. All countries, and climates, and seas, and arts, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... complain of constraint under these rules. Such are unworthy of the trust. Those things that we need—imagination, independence, courage of conviction—every quality bespeaking her one great requirement in the characters of her chosen ones—originality—are to be fostered in a hundred ways not unpleasing to her. But this first quality, which may not be bought either by labor or by gold, has been made the mark whereby she knows and claims her own. Once self-ordained, a man finds himself subject gloriously to her: divinely driven to prayer and fasting, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... pleasure by the lady, heartily glad that the riot of the day was over without the occurrence of any unpleasing accident. The rejoicing was not, however, entirely ended; for the elevated Cavaliers, finding some of the villagers still on foot around a bonfire on the street, struck merrily in with them—sent to Roger Raine of the Peveril Arms, the loyal publican whom we have already ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... was reduced almost to despair, for nobody liked it. Schumann said of it: "It is the empty and unpleasing music of an amateur." But Spohr wrote: "The opera contains certain new and fine things, which at first I did not like, but to which I became accustomed on ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... and oval, the hair brown, and brushed straight off an exceptionally high forehead. His complexion was very pale or bloodless. He was clean shaven, and his finely cut mouth, with compressed lips, wore something of a sneering smile. His general expression was unpleasing, and from the first my brother felt as by intuition that there was present some malign and wicked influence. His eyes were not visible, as he kept them cast down, resting his head on his hand in the attitude of one listening. His face and even his dress were impressed ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... man, carrying in both hands a funny little flat-topped derby hat, and took his seat timidly at the bar of justice beside Mr. Tutt, who smiled down at him affectionately and put his arm about the threadbare shoulders as if to protect him from the evils of the world. They made a quaint and far from unpleasing picture, thought Bently Gibson, the ideal juror, and he wondered what the poor old devil ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... lips a golden whistle, and presently there stood in the cabin a slight man of not unpleasing countenance—blue eyes, brown hair, unfurrowed brow, and beneath a scant and silky beard a chin as softly rounded as a woman's.—His name and estate? Francis Sark, gentleman.—English? So born and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... newspapers, he died in 1867. He was a zealous collector of plants and animals, but apparently cared little for the study of his captures, either in life, in relation to their surroundings, like Darwin, or for the structure of their bodies, like Huxley. The somewhat unpleasing nature of his regard for animals appears in the following ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... dress, close widow's cap and straight grey hair, and have discovered that the outline of her face was absolutely beautiful, and I might possibly have detected, what most people failed to detect, that an odd unpleasing effect, caused by the contrast between her general style, and an occasional lightness and rapidity and grace of movement in her slender figure, came from the fact that she was much younger than she looked and affected to be. The impression I did receive of her appearance I communicated ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... which the good of the community does not require them to destroy. And though their notion of compensation to a tortured insect or a cankered flower may seem to some of us a very wild crotchet, yet, at least, is not a mischievous one; and it may furnish matter for no unpleasing reflection to think that within the abysses of earth, never lit by a ray from the material heavens, there should have penetrated so luminous a conviction of the ineffable goodness of the Creator—so fixed an idea that the general laws by which He acts cannot ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... we'll let the poor fellows know that we are at hand to help them," I exclaimed; and on this my men joined me in raising a right hearty cheer, which must have given the people on board no unpleasing notice of our approach. There was a pause, as if they were recovering from their surprise; and then it was answered by a shout so feeble, that it sounded more like the sighing of the wind among the crumbling walls of some old building, than a cheer of welcome. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... I'd love to," rejoiced the boy. And in the fascination of the marvel of finding one fantastic bit that fitted another, David apparently forgot all about Mr. Jack—which seemed not unpleasing to ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... and squeezing! 'twas almost unpleasing, A smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye; She was so very glad, that she seem'd half mad, And did not know whether to laugh or ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... quiet eyes, whose silent looks had more persuasion in them than all the innocent cajoleries of the elder man. Padre Doyaguez was a man eminently qualified to deal with the sex in general,—a coaxing voice, a pair of vivacious eyes, whose cunning was not unpleasing, tireless good-humor and perseverance, and a savor of sincerity. Padre Lluc was the sort of man that one recalls in quiet moments with a throb of sympathy,—the earnest eyes, the clear brow, the sonorous voice. One thinks of him, and hopes that he is satisfied,—that cruel longing and more cruel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... excellencies of collodion—that extreme minuteness of detail which from its excess becomes almost a defect at times,—toning it down by increase of size till the harshness is much diminished, and landscapes, always more or less unpleasing on collodion from that cause, are rendered ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... in meaning when we are quite familiar with them. Quotations are as often applied in a sense which the author did not intend as in that which he did. The parody of the words of Shakspere or of the Bible, which has in it something of the nature of a lie, is far from unpleasing to us. The better known words, even if their meaning be perverted, are more agreeable to us and have a greater power over us. Most of us have experienced a sort of delight and feeling of curiosity when we first came across or when we first used for ourselves a new word or ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... case also {kai touton} there was an unpleasing misfortune of the slaying of a child {paidophonos} which troubled him," i.e. he like others had misfortunes ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... which he is pleased to found our security. And if, after all, he should have discovered them to be so very sure, and so very easy, he might at least, to preserve consistency, have looked a few pages back, and (no unpleasing thing to him) listened to himself, where he says, "that the most successful enterprise could not compensate to the nation for the waste of its people, by carrying on war in unhealthy climates."[54] A position which he repeats again, p. 9. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... did not die—not just then, anyhow. He lived to learn to speak, and to talk, and to put out his tongue at visitors, let alone interrupting his parents with unpleasing remarks and telling lies. It was early observed that he did all these things with a je-ne-scais-quoy and a verve quite different from the manner of his little playmates. When one day he moulded out, flattened and unshaped the waxen nose of a doll of his, it was apparent ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... valid; for, in the reading the priest acts principally in the name of the Church, as her minister, and offers up prayers to God in her name, and they say that the irreverence of the servant does not render the prayer of the Church unpleasing to Him, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... quitting your service. This is a measure we ought both of us to desire. I shall then be, what it is my duty to be, master of my own actions. You will be delivered from the presence of a person, whom you cannot prevail upon yourself to behold without unpleasing emotions. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... yellow-haired girl in Philadelphia. He talked of her occasionally, but less and less. Out on the golf links near Passaic he met another girl, one of a group that flourished there. I met her. She was not unpleasing, a bit sensuous, rather attractive in dress and manners, not very well informed, but gay, clever, up-to-date; such a girl as would pass among other women as ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... her enemies, and was anxious, not without reason, to have some additional support in the family. Her influence, from this time, appears to have remained unshaken; though her extravagance and incurable habit of contracting debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between her and the most methodical ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... man,'" replied the other, with quiet indifference, in a gloomy but not unpleasing voice, and stepped back to allow ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... however, seemed each day to diminish. The favour with which the Count regarded him had lasted but during the first days of their acquaintance, and had since been materially impaired by the discovery of various unpleasing traits in Don Baltasar's character, and particularly by his endeavours to urge the death of Herrera in opposition to the wishes of his kinsman. Moreover, there could be little sympathy or durable friendship between men of such opposite qualities and dispositions. Count Villabuena ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Massetti's name the blush upon Zuleika's cheek deepened. She trembled slightly, but said nothing; her heart fluttered painfully, but the pain was not altogether disagreeable. The young Viscount was evidently not unpleasing to her. ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... jewel fastened in the knot. A soft hat, trimmed with gold lace and an ostrich-feather, covered his dark curls, while yellow gauntlets and high riding-boots of polished leather completed his outward attire. Not an unpleasing picture as he sat there in the sunshine astride the big blood-bay, but Constans, looking upon him, knew that neither now nor hereafter could there be any verity of peace between them. There is such a thing as hate at first sight even ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... in London and educated at Harrow and Caius College, Cambridge. His relations with Pope give him a more prominent position among men of letters than he would otherwise deserve, and mark with unpleasing distinctness the coarse methods of literary warfare adopted in Pope's day. The poet began the attack in his Essay on Criticism. Dennis had written a tragedy called Appius and Virginia, and Pope, who had a grudge against him for not admiring his ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... they debate, nor these nor those will yield, Aeneas draws his forces to the field, And moves his camp. The scouts with flying speed Return, and thro' the frighted city spread Th' unpleasing news, the Trojans are descried, In battle marching by the river side, And bending to the town. They take th' alarm: Some tremble, some are bold; all in confusion arm. Th' impetuous youth press forward ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and unpleasing by unfamiliarity? ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... to pass within any of them until they should be better known. At noon the observed latitude was 29 degrees 57 minutes 25 seconds south. The country still retained the same woody, hilly, and irregular, though not unpleasing, appearance; but in running along the shore it manifestly grew worse, having more tendency to sand. The small projections of land which appeared as they sailed along often presented the delusive appearance ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... brother had been on his first introduction to this palace of delight. George loved music much more than Harry ever did; he heard a full orchestra for the first time, and a piece of Mr. Handel satisfactorily performed; and a not unpleasing instance of Harry's humility and regard for his elder brother was, that he could even hold George's love of music in respect at a time when fiddling was voted effeminate and unmanly in England, and Britons ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or even reasonableness of design. It is interesting to notice that in the intermediate field of furniture-design some of the best French productions recall the style of Louis XV., modified by Japanese ideas and spirit. This singular but not unpleasing combination is less surprising when we reflect that the style of Louis XV. was itself a protest against the formalism of the heavy classic architecture of preceding reigns, and achieved its highest successes in the domain ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... generation, Scott (whose attitude to Fielding was rather undecided, and seems to speak a mixture of intellectual admiration and moral dislike, or at least failure in sympathy), pronounces it "on the whole unpleasing," and regards it chiefly as a sequel to Tom Jones, showing what is to be expected of a libertine and thoughtless husband. But he too is enthusiastic over the heroine. Thackeray (whom in this special connection at any rate it is scarcely too much to call the greatest man of the third generation) ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... ambition of our hero to be, like all public men, without fear and without reproach. He drank not, abstained from fleshly intercourse, and habitually spoke the truth. His face was thin, high cheek-boned, and not unpleasing, with one loose eyebrow over which he had no control; his eyes, bright and of hazel hue, looked his fellows in the face without seeing what was in it. Though his moustache was still dark, his thick waving hair was permanently ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and the widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to propagate their animadversions concerning the "mysterious stranger," ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... filibuster, Aaron Burr, famous for the duel in which he killed Alexander Hamilton, and now framing wild schemes for an empire in Mexico. Unscrupulous, restlessly active and cynical, he was a singular contrast to the placid philosopher, upon whom his confidences seem to have made an impression of not unpleasing horror. Burr's conversation suggested to Bentham a singular scheme for emigrating to Mexico. He applied seriously for introductions to Lord Holland, who had passed some time in Spain, and to Holland's friend, Jovellanos (1749-1812), a member of the Spanish ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... all these high-sounding titles was hunched up on his cushions in the State Pavilion. 'On State occasions, among which it is evident that he included this Quaker audience, he delighted to deck his unpleasing person in a vest of cloth of gold, lined with sable of the richest contrasting blackness. Around him were ranged the servants of the Seraglio—the highest rank of lacqueys standing nearest the royal person, the "Paicks" in their embroidered coats and caps ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... dearest dread; Though to the sword I bow this hoary head, Or if a dungeon be the pain decreed, I own me conscious of the unpleasing deed; Auxiliar to his flight, my aid implored, With wine and viands I the vessel stored; A solemn oath, imposed, the secret seal'd, Till the twelfth dawn the light of day reveal'd. Dreading the effect of a fond mother's fear, He dared not violate your royal ear. But ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... she had no husband Jesus revealed to her His superhuman powers of discernment, by telling her she had spoken truthfully, inasmuch as she had had five husbands, while the man with whom she was then living was not her husband. Surely no ordinary being could have so read the unpleasing story of her life; she impulsively confessed her conviction, saying: "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." She desired to turn the conversation, and, pointing to Mount Gerizim, upon which the sacrilegious priest Manasseh ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... solitude, and for aught I knew, exposed to hidden dangers, it appeared to me scarcely less objectionable than the former proposition; and yet I feared that with one or other I must comply, unless I was prepared to come to an actual breach with Lord Glenfallen; full of these unpleasing doubts and perplexities, I retired to rest. I was wakened, after having slept uneasily for some hours, by some person shaking me rudely by the shoulder; a small lamp burned in my room, and by its light, to my horror and amazement, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... being myself owner by hire and supercargo of the same. The first object of my note is to assure you of my existence, as your letter which was forwarded after me to Danzig seemed to imply uncertainty on that point, and moreover expressed a strange solicitude as to my well-being which was by no means unpleasing to me; then to request you to perform several small commissions ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... more eminent than they, had it not been that in 1751, two years after her death, all her papers were placed in the hands of an ingenious clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Birch, who printed them for subscribers in two thick and singularly unpleasing volumes. This private edition was never reissued, and is now itself a rare book. It is the sort of book that for two hundred and fifty years must fatally have been destroyed as lumber whenever an old country mansion that contained it ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... four notes only, and all the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars, the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint twitter—also ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... of the man he had really come to see, Carroll was conscious of an instinctive dislike. Lawrence was of medium height, slightly stooped and not unpleasing to the eye. But his brows were inclined to lower and the eyes themselves were set too closely together. He was dressed plainly—almost harshly, and he stared at Carroll in a manner bordering ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... in no unpleasing suspense, when, in the twilight of an October evening, two men of rather suspicious appearance might have been seen climbing the paling fence at the back of "The Shrubbery." Scarcely had one of them reached the top, when a third person approached, at first hastily; then he suddenly ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... it seemed, was insensible to pain; tears were rolling down his face upon the dead horse. So one drop fills not, but overflows the cup. "Thou wilt never more bear me like down upon the wind," he said, "nor hear behind thee from the dust-cloud of the race, the shouts, unpleasing to the rival, the acclamations of the people: in the blaze of battle no more shalt thou carry me from the iron rain of the Russian cannon. With thee I gained the fame of a warrior—why should I survive, or it, or thee?" He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... ceremonials, and to our diplomatic officials upon the termination of their missions, or upon occasions of rejoicing, jubilees of sovereigns, etc. While the practice of exchanging such graceful souvenirs is not unpleasing among the nations which recognize and reciprocate the courtesy, it is entirely inappropriate that officials of this Government should accept, or desire to ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... of gentle folk Who dwell in Chiswick, well content In houses aged as the oak, But not unpleasing at the rent; They look across the sunny stream As Dr. JOHNSON used to look, And all their lives are one long dream, Though none of them has got a cook, And there are whispers in the camp, "It's jolly, but it is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... the business of building the house was begun. It stands high on a hill, away from the centre of Bayreuth—a great structure of red brick and timber, not an imposing piece of architecture by any means, yet not unpleasing to the eye. Inside every seat is arranged so to afford a perfect view of the stage, and the orchestra is in a pit, so as to be unseen, although the singers, wherever they may be placed, can see the conductor. ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... best gown was not new nor expensive, and her jewels were conspicuous by their absence, the picture she made as she stood before the mirror giving the last touches to her hair was distinctly not an unpleasing one. Maggie, the maid, who entered the room to announce a caller, ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... canopy, but I could not see what it was. It was being fanned vigorously by several men and was no doubt very holy. A large number of men (Mahometans) followed, shouting loudly when the bells were rung, and some of them chanted a slow but not unpleasing melody. They were praying for rain which is rare in this country, and which is now required for the crops. My boy returned bringing with him to my joy a fore quarter of mutton. Stopped at Shukuroodeen for the evening, the wind being too strong to proceed. ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... stabbed skyward and the pass they followed wound this way and that and he knew that it was a very roundabout way indeed. And he had unpleasing prospects to make it seem less satisfying, even, than it would have ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... day he had been secretly dreading to-night, shrinking like a coward from a situation which must arouse in his son memories better forgotten. He was not a man given to shirking unpleasing experiences to save his own heart a pang, but he was a veritable child in the way that he studied to preserve his eldest son ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse involved ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... faint yet, as if too remote to be reflected in the lagoon. Only to the west a setting planet shone through the red fog of the sunset glow. "It was supposed not to be good for me to have much freedom of action. So at least I was told. But I have a suspicion that it was only unpleasing ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... brother to watch me during the performance, make the most diligent search after my books, and destroy them without mercy, when they were found; but he could not outroot my darling propensity. I exerted all my powers to elude his watchfulness. Censures and stripes were sufficiently unpleasing to make me strive to avoid them. To effect this desirable end, I was incessantly employed in the invention of stratagems and ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... upon the shore," he says, "I heard what appeared to be wind instruments, the tones now harmonious, now discordant, yet never unpleasing. These harmonious and distinct sounds appeared to come from a distance, and I imagined the natives were making music some six or seven miles beyond the roadstead. But my ear deceived me, for I found that I was not a hundred yards from the instrument. A bamboo cane, at least sixty feet ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... glorious to be true. All difficulties and dangers seemed to melt away in a sort of warm haze of rapture. Mrs. Petherick no longer opposed the marriage; Mr. Barradine, at the zenith of political power, exerted his influence; the postmastership was obtained. To top up, Dale made the not unpleasing discovery that Mavis was an heiress as well as an orphan. She had two hundred pounds of her very own, "which came in ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... have frequently mentioned Grotius, the short account of so great a man, which is inserted in Langbaine, will not be unpleasing to the reader. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine reflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushed face against her own, she must present a not unpleasing image of young motherhood. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... almost day and night to effect that object. I lent a hand, and in sailor fashion erected a pulpit, which, as there was no time to carve, I covered with matting and native cloth, which had a novel, though not unpleasing, appearance. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... the examination of those more important mythical legends which appropriately belong to the Master's degree, it will not, I think, be unpleasing or uninstructive to consider the only one which is attached to the Fellow Craft's degree—that, namely, which refers to the allegorical ascent of the Winding Stairs to the Middle Chamber, and the symbolic payment of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... of Craven has no part in any holiday-making portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... amiable; the selfishness may soften and eager restless activity find a definite direction for itself. And therefore, as a mother, Charlotte was able to endure the appearance of symptoms which for others might perhaps have been unpleasing, from a sense that where strangers only desire to enjoy, or at least not to have their taste offended, the business of parents is rather ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Incident light, exhibited a number of small, but very vivid reflections; and having made use of my Microscope, I could perceive the whole surface of that cavity to be all beset with a multitude of little Crystaline or Adamantine bodies, so curiously shap'd, that it afforded a not unpleasing object. ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... phrase, to "aspire towards the condition of music." The trained eye, and not an arithmetical formula, determines what is, and what is not, beautiful proportion. Nevertheless the fact that the eye instinctively rejects certain proportions as unpleasing, and accepts others as satisfactory, is an indication of the existence of laws of space, based upon number, not unlike those which govern musical harmony. The secret of the deep reasonableness of such selection by the senses lies hidden ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... though it had been combed and curled at a hairdresser's, did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his wedding-day. If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in his rather good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov smiled malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... into the thing, foreseeing dire disaster for himself, for he knew little and cared less about matters political, though he was ready enough at a pinch to place his ignorance at his friend's disposal. So he had been set to the dreary work of committee-rooms; and then, since his manners were not unpleasing, dispatched as aide-de-camp to any chance orator who enlivened the county. But at last a crisis arrived in which other use was made of him. A speaker of some pretensions had been announced for a certain night at the considerable village of Allerfoot. The great man failed, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Stephen, as he put it into the carriage at Mercy's feet, "what sort of women are these I've taken under my roof! I expect they'll be very unpleasing sights to my eyes. I did hope she'd be good-looking." How many times in after years did Stephen recall with laughter his first impressions of Mercy Philbrick, and wonder how he could have argued so unhesitatingly that a woman who travelled with only one small valise could ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... greatly exceeded his genius, which was cold and enervate; though he yielded to none in the character of an essayist, either for style or matter—Swift, whose muse seems to have been mere misanthropy; he was a cynic rather than a poet, and his natural dryness and sarcastic severity would have been unpleasing, had not he qualified them, by adopting the extravagant humour of Lueian and Rabelais—Prior, lively, familiar, and amusing—Rowe, solemn, florid, and declamatory—Pope, the prince of lyric poetry; unrivalled in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... between the two houses was thickly built up and perfectly safe. The evening glow was almost gone, the stars faintly gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must manage it as ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... or of their methods. It is we who will, by a cautious eclecticism, choose out for you such of their conclusions as are safe for you; and them we will advise you to believe. To the scientific man, on the other hand, as often as anything is discovered unpleasing to them, they will say, imperiously and e cathedra—Your new theory contradicts the established facts of science. For they will know well that whatever the men of science think of their assertion, the masses will believe it; totally ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, nor too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered, as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more than make a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so truly learned, that he affects not to show it. He will think and speak his thought both freely; but as ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... daily strengthened ourselves in our aversion from him. He could never have done with degrading religion and the sacred books for the sake of injuring priestcraft, as he called it; and thus produced in me many an unpleasing sensation. But when I now learned, that to weaken the tradition of a Deluge, he had denied all petrified shells, and only admitted them as lusus naturae, he entirely lost my confidence; for my own eyes had on the Baschberg plainly enough shown me that I stood on the bottom of ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... only companions being a nest of wasps. In the unrelieved darkness of the night I slept there alone. Sometimes a wasp or two would drop off the nest on to my bed, and if perchance I happened to roll on one, the meeting was unpleasing to the wasp and keenly discomforting ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... impregnable; and the Venetian pilots represented, that, on the shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was unsafe, and the ships must be driven by the current far away to the straits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant pilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants, and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his scarlet ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife to-morrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that there is nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-morrow I shall ardently wish for a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of his brother-drivers were borne with smiling equanimity, not to say pride; for Sam was well aware that Mrs. Dolly Page's brunette beauty, and his blonde-bearded style, together furnished a not unpleasing tableau of personal charms. Besides, Sam's motto was, "Let those laugh who win;" and he seemed to himself to be on the road to heights of happiness beyond the ken of ordinary mortals—especially ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... child, however, had been long a subject of anxiety to her; and though she had determined to do so, the thought of him had affected her mind still more keenly. She had hitherto rarely visited the Court, where he was residing; for her visits might be unpleasing to the feelings of her rival, the other ex-Empress, ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... off her dainty ball attire,—released her bright hair from the pins that held it bound in rippling waves about her shapely head, and slipping on a loose white wrapper sat down to think. She had to realise the unpleasing fact that against her own wish and will she had become involved in mysteries,— secrets which she dared not, for the sake of others, betray. Her parentage could not be divulged, because her father was Pierce Armitage, the worshipped memory of Miss Leigh's heart,—while her mother, Lady Blythe, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... feeling of there being something unpleasing about him soon left me. He rose, and, with graciousness and the ease and manner of one used to the best society, moved around the table ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... diameter. The angles are not so prominent, which gives the cylinders a roundish appearance. They form a pretty, rather picturesque feature in the otherwise barren undergrowth of shrubbery and small trees. Accompanied by a few flowering cocoa palms, the view is not unpleasing. The fiber of these plants is utilized in some coarse manufactures. The maguey, or Agave, is used in the manufacture of fine roping. Manila hemp is made from a species. The species whose dried stalks are used by the woodpeckers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... which religious subjects were treated in contrapuntal fashion. The madrigal differed from this only in dealing with secular subjects. That these old madrigals, with their flowing parts and melodic imitations, are not unpleasing to modern ears, has been often proven. Their progressions are at times strange to us, but on repeated hearing often become imbued with ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... What a difference it would make in the aspect of the country if these green hedgerows were in general use! It would take from the savage barrenness given to it by these crooked wooden lines, that cross and recross the country in all directions: no object can be less picturesque or more unpleasing to the eye. A new clearing reminds one of a large turnip field, divided by hurdles into different compartments for the feeding of sheep and cattle. Often, for miles on a stretch, there is scarcely a tree or bush to relieve the blank monotony of these ugly, uncouth ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of our night animals are guttural and unpleasing. The 'possum has a throaty half-stifled squeak, the native cat a deep chest-note ending with a hiss and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... "Aye,—death is an unpleasing suggestion!" suddenly said Zabastes, who had gradually moved up nearer and nearer till he made one of the group immediately round Sah-luma—"'Tis a word that should never be mentioned in the presence of Kings! Yet, . . notwithstanding ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... but not unpleasing voice of Malcolm Melvin began the reading of the stipulations in the contract to the three persons who were seated before him around the table in the lawyer's private office. The time was Monday morning, shortly after ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... the proof sheets of my discourse on the Inequality of Mankind, which I had procured to be printed in Holland, by the bookseller Rey, with whom I had just become acquainted at Geneva. This work was dedicated to the republic; but as the publication might be unpleasing to the council, I wished to wait until it had taken its effect at Geneva before I returned thither. This effect was not favorable to me; and the dedication, which the most pure patriotism had dictated, created me enemies in the council, and inspired even many of the burgesses with jealousy. M. Chouet, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... beings is the most utterly obvious when our working day is past. Mental decay and bodily corruption as the ultimate. And, this side of it, a few years of increasing degradation, a mere senseless killing of time until the very unpleasing goal is reached—along with a growing selfishness, and narrowness of outlook; along, possibly, with some development of senile sensuality, the more detestable because it lacks the provocations of hot blood. Oh! Dominic ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... up part of the floor of the cabin, and patched up a sort of tray with rope-yarns, to paddle on shore to get a little water to preserve their lives. When their patience was almost exhausted, the boat returned, but instead of provisions, brought the unpleasing information, that the lieutenant, one Kennedy, had run ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... the inhabitants, and contemplated the public works, of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting, however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently bestowed on Rome ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... easily happen that if the wife of the spring captures any prey, her former mate will struggle fiercely for its possession, and the screaming clamor of the fight will rival a conjugal quarrel in the Bowery. In this respect they form an unpleasing contrast with the red-shouldered hawks, among whom marriage is permanent, and maintained with lover-like attentions. Thus it would appear that there are contrasts of character even in the hawk world; and when you remember that we have fifteen other varieties of ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... unpleasing trait in the Boer character is his callousness, amounting to brutality, in the case of natives and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... or less, scattered through the class last mentioned; yet even from the small number of the latter, they would have deemed them but an inconsiderable subtraction from the merit of the whole work; or, what is sometimes not unpleasing in the publication of a new writer, as serving to ascertain the natural tendency, and consequently the proper direction of the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... gloveless, and high boots spattered with mud and soaked with half-molten snow. There was more of the brigand in his aspect than of the honest man, and yet his drawn, agitated face was well featured and not unpleasing, besides which his wandering eyes suggested fear suffered, and not a likelihood of inspiring fear; unless it should be, as the doctor surmised, that he was mad, and the pursuit he evidently feared were ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... and as its owner, with an absent air, slowly passed from the bright sunlight into the shade of the arch, it struck the astute George that there was something familiar about this particular and by no means unpleasing shadow. Waiting till it had vanished and the footsteps gone past him, he turned round and at a glance recognized Hilda von Holtzhausen, Miss Lee's beautiful companion, who was supposed to have departed into the more distant parts of Germany. George's eyes twinkled, and a whole host of ideas ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... of thought which calls itself "pragmatism" and which also finds in personality its starting-point and centre? The philosophy of the complex vision seems to detect in the pragmatic attitude something which is profoundly unpleasing to its taste. Its own view of the art of life is that it is before everything else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help discerning in "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell-mell and "hand-to-mouth." ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... man will put his best into any task which he does not undertake in such a spirit. It is a very plain piece of homely wisdom that 'what is worth doing at all is worth doing well.' Without a lavish expenditure of the utmost care and effort, our work will tend to be slovenly and unpleasing to God, and man, and to ourselves. We may be sure there were no blots and bits of careless writing in Tertius' manuscript, and that he would not have claimed the friendly feelings of his Roman brethren, if he had not felt that he had put his best into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the poems on which much praise has been bestowed, is "Lycidas"; of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seek in the sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as the effusion of real passion; for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... is religion which breaks the monotony of female life, and collects within the temples, on the various festivals, an array of painted faces and embroidered skirts that present, even to the European eye, a not unpleasing spectacle. ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... servants, my estates better than any steward. She has all the dignity of virtue; she holds herself as erect as a confidante on the stage of the Francais; nothing will persuade me that she has not been impaled and the shaft broken off in her body. Miss Stevens is, however, fair enough to be not too unpleasing if I must positively marry her. But—and this to me is truly pathetic—she has the hands of a woman as immaculate as the sacred ark; they are so red that I have not yet hit on any way to whiten them that ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... of some celebrity, predicted the fortunes of Tasmania. The picture he drew, is no unpleasing prospect for posterity:— ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... everywhere, could not be induced to lend an ear to this story. Le Guast, finding himself foiled in this quarter, applied to the King, who was well inclined to listen to the tale, on account of his dislike to my brother and me, whose friendship for each other was unpleasing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the whole, is not unpleasing, and it has none of the harsh Chinese sounds. The natives have a remarkable facility in imitating our sounds, and they in general speak in a ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... Delgrado,—he could acknowledge that now without the twinge of conscience that had always accompanied the unpleasing thought in the past,—yet, despite the gulf already yawning wide between them, his soul revolted against the notion of laying a ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... dear," said he, "how imprudently I should have acted, had I followed your advice, and cut down this tree. Daily experience convinces us, that the same thing happens frequently in the commerce of this world, which has in this instance misled you. When we see a child badly clothed, and of an unpleasing external appearance, we are too apt to despise him, and grow conceited on comparing ourselves with him; and sometimes even go so far as cruelly to address him in haughty and insulting language. But beware, my dear boy, how you run into errors by forming ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... acquaintance it appears to be surrounded by redoubts or forts, being dotted with mounds of greyish slag, technically called "tailings," which represent the refuse soil from which the diamondiferous ore has been extracted. The buildings are somewhat formal and unpleasing, being for the most part of corrugated iron, and conveying the impression that they are constructed with a view to being carried off at any moment. There are a few private residences, which the orthodox house-agent might style "handsome" or "commodious." The hotel is merely useful as a place for ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Dr P. roll up the pulpit stairs, the figure of Parson Trulliber, recorded by Mr Fielding occur'd to her mind & she was really sorry a congregational divine, should, by any instance whatever, give her so unpleasing an idea. ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow |
