"Unmentionable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two aunts, just then telling the biography of their dolls, were his, his sky would have fallen in at least weekly. "Tell me of that once," he said, and, knowing not why, called to mind those four soldiers in France, to her, for some reason, unmentionable. ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... "That's a very unmentionable sor' of thing to say," he remarked. "An' if it wasn't for the sacred claims of hospitality, I'd make you explain just what you mean by that, and make you eat ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... forged his mother's will, because he was arrested while picking the pockets of a lady at Tottenham Court Road Station, because he refused to pay for the upkeep of his seven illegitimate children, because he was involved in a flamboyant scandal of unmentionable nature and unprecedented dimensions, because he was detected while trying to poison the rhinoceros at the Zoo with an arsenical bun, because he strangled his mistress, because he addressed an almost disrespectful letter to the Primate of England beginning "My good Owl"—or for any suchlike ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the other hand, solitary confinement came in with the second current of the classic school of criminology, when at the same time, in which Beccaria promulgated his ideas, John Howard traveled all over Europe describing the unmentionable horrors of mass imprisonment, which became a center of infection for society at large. Then the classic school went to the other extreme of solitary confinement, after the model of America, whence we adopted the systems of Philadelphia and Harrisburg in the first ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... in Salem," she continued; "and I've heard he has the most peculiar appearance. Very probably the result of the unmentionable practices of the Orient. Father liked the Chinese though; so many of our shipmasters have, and not always the merchants.... What was I saying? Oh, yes, Edward Dunsack. I understand you had a distinct alarm in that quarter, about the girl and Gerrit Ammidon. But I forgot to ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... extreme men on both sides, of course. 'Idaho' Jack, professional gambler, for instance, frankly considered that the whole town was going to unmentionable depths of propriety. The organisation of the League was regarded by him, and by many others, as a sad retrograde towards the bondage of the ancient and dying East; and that he could not get drunk when and where he pleased, 'Idaho,' ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... sardines with various returning working parties which had all got congested here—working parties from various companies and regiments; there were some Irish amongst them. It was amusing to listen to the language: men shouting, with all kinds of unmentionable oaths, to each other to get a 'bloody move on for ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... student and hardworking man from youth upward. He was not wont to boast of his pedigree until in later life, being assailed by vilest slander, all his kindred nearest or most remote being charged with every possible and unmentionable crime, and himself stigmatized as sprung from the lowest kennels of humanity—as if thereby his private character and public services could be more legitimately blackened—he was stung into exhibiting ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dissipated friends called his attention to the frown or the pout of her, Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an unmentionable place, He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when all that nonsense was knocked out of her," And his method of knocking it out of her is one that covered ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... and Wrangel men, and was jostled by wild-eyed Sticks from over the Passes, fierce Chilcats, and Queen Charlotte Islanders. And the looks they cast upon her were black and frowning, save—and far worse—where the merrier souls leered patronizingly into her face and chuckled unmentionable things. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... first I hear of what you allude to. I think you must be mistaken as to Mrs. Drayton Deane's having had any unmentioned, and still less any unmentionable, knowledge about Hugh Vereker. She would certainly have wished it—if it bore on ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... rang out a long string of "sacre chien," "sacre diable," and still more unmentionable phrases. The effect-upon the dogs was magical; the cariole flew to the summit; the progress of the episcopal tour was undeniably expedited, and a-practical exposition was given of the poet's thought, "From seeming evil still ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... his arguments, with a most menacing and stentorian voice, while he thumped his desk with his shut fist, or struck it with his great ruler at the end of each argument, in a manner that made the youngster put his hands behind him several times, to be certain that that portion of his dress which is unmentionable was tight upon him. If in these encounters the young candidate for the honors of the literary sceptre was not victorious, he again resumed his studies, under his old preceptor, with renewed vigor and becoming humility; but if he put the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... which bears silent witness to the shedding of blood. The writer knew intimately a very mild, kindly old man who had a strop fashioned out of several thicknesses of Apache skins. The Apaches had inflicted unmentionable torments upon him and his, and the strop was his dearest possession. The men and women of the wilderness are primal in their ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... from his chair, his sleepy languor dissipated; on his face the look that had come there when Lord Royallieu had dishonored his mother's name. In his code there was one shameless piece of utter and unmentionable degradation—it was ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... not admitted as a fact. According to the authentic accounts of historians and travellers, there is scarcely a single vice that, in some age or country of the world, has not been countenanced by public opinion. The murder of aged parents, theft, suicide, promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, and unmentionable crimes have been tolerated and approved. Among ourselves, Duelling is viewed with the most opposite sentiments; forgiveness of injuries is accounted by some people magnanimity, and by others meanness. In ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... gravitation. Except for this error, which may be regarded as constant, we use the word with reckless looseness, meaning a dozen different things by it, and yet always assuming that to a respectable man it can have only one meaning. The pious citizen, suspecting the Socialist (for example) of unmentionable things, and asking him heatedly whether he wishes to abolish marriage, is infuriated by a sense of unanswerable quibbling when the Socialist asks him what particular variety of marriage he means: ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... many people come to witness it. The judges and the parents of the delinquents reprimand the unfortunate couple, then from two to four lashes are on each occasion inflicted, first upon the man and then upon the woman. These are applied to an unmentionable part of the back, which is bared, the poor wretches standing with their hands tied to the pole. The executioner is given mescal that he may be in proper spirit to strike hard. The woman has to ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... for her was that of teaching, and she knew, without having tried it, that she abhorred teaching. Further, there was no economical reason why she should work. In 1878, unless pushed by necessity, no girl might dream of a vocation: the idea was monstrous; it was almost unmentionable. Still further, she had no wish to work for work's sake. Marriage remained. But she felt herself a child, ages short of marriage. And she never met a man. It was literally a fact that, except Mr. Skellorn, a few tradesmen, the vicar, the curate, and a sidesman or so, she ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... thoroughly out of conceit with myself and all creation. I had been experimenting freely in things not usually talked of in polite society. And I was abominably sold, for I found the enjoyment such things procure is decidedly overrated. Unmentionable matters, once fully explored, are just as tedious and inadequate as those which supply the most unexceptionable subjects of conversation. Moreover, in the process of exploration I had touched a good deal of pitch, and, the simpleton being still superfluously to ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... "ladies" (objects of perfectly needless respect among men) who, being requested to leave the Court, at unmentionable Trials, persist in keeping their places. It was a relief to him to feel—if his next questions did nothing else—that they would disappoint ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... drollest world to live in that one could imagine, short of being in a fit of delirium tremens? Here is a fellow-creature of mine and yours who is asked to see all the glories of the firmament brought close to him, and he is too busy with a little unmentionable parasite that infests the bristly surface of a bee to spare an hour or two of a single evening for the splendors of the universe! I must get a peep through that microscope of his and see the pediculus which occupies a larger space in his mental vision than the ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... weary of this subject of cosmetics, as every woman of sense will at last weary of the use of them. It is a lesson which is sure to come; but, in the lives of most fashionable ladies, it has small chance of being needed until that unmentionable time, when men shall cease to make baubles and playthings of them. It takes most women two-thirds of their lifetime to discover that men may be amused by, without respecting, them; and every woman may make up her mind that to be really respected ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... of the house, but when I entered the open doorway, meaning to mount to the upper floor, it was as if I were immediately blown into the street again by the thick and noisome stench which filled the place from some unmentionable if not ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells |
