"Seemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beyond question, was born in a gutter, and bred in a board-school, where they played marbles. He was further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper (this was Stalky's contribution), and several other things which it is not seemly to ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... gaiters, well patched and darned, came over his knee, while his doublet and hosen, or body-gear, were fastened together by the primitive attachment of wooden skewers—a contrivance now obsolete, being superseded by others more elegant and seemly. A woollen cap or bonnet, of unparalleled form and dimensions, was disposed upon his head, hiding the upper part of his face, and almost covering a pair of bushy grey eyebrows, that, in their turn, crouched over a quick and vagrant eye, little the worse ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... by William St. Clair, who was Prince of Orkney, Duke of Oldenburgh, Lord of Roslin, Earl of Caithness and Strathearn, and so on ad infinitum. He was called the "Seemly St. Clair," from his noble deportment and elegant manners; resided in royal splendor at this Castle of Roslin, and kept a court there as Prince of Orkney. His table was served with vessels of gold and silver, and he had one lord for his master ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... lessons had not given me a good deportment, nor taught me to hold myself upright. I stooped, slouched, and poked, stood with one hip up and one shoulder down, and exhibited an altogether disgracefully ungraceful carriage, which greatly afflicted my parents. In order that I might "bear my body more seemly," various were the methods resorted to; among others, a hideous engine of torture of the backboard species, made of steel covered with red morocco, which consisted of a flat piece placed on my back, and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... been thinking: and while he would be ostensibly Hugo's servant, he had decided that he would be in reality the master of the expedition. "I like not this obeying of strangers," he said to himself. "Moreover, it is not seemly that any other lad than our own young lord should rule over a man of my years. Let the lad Hugo think I follow him. He shall find he will follow me. And why should these men-at-arms look at us both as if we went out ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... as she could speak composedly, "this is too much. I think I must speak to Mrs. Cristie about this. Of course she can't prevent the young woman from answering back, but I think I can make her see that it isn't seemly and becoming for nurse-maids to be associating with ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... any more than the Prussian Army itself. Wreck and rubbish Friedrich Wilhelm will not leave alone, in any kind; but is intent by all chances to sweep them from the face of the Earth, that something useful, seemly to the Royal mind, may stand there instead. Hence these building operations in the Friedrich Street and elsewhere, so ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay foot-path bridges over small streams. In considering these ribs, I could ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... full seemly, And French she spake full feteously, After the Scole of Stratford at Bowe: The French of Paris was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the baggage train had passed, the commander of the band of prisoners wished to set off, but the "openers of the way," who preceded the archers, forbade him, because it was not seemly for convicts to mingle with soldiers. So they remained on their hillock and continued to watch ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is an honour] The modern editors all read, it is an honour. I have restored the genuine word ["hour"], which is more seemly from a girl to her mother. Your, fire, and such words as are vulgarly uttered in two syllables, are used as dissyllables by Shakespeare. [The first quarto reads honour; the folio hour. I have ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... this World's great Workmaister did cast, To make all things such as we now behold, It seems that he before his eyes had plast A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould He fashion'd them as comely as he could, That now so fair and seemly they appear, As naught may be ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... finger-ring, and tries to look like a ship-broker. He mixes his north-country accent with a twang learned in the West-end theatres, and he never goes ashore without a tall hat and an umbrella. His walk is a grievous trouble to his mind. The ideal ship-broker has a straight and seemly gait; but no captain who ever tried to imitate the ship-broker could quite do away with a certain nautical roll. The new-fashioned captain is not content with that simple old political creed of true sailors, which began and ended with the assertion that one Englishman could beat ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... I should speak in dispraise of that unique and most English class which Mr. Charles Sumner extols—the large class of gentlemen, not of the landed class or of the nobility, but cultivated and refined. They are a seemly product of the energy and of the power to rise in our race. Without, in general, rank and splendor and wealth and luxury to polish them, they have made their own the high standard of life and manners of an aristocratic and refined class. Not having all the dissipations ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... head; but when I left thee, gentle little frightened, fluttering thing, how little could I have thought that all alone, unaided, thou wouldst have kept that little head above water, and made thy son work out all these changes- -thy doing—and so I know they are good and seemly. I see thou hast made him clerkly, quick-witted, and yet a good knight. Ah! thou didst tell me oft that our lonely pride was not high nor worthy fame. ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... convent adjoining to the church of St. Nicholas, and make thy story known to him, as far as thou thinkest meet. He will not fail to inform the Princess, who is the mother of all that want her assistance. Farewell; it is not seemly for me to hold farther converse with a ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... with Domenico, for we know that on the 19th June 1534, a rescript came from the city fathers to the masters Pierre Chambiges, Jacques Arasse, Jehan Aesselin, Loys Caquelin and Dominique de Cortona, reminding them that it would be more seemly to push the works forward and keep an eye on the workmen instead of going away to ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... sxauxmo. scurvy : skorbuto. seal : sigel'i, -o, (animal) foko. seaside : marbordo. season : sezono; spici. seasonable : gxustatempa. secret : sekreta, kasxita. secretary : sekretario. section : sekcio. secular : monda. sedentary : hejmsida, sida. sediment : fecxo. seed : semo. seem : sxajni. seemly : deca. seize : ekkapti. select : elekti, elelekti. selfish : egoista. semicolon : punktokomo. semolina : tritikajxo. send : sendi, (—"for") venigi. sensation : sensacio, sense : sento, senco. sensitive : sentema. sensual : volupta. sentence : frazo, jugxo, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... street with a curious admixture of sensations in a mind usually so free from any confusion of sentiments or ideas. The few words which he had been compelled to exchange with Thorndyke had grated very much against his sense of what was seemly; he was on the whole both repelled and fascinated by the incidents of this visit of his. Yet as he walked leisurely homewards through the bright, crowded streets, he recognized the existence of that strange personal ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "to take the other road I named, I am acquaint with a bookseller in Oxford town, that is a cousin of my sister's husband, a good honest man, and a God-fearing, with whom, if you so pleased, he might be put. 'Tis a clean trade, and a seemly, that need not disgrace any to handle: and methinks there were no need to mention wherefore it were, save that the place were sought for a young gentleman that had lost money through disputes touching lands. That is true, and it should be sufficient to account for all that the master might ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... to a foreign state to mediate a negotiation of the greatest importance, without furnishing him with certain, indubitable credentials of the truth and authenticity of his mission? And to consider further, whether it be just or seemly, to attribute to the Omniscient, Omnipotent Deity, a degree of weakness and folly, which was never yet imputed to any of his creatures? for unless men are hardy enough to pass so gross an affront upon the tremendous Majesty of Heaven, the improbability that ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... had remained quite quiet during the speeches, waited a moment or two, and then replied, with seemly grace and dignity: ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the girl's chin was full and firm. Her tall figure had all the grace of a normal being. Her face, sweet and serious, showed the symmetry of perfect and well-balanced faculties. She stood, as natural and as beautiful, as fit and seemly as the antelope upon the hill, as well poised and sure, her head as high and free, her hold upon life apparently as confident. The vision of her standing there caused Franklin to thrill and flush. Unconsciously he drew near to her, too absorbed to notice the one visible token ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... they with follie have possest, And with vaine toyes the vulgare entertaine; But me have banished, with all the rest That whilome wont to wait upon my traine, Fine Counterfesaunce, and unhurtfull Sport, Delight, and Laughter, deckt in seemly sort. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... By this time she had apparently quite forgotten her careless declaration to her lovers collectively; but the lovers themselves had not forgotten it; and, as she would now be free to take a second one of them, Sir John Gale appeared at her door as early in her widowhood as it was proper and seemly to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... birches stirred Their silvery leaves, and where the drowsy bird Sang plaintively a tender twilight lay, An altar stood entwined by tendrils gay. And soon thereon the mighty ox, new-slain, Was sprinkled o'er with wine and barley grain; Then one, amid the sound of choral song, The seemly leader of the pastoral throng, With reverent hand brought forth the sacred fire, And prayerful knelt and lit the holy pyre. Amid the roar of sacrificial flame The devotees besought their God by name; And while they worshipped, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... M. Popinot, as is seemly for a magistrate, was always dressed in black—a style which contributed to make him ridiculous in the eyes of those who were in the habit of judging everything from a superficial examination. Men who are jealous of maintaining the dignity required by this color ought to devote themselves ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... though I weep of teares full a tine [cask], Yet may that woe my hearte not confound; Your seemly voice, that ye so small out-twine, Maketh my thought in joy and bliss abound. So courteously I go, with love bound, That to myself I say, in my penance, Sufficeth me to love you, Rosamound, Though ye to me ne do ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... away from the dwellings of men. Suddenly, as he lifted up his eyes, he saw two women coming towards him, each from a different road. They were both fair to look upon; but the one had a soft and gentle face, and she was clad in a seemly robe of pure white. The other looked boldly at Herakles, and her face was more ruddy, and her eyes shone with a hot and restless glare. From her shoulders streamed the long folds of her soft embroidered robe, which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... stare was disconcerting. There was a distinct note of disapproval in her voice as she answered, "I do not know much about Italy." She seemed to think it not quite a seemly subject, yet she pursued it. "I should have thought it was better for a young lady without parents or friends to find some occupation ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... without horses?" adding, "he supposed the gentleman had none by his having no boots on."—"Yes, sir, yes," says Adams; "I have a horse, but I have left him behind me."—"I am glad to hear you have one," says Trulliber; "for I assure you I don't love to see clergymen on foot; it is not seemly nor suiting the dignity of the cloth." Here Trulliber made a long oration on the dignity of the cloth (or rather gown) not much worth relating, till his wife had spread the table and set a mess of porridge on it for his breakfast. He then said to Adams, "I don't ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... enter then his gate with praise, Approach with joy his courts unto; Praise, laud, and bless his name always, For it is seemly so ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater
... she went, a shop for merchandise Full of rich stuff, but none for sale exposed, A veil obscured the sunshine of her eyes, The rose within herself her sweetness closed, Each ornament about her seemly lies, By curious chance, or careless art, composed; For what the most neglects, most curious prove, So Beauty's helped by Nature, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... I'm in the difficult position of following her LATE ladyship. SHE appears to have been exceptionally "seemly." This is her frock. I ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... seemly," answered his father, gently. "It would make thee appear anxious to display thy wealth. Such ostentation will induce people to regard thee and thy father as foolish persons, possessed of more wealth than is good ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... as that gigantic, lethargic mass was aroused to unwilling motion by the lash of the west wind. The hull of the Shining Light collapsed. 'Twas time to be off. I awoke the fool—who had still soundly slept. The fool would douse the cabin fire, in a seemly way, and put out the lights; but my uncle forbade him, having rather, said he, watch the old craft go down with a warm glow issuing from her. Presently she was gone, all the warmth and comfort and hope of the world expiring ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... whole sturdy little body. By this time J. P. was leaning against a tree wiping his eyes, and everybody up and down the street was smiling and saying, "That's Lawyer Ed's laugh. What's he up to now, I wonder?" Jock checked his mirth quickly; it was not seemly to rejoice too heartily over one's own humour, but before the joy of it had left, by an adroit turn, J. P. had sent the conversation into its ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... too much to drink; he is an envious devil, and has discovered that it is not seemly of you to treat us as if you were a prince. I told him that, on the contrary, you had treated us as if we were princes, waiting on us with your napkin on your arm. He thereupon found fault with me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... happened since that day. That festival could now have but one celebrant. Then, in another year of the War, in a mood of contrition and dismay, some people began to feel that on the day Peace arrived it would be seemly if she found them on their knees in church. Since that day, too, much has happened; and when Peace does come I suppose most of us will make reasonably certain the bird resembles a dove, and go to bed early—taking another look at the long-lost ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... bubble, the thrifty woman wanted them to accept three dollars apiece. They held stoutly for six dollars apiece. The widow would not pay it. There was a long and undignified wrangle,—disputes over funeral bills are often warranted, but are seldom seemly,—and it ended in the angry departure of the fishermen, without even their three dollars, to lodge a complaint against the Widow Velarde ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... loud voices, and a tendency to loose and profane language. They roared friendly oaths at each other, had brandy flasks on their persons on which they pulled freely, and, their spirits being heightened thereby, exchanged jokes and allusions not too seemly. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... walk up and down the room, stung beyond bearing—not that he had not heard it all before, but to get accustomed to such taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult for a young and susceptible mind to contradict all that is seemly and becoming in nature, and to put forth its own statement in return. Reginald knew that his education had in reality cost his father very little, and that his father knew this. He was aware, too, much more distinctly than ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... and when Malcolm, instead of springing forward in courtly fashion to her assistance as Sir Feal should have done, playfully held out his pole for her to pull herself up by, Mary felt that something was wrong. A playful manner was not seemly on the part of a Sir Feal. It would have been natural enough for Phil or Rob to do teasing things, but she resented it when there seemed a lack of deference on Malcolm's part toward ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... One thing is certain—they cannot ride on with us. We must journey as fast as possible, and delicate women could not support the fatigue; even were it seemly that a young lady, of good family, should be galloping all over France with a ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... morals, the familiarity of their manners did not prevent their retaining so much of hypocrisy as is needful, in any assemblage of men, if people are to look upon one another without feelings of horror and disgust. There even prevailed, in this workshop in full activity, a seemly appearance of harmony and union, a oneness of feeling created by the thought, lofty or commonplace, of the author, a spirit of order which compelled all rivalries and all illwill to transform themselves ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Plantagenet, these Oxford schools Are richly seated near the river-side: The mountains full of fat and fallow deer, The battling[10] pastures lade with kine and flocks, The town gorgeous with high built colleges, And scholars seemly in their grave attire." ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... tale, while Duty, Kinship, Faith, were so far paramount as to govern Destiny and mould the world. A vague, decided flavour of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was felt to pervade the moral universe, a chill but seemly halo of Golden Age was seen to play soberly about things in general. And it was with confidence anticipated that those perfect days were on the march when men and women would propose—(from the austerest motives)—by the ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... of water accordingly was despatched to one of those camps, situated in the desert, with no supply nearer than six miles, and an eye-witness describes its arrival. The mob of Armenians, mad with thirst, surrounded it, and, since everything must be done in an orderly and seemly manner, were beaten back by the Turkish guards, and made to stand at a due distance for the distribution. And when those ranks, with their parched throats and sun-cracked lips, were all ready, the Turkish guards opened the taps of the reservoirs, and allowed the whole of their contents ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... indescribable dignity, Giglio checked their natural, but no more seemly, familiarity. 'Jones, Smith, my good friends,' said the PRINCE, 'disguise is henceforth useless; I am no more the humble student Giles, I am the descendant of a ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... case of happenedicitis," said Poky Rodgers, fency rider of the Largo Verde /potrero/. "Somebody ought to happen to give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. I've rode in nine miles for some tobacco; and it don't appear natural and seemly that you ought ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Bishop Douglas is exactly suited to his share in the development of events; and had room likewise been found for the Court poet Dunbar—author of James's Epithalamium, the 'Thrissill and the Rois'—it would have been both a fit and a seemly arrangement. Had Scott remembered that Dunbar was a favourite of Queen Margaret's he might have introduced him into an interesting episode. The passage devoted to the Queen herself is exquisite and graceful, ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... brightness of the illuminated alleys annoyed her. A more obscure and secluded path opening, Natalie entered it. Ah, she needed solitude and stillness, and what knew she, this simple, harmless child of Nature—what knew she whether it was proper and seemly for a young woman thus alone to venture into these dark walks? She knew not that she incurred any risk, or that one needed protection ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... vocabulary is limited, construction careless, and the daily contact with any literature, now that family prayers and Bible reading are gone; almost nil. Of the spoken English of teachers in our public schools, considered as the basis of training for the writer, it is not seemly to speak. Everybody knows college teachers who have never shaken off the slovenly phrases and careless syntax of their homes. The thesis on which advanced degrees are conferred is a fair and just measure of the capacity to write conferred ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... certain conclusion to be drawn from this letter, which Mr. Echard, in a manner perhaps not so seemly for a Churchman, terms submissive, is, that Monmouth still wished anxiously for life, and was willing to save it, even at the cruel price of begging and receiving it as a boon from his enemy. Ralph conjectures with great probability that this unhappy man's feelings were ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industriously select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs—till which in some measure be compassed at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... that the cause of truth is served by imputing immoral motives to those from whom we differ; and indeed the context shows that our author is altogether blind to the grammatical necessity. But I would venture to ask whether it would not have been more prudent, as well as more seemly, if he had paused before venturing, under the shelter of an anonymous publication, to throw out this imputation of dishonesty against a writer of singular candour and moderation, who has at least given to the world the hostage and the credential of an ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... anger having in no wise abated, 'I've seen what has happened! I have taken 'ee into my house, at some jeopardy to myself; and, whoever you be, the least I expected of 'ee was to treat the maidens with a seemly respect. You have not done it, and I no longer trust you. I am the more watchful over them in that they are motherless; and I must ask 'ee to go ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... has not supervened to essay its recreation, or its moulding anew, should be; and there will also, I think, be divergent views as to a code of morals to be practised which shall comport with the exhibition of a reasonably seemly morality. I cannot, at least, concur in that definition of a moral character, upon which no operation of Divine grace has been expended, for its raising or its beautifying, which accepts that of the pagan Indian as its highest expression; and, distinctly, hesitate to affirm that a high moral instinct ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... Monnoye, in the collection of French songs before me). There was some story of an old romance in which the Beauty had played her part. Perhaps they all had had lovers; for, as I said, they were shapely and seemly personages, as I remember them; but their lives were out of the flower and in the berry at the time of my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... because he wrote in his book that people in France should pray for me in church, naming my honorable name, because, says he—but I will not repeat what he says. It is not seemly." ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... think it seemly for a dog to be living in the churchyard, Mr. Brown?" The minister's voice was merely kind and inquiring, but the caretaker was in fault, and this good English was disconcerting. However, his conscience acquitted him of moral wrong, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... for a year or two while before that interval its occupancy had been irregular. The reason of its unpopularity was soon made manifest. Some of its rooms overlooked the market-place; and such a prospect from such a house was not considered desirable or seemly by its would-be occupiers. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... daughter!" said he, "for great shame will it be to him, yea, and to us also, to break troth with him, he being sackless; (2) and in naught may we trust him, and no friendship shall we have of him, if these matters are broken off; but he will pay us back in as evil wise as he may; for that alone is seemly, to hold truly ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... who exceed in the ridiculous are judged to be Buffoons and Vulgar, catching at it in any and every way and at any cost, and aiming rather at raising laughter than at saying what is seemly and at avoiding to pain the object of their wit. They, on the other hand, who would not for the world make a joke themselves and are displeased with such as do are thought to be Clownish and Stern. But they who are Jocular in good taste are denominated by a Greek term ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... through the city to her coronation, which was to take place on the 15th January following, as well as for defraying the costs of pageants on the occasion.(1478) Committees were appointed to see that the several conduits, the Standard and Cross in Cheap, and other parts of the city were seemly trimmed and decked with pageants, fine paintings and rich cloth of Arras, silver and gold, as at the coronation of Queen Mary, and better still if it conveniently could be done.(1479) Among those appointed to devise pageants for the occasion and to act as masters of the ceremony was Richard Grafton, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... educated gentleman, and can use very fine language, but, it is perfectly true, sir, as I read in a book, that vodka is the blood of Satan. Through vodka my face has darkened. And there is nothing seemly about me, and here, as you may see, sir, I am a cab-driver like an ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... detonating tenor), developing a large and noisy managerial ambition, scarcely waited for the burial of Dr. Damrosch before beginning an agitation looking toward his installation in the dead director's place. All this might have been done in a seemly manner, and if it had been so done might have been carried through successfully and with popular approbation, for Herr Schott's project, in the main, was the one acted on by the directors. But Herr Schott, in an effort to promote his scheme, made an ungallant attack upon the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... returned to its placid shades after many years, drawn thither by a little quick-born yearning to walk the old streets again. But he found such strangeness in these that his memory was put to prodigious feats of reconstruction ere it could make them seemly as of yore. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... seemly that a Tsar who has three able-bodied sons should be robbed night after night of his golden apples? Are you willing that this should happen and you do ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... said the Jew, angrily. 'Let him go.' Shake the dust from thy feet and let him go. Come, daughter! Come home with me—it is but across the road—and take a little time to recover your peace and to make your eyes seemly, and then I will bear you company through the streets. For it is past your usual time, and will soon be late, and the way is long, and there is much company out of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... including the murder of his wife, his children, and his sister. He was an unjust steward, grinding the tenants unmercifully, and enriching himself not only at their expense but at that of his employer. But he contrived to purchase the goodwill of the Church, and at his death it was only seemly that the clergy should do what they could for him. When the spirits of darkness came to claim the soul of the dying wretch they were successfully repelled by the priests with the powers of bell, book, and candle. ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... mourning had a professional, almost a rapacious quality, and if these women had no hope of material pickings, they were getting all possible nourishment from emotional ones. Their eyes, very sharp, but veiled by seemly gloom, criticized the slim, upright figures of these young women who could wear black gracefully, sorrow with dignity, and who had, as they insisted, so much the ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... necessaries, he already takes as if he had been always used to them. And there is something noble—shall I say?—in his half-disdainful way of serving himself with what he still, as I think, secretly values over-much. There is an air of seemly thought—le bel serieux—about him, which makes me think of one of those grave old Dutch statesmen in their youth, such as that famous William the Silent. And yet the effect of this first success of his (of more importance than its mere money value, as insuring for the future the full ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... had sheltered all they did. No strange, unsympathetic eyes had ever peered at their zeal, curious and hostile. This was as well. They had—all ten of them—a freemasonry which the World would not understand. They were observing rites which it was not seemly that the World should watch. Hitherto they had toiled in a harbour at which the World did not touch. Knowing naught else, they had come to take their privacy for granted. Now suddenly this precious postulate had been withdrawn. Since wellnigh the whole of the estate ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... beg pardon!" He looked at me with surprise that he made no attempt to conceal. Fred could pass for a king with that pointed beard of his (provided he were behaving himself seemly at the time) but for all my staid demeanor I have never been mistaken for any kind of personage. I disillusioned ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... match: and all those ladies wept. Sir, said they all, we bring you here this child the which we have nourished, and we pray you to make him a knight, for of a more worthier man's hand may he not receive the order of knighthood. Sir Launcelot beheld the young squire and saw him seemly and demure as a dove, with all manner of good features, that he weened of his age never to have seen so fair a man of form. Then said Sir Launcelot: Cometh this desire of himself? He and all they said yea. Then shall he, said Sir Launcelot, receive the high order of knighthood as tomorn at the reverence ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... dead that hath no thanks to pay. And first fat fagots of the fir and oaken logs they lay, And pile a mighty bale and rich, and weave the dusk-leaved trees Between its sides, and set before the funeral cypresses, And over all in seemly wise the gleaming weapons pile: But some speed fire bewaved brass and water's warmth meanwhile, And wash all o'er and sleek with oil the cold corpse of the dead: Goes up the wail; the limbs bewept they streak ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... always an air of repressed pride about Jack when he listened to the thrilling accounts of his crimes told with dramatic inspiration to horrified audiences; a pride which is not seemly save for great worth and good deeds. Yet in spite of these grave faults of character Dubby accorded McMillan the recognition due his wonderful strength and keen intelligence; for Dubby, while intolerant of mere speed, was ever alert to find the sterner and ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... house, said that hoops were getting very much larger this year, and she thought they would soon be as big as they were in Queen Anne's time. We had much smaller hoops—of course it would not have been seemly to have the bridesmaids as smart as the bride—and we were dressed alike, in white French cambric, with light green trimmings. Of course we all wore white ribbons. I think Father would have stormed at us if we had put on any other colour. I should not like to be the one to ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... of well-endowed character. Neither Plato nor Cicero, least of all Bacon, has risen to so noble and profound a conception of this most strangely commingled of all human affections. There is no modern thinker, again, who makes Beauty—all that is gracious, seemly, and becoming—so conspicuous and essential a part of life. It would be inexact to say that Emerson blended the beautiful with the precepts of duty or of prudence into one complex sentiment, as the Greeks did, but his theory of excellence might ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... was on view, and that a visit would be seemly, she went to Evie's room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed, they ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... his ear, burst forth into wailing notes of surprising strength and volume. Margot rose automatically to her feet, to subside in confusion, as the seated congregation gazed at her in stolid rebuke. In this kirk it was the custom to sit while singing, and stand during prayers—a seemly and decorous habit which benighted ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... have always deplored the necessity. But a great many of them have been closed lately, and the rest are being run in a much more seemly manner. And she wouldn't be the only reporter. I hesitate to give you any better opinion of yourself than you have already, but it would take at least three people to do the work you've been doing. When you get ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... to pass upon a time that the blessed man lay drunk with wine in his dwelling, and slumbered heavy with feasting, and cast off his robe from his body, as was not seemly, and lay there naked of limb. Little did he know what evil plight was his in his dwelling, while drunkenness had hold upon his heart within him in its holy house. But his soul was fast bound in slumber, so that in his stupor he might not cover himself with a garment, nor hide ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... moment of glorious dreaminess, that I turned to look at the squat and unaristocratic figure of Father Malachi, as he sat reading his newspaper before the fire. How came I in such company; methinks the Dean of Windsor, or the Bishop of Durham had been a much more seemly associate for one destined as I was for the flood-tide ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... say it would have been more seemly to decline this proposal. I think perhaps I should have made a show of the indignation I really felt, and I am sure that Colonel MacAndrew at least would have thought well of me if I had been able to report my stout refusal to sit at the same table with a man of ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... congruous, fit, meet, seemly, beseeming, decent, fitting, neat, suitable, comely, decorous, graceful, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... that erst so seemly was to seen, Was all despoiled of her beauteous hew, And soote fresh flowers wherewith the summers queen, Had clad the earth, new Boreas blasts down blew And small fowls flocking in their songs did rew The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaste, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... make a cushion. She, too, was excited, though not openly; her gloves were off, and her own lovely hand, the whitest in the room, placed the stakes. You might see a red spot on her cheek-bone, and a strange glint in her deep eye; but she could not do anything that was not seemly. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... [Calls out.] The gilded saddle on my horse! And forget not the bridle with the serpents' heads! [Looks out to the back.] Ha, there he is already at the gate! Well, then, my staff—my silver-headed staff! Such a lordly knight—Heaven save us!—we must receive him with honour, with all seemly honour! ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... the sculptor's thought - Slurred by those added braveries; So for thy spirit did devise Its Maker seemly garniture, Of its own essence parcel pure, - From grave simplicities a dress, And reticent demurenesses, And love encinctured with reserve; Which the woven vesture should subserve. For outward robes in their ostents Should show the soul's habiliments. Therefore I say,—Thou'rt ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... it very much to heart and talked to Elsie: she should not be so silly with Uli; she must think what folks would say and how they would gossip about her. It was truly not seemly for a rich girl to treat a servant like a sweetheart. No, she had nothing against Uli, but still he was only a servant, and Elsie surely didn't want to marry ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school. For as old Atlas on his broad neck places Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it;—so Do these upbear the little world below Of Education,—Patience, Love, and Hope. Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show, The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope, And robes that touching as adown they flow, Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie, Love too will ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... table like unto a mountain of cream and eggs, spreading its extremities to the very confines of the dish; but, when touched by the magic-working spoon, it collapsed, and concentrated into a dish of moderate and seemly dimensions. In other words, this very soufflet—considered by some as the crux of refined cookery—was an exemplification of all the essential requisites of the culinary art: but without the cotelette, it would not have satisfied appetites ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... wish we could make friends with him, and ask him up here to drink a cup of wine with us. However, it would not be seemly for us wardsmen to go and invite a person of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... himself this way. There are birds—for instance, jays, kingfishers, goldfinches—which are, taken absolutely, extremely brilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So it was with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous. Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle it would have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one could discover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even to the lips, which were full and parted, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... carried along the street, as if by the force of a mighty torrent. I was hemmed in on every side by a seething mass of men and women, some of whom were praying and singing, while others used many profane words, and uttered threats which would not be seemly for me to write down. I quickly learned that the people were making their way toward the house of a lady who, I was told, was called Mrs. Bennetto, although I am not sure that this was the correct name. I asked why they wanted to get there, and was told that Mr. John ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... come first, and never let them be allowed at all to the damage, or impairing, or obscuring of the simplicity and dignity of the great things; remembering always that the first function of a window is to have stately and seemly figures in beautiful glass, and not to arrest or distract the attention of the spectator with puzzles. Given the great themes adequately expressed, the little fancies may then cluster round them and ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... obsequious, any title can be taken by the one necessary man. Napoleon at first affected to doubt whether the title of Stadtholder would not be more seemly than that of Emperor; and in one of the many conferences held on this topic, Miot de Melito advocated the retention of the term Consul for its grand republican simplicity. But it was soon seen that ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... of frolic green Might well become a maiden queen, Which seemly was to see; A hood to that so neat and fine, In color like ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
