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Disgraceful   Listen
adjective
Disgraceful  adj.  Bringing disgrace; causing shame; shameful; dishonorable; unbecoming; as, profaneness is disgraceful to a man. "The Senate have cast you forth disgracefully."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disgraceful" Quotes from Famous Books



... to the vilest tricks and meanest scandal. They called Jefferson a Jacobin,—abused him because he liked French cookery and French wines, and wore a red waistcoat. To its shame, the pulpit was foremost in this disgraceful warfare. Clergymen did not hesitate to mention him by name in their sermons. Cobbett said, that Jefferson had cheated his British creditors. A Maryland preacher improved this story, by saying that he had cheated a widow and her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... joke furnished us—that is, Kitty and me—with mirth for many a day; as to Miss Abigail, I think she never wholly pardoned him. After this, Captain Nutter gradually gave up smoking, which is an untidy, injurious, disgraceful, and highly pleasant habit. ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... flattered myself that I should be sent thither in a station of some importance;' and from a letter to Burke we learn that this expected post had been a commissionership in the treaty between America and Britain. Dundas was another of his hopes. 'The excellent Langton says it is disgraceful, it is utter folly in Pitt not to attach to his administration a man of my popular and pleasant talents.' Dundas, however, after having been given a margin of two months for a reply, has made no sign; 'how can I delude myself? I will tell you,' he informs Temple, 'Lord Lonsdale shews me more and ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... anything else) declared that he is drawn from a real Professor of my acquaintance, who is anything but a fool, I should imagine not. But in that case I am all the more mystified by the incredibly weak fight which he makes in the play in answer to the elephantine sophistries of Undershaft. It is really a disgraceful case, and almost the only case in Shaw of there being no fair fight between the two sides. For instance, the Professor mentions pity. Mr. Undershaft says with melodramatic scorn, "Pity! the scavenger of the Universe!" Now if any gentleman had ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... history," said the Countess Anna. "However guilty the king may be, it would be disgraceful if he were murdered ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the time is not far distant when this reserve, now so much admired in philosophers—this happy medium so strongly recommended by professors of moral and political science—will be regarded as the disgraceful feature of a science without principle, and as the seal of its reprobation. In legislation and morals, as well as in geometry, axioms are absolute, definitions are certain; and all the results of a principle are to be accepted, provided they are logically deduced. Deplorable ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... office for life. And I see no more reason for making ex-Presidents Senators, than for making ex-Senators Presidents. To me the idea is preposterous. Why should ex-Presidents be taken care of? In this country labor is not disgraceful, and after a man has been President he has still the right to be useful. I am personally acquainted with several men who will agree, in consideration of being elected to the presidency, not to ask for another office during their natural ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... and it cut him to the heart to think that he had entered on a course which, considering his engagement to Bessie, was not honourable. When a few minutes before he had told Jess he loved her he had said a disgraceful thing, however true it might be. And that was the worst of it; it was true; he did love her. He felt the change come sweeping over him like a wave as she stood looking at him in the room, utterly drowning and overpowering his affection ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... that horrible parrot. Benis insists on keeping it. Some soldier friend of his left it to him. A really terrible bird. And its language is disgraceful. It doesn't know anything but slang. Not even 'Polly wants a cracker.' You'll hardly believe me, but it says, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... object of the court was to insult Dr. Franklin," an object in which their lordships were, of course, able to achieve a complete success. "No person belonging to the council behaved with decent gravity, except Lord North," who came late and remained standing behind a chair. It was a disgraceful scene, but not of long duration; apparently there was little else done save to hear the speeches of counsel. The report of the lords was dated on the same day, and was a severe censure upon the petition and the petitioners. More than this, their lordships went out of their way to inflict ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... was at the height of his evil power, his brother had been appointed Constable of Dundee and presented with the estate of Dudhope, lying conveniently near to Claverhouse's few paternal acres. A bargain, which would have seemed in those days no disgraceful thing to any human being, was accordingly struck between Claverhouse and the various claimants for the dead man's shoes. Queensberry, though but lately advanced to a marquisate, had set his heart upon a dukedom: the Chancellor was in want ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... Extraordinary of the King of the French, and was received with the highest distinction and respect, to which Mr. Croker's article in the 'Quarterly Review' on the battle of Toulouse was the solitary and disgraceful exception.] ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... of people behind their backs in my presence, miss,' said Mrs Varden, 'I shall insist upon your taking a candle and going to bed directly. How dare you, Dolly? I'm astonished at you. The rudeness of your whole behaviour this evening has been disgraceful. Did anybody ever hear,' cried the enraged matron, bursting into tears, 'of a daughter telling her own mother she has ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... at her back garden-gate by a dirty boy who rang the bell as loudly as if he had been giving the alarm of fire, and who thrust the packet rudely into the hand of the servant and vanished immediately. So much for the messenger. The packet itself, Miss Judson informed me, was of a dirty and disgraceful appearance, unworthy the hands of a gentlewoman, and one of the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... dear Clary, it is a blow, certainly; I don't deny that. But there is a bright side to everything; and really your father could not afford to live in the place. It was going to decay in the most disgraceful manner. He is better out of it; ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... arraigns warfare, and draws up the great list of crimes laid at the charge of conquerors and generals. The nations are coming to understand that the magnitude of a crime cannot be its extenuation; that if killing is a crime, killing many can be no extenuating circumstance; that if robbery is disgraceful, invasion cannot be glorious. Ah! let us proclaim these absolute truths; let us ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... enough journalism for a beginning; I knew that quite well, and yet it was somehow disappointing. The "Court Circular" pleased me better; indeed, its simple and dignified respectfulness was a distinct refreshment to me after all those disgraceful familiarities. But even it could have been improved. Do what one may, there is no getting an air of variety into a court circular, I acknowledge that. There is a profound monotonousness about its facts that baffles and defeats one's sincerest efforts ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... barbarous violation of the usages which prevail in every other European government, has at all times been regretted by the respectable Turks, who acknowledge it to be a base and disgraceful stigma upon ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... intention to disclose them, further than may be indispensably requisite for the end I have in view. Self-vindication is not the motive which actuates me to make this appeal, and the spirit of accusation is unmingled with it; but when the conduct of my parents is brought forward in a disgraceful light, by the passages selected from Lord Byron's letters, and by the remarks of his biographer, I feel bound to justify their characters from imputations which I know to be false. The passages from Lord Byron's letters, to which I refer, are the aspersion on my mother's ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... what was called the "Cribs", one of the most disgraceful conditions. No one stayed there during the day; they were there just for the night only. These poor degraded girls would pay two dollars a night to the owners. I said to the women: "These city officials are at the bottom of this. Let us go to the Chief ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... young ladies can forgive this disgraceful scene," he remarked in a tone of regret rather then humiliation. "I do not see how any effort of mine could have avoided it. It seems to be one of the privileges of the people's guardians, in your free country, to arrest and imprison anyone on a mere suspicion of crime. Here ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne

... rules known in such matters Lord Fawn was bound to marry her. He had become engaged to her, and Lizzie had done nothing to forfeit her engagement. As to the necklace,—the plea made for jilting her on that ground was a disgraceful pretext. Everybody was beginning to perceive that Mr. Camperdown would never have succeeded in getting the diamonds from her, even if they had not been stolen. It was "preposterous," as Frank said over ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... witnessed riots in many places, and one of these was extremely disgraceful. Chief-justice Hutchinson had tried to dissuade the ministry from passing the Stamp Act, but an impression had got abroad among the wharves and waterside taverns of Boston that he had not only favoured it but had gone out ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... Austerlitz, waited the issue of the battle, and then, withholding his packet, proposed to the victor a fresh treaty with Prussia. There was wrath in Berlin when his doings became known. The king at first disowned the disgraceful compact, but Austerlitz had just taught him what Napoleon's enemies might expect. French troops were already massing on his frontier, and in an evil hour he broke faith with the czar! To Louise, who neither feared foe nor deserted friend, that was a bitter time—doubly sad, indeed, since most ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... your own fault you came here, remember, and it is an easy matter for you to come out. I hope you've decided to give me an explanation to-morrow of that disgraceful scene ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... all high treason against his favourite author. He had given his sister a copy of Emerson's works last Christmas, in the hope that her views might be enlightened, and this was the disgraceful use she made ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... revenge which is the natural heritage of the present generation had really become dissipated. Broadley smiled at me. 'Lord Dorminster,' he said, 'the chief cause of wars in the past has been suspicion. We look upon espionage as a disgraceful practice. It is the people of Germany with whom we are in touch now, not a military oligarchy, and the people of Germany no more desire war than we do. Besides, there is the League of Nations.' Those were Broadley's views then, and they are his views to-day. You ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Constantinople, which continued to draw from it an annual supply of about 250,000 quarters of corn; but in the beginning of this century it was conquered by the Persians, and the emperor was obliged to enter into a treaty with the conquerors, by which he agreed to pay a heavy and disgraceful tribute for the corn which was absolutely necessary for the support of his capital. But a sudden and most extraordinary change took place in the character of Heraclius: he roused himself from his sloth, indolence and despair; he fitted out a large fleet; exerted his skill, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... my hand in my muff again, the other arm round my waist. Absolutely disgraceful behavior in the park. We might have been Susan Jane and Thomas Augustus, and yet I was perfectly happy, and felt it was the only ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn

... not necessary to continue the record of this disgraceful persecution. The governor was unrelenting. Whoever ventured to oppose his will felt the ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... of Strathmore. He married in 1767 Miss Bowes, the great heiress, whose disgraceful adventures are ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... afflicting her soul dreadfully, but which she strove to banish. Of course she could not love him,—not at first. But all those who wished her to marry him, including himself, knew that;—and still they wished her to marry him. How could that be disgraceful which all her friends desired? Her father, to whom she was, as she knew well, the very apple of his eye, wished her to marry this man;—and yet her father knew that her heart was elsewhere. Had not women done ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... capital punishment. When, therefore, their chief council had decided that Jesus was worthy of death, the rulers brought him to Pilate, the Roman governor, that he might confirm their sentence and execute the cruel penalty of crucifixion. The trial before Pilate developed into a disgraceful contest between the murderous and determined Jewish rulers and the weak and vacillating Roman governor, who was at last compelled to act contrary to his conscience and his desire and to submit his will to that of the subjects ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... Last winter she wheedled herself in here and told the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about Sophie—I can't repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this vile, infamous paper, but I ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... are keeping a diary because Miss Dearborn was very much ashamed when the school trustees told her that most of the girls' and all of the boys' compositions were disgraceful, and must be improved upon next term. She asked the boys to write letters to her once a week instead of keeping a diary, which they thought was girlish like playing with dolls. The boys thought it ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of a frightful and disgraceful crime in debasing and destroying a character naturally high and noble, the guilty person being alone conscious ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... become much more regular about church and know all the saints' days. A good thing that will be for me, too, I'm sure—What do you think? They've just knocked on the door and told me it is dinner time. I've been three hours over this disgraceful letter. I knew I'd been dreaming[1] a good deal between sentences; but I didn't know it was so bad as all that. Well, I'm going down to tell the others my good news (you understand that good, don't you?), and we'll drink to the health and happiness of you both in some ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch

... send to me for money oftener than I liked; but I never suspected the rate he was going at. I was anxious, too, about him; but I said to myself he was just sowing his wild oats, like other fellows. Well, it went on, until—to his misfortune and mine—he got entangled in some disgraceful transactions; the general features are known to all the world. I dare say you have heard of one or two young noblemen who committed forgeries on their relations and friends some years ago. One of them, the son of an earl, took his sister's whole ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... crown. "So, extraordinary, my dear—so odd," Aunt Hester, passing through the little, dark hall (she was rather short-sighted), had tried to 'shoo' it off a chair, taking it for a strange, disreputable cat—Tommy had such disgraceful friends! She was disturbed when ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... brought trouble into the Legrand affairs, cancelled all profits, and slowly brought on ruin. The widow had no suspicion of Derues' disgraceful dealings, and he carefully referred the damage to other causes, quite worthy of himself. Sometimes it was a bottle of oil, or of brandy, or some other commodity, which was found spilt, broken, or damaged, which accidents ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... that you will be despised as a frivolous setter up of manner over matter, a light-minded DILLETANTE, unfitted for the simple austerities of science. But this is itself a light-minded contempt; a deeper insight would change the tone, and help to remove the disgraceful slovenliness and feebleness of composition which deface the majority of grave works, except those written by Frenchmen, who have been taught that composition is an art and that no writer may neglect it. In England and Germany, men who will spare no labour ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... men of the three regiments, and in a ringing voice which made the old warrior seem quite superb, he announced that the Prince de Rohan's division, preferring honour to a shameful safety, had refused to subscribe to the disgraceful capitulation whereby Field-marshal Jellachich had promised to hand over to the French, the flags and the arms of the Austrian troops, and had fled into the Tyrol; where he too would have led the brigade were ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... however, no excuse for your having set me at defiance by breaking the strict rule I laid down that no boy was to attend the fair. As I have already said, I believe you are not solely responsible for the disgraceful behaviour of which I received a complaint this morning. I shall not, therefore, expel you at once, as I at first intended, but I am writing to your father to inform him that your conduct is so far from satisfactory that I must ask him to remove ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... satisfaction will come. But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances. Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until we attempt to conceal it by our affectation of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... vicar), the arch-knave, Pope Clement, and his servant Campegius, and the like, who plan to carry out their desperate, nefarious roguery under the imperial name, or, as Solomon says, at court." (16, 1666.) Luther then continues to condemn the Diet in unqualified terms. "What a disgraceful Diet," says he, "the like of which was never held and never heard of, and nevermore shall be held or heard of, on account of his disgraceful action! It cannot but remain an eternal blot on all princes and the entire empire, and makes all Germans blush before God and all the world." ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... little boy he had so long wished for to be his page, took pity on the disgraceful situation into which, by his merry contrivance, he had brought his Titania, and threw some of the juice of the other flower into her eyes; and the fairy queen immediately recovered her senses, and wondered at her late dotage, saying how she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... proposed Institution, more worthy of its utmost attention and care, than the protection of persons and property from the cruel rapacity of those abandoned marauders, who, on some parts of our coasts, have but too long followed a practice disgraceful to a civilized state, and dangerous in its example as fatal to its victims, of plundering from wrecks, and there is much reason to fear, often suffering to perish, from want of assistance, many who might otherwise have been rescued from peril, and ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary

... More than all this, he encouraged me to keep a stout heart and "stiff upper lip," assuring me that all would come right in the end. Had it not been for that kind-hearted young man, my condition on board the ship must have been wretched. I have often witnessed the disgraceful fact, that when a man is DOWN every one seems determined TO KEEP HIM DOWN! If a poor fellow received a kick from fortune, every man he meets with will give him another kick ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... as is here proposed, religion must suffer, and truth be sacrificed. Lord Woodhouselee therefore, does not hesitate to pronounce both the Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed, and the Answer to it, to be "equally infamous and disgraceful libels." Life of Lord Kames, vol. i. Append., ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... and of the nobility is, taken all round, a very lazy one. Exercise is considered a degenerate habit, fit only for people who have to earn a living; and, as for manual labour, a Corean nobleman would much prefer suicide to anything so disgraceful. ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... me advise you to be choice. It is easy to make acquaintances, but very difficult to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found, after we have once committed ourselves to them. The indiscretions, which very often they involuntarily lead one into, prove equally distressing and disgraceful. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... on the point of recommencing their reign of terror. The royalists had recourse without scruple to all the measures which might enable them to satiate their revenge; and the peaceable friends of the law were placed between the conflicting parties in a state of disgraceful weakness and neutrality. Such was the desperate situation of France when Napoleon seized the helm of the state. Instead of imputing the slavery of the country to him, he ought to have been blessed; ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... flicked a crumb off her dress with rather unnecessary care. "I've had a most annoying letter from Jimmy to-day. It came by the second post, after Henry had gone to the City, and quite upset me. His employer, Mr. Locke, has been killed in some disgraceful riot, and now Jimmy himself is coming home. Of course, in a way, I shall be glad to see him, and so will the rest of the family; but I know he's got no money, and no profession to fall back upon, and I cannot see what he is going to do for a living. If I asked him to do so, I have ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... We hatched it in the common room, and then the bursar spoke to the president, who was furious, and said we were giving the sanction of the college to disgraceful luxury and extravagance. Luckily he had not the power of stopping us, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... process which, in the absence of democratic protest, will certainly proceed, will increase and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. Prison may even lose its disgrace for a little time: it will be difficult to make it disgraceful when men like Larkin can be imprisoned for no reason at all, just as his celebrated ancestor was hanged for no reason at all. But capitalist society, which naturally does not know the meaning of honour, cannot know the meaning of disgrace: and it will still go on imprisoning for no reason ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... and woman were hung for murder, attended by the usual disgraceful accompaniments of a public execution. Crowds gathered from all the surrounding country; at the moment of execution 40,000 or 50,000 persons are said to have been present. Venders of edibles plied their vocation in the most gross and revolting manner; pickpockets, as usual, were in attendance, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... total misunderstanding, have arisen that wild and disgraceful zeal for proselytism to a separate and peculiar form of religion, and that horrible expression—"no salvation except with us." As I have described to you the society of the pious, and as it must needs be according to its intrinsic nature, it aims ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... The time is up! This delay is perfectly disgraceful. They will never be able to catch the tidal train now—never!" said her ladyship in a ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... Therefore we must never admit that men have a strict right to relief. That is to injure the very essential social force. 'Hard as it may seem in individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.'[275] The spirit of independence or self-help is the one thing necessary. 'The desire of bettering our condition and the fear of making it worse, like the vis medicatrix in physics, is the vis medicatrix naturae in politics, and is continually counteracting the disorders ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... who turned away. She did not look me down, for there was neither challenge nor antagonism in her eyes—only fascination. I was loth to admit this defeat by one small woman, and my eyes, turning aside, lighted on the disgraceful rout of my comrades and the trailing ki-sang and gave me the pretext. I clapped my hands in the Asiatic ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... feminine comprehends all sorts of intoxicating liquors, many kinds of which the Indians from the earliest times distilled and prepared from rice, sugar-cane, the palm tree, and various flowers and plants. Nothing is considered more disgraceful among orthodox Hindus than drunkenness, and the use of wine is forbidden not only to Brahmans but the two other orders as well.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} So it clearly appears derogatory to the dignity of the Gods to have received a nymph so pernicious, who ought rather to have been made over to the ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... broken, and her views on the subject of ill-health were marked. She regarded the catching of scarlet-fever or influenza as an act of cowardice, consumption or any organic disease as scarcely, if at all, less disgraceful than drunkenness or fraud, while the countless little ailments to which feminine flesh seems more particularly heir she condemned as the most deplorable of female failings, except the love ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... with Willie Jones was so much like a family quarrel that she was loath to call in outside interference. Truth to tell, if Willie Jones had been her own brother Henry, she would have died rather than disclose to the world the disgraceful cause of their wrangle. But Willie Jones wasn't Henry, and, besides that, Henry, though he was a boy, would never act this way about a nickel that was really hers. This thought decided her. She would give Willie Jones one more chance, and then, if he still persisted in ignoring the justice ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore

... punished in no other manner than by fine and mere imprisonment. Instances we doubt not may be brought from distant times, in which one or other of the above offences has been punished in England by Pillory or whipping or by other unusual or disgraceful punishments and we do not say that these cases altho' they may be old are so decidedly void of all authority that a judgment which should now be passed in conformity to them would certainly be held to be erroneous and bad. But we ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... own faults," moralized Veronica. "After that disgraceful business on Thursday, you couldn't expect anything else. We heard you plainly enough, and we were utterly disgusted. I'd like to know who locked that passage door. I have my suspicions," ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... The disgraceful truth is that one man doesn't seem quite enough for me. I like the variety of sensation that you get only from a variety of men. I'm afraid I've spent too flirtatious a youth, and it isn't easy for ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... a noble condottiere of Spain, who was holding the fortress in Caesar's name. But when he had read over the paper that Pietro d'Oviedo brought, Don Diego replied that as he knew his lord and master was a prisoner, it would be disgraceful in him to obey an order that had probably been wrested from him by violence, and that the bearer deserved to die for undertaking such a cowardly office. He therefore bade his soldiers seize d'Oviedo and fling him ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of countenance; at a discount; under a cloud, under an eclipse; unable to show one's face; in the shade, in the background; out at elbows, down at the elbows, down in the world. inglorious; nameless, renownless^; obscure; unknown to fame; unnoticed, unnoted^, unhonored, unglorified^. shameful; disgraceful, discreditable, disreputable; despicable; questionable; unbecoming, unworthy; derogatory; degrading, humiliating, infra dignitatem [Lat.], dedecorous^; scandalous, infamous, too bad, unmentionable; ribald, opprobrious; errant, shocking, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... "Well! how did the worthy householder care for his belongings at home, how did he seek to relieve his indebted estate? It is disgraceful, hideous! He passed by the silver, the gold, the jewels, with a laugh; and took the captive daughter of the Danaid princes, and led her into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... evening that Mrs. Juno was married. She will bear me out when I say that from that moment my intentions were strictly and resolutely honorable; though my conduct, which I could not control and am therefore not responsible for, was disgraceful—or would have been had this gentleman not walked in and begun making love to my ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw

... debt, my son," was his constant advice. "In every unexpected emergency apply to me. Debt unnecessarily recurred is both dishonorable and disgraceful. When a boy contracts debts unknown to his parents, they are associated with shame and ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... rhymes Which are on ev'ry alcove writ, Immodest, lewd attempt at wit, Disgraceful to the times. Here Scotland's dandy Irish Earl,{50} With Noblet on his arm would whirl, And frolic in this sphere; With mulberry coat, and pink cossacks, The red-hair'd Thane the fair attacks, F-'s ever on the leer; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... prelude to this religious ceremony was a general massacre of the Jews, which the emperor had long withstood, but at length granted to the earnest and renewed entreaties of the monks of Alsik. The fact itself, and all its details, are so disgraceful to the parties concerned, that I would gladly reject it as false or overcharged, did it not rest on the authority of a patriarch of Alexandria.[7] Heraclius then, attended by a solemn procession, but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various

... since the day you flung in my astounded face my character and attainments, depicted in simple but effective words of one syllable, I have felt that there was not only force, but a good deal of truth, in your pungent observations. As I remember telling you at the time, had I appreciated the disgraceful facts as you summed them up, I could only in justice to Isabel have joined my efforts to your own in endeavoring to prevent so fatal an alliance. But it was too late. And now that the thing is done, the child of Mr. Hurd, having inherited some of ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... along suspected the Bishop of Hereford's story. There were no robbers in Sherwood now—the Bishop had invented the tale in order to cover up some disgraceful carousal, and had bribed his men. It had been a plot by which my lord of Hereford had been able to foist himself and his company upon the Sheriff, and so gain both free lodging in Nottingham and save giving in charity to the poor folk ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... disgraceful exhibition was never seen," says I, "the fellow's a rank coward!" As for Bentley, he only fumbled with his ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol

... leave me! Listen to my errors with compassion! In a few hours I shall be no more; Yet a little, and I am free from this disgraceful passion.' ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... could hardly be detected in company with a niggardly temper. Wishes which cost nothing; pity which expires on the lips; be ye warmed and be ye clothed, from a cold heart and an unyielding gripe, never imprinted their disgraceful brand upon Isabella Graham. What she urged upon others she exemplified in herself. She kept a purse for God. Here, in obedience to his command, she deposited the first-fruits of all her increase; and they were sacred ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... ANTOINE FAUVELET, secretary of Napoleon, and a school friend, born at Sens; held the post for five years, but dismissed for being implicated in disgraceful money transactions; joined the Bourbons at the Restoration; the Revolution of 1830 and the loss of his fortune affected his mind, and he died a lunatic at Caen; wrote "Memoirs" disparaging to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... such acts of iniquity spread through all societies where they become known—there is no lack of argument which prompts a reflecting spectator to brand him as [a most dangerous and destructive animal, no] a disgraceful man." (Grote's Plato, ii., p. 108.) Why Archelaus is described in terms of the tiger, and then branded as a disgraceful man, we are at a loss to conceive, except in this way, that the writer's philosophy forsook him at the end of the sentence, and he reverted to the common ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... this completes Fig. 101.] Mr. White had a little cart and a big shovel and an old broom, and he worked all day sweeping up and carting off the old paper, the stubs of cigars and everything else which, if allowed to accumulate, would soon make the streets look disgraceful and the town unhealthful. ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... nobles sought to compass the death of the people's new favourite and rising hope, Caius Gracchus. Ultimately those who believed in the murder and pined to avenge it, were constrained to admit that it was wiser to avoid a disgraceful political wrangle over the body of their dead hero. But, for the retreat to be covered, it must be publicly announced by those who had most authority to speak, that Scipio had died a natural death. This was accordingly the line taken by Laelius, when he wrote the funeral oration ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... establishment of this celebrated and coveted beauty; and although she was now his legitimate sister-in-law, privately married to the prince, he was not restrained by any scruple of morality or delicacy from manifesting his jealousy and pique. [Footnote: See portrait, Chap. XXV.] Moreover, this disgraceful feeling was fostered by other considerations than those of mere sensuality or ostentation. Her father, the tributary ruler of Chiengmai, had on several occasions confronted his aggressive authority with a haughty and intrepid spirit; and once, when Maha Mongkut required that he should ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... It blazed with tall colored candles, it gleamed with glass and silver, it blushed with flowers, it groaned with good things to eat; so it was not strange that the Ruggleses, forgetting that their mother was a McGrill, shrieked in admiration of the fairy spectacle. But Larry's behavior was the most disgraceful, for he stood not upon the order of his going, but went at once for a high chair that pointed unmistakably to him, climbed up like a squirrel, gave a comprehensive look at the turkey, clapped his hands in ecstacy, rested his fat arms on the table, and cried, with joy, ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... determined to do it. He had in him none of that readiness which enables some men to make love and carry off their Dulcineas at a moment's notice, but he had that pluck which would have made himself disgraceful in his own eyes if he omitted to do that as to the doing of which he had made a solemn resolution. He would have preferred to do it sitting, but, faute de mieux, seeing that a seat was denied to him, he ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... of the canoe slid upon the mud-bank of the river close to the slaver's boat, which was watched by a couple of the most villainous-looking men that ever took part in that disgraceful traffic. They were evidently Portuguese sailors, and the scowl of their bronzed faces, when they saw the canoe approach the landing-place, showed that they had no desire to enter into ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... men, including his most loyal and attached adherents, could check the shameless profligacy of his palace-life. The diaries of Evelyn and of Pepys, both of whom were familiar with the court, picture the disgraceful depravation of morals, which was stimulated by the king's example. But the nation was even more aggrieved by his conduct in respect to foreign nations. In a war with Holland, arising out of commercial rivalry, the English had the mortification of seeing the Thames blockaded by the Dutch ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... neighbour, for any action or words, the telling of which would be of advantage to the public, and the concealment dangerous, or of ill example. Of this nature are all plots and conspiracies against the peace of a nation, all disgraceful words against a prince, such as clearly discover a disloyal and rebellious heart: But where our prince and country can possibly receive no damage or disgrace; where no scandal or ill example is given; and our neighbour, it may be, provoked by us, happeneth privately ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... the arrangements for this trip most unsatisfactory," the General continued angrily. "The steamer's too small, the landing-place is too small, the crowd getting on board was something disgraceful. They'll have a shocking accident one of these days. And what on earth are all these women here for—in the middle of the day? It's not ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... blackening the buildings, soiling goods, and, mixing with the other gases already generated, forming one general conglomeration of deleterious vapours; the state of the inhabited cellars; the neighbourhood of which exhibits scenes of barbarism disgraceful for any civilised state to allow; an inefficient supply of that great necessity of life—water; inefficient drainage, which is only adapted to carry off the surface water;—these are but a sample of the general state of Liverpool, and at the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... said Hazlehurst; "the choice by election, or by appointment, might often be more creditable; whenever it is bad, it is disgraceful to the community." ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... had plenty of critics—who found it difficult to make his admiration for the prize-ring fit in with his denunciation in one passage of "those disgraceful and brutalising exhibitions called pugilistic combats." The explanation has been suggested that for once the "John Bull" Borrow, with his patriotic exaltation of all things English, gave way before the proselytising agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It would be hard to find a writer ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt

... in the square before the great mosque, when the sage, disturbed by the noise and concourse of the people, looked from the window of his cell, and beheld the disgraceful situation of his pupil. He was moved to pity, and instantly calling upon the genii (for by his knowledge of magic and every abstruse science he had them all under his control), commanded them to bring him the youth from the camel, and place in his room, without being ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... down by self-denial, and had even done creditably in athletics, she was greatly admired. Besides this, Lily Andrews was genuine—and so loyal! Moreover, all the girls, even those who were not Scouts and therefore knew nothing about Ruth's disgraceful trick against Marjorie the previous year, often had cause ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... that you were doing. The Gospel tells us if we are smitten on one cheek we must turn the other. But it does not tell us to turn the cheek of a little child, of the woman we love, the country we belong to. No! that would be disgraceful, wicked, un-Christian. It would be to betray the innocent! ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... next instant she was filled with consternation. She had allowed him to become so intimate that it was difficult to break off with him all at once. She realized that with a man of that character the inevitable must come. There would be a disgraceful scandal. She would be mixed up in it, her husband's eyes would be opened to her folly, it might ruin her entire life. She must end it now—once for all. She had already given him to understand that their intimacy must cease. Now he must stop his visits ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... England. What was peculiar to Yorkshire was the fact that, if you mentioned the name of Bronte in any average company, the chances were in favour of your being met with an indignant snort from someone who protested that Charlotte's stories were a disgraceful libel upon the district, and that "Wuthering Heights" was a book so dreadful in its character that its author would only have met with her deserts if she had been soundly whipped for writing it. I met more than one lady who had known the Brontes, and who, in reply to my eager ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... yellow and black bile. The belief that this type of sickness would respond to conventional treatment, however, did not completely dominate the theories on insanity; some seventeenth-century authorities considered insanity not an illness but an incurable, disgraceful condition. ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.' An ugly list, my friends; and God have mercy on the man who gives way to them. For disgraceful as they are to him, and tormenting also to him in this life, the worst is, that if he gives way to them, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... thick rolls, cobwebs in floating black triangular and looped clusters, stale odours and rubbish—the apartment which had served as bedroom, dining-room, salon and study so long, would naturally be in a disgraceful condition. Henry Clairville's ghost it was that passed from that room to the hall, but the ghost walked—more than Henry Clairville had ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not deter murderers, who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at these, would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to show—nor will it keep back one fool, madman, or sentimental hypocrite from making a disgraceful exhibition. We are not sorry to notice this failure of Mr Scott's, because we would call the attention of artists in general to "subject." Let a painter ask himself before he takes his brush in hand, why—for what purpose, with what object do I choose this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... subjected to torture, amongst whom was one woman, a female servant of David Arari; we saw their wounds yet unhealed, and heard from their own lips the description of the sufferings they had endured. The tortures to which they had been subjected were of the most cruel and disgraceful nature, and some of them even too disgusting to be mentioned with propriety. We also had, during our stay at Damascus, many opportunities of discussing the question with various people with various shades ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... Anastasius's two companions, with threescore and six other Christians, to be strangled one after another on the banks of the river, before his face, whom the judge all the time pressed to return to the Persian worship, and to escape so disgraceful a death, promising, in case of compliance, that he should be made one of the greatest men in the court. Anastasius, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, gave thanks to God for bringing his life to so happy a conclusion; and said he expected that he should ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the peace a dreadful famine has swept away many thousands of the followers and sepoys' families of the army, from Lord Macartney's neglect to send down grain to the camp, though the roads are crowded with vessels: but his Lordship has been too intent upon his own disgraceful schemes to attend to the wants of the army. The negotiation with Tippoo, which he has set on foot through the mediation of Monsieur Bussy, has employed all his thoughts, and to the attainment of that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of those who are the leaders of thought and action. One of the crying sins of to-day is that professions of righteous living in accordance with Christian ethical ideals are not taken seriously. Note the disgraceful policy that has been pursued with regard to Turkey by the nations of Europe that profess to be disciples of the Prince of Peace. Hence it is of the utmost importance that those who are to become the future translators of ideals into action shall be imbued with right principles of ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... me as his instrument, if an instrument were needed. But for what and where it was needed I could not conceive; since all France was under his feet, and a thousand men would spring up to do his bidding at a word—aye, let the bidding be what it might, and the task as disgraceful as you will. What were the qualities in me or in my condition that dictated his choice ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... bleed and his head ache, and that he would fall sick in consequence. If an Indian's wooden pipe cracked, his friends would think that he had either lit it at one of these polluted fires or had held some converse with a woman during her retirement, which was esteemed a most disgraceful and wicked thing to do. Decent men would not approach within a certain distance of a woman at such times, and if they had to convey anything to her they would stand some forty or fifty paces off and throw it to her. ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... totally incapable of governing a people who were emerging from the gloom of superstition, and becoming enlightened with the age. Ferdinand having joined in a conspiracy, headed an insurrection against his father, whom he compelled to abdicate the throne in his favour. This disgraceful conduct on the part of a son to his parent, speedily met with its due reward; for he was compelled to surrender up his pretension to the throne, and resigned the crown into the hands of his father, who once more resumed the reins of government, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... 'Oh no, no. Worse!' and then somehow I articulated that he was married; and Clarence exclaimed, 'Not the Peacock!' and at my gesture my father broke out. 'He has done for himself, the unhappy boy. A disgraceful Scotch marriage. Eh?' ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cried, 'whoever you may be, and do not let a disgraceful impostor take you in. My name is Omar, and let no one attempt to rob me ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... ashes. Shame, shame, old Hector: as for the captain's pup, it is to be expected that he would show his want of years, and I may say, I hope without offence, his want of education too; but for a hound, like you, who have lived so long in the forest afore you came into these plains, it is very disgraceful, Hector, to be showing your teeth, and growling at the carcass of a roasted horse, the same as if you were telling your master that you had found the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of the Powers at once began to abuse Germany; but, if the blame for this disgraceful situation is to be properly bestowed, it will only be right for each of the Powers to take an equal ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... are not addicted to intemperance, unlike, in that respect the other American Indians, if we must not also except the Patagonians, who, like the Flatheads, regard intoxicating drinks as poisons, and drunkenness as disgraceful. I will relate a fact in point: one of the sons of the chief Comcomly being at the establishment one day, some of the gentlemen amused themselves with making him drink wine, and he was very soon drunk. He was sick in consequence, and remained in a state of stupor ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... cried, "and I trust you will never try it again. It's disgraceful! And it's too risky. If you keep it up some fine day she'll slash the face off you or bite your whole head ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... you know? He probably did something disgraceful in his youth and had to leave the country. Just like my brother, your Uncle Percy. I'm certain there's a skeleton of some kind in this family—anyhow he's sure not to die when ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward

... Mingott, who had been in another room writing notes, presently reappeared, and added her voice to the discussion. In THEIR day, the elder ladies agreed, the wife of a man who had done anything disgraceful in business had only one idea: to efface herself, to disappear with him. "There was the case of poor Grandmamma Spicer; your great-grandmother, May. Of course," Mrs. Welland hastened to add, "your great-grandfather's ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... is very simple. I thought that nothing would be more unpleasant to him than to be placed in a disgraceful position before his wife, and perhaps a greater punishment for such a miserable man could not be devised than to—but no matter, your husband knows why he leaves ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... saw the whole affair what has happened. The advance was good. We swept the Germans at first before us, and for a time our fellows made a stand on the crest of Montmesly. But the enemy were reinforced and drove us down the hill again. Then came a disgraceful panic. The soldiers who had fought fairly at first, became a mob; the mobile, who had not done as well as had been expected, were worse. There was a battalion of the National Guard of Belleville, and the scoundrels ran without ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... sufficient to subdue the legions of Rum; we had, therefore, better return to our own country." The principal warriors entertained the same sentiments, and suggested to Kaisar the necessity of retiring from the field; but the king opposed this measure, thinking it cowardly and disgraceful, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... distributed to them. The atmosphere, thoroughly poisoned when so confined, had proved fatal to a large number. As we stood there, one dark body was passed up from below the deck and quietly dropped into the bay. Life was extinct. It was quite impossible to suppress a shudder as we looked upon the disgraceful scene, which being observed Don ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... proceed with the marriage," said the Registrar, sternly. "I have never seen anything more disgraceful in my life. You come here to enter into a most solemn, I may say a sacred, contract, and you are not able to answer to your names; it ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... game that Squire Brown 'ad left, but all 'e could do didn't seem to make much difference; things disappeared in a most eggstrordinary way, and the keepers went pretty near crazy, while the things the squire said about Claybury and Claybury men was disgraceful. ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... discouraged had it not been for the fact that he was intimately acquainted with himself. He knew himself too well to expect people to take much stock in the public endeavours of one whose private affairs were so far beneath notice. Men were not likely to overlook the disgraceful treatment of the little "mustard girl," for even the men who have mistreated women in their time overlook their own chicanery in preaching decency over the heads of others who have not played the game fairly. George looked upon himself as a marked man, against whom the scorn of ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... "That is a bargain," he said, with a brashness simply disgraceful in a good business ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... not estimate a man's powers by his being able or not able to deliver his sentiments in publick. Isaac Hawkins Browne[999], one of the first wits of this country, got into Parliament, and never opened his mouth. For my own part, I think it is more disgraceful never to try to speak, than to try it and fail; as it is more disgraceful not to fight, than to fight and be beaten.' This argument appeared to me fallacious; for if a man has not spoken, it may be said that he would have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... against Hebrew love songs. Maimonides says ("Guide," iii. 7): "The gift of speech which God gave us to help us learn and teach and perfect ourselves—this gift of speech must not be employed in doing what is degrading and disgraceful. We must not imitate the songs and tales of ignorant and lascivious people. It may be suitable to them, but it is not fit for those who are bidden, Ye shall be a holy nation." In 1415 Solomon Alami uses words on this subject ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... only too certain that I am correct in writing to you of this disgraceful marriage as of a settled thing. Lady Janet went the length of showing me the letters—one from Julian, the other from the woman herself. Fancy Mercy Merrick in correspondence with Lady Janet Roy! addressing her as 'My dear Lady Janet,' and ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... that, aided by name and connexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar, pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of entering Parliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because it seemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, a student of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as the Temple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form of eating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... tongue, and with eyes flashing fire like hot coals, he proceeded to rail against the society and myself, saying that the aims of the first were atrocious, and that, as to myself, he was surprised that, being once lodged in the prison of Madrid, I had ever been permitted to quit it; adding, that it was disgraceful in the government to allow a person of my character to roam about an innocent and peaceful country, corrupting the minds of the ignorant and unsuspicious. Far from allowing myself to be disconcerted by his rude behaviour, I replied to him with all possible politeness, and assured ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... I was. But I never told the push that I held down the decks the whole night, clear across the Sierras, through snow-sheds and tunnels, and down to Truckee on the other side, where I arrived at seven in the morning. Such a thing was disgraceful, and I'd have been a common laughing-stock. This is the first time I have confessed the truth about that first ride over the hill. As for the push, it decided that I was all right, and when I came back over the hill to Sacramento, I ...
— The Road • Jack London

... the year 1775, the year before the Declaration of Independence. "In this contest," says the Annual Register of 1776, "the speech was taken to pieces, and every part of it most severely scrutinized. The Ministers were charged with having brought their Sovereign into the most disgraceful and unhappy situation of any monarch now living. Their conduct had already wrested the sceptre of America out of his hands. One-half of the empire was lost, and the other thrown into a state of anarchy and confusion. After having ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... not been unequal—nor, considering the numbers engaged and the weapons employed, have they been very severe. But the Boers hold more than 1,200 unwounded British prisoners, a number that bears a disgraceful proportion to the casualty lists, and a very unsatisfactory relation to the number of Dutchmen that we have taken. All this is mainly the result of being unready. That we are unready is largely due to those in England who have endeavoured ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... sally of the garrison overpowered his guards, and the bishop was carried into the castle to try the fortune of a siege once more. For this siege the king again appealed to the country and called for the help of all under the old Saxon penalty of the disgraceful name of "nithing." The defenders of the castle suffered greatly from the blockade, and were soon compelled to yield upon such terms as the king pleased, who was with difficulty persuaded to give up his first idea of sending them all to ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... sinned against the moral law when he visited the harlot at Gaza. He was wofully weak in character when he yielded to the blandishments of Delilah and wrought his own undoing, as well as that of his people. The disgraceful slavery into which Herakles fell was not caused by the hero's incontinence or uxoriousness, but a punishment for crime, in that he had in a fit of madness killed his friend Iphitus. And the three years which he spent as the slave ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... little of the works of that great Being whom you all pretend to adore, as to believe that he would create any class of beings of a nature such as those you ascribe to that terrific word! Oh, let me pray of you to get rid of these superstitions—alike disgraceful to yourselves and afflicting ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... of the affair without reserve. A new house had already been taken—at Wood Green. Well! After all these years, after so many excellent opportunities, to marry a mere stranger and forsake Islington! In a moment Mr. Jordan's character was gone; had he figured in the police-court under some disgraceful charge, these landladies could hardly have felt more shocked and professed themselves more disgusted. The intelligence spread. Women went out of their way to have a sight of Mrs. Elderfield's house; they hung about for a glimpse of that sinister ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... Baluch gendarmes stationed at Bagamoyo. He had accompanied Speke and Grant a good distance into the interior, and they had rewarded him liberally. He took upon himself the responsibility of assisting in the debarkation of the Expedition, and unworthy as was his appearance, disgraceful as he was in his filth, I here commend him for his influence over the rabble to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... London. Bribery, I know, was disgracefully current in the days of Walpole, of Newcastle, and even of Castlereagh; so current, that no Englishman has a right to hold up his own past government as a model of purity; but the corruption with us did blush and endeavor to hide itself. It was disgraceful to be bribed, if not so to offer bribes. But at Washington corruption has been so common that I can hardly understand how any honest man can have held up his head in the vicinity of the Capitol or ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... reprint in a popular form may serve the purpose of contributing something, in co-operation with the present exertions, to expose, and partially remedy, the lamentable and nationally disgraceful ignorance to which the people of our country have ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... system, and it certainly reached its nadir when Gregory IX showed himself ready in return for a pecuniary penance to absolve men from the vows which they had perhaps been unwillingly forced to take by his own agents for going on crusade. Equally disgraceful was the establishment of the year of Jubilee in 1300 by Boniface VIII, when plenary indulgence of the most comprehensive kind was offered to all who within the year should in the proper spirit visit the tombs of St. Peter ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... Church, the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts, and the borough-mongering of our own times. Those are the three main sources of the existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, disgraceful ones." ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... affairs. The progress of Mormonism to its present strength and power has been attended by a continual series of murders, robberies, and outrages of every description; but there is one dark spot in its disgraceful record that can never be effaced, one crime so heinous that the blood of the betrayed victims still calls ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... alloyed, counterfeit; low-minded, unworthy, ignoble, mean, servile, groveling; despicable, discreditable, disgraceful, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... session. We have had some leading successes. But those who rate them at the highest (higher a great deal, indeed, than I dare to do) are of opinion, that, upon the ground of such advantages, we cannot at this time hope to make any treaty of peace which would not be ruinous and completely disgraceful. In such an anxious state of things, if dawnings of success serve to animate our diligence, they are good; if they tend to increase our presumption, they are worse than defeats. The state of our affairs shall, then, be as promising as any one may choose to conceive it: it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... are not purists, but to take money for their services, to accept L300 a year is no more disgraceful than the action of the Lord Chancellor who takes L10,000. The American-Irish cherish a just resentment. They went away because they were driven out of the country by the land system of that day. And the Irish people must be allowed to regenerate themselves. It cannot be done ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... communicated it to any mortal breathing, before. I send it to you, to convince you I have not been wanting either in the desire, or the endeavor to remove this misunderstanding. Indeed, I thought it highly disgraceful to us both, as indicating minds not sufficiently elevated to prevent a public competition from affecting our personal friendship. I soon found from the correspondence that conciliation was desperate, and yielding to an intimation in her last letter, I ceased from further explanation. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the duke, and called him his ape. His wife was the daughter of the Margrave of Bayreuth, the prettiest and most accomplished princess in all Germany. When I had come to Stuttgart she was no longer there; she had taken refuge with her father, on account of a disgraceful affront which had been offered her by her unworthy husband. It is incorrect to say that this princess fled from her husband ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... seeing Grandier kindly received by our good King when he threw himself at his feet at Paris, they saw that if he triumphed they were lost, and would be universally regarded as impostors. Already the convent of the Ursulines was looked upon only as a theatre for disgraceful comedies, and the nuns themselves as shameless actresses. More than a hundred persons, furious against the Cure, had compromised themselves in the hope of destroying him. Their plot, instead of being abandoned, has gained strength by its first check; and here are the means that ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... all others should appreciate the blending of culture and Christianity. One glance at the history of the world must convince you that the highest culture, unsanctified by Christianity, has never elevated your sex above disgraceful servitude. Certainly you can not entertain the thought, that the culture which does not elevate woman can ever bless the world. Only Christianity has exalted the gentler sex to that position in the esteem and affections of men that God designed she should occupy. Hence, of all the friends of ancient ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... consequence of his pleading that Wriothesley restored the manor, but when Gardiner was illegally deposed by the regency of Edward VI. on 14th February 1550, John Poynet, a considerable scholar, but a man of disgraceful life, obtained the appointment to the see, by alienating various estates to the Seymour family, and Merdon was resumed by the Crown. It was then granted to Sir Philip Hobby who had been one of King Henry's privy councillors, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... horrified. "Another disgraceful street scene!" he cried. Addressing Evan he said: "Please tell me exactly what happened." He glanced nervously over his shoulder. "But not here. Come up ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... village barber does not shave them nor the washerman wash their clothes. A bachelor desiring to marry a widow must first perform the ceremony with a rui or cotton-tree. But such a union is considered disgraceful; the man himself must pay a heavy fine to get back into caste, and his children are considered as partly illegitimate and must marry with the progeny of similar unions. Either husband or wife can obtain a divorce by a simple application to the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... descent on Edinburgh; which transaction occurred in September, 1779. Invernahyle, as Scott adds, was the only person who seemed to have retained possession of his cool senses at the period of that disgraceful alarm, and offered the magistrates to collect as many Highlanders as would suffice for cutting off any part of the pirate's crew that might venture, in quest of plunder, into a city full of high houses and narrow lanes, and every way well calculated for defence. The eager delight ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... married—to marry my own maid, that deceitful Alice, to whom I have been the most indulgent mistress. Did you ever hear of anything so disgraceful? so mortifying? ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... abandoned general Proctor, and crossed the strait to the American shore. Tecumseh himself again manifested a disposition to take his final leave of the British service. Embittered by the perfidy of Proctor, his men suffering from want of clothes and provisions, with the prospect of a disgraceful flight before them, he was strongly inclined to withdraw with his followers; and leave the American general to chastise in a summary manner those who had so repeatedly deceived him and his Indian followers. The Sioux and ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... window above the stoop next day. Once I saw a face looking down on me with such withering scorn, I wondered if the disgraceful scene with Louis Laplante had become noised about, and I hastened to take my exercise in another part of the courtyard. Thereupon, others paid silent homage to the window, but they likewise soon ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... than our forefathers, but they are served and ministered with appliances far more tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the higher tone of society the revolution is owing. Men saw that drunkenness was disgraceful: it rendered society disorderly and riotous; it interfered with all real conversational pleasure; it led to unmannerly excesses, and to quarrels. A higher cultivation repudiated all these things; and even they who, so to say, "liked their wine" too well, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... prison and is about to renew his war on society disguised as a Spanish priest. Vautrin has conceived the idea that as he can take no part in society, he will have a representative in it and taste its pleasures through him. Lucien accepts this disgraceful position and plunges once more into the vortex, supported by the strong arm of the king of the convicts. His career and that of his patron form the subject of the four parts of the 'Splendeurs et miseres' and are too complicated to be described here. Suffice it to say that probably nowhere ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... think of that at the moment,' said Walpole, smiling. 'Now,' continued he, 'though I have written all this, it is so blotted and disgraceful generally—done with the left hand, and while in great pain—that I think it would be as well not to send the letter, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... give you a warm and hearty welcome into these United States. We trust a country worthy of you; where Providence has unfolded a scene as new as it is august, as felicitating as it is unexampled. The enjoyment of liberty with but one disgraceful exception, pervades every class of citizens. A catholic and sincere spirit of toleration regulates society which rises into zeal when the sacred rights of humanity are invaded. And there exists a sentiment of free and candid ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... social, domestic, political and philanthropic, scientific and literary, is honorable. Any form of life without hard work of either hand or brain is shameful and disgraceful. The idler is of necessity a debtor to society; though there are forms of idleness to which, for reasons of its own, society never ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... memorable in the last momentous debates of the Irish House of Commons. Flood carried his patriotism so far as to suspect the British Government of not being sincere in its concessions, when Grattan thought that "nothing dishonorable and disgraceful ought to be supposed in motives until facts ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... came, which were to carry the two ladies thither, Cecilia trembled and hung back. The greatness of her undertaking, the hazard of all her future happiness, the disgraceful secrecy of her conduct, the expected reproaches of Mrs Delvile, and the boldness and indelicacy of the step she was about to take, all so forcibly struck, and so painfully wounded her, that the moment she was ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... have hesitated to make use of them, but the great losses I have recently sustained are well known, and, as I told you, my credit is rather shaken. That deposit may be at any moment withdrawn, and if I had employed it for another purpose, I should bring on me a disgraceful bankruptcy. I do not despise bankruptcies, believe me, but they must be those which enrich, not those which ruin. Now, if you marry M. Cavalcanti, and I get the three millions, or even if it is thought I am going to get them, my credit will be restored, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... party went farther on to the next station, from which they had still six miles to travel by carriage. They set down Ursula on the platform with her box and her parcel, and took leave of her, and swept out of the station again, leaving her rather forlorn and solitary among the crowd. "Disgraceful of May not to send some one to meet the child. I suppose he knew she was coming," said Sir Robert. And Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood looking wistfully about her. But as soon as the train ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... thus baffled, Lykon and the rest turned their displeasure upon Cheirisophus and Xenophon, whom they accused of having occasioned its miscarriage. And they now began to exclaim that it was disgraceful to the Arcadians and Achaeans, who formed more than one numerical half of the army and endured all the toil—to obey as well as to enrich generals from other Hellenic cities; especially a single Athenian who furnished no contingent to the army. Here again it is remarkable ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... who prevented the criminal separation? Was it the boasted chivalry of Suabia? No! Peter Damian, the Pope's legate, alone opposed the angry monarch, and told him, in the presence of all his courtiers, that 'his designs were disgraceful to a king—still more disgraceful to a Christian; that he should blush to commit a crime he would punish in another; and that, unless he renounced his iniquitous project, he would incur the denunciation of the Church and the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles



Words linked to "Disgraceful" :   shameful, inglorious, dishonorable, opprobrious, scandalous, shocking, disgracefulness, dishonourable, ignominious, immoral, black



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