"Unseemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words passing, people pushing and squeezing together in an unseemly manner, round a window in the corner of the ballroom, close by the door through which the Chevalier Strong shouldered his way. Through the opened window, the crowd in the street below was sending up sarcastic remarks, such as "Pitch into him!" "Where's the police?" and the like; and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... free, deeming anything so ugly well worthy of life, if such could find sustenance among his fellows and win a mate for himself somewhere in this world. But he, for all his hideousness and unseemly mien, is not the vampire; the blood-sucking bat has won a mantle of deceit from the hands of Nature—a garb that gives him a modest and not unpleasing appearance, and makes it a difficult matter to distinguish him from his guileless ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... they posed and puzzled me grievously, for they were blotted and scrawled in many places, as if somebody had put him out. These likewise I thought fit, after long consideration, to write better, and preserve, great as the loss of time is when men of business take in hand such unseemly matters. However, they are decenter than most, and not without their moral; ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... struck the fanatic on the forearm, and instead of boring through, had knocked out a clean wedge of flesh, half an inch thick and three inches deep, just as you would chip out a piece of wood from a plank. There was nothing unseemly in it all, death had come so suddenly. The blows had been so tremendous, and death so instantaneous, that there had been ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Lynch that he was conducting himself with unseemly levity in company with a foremast hand. His face became stern, his voice hard, and my moment of grace ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... rust can corrupt; their "plantation" was to the glory of God, not to the imbursement of man. Nor were they anxious to impose their will upon the emigrants, or solicitous lest the latter should act unseemly; for the men who were there were of the same character and aim as those who were in England, and there could be no differences between them beyond such as might legitimately arise as to the most expedient way of reaching a given end. But the Company could ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... regard to her costume, and strive carefully to follow it, for all men desire to have their taste and wishes on such apparent trifles gratified. She should at the same time observe much delicacy in regard to dress, and be careful to avoid any unseemly display of her charms: lovers are naturally jealous of observation under such circumstances. It is a mistake not seldom made by women, to suppose their suitors will be pleased by the glowing admiration expressed by other men for the object of their passion. Most lovers, on the contrary, we ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... forces Python to recognize His ministers, and baptizes by the hand of the misbeliever. He is with the heathen dramatist in his denunciations of injustice and tyranny, and his auguries of divine vengeance upon crime. Even on the unseemly legends of a popular mythology He casts His shadow, and is dimly discerned in the ode or the epic, as in troubled water or in fantastic dreams. All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... be no unseemly rage this time. In dignified silence Cheon received the marrow—a sinuous yellow insult, and as the homestead waited he raised it above his head, and stalking majestically from us towards the finished part of the fence, flung it from him in contemptuous scorn, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... think!" roared the Boy. "O Lord! you don't know my father!" and he fairly curled himself up in convulsions of silent laughter, which the Tenor thought unseemly considering the subject of it, but he said no more. He knew that there was nothing to be done with such a boy but to wait and hope; and that was the attitude into which the Tenor found himself most prone to fall in these days with regard to things in general; being greatly ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the whole, behaved with discretion. She received the good news languidly and showed no unseemly haste to profit by it. But it was as hard to hide the light in her eyes as to dissemble the fact that she had not only thought out every detail of the trip in advance, but had decided exactly how her husband and son were to be disposed of in her absence. Her suggestion that ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... "level-raising" with the unhappy and remonstrant man. The music halls in London are now under strict supervision, and some of them used to need it very much in days gone by. Personally I should suppress the male comic singer who tries to win a laugh from degraded listeners by unseemly means, and I should not scruple to draft a short Act ensuring imprisonment for such as he; but, so long as the entertainment remains inoffensive to the general good sense of the community, we need not weep greatly if it is sometimes just a trifle stupid. No one who does ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... in the forest felling timber, My wife came running out in mortal fear. "The Seneschal," she said, "was in my house, Had order'd her to get a bath prepared, And thereupon had ta'en unseemly freedoms, From which she rid herself, and flew to me." Arm'd as I was, I sought him, and my axe Has given his bath ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... out with thinking and weeping, I drew a large easy chair up to the door and sat there as guard, listening, with the hope which moment after moment grew fainter, that he would return and whisper in my willing ear a sweet demand for pardon, some word in extenuation for his unseemly conduct; ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... wrote: 'Love suffereth long and is kind, love envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil, rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth in the truth.... Love never faileth.' If this be a standard by which to judge the love of men, how much more ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... was considerably above the medium height, and added to the sense of grandeur conveyed by her presence. Her carriage was erect to the verge of stiffness, and her step too firm to be quite soundless. Advancing years had not produced any unseemly embonpoint, nor had her figure fallen into the opposite extreme, and sharpened into meagre angularity; its outline retained sufficient roundness not to ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... goodness, yes! Always was—confound it!— An unsavoury mess, Foulness reeking round it. Resurrection pie Not in it for nastiness. Dished-up—who knows why?— With unseemly hastiness. Of the chef's poor skill, Feeblest of expedients. Sure we've had our fill Of its stale ingredients. Toujours perdrix? Pooh! That is scarce delightful; Toujours Irish Stew Very much more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... be in bed by midnight, and the light must be out," went on the teacher. "This unseemly revel must cease!" And then he walked on, to stop the noise coming ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... which we have not yet attained. The loftiest roofs of an American town are, invariably, its taverns; and, let metaphysics get over the matter as it may, I shall contend that such a thing is, at least, unseemly to the eye. With us it is not Gog and Magog, but grog or no grog; we are either a tame plane of roofs, or a pyramid in honour of brandy and mint-juleps. When it comes to the worship of God, each man appears to wish a nut-shell to contain himself and his own shades of opinion; ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... violent in controversy, irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power, but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and "Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner grocery" ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... should be something to that effect in the political platforms. A goose saved Rome; why should not a rooster rescue America? Let the patriot who curses the noisy bird which crows him from his drowsy couch at an unseemly hour think of these things and allay his wrath with reflections upon the well-deserved glories ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... it to say that my songs, and perhaps my appearance—for I cannot be accused of vanity now in saying nature had been bountiful to me—won my way to her heart. Troubadours were licensed folk, and even in her father's presence there was naught unseemly in my singing songs of love. While he took them as the mere compliments of a troubadour, the lady, I saw, read them as serious ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... in that unfortunate inebriate whom I sentenced to confinement in the gaol yesterday. The Court, while sensible of the imperative necessity of protecting itself from all unseemly disorder and preserving its dignity undiminished, nevertheless always leans to the side of mercy. The Court trusts that a night's incarceration may have sufficiently sobered and chastened the poor creature. The Court will therefore give him a brief admonition ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... the hands or feet, nor catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humor and spasm. Therefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise, or of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness, or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings or from the dry spasm, ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... all egotism; in conversation stick closely to Cardinal Wolsey's direction to "love thyself last." It is, to say the least of it, unseemly for a man to be constantly making himself the subject of conversation. At times it lays a man open to the attacks which his style certainly invites—as was the case with the egotist who dared to talk much of himself in the presence of Dr. Johnson, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... more remarkable, the rude manner in which she was reared only served to reveal that she must have sprung from something better than the Gitano stock; for she was extremely pleasing and courteous in conversation, and lively though she was, yet in no wise did she display the least unseemly levity; on the contrary, amidst all her sprightliness, there was at the same time so much genuine decorum in her manner, that in the presence of Preciosa no gitana, old or young, ever dared to sing lascivious songs, or ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... unsatisfactory to live out of your own age and to work for other times. It is equally incumbent on us to be good members of our own age as of our own state or country. If it is conceived to be unseemly and even unlawful for a man to segregate himself from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, it would be inconsistent not to see that it is equally his duty to grant a proper share of influence to the voice of his own epoch, to ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... man with a wife and six children: let him be obliged always to exhibit himself when outside his own door in a suit of black broadcloth, such as will not undermine the foundations of the Establishment by a paltry plebeian glossiness or an unseemly whiteness at the edges; in a snowy cravat, which is a serious investment of labour in the hemming, starching, and ironing departments; and in a hat which shows no symptom of taking to the hideous doctrine of expediency, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... yet is there scarcely one in which conscience does not walk in and out boldly, or steal in cautiously, though she may not always have room to move her arms about her, and assert her presence. Yet even when circumscribed by narrowness, and immured in all unseemly things, will she patiently watch her time for some appropriate touch, or some quiet sound of her voice. Her most difficult scene of action, however, is in the bosom of pretension; for there the trumpet of self-praise ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... used to be comfortably drowsy after the day of sea-air, were now a long stretch of boredom, from which she went up early to bed, knowing that she would not sleep. The band played on the parade every evening, but Joanna considered that it would be unseemly for her to go out alone in Marlingate after dark. Though she would have walked out on the Brodnyx road at midnight without putting the slightest strain on either her courage or her decorum, the well-lighted streets of a town became to her vaguely dangerous and indecorous after dusk had fallen. "It ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... I believe artists are already giving up the worst of vehicles, the meguilp, made of mastic, of all the varnishes the most ready to decompose, as well as to separate the paint, and produce those unseemly gashes which have been the ruin of so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... silly. It's a sweet name, and it answers to it—when it wants to. Then, if there are any unseemly noises in the night, they can be explained succinctly: ...
— Reginald • Saki
... to his unceremonious bearers, as they were about to transport him to the place designated by their Captain; "I have one word yet to say. Honest and loyal Rebel, though I do not accept your service, neither do I refuse it in an unseemly and irreverent manner. It is a sore temptation, and I feel it at my fingers' ends. But a covenant may be made between us, by which neither party shall be a loser, and in which the law shall find no grounds of displeasure. I would wish, mighty Commodore, to carry ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Peter, and now we are Christians again. Listen—I think that none of them understand English. I have seen Inez, who asked after you very tenderly—nay, do not blush, it is unseemly in a man. Have you seen her also? No—well, she escaped from Granada as she planned, and Betty is married to ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... nothing? What is it which these witness against Thee?" He affected to believe that it was something of enormity that had been alleged; but it was really because he knew that nothing could be founded on it that he gave way to such unseemly excitement. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... his old weather-stained coat, from which all the buttons had been clipped by the fair hands of patriotic ladies, and which, from exposure to sun, rain, and powder-smoke, and by reason of many rents and patches, was in a very unseemly condition. When I had dispatched more important matters, I produced General Stuart's present in all its magnificence of gilt buttons and sheeny facings and gold lace, and I was heartily amused at the modest confusion with which the hero of many battles regarded the fine uniform, scarcely daring to ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... you haf never heard me svear?' And then a round oath, smothered in a hasty fit of coughing. And once he had cut off part of the skirt of his Sunday coat, taking it in his blindness for an old one, to clean his palette with; and it was thought, by the boys, that it was the unseemly result of this rash act, as disclosed at church the following Sunday morning, which had led to ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... planted. (Though in the Book we read One woman bore a child with no man's aid, We find no record of a man-child born Without the aid of woman! Fatherhood Is but a small achievement at the best, While motherhood is heaven and hell.) This ever-growing argument of sex Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense. Why waste more time in controversy, when There is not time enough for all of love, Our rightful occupation in this life? Why prate of our defects—of where we fail, When just the story of our worth would need Eternity for ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... the king; 'put out his eyes; those eyes which look with unseemly boldness at his uncle and ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... a very good instance of an unseemly matter neatly wrapped up. The good men recoiled from the ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... were not disfigured by any scars, neither were their countenances by the loss of any teeth, nor were they circumcised. They were a well-made race, with a sufficiency of muscular development, and stood as erect as it was possible to do, without the unseemly protrusion of stomach, so common among the generality of natives. Of sixty-nine who I counted round me at one time, I do not think there was one under my own height, 5 feet 10 3/4 inches, but there were ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... natural that Voltaire should come in for his share of slander. All Mr. Watkinson can see in him is that he wrote "an unseemly poem," by which we presume he means La Pucelle. But he ought to know that the grosser parts of that poem were added by later hands, as may be seen at a glance in any variorum edition. In any case, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... beneath the waters; and yet others that she was the Night, for that Night is the shadow of Earth: as if, forsooth, the men who first worshipped Hera had understanding of these things! And when Hera and Zeus quarrel unseemly (as Homer declareth), this meant (said the learned in thy days) no more than the strife and confusion of the elements, and was not in the ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... This unseemly, and most emphatic, demand came always from a distance, and apparently from the top of some tall tree, and it proved to be most tantalizing; for although the first note invariably brought me out, opera-glass in ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... free from the results of the tighter and closer ones of the West, were laid aside for the dress of Europe. The only part of the garb which we use, that he did not assume and compel his people to accept, was the unseemly and uncomfortable hat, and this he would also have taken, had religion not interposed to prevent it. Of all parts of the Christian's costume, the hat is the most calculated to inspire disgust in the sight of the native of the Orient, and if ever he adopts it, it is because ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is a singular manifestation of Christ's unique power. How did it come that all these sordid hucksters had not a word to say, and did not lift a finger in opposition, or that the Temple Guard offered no resistance, and did not try to quell the unseemly disturbance, or that the very officials, when they came to reckon with Him, had nothing harsher to say than, 'What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things'? No miracle is needed to explain that singular acquiescence. We see in lower forms many instances of a similar ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... way," said Pandulfo, "I had almost forgot to tell thee, that the crowd would have poured themselves hither, so impatient were they to see thee; but I bade Cecco del Vecchio mount the rostrum, and tell them, in his blunt way, that it would be unseemly at the present time, when thou wert engaged in the Capitol on civil and holy affairs, to rush in so great a body into thy ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rather than live with me at Pisa as my wife? Why, when he is tired of thee, he will cast thee out to thy most grievous dishonour. I will ever cherish thee, and ever, will I nill I, thou wilt be the mistress of my house. Wouldst thou, to gratify this unbridled and unseemly passion, part at once with thy honour and with me, who love thee more dearly than my very life? Ah! cherished hope of me, say not so again: make up thy mind to come with me. As I now know thy bent, I will henceforth ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... starched prude, or some lady interested in the bride's trousseau, exclaim against such unseemly haste? We have but one excuse for them. They were so unfashionable as to prefer the gratification of a true affection to the ceremonies so dear to vanity, and to think more of the earnest claims of life than of ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... somewhat of a scholar, and that Captain Night had taught me something besides stealing the King's Deer. There was a Bible on Board, which the Skipper never read,—and read, indeed, he was scarcely able to do,—but which he turned to the unseemly use, when he had been over-cruel to his crew, of swearing them upon it, that they would not inform against him when they got into port. For this was an odd medley of a man, and had his moments of Remorse for evil-doing, or else of Fear as to what might be the Consequences when he reached a Land ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to the words of Marie. When the minstrel tells his tale, let the folk about the fire heed him willingly. For his part the singer must be wary not to spoil good music with unseemly words. Listen, oh lordlings, to the words of Marie, for she pains herself grievously not to forget this thing. The craft is hard—then approve the more sweetly him who carols the tune. But this is the way of the world, that when a man or woman sings more tunably than his fellows, ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... that is good and lovely in the Catholic faith; and whatever liberties he might have allowed himself in professed extravaganzas, when an age without Church-authority encouraged them, and a reverend canon could take part in those (it must be acknowledged) unseemly "high jinks," he never, in the Morgante, when speaking in his own person, and not in that of the worst characters, intimates disrespect towards any opinion which he did not hold to be irrelevant to a right faith. It is observable that his freest expressions are put in the mouth of the giant ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... inappropriate, unfit &c. (inconsonant) 24. ill-contrived, ill-advised; unsatisfactory; unprofitable &c., unsubservient &c. (useless) 645; inopportune &c. (unseasonable) 135; out of place, in the wrong place; improper, unseemly. clumsy, awkward; cumbrous, cumbersome; lumbering, unwieldy, hulky[obs3]; unmanageable &c. (impracticable) 704; impedient &c. (in the way) 706[obs3]. unnecessary &c. (redundant) 641. Phr. it ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... drinking by those who are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are mute—you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And thus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor will you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... billiard room, trying to forget the unseemly tragedy that has marred the tranquil tenor of our lives here," replied Harrigan, winking at ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... the gallery into the room to the right. There stood a cradle with an infant in it—a red, ribald, unintelligible, babbling, beautiful infant, sputtering at life in an unseemly manner. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel; and also to snub his stove, and his military inspirations, his unseemly endeavor to make himself conspicuous when he entered Philadelphia, and his flying his kite and fooling away his time in all sorts of such ways when he ought to have been foraging for soap-fat, or constructing candles. I merely desired ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... indifference blest, Callous to all on earth become— Is the world to him sealed and dumb? The same unmoved oblivion On us beyond the grave attends, The voice of lovers, foes and friends, Dies suddenly: of heirs alone Remains on earth the unseemly rage, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... favourably received, a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and unnatural rags in which he has hitherto been ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... unanimously acquitted." The unanimity, I confess, was not such as I would have desired; but all agreed the youngster had pluck, and would soon make as good a fighter as any of them. With a forced laugh, which on some faces ill concealed their hatred, while others made an unseemly attempt at coarse wit, they adjourned, voting themselves a drink at my expense, which I must perforce pay, as they had generously acquitted me! I confess to an amiable wish that the dollar I laid on the ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... supervision for tournaments and meets in which teams from the different churches have participated. To direct these contests properly has been no small tax upon the officials, for the insatiable desire for victory has in some cases not only introduced unseemly and ugly features into the contests but has temporarily lowered the moral standard of ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... Peggy's wake, Tzaritza sniffing inquiringly at the saddle, Roy pranking thither and yonder, rich just in the joy of being alive. Shashai had never quite overcome his jealousy of his young half-brother, and now laid back his ears in reproof of his unseemly gambols; Shashai's own babyhood was not far enough in the background for him to ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... an old black cassock and a much soiled and slightly torn surplice. The unseemly appearance of this dirty garment was heightened by the circumstance that he had not taken the trouble to adjust it properly. It hung all lop-sided, showing about six inches more of the black cassock underneath one side than the other. However, perhaps ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... first of April. Can I be going to die to-morrow? That would be really too unseemly. It's just right for ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... it is not the crystal that is wanted, but the unshapely boulder. And provided you wield your weapons after a masterly fashion, it matters very little what your manner or style may be as regards the graces of composition; if only a giant, you may be the most unseemly and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... it is, Mr. Beltham, that acknowledges to the misfortune of arousing you at an unseemly hour—unbetimes, as our gossips in mother Saxon might say—and with profound regret, sir, though my habit is to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of this Rosewood Brush is the true bottle-tree, a strange-looking unseemly tree, which swells slightly four to five feet high, and then tapers rapidly into a small diameter; the foliage is thin, the crown scanty and irregular, the leaves lanceolate, of a greyish green; the height of the whole tree is ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... jurisdiction of the civil authorities, who would not take upon themselves the responsibility of giving him up. Under these circumstances Lord Edward Cecil had come forward and represented to Colonel Baden-Powell that it was unseemly for an Englishwoman to be left in the hands of the Boers, and transported to Pretoria by the rough coach, exposed to possible insults and to certain discomforts. He even declared himself prepared to take any consequent ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... inhabitants thereof be fierce, and lead an unhuman life. The people there use to harbour no guests, they be warriors, and drink men's blood that they slay, and wash first their faces therewith: right and unright they take for one.... Men of Ireland be singularly clothed and unseemly arrayed and scarcely fed, they be cruel of heart, fierce of cheer, angry of speech, and sharp. Nathless they be free hearted, and fair of speech and goodly to their own nation, and namely those men that dwell in woods, marshes, and mountains. These men be pleased with flesh, ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... sup as he wished. Why then did he not feast well? Because feasting well is feasting with propriety, frugality, and good order; but this man was in the habit of feasting badly, that is, in a dissolute, profligate, gluttonous, unseemly manner. Laelius, then, was not preferring the flavour of sorrel to Gallonius's sturgeon, but merely treating the taste of the sturgeon with indifference; which he would not have done if he had placed the chief good ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the English priest, will be the penman, having skill thereto. I would have it known that I can well trust him to write even as I speak, though he has full leave to set aside all hard words and unseemly, such as a sailor is apt to use unawares; and where my Danish way of speaking goeth not altogether with the English, he may alter the wording as he will, so long as the sense is always the same. Then, also, will he read over to me what he has written, and therefore all may be ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... was filled with Glory—so to speak—and much coin was hazarded upon his doing every unseemly thing that a horse can possibly do at a race, except the one thing which he did do; which goes to prove that Glory was not an ordinary cayuse, and that he had a reputation to maintain. To the day of his death, it may be said, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... insisted on getting horribly mixed up every afternoon owing to the failure of fellows to play when they were supposed to, and it was one of Amy's duties to hunt up the offenders and threaten them with all sorts of awful fates if they didn't arise at some unseemly hour the next morning and play off the postponed match before Chapel. Clint went over to the courts one afternoon before practice in the hope of seeing his room-mate perform. But Amy was dashing around with a score-sheet in hand and the matches in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... could not help becoming attached to them and admiring them, but as they also came to know that they were great friends of Hseh P'an, they did not, in consequence, venture to treat them lightly, or to be unseemly in their behaviour towards them. Hsiang Lin and Y Ai both kept to themselves the same feelings, which they fostered for Ch'in Chung and Pao-y, and to this reason is to be assigned the fact that though these ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to her husband one evening after their daughter had gone to bed. The announcement was made and received with an air of detachment, as though both feared to be betrayed into unseemly exultation; but Lethbury, as his wife ended, could not repress the inquiry, "Have they decided on ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... thought it a most unseemly proceeding, and declined to accompany her wilful daughter, but the latter did not wish to miss what she knew would become an historical event of great importance, and rode away on her bicycle, accompanied by her ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... But she laughed—William, in a slate-coloured blouse, laughed consumedly till Scott, putting the best face he could upon the matter, halted his armies and bade her admire the kindergarten. It was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been left ages ago, with the tea-party at Amritsar Station, fifteen hundred ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... you do, Mr. Harleston!" the voice rippled. "I suppose you are rather astonished at being called up at such an unseemly hour—" ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... two heavy, shapeless legs, in long foreign stockings with garters, or in tight trousers of cotton or other light material—a most unseemly sight. When only the family are present the latter garments ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... at this moment, and could not but resent what appeared to be a most unseemly slur cast upon her friends. 'I don't understand it at all,' she said. 'Of course the Emperor is there. Everybody has known for the last month that he was coming. What is the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... brilliancy, quietly and unobtrusively take the helm. There is the excellent talker who, by his talents and his acquirements, is eminently fitted to delight and to instruct, yet he is so unable to repress some unseemly jest or some pointed sarcasm or some humorous paradox that he continually leaves a sting behind him, creates enemies, destroys his reputation for sobriety of thought, and makes himself impossible in posts of administration and trust. There is the parliamentary speaker who, amid shouts of applause, ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... we are gradually uprooting that hindrance to conversion, so common among those people, and so difficult to remove, the practice of having several wives. They are easily persuaded that it is impossible and unseemly for them to have more than one wife, accordingly they have forsaken the others, although in doing so the husbands lose their property; for in marrying the women the men give them dowries, and if they leave their wives they must lose the dowries that they gave. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... from the cabinet. He spoke against the bill to which he objected with a vehemence that showed the strength of his feeling in the matter, and against its authors with a bitterness that he himself is understood to have afterwards admitted to have been unseemly towards those who had so recently been his colleagues. The course followed by the government was "marked with all that timidity, that want of dexterity, which led to the failure of the unpractised shoplifter." His late colleagues were compared to "thimble-riggers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... had company for whose entertainment something must be done; that two young and interesting friends of mine just about to be engaged to each other would be simply inconsolable if the plan were given up; and, in short, that I should show by not going an extremely hateful and unseemly spirit—"besides, it wouldn't do to have it without you, my dear," continued my amiable friend, "because you know you are always the life of the party." So ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... he gasped, pointing a hand that trembled with passion at the prelate, who had turned away from him and was again gazing reverentially into the church. The women now were laughing outright, but most of the men had only frowns for the unseemly license of a court buffoon. Sigurd Blue Wolf, the captain of the Varangians, ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... allowable, that Cook should speak of the fine writer and professed book-maker, with a feeling of disgust or irritation; more especially when he could not but well remember, that his own simple personality had been made the substratum for the flippant flourish of the one character, and the unseemly protuberances of the other?—E. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... against them. In all sorts of ways this hatred showed itself, in the diatribes of professors, in the pages of books, in the columns of the press. Usually it was a sullen, silent dislike. Sometimes it would flame up suddenly into bitter utterance, as at the time of the unseemly dispute around the deathbed of the Emperor's father, or on the occasion of the Jameson Raid. And yet this bitter antagonism was in no way reciprocated in this country. If a poll had been taken at any time ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... might address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists somewhat after this fashion:—"Good friends, these differences of opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity, and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning from you what, perhaps, we ought. But, as we read your Book, we, for our part, gather from it that you might, without danger to your own souls, set an undivided example to us, for the benefit ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... the same features as the track of yesterday. There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual chorus of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth. Here and there, and frequently too, we encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of some new settler's goods. It was a pitiful sight to see one of these vehicles ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... know what the modern bench is. It is impossible to contemplate with equanimity the prospect of Westminster Abbey and its solemnities being given up to the tender mercy of the evening papers and a joking judge surrounded by millinery. Such an exhibition would be unseemly. It would soil our national existence. In a word, it would have a ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... and unseemly struggle all about the room; chairs were upset, and vases broken to pieces; and the man and woman dragged each other to and fro, one fighting for her property, as if it was her life, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... already hovered near them behind their backs, and was about to intrude upon them. Elisaveta gave a sudden faint outcry at the unexpectedness of an unseemly apparition. A dirty, rough-looking man, all in tatters, was almost upon them; he had approached them upon the mossy ground as softly as a wood fairy. He stretched out a dirty, horny hand, and asked, not at all in a ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... writes to his defensor in Sicily: "I am informed that if anyone has a charge against any clerks, you throw a slight upon the bishops by causing these clerks to appear in your own court. If this be so, we expressly order you to presume to do so no more, because beyond doubt it is very unseemly. If anyone charges a clerk, let him go to his bishop, for the bishop himself to hear the case, or depute judges. If it come to arbitration, let the so-deputed judges cause the parties to select a judge. If a clerk or a layman have anything against a ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... considerable loss of equilibrium. His speeches were more than ever confused, and it was remarked that his eyes danced about hazily, with a most ineffectual expression. He looked about, however, with a stupid gaze of self-satisfaction; but his laugh and language, forming a strange and most unseemly coalition, degenerated at last into a dolorous sniffle, indicating the rapid departure of the few mental and animal holdfasts which had lingered with him so long. While thus reduced, his few surviving senses were at once called ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... two small pigs and a coop full of fowls, attempted to carry them all on one donkey. But the piggies rebelled lustily in the bags, the ducks remonstrated against their unquiet neighbours, and the donkey indignantly refused to stir a step till the unseemly uproar was calmed. But the Bretonne was equal to the occasion; for, after a pause of meditation, she solved the problem by tying the bags round the necks of the pigs, so that they could enjoy the prospect. This appeased them at once, and produced a general lull; for when the pigs ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the cause of thy displeasure," declared Dan. "Gran'ther Wattles poked thee for bouncing about during the sermon last Sunday. But it is unseemly to bounce in the meeting-house, and besides, is he not the tithing-man? 'T is his duty to see that people behave ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... I had but to demand an investigation into the man's affairs. It was easily done, and without any cost or sacrifice of principle. But why could not the minister demand the same himself? "It would be unseemly," he asserted. Well, it might be—why had he not selected an elder member of the Church? Because, as he had often told me, there was none so dear to him. This was plain and reasonable, and all this passed through my brain with the rapidity of thought ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... 'the defeat of Man is His defeat'; and I said to myself: 'Well, the last man shall not be quite a fiend, just to spite That Other.' And I worked and groaned, saying: 'I will be a good man, and burn nothing, nor utter aught unseemly, nor debauch myself, but choke back the blasphemies that Those Others shriek through my throat, and build and build, with moils and groans.' And it was Vanity: though I do love the house, too, I love it well, for it is my ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... conventionalities, or even decorums, but are to follow the inward Deity-planted law of the emotional soul. In this only the true Quaker, or Friend, has faith; and it is from rigidly, perhaps strainingly carrying it out, that both the Old and New England records of Quakerdom show some unseemly and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and never fail to shock the good feelings of sober-minded people when given there. Good church music gives us great pleasure, without exciting us to dancing or drinking; the Taj does the same, at least to the sober-minded. [W. H. S.] The regulations now in force prevent any unseemly proceedings. The gardens at the Taj, of Itimad-ud-daula's tomb, of Akbar's mausoleum at Sikandara, and the Ram Bagh, are kept up by means of income derived from crown lands, aided by liberal ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Superstition"—a crude rechauffe of the usual sceptical arguments which have been propounded a thousand times before and infinitely better expressed. The Bishop has not found it difficult to reply, but at best this contest between two dignitaries is an unseemly spectacle. Meanwhile the newspapers sarcastically ask how it is that the judges, who are said to be so overworked, have time for such amusements. Religious feeling runs high in Melbourne. The Presbyterian assembly ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... time of year, in a golden age: I have youth to show you and an ancient sword, birds, flowers and sunlight, in a plain unharmed by any dream of commerce: why should I show you the sleep of that inelegant man whose bulk lay cumbering the earth like a low, unseemly mountain? ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... are beset with enemies, with traitors—deceivers on all sides, men who fear not the Lord. Yet, for this matter of yours, my Lady Rae, I will tell you: I cannot take your husband from prison; it would be unseemly in the sight of all God-fearing men; but truly, if you could in any ways manage to get his lordship once without the prison walls, I would take upon me to prevent his being further troubled. He should have a protection ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... When this unseemly scramble was over, the Saint—who, leaning his brow on his hands, had appeared not to notice these proceedings—struck up a solemn hymn-tune. Then he put his hands over his eyes, as if lost in an ecstasy; after which he suddenly began to call out our names, coupled with the places we came from, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... laughing, and, in the most unseemly manner, said: "Alas, poor Cummings. He'll lose 35 pounds." At that moment there was a ring at the bell. Lupin said: "I don't want to meet Cummings." If he had gone out of the door he would have met him in the ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... me was protracted to an unseemly length before the sting of this remark reached him; it penetrated finally, however, and in his sharp change of posture there was a lightning flicker of the experienced boxer; but he checked the impulse, and took up the task of ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... coming to appreciate these truths, not only in our cities, but in the country, and the ugly, unsightly, and unseemly structures which have so long deformed the land are giving place to edifices in which the true ideas of harmony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, which make what we call Beauty, are ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... of him and said to him, 'By Allah, an thou speak a single syllable, I will do thee a mischief!' Then he went in to his wife, with Khelbes in his grasp, and behold, she was sitting, as of her wont, nor was there about her aught of suspicious or unseemly. ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... who had voted against conviction into changing their votes at the next ballot in fear of an inquisition for alleged corruption. In that sense it was an act of intimidation—a warning. It was an ill-disguised threat and a most unseemly proceeding—yet there was not one among the supporters of the Impeachment to condemn it, and few who failed openly to justify it. Partisan rancor and personal and political hostility to the President had reached a ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross |
