"Awkward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forward, impudent baggage as she is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other people's apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his due; and now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward Virtue in her teens—but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in picking the pockets of her sisters—tried to filch from him his lawful recompense. The case was perplexing; for the parson held Susceptibility in great ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... more than the major had been expecting, and he suddenly found himself placed in a most awkward position. But his presence of mind never forsook him; and, accepting the rebel's proffered hand, he shook it with apparent cordiality, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... to having the whole ceiling raised, because her room was over the back parlor, and she would have no floor while the alteration was going on, which would be very awkward. Besides, her room was not very high now, and, if the floor were raised, perhaps she could ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... of amenity expected from her, in relation to her brother, was not exhibited. She might perhaps be feeling herself awkward at introductions, and had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... possessed the same virtues and accomplishments, he might afterwards have enjoyed his title and estate with equal comfort and reputation. But as merit does not go by inheritance, like house and land, young Rustick's character was entirely the reverse of his father's. He was of an awkward clumsy make; and the heaviness of his disposition, and the coarseness of his manners perfectly corresponded with the shape of his body. Though he was sent to school very early, and put under the care of the best instructors which the ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... French frontier, and M. Rouher, a thorough Imperialist, headed a deputation of senators to congratulate the emperor, in the name of the Senate, on having drawn the sword when the Prussian king rejected the demand for guarantees. M. Ollivier reasonably complains that this unauthorised demonstration was awkward and mischievous; for while the Senate was thus made to attribute the rupture to the king's refusal, the ministry was declaring war on account of the 'soufflet de Bismarck'—the insult embodied in the Prussian telegram. Yet M. Ollivier, looking ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... enough, until a great awkward giant, named Bob, came and looked very hard at us. At first we did not like him; but he was really very kind, and called us "Ducky, ducky, ducky!" and threw us handfuls of barley. He then seized two or three of my fattest brothers and sisters, ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... Pothier?" said Philibert, observing his guide jolting with an audible grunt at every step of his awkward nag. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and wait ere he can awaken love in her who is to him the one woman in the world. Many a woman has to wait and wonder and face distress. Then, too, till the stage of mutual acknowledgment is reached love makes men and women awkward. They do uncouth, crude, and clumsy things. They get into muddles. They make mistakes. It would seem that some delicate process of mutual adjustment is often necessary before two souls can really find each other, and while the ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... A shrewd British officer who knew the Indian character, took that characteristic into account in laying his plans for the capture of Eugene Sue's famous Feringhea. He found out Feringhea's hiding-place, and sent a guard by night to seize him, but the squad was awkward and he got away. However, they got the rest of the family—the mother, wife, child, and brother—and brought them to the officer, at Jubbulpore; the officer did not fret, but bided his time: "I knew Feringhea would not go far ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from modern inventions. The telegraph, the submarine cable, and the telephone, all have served to render communication prompt and certain. Steamships and railroads carry letters half round the globe for a price too trivial to be paid for delivering a message round the corner. The old, awkward methods of making payments have given way to a tolerably uniform system of coinage. Instead of each petty principality and each town having its own coins, as was common, especially in Germany and Italy, before the nineteenth century, all coins are now issued ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of apology to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends for his unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of Wilding earlier that evening in the council-room, drew the ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... and regard of none. His capacity was considerable; but fitter to discourse on general maxims, than to conduct any intricate business: his intentions were just; but more adapted to the conduct of private life than to the government of kingdoms. Awkward in his person, and ungainly in his manners, he was ill qualified to command respect; partial and undiscerning in his affections, he was little fitted to acquire general love. Of a feeble temper, more than of a frail judgment; exposed to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... a shy good-bye of Sanin; he felt as it were in awe of him; he greatly admired him. Klueber saw Sanin to his lodging, and took leave of him stiffly. The well-regulated German, for all his self-confidence, felt awkward. And ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... prattling to the one of his fancy about everything in creation until he is so tired that he can scarcely stand erect. The curtain drops and rises with the word "Den." In this, the second scene, he finally gets around to the point where he makes all manner of awkward protestations of love. The hearer of the Rhyme is left laughing, with a sort of satisfactory feeling that possibly he succeeded in his suit and possibly he didn't. Among the many examples of Rhymes where verse ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... was like going to meet an enemy, dear and terrible. I was divided between two impulses, both equally savage 1 think, either to stab or to fall upon your breast and weep. But you will bear me witness that my greeting in reality was conventionally awkward. In any case, your eyes would have saved me. They are wide and deep, and as you stood here by the window where I am writing now, with both my hands clasped in yours, I saw a bright beam leap up far within them like candles suddenly lighted in an open grave. You had not come merely to ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... themselves, with two exceptions—namely, Captain Avery and Captain Kidd. In May, 1699, Kidd suddenly appeared in a small vessel at New York, with rich booty. His chief patron, Lord Bellomont, was now Governor, and was placed in the most awkward position of having to carry out his orders and arrest Kidd for piracy and send him in chains to England in H.M.S. Advice, which ship had been sent specially to New York to carry back Kidd, Bradish, and other pirates ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... he, who stood there singing in the midst of the downpour, took a few steps to the side, saw the red shawl, the face, the big brown eyes, the astonished little open mouth; instantly his position became awkward, in surprise he looked down himself; but in the same moment a small cry was heard, the projecting branch swayed violently, the red end of the shawl disappeared in a flash, the girl's face disappeared, and there was a rustling and rustling further and further away behind the hazelbushes. Then he ran. ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... fit, against the coppery sky. No doubt from his height he could make out the monsters. Perhaps Hogan could see the great fish shooting along with sinister, exertionless ease toward these clumsy adventurers—a school of trout striking at three awkward beetles. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... awkward question; for certainly, even if a person did intend to go to war with the just, he would not admit ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... put on some of my expensive new toilets and went with my step-mother in our handsome conveyance to make calls. I was presented to every one of any note, and drank tea in the best drawing-rooms the Capital could boast of. So far my step-mother looked happy. I had not been awkward at introductions, nor dull in conversations. I had even made some very pithy remarks where they could do me most service, and knew the name of a historic personage to whom Lady Pendleton alluded vaguely, forgetting his title. I was invaded in my turn on our reception day by ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... very welcome," said Julius, laughing, "provided you can manage with the old women's cats. I should find such companions rather awkward ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the buckboard and horses to a tall awkward country lad who had slouched forward from the shadows, hurried off to light ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... sought and so highly prized in Oriental art, is the very thing which our art and our architecture most conspicuously lack. To the eye sensitive to rhythm, our essays in these fields appear awkward and unconvincing, lacking a certain inevitability. We must restore to art that first great canon of Chinese aesthetics, "Rhythmic vitality, or the life movement of the spirit through the rhythm of things." It cannot ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... her). But what on earth am I to say? (Stopping as she disappears, and turning to Charteris grumbling) Now really you know, Charteris, this is devilish awkward, upon my life it is. That was a most indelicate thing of you to say plump out before us all—that about you ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... limbs, laughter, sobs, reactions simply reflex or perceptive, in connection with immediate stimulation, with inhibition, without choice, without adaptation by reflection. The thoughts that fill these ruminations are childish and stupid, just as the acts are vulgar and awkward; there is a manifest return to childhood and barbarism. The behavior of the agitated individual is well below that which he should show normally. It is easy to explain these facts in the language we have adopted. The ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... encounter no resistance, as it thrilled on its way through our brain, from established errors. What the genius and the prophet are there for is just that—to make us listen to unwelcome truths, to compel us to hear, to drive awkward facts straight home with sledge-hammer force to the unwilling hearts and brains of us. Not what you want to hear, or what I want to hear, is good and useful for us; but what we don't want to hear, what we can't bear to think, what we hate to believe, what we ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... to say that you must not take some thought for your gestures. If that were meant, why this chapter? When the sergeant despairingly besought the recruit in the awkward squad to step out and look at himself, he gave splendid advice—and worthy of personal application. Particularly while you are in the learning days of public speaking you must learn to criticise your own ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... in the corridor at the time and there could be no doubt he did not wish to speak to me. I did not dream of such impertinent treatment from a man, whom I had cordially received at my apartments; why should he insult me? He could have no other excuse than a desire to avoid an awkward interview, during which questions might be asked, which he did not care to answer. But why? This second mystery troubled me almost as much as the first. Although I tried to drive the thought from my head, that young man's action in avoiding me seemed to have ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... were lying, piled up, and everything in the room was neatly cleared away, but the old woman had vanished. The maiden thanked God, and sat still till evening came, when the step-mother came in and marvelled to see the work completed. "Just look, you awkward creature," said she, "what can be done when people are industrious; and why couldst thou not set about something else? There thou sittest with thy hands crossed." When she went out she said, "The creature is worth more than her salt. I must give her some ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... with the smallest possible bearing upon right conduct; a religion perfectly at its ease with much scamping of lessons and hard work in general; indulgent of occasional cribbing, and of skilful manipulation of awkward truth, of betting and small extravagances; and innocent of all sense of dishonesty in allowing a struggling parent to pay large sums for education while the school-time so purchased, often at the cost of home comforts and pleasant outings, is ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... brilliant reputation among the faculties, a man finds himself very much at a stand who is unprovided with one; for the Imagination, the Judgment, and the Reason walk off in search of the Memory—each in opposite directions; and the Mind, left at home by itself, is in a very awkward predicament—gets comatose—snores loudly, and expires. For our own part, we would much rather lose our Imagination and our Judgment—nay, our very Reason itself—than our Memory—provided we were suffered ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... twining stiff fibres of awkward speech—things young men blurted out—plaiting them round his own smooth garland, making the bright side show, the vivid greens, the sharp thorns, manliness. He loved it. Indeed to Sopwith a man could ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... understanding yet a single word. At this awkward juncture the old man came hurrying along the passage, and Mrs. Macintyre turned to him with ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... evacuation then was out of the question. They saw Percy making his dispositions, and could see nothing to modify on their own side. All they could do was to await the result. "There," says Greene, "we all stood in a very awkward situation." Had they remained much longer it would have been more than awkward. Putnam, Greene, and Mercer felt that Washington at least ought not to be exposed in a position which might become dangerous, and they all ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... change of mien, as Jim suddenly ran down the steps to gaze into the taxicab, then nodding to Shirley. The house-holder as promptly returned through his front door, while Shirley swiftly unmanacled the prisoner enough to let him walk, stiff and awkward from the long ordeal in the car. The stern grip, of his ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... attachment of which you have hesitated to tell me? Hesitate no longer, my dearest Salome. Tell me all about it. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Love is natural. Love is holy. Oh, it is your mother that should be telling you all this, my poor girl, not your awkward, blundering old father," suddenly said the banker, breaking off in his discourse as his daughter hid her crimson face ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... justification, but it was a salve. Sarah was in the shopping period of her life—shopping for a husband, so to speak. She was entitled to the best she could get ... and Bob did not seem to be the best. Farley was sprightly, interesting, with the manners of a more effete world than Coldriver; Bob was awkward, ofttimes silent, lacking polish. Farley was solicitous in small matters that Bob failed utterly to perceive; Farley was always skilled in minute points of decorum, whose very existence was unknown to Bob. In short, ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... you," replied the Bear, politely; and at once he began to pick berries and to put them into Twinkle's pail. His big paws looked very clumsy and awkward, but it was astonishing how many blueberries the bear could pick with them. Twinkle had hard work to keep up with him, and almost before she realized how fast they had worked, the little pail was full and overflowing with fine, ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... long silence, to me an awkward one; I didn't know what to do or say. Then I perceived the best thing was to let him ease his hurt by just talking on ... and he talked ... on and on ... in his slow, drawling monotone ... and ever so often came the refrain, "Christ, but she was a good woman, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Pole? That would be awkward for your friends and gratifying to your enemies, if one may believe science and history. But, perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor fellow! for my father tells me you are going over the hills and far away to the moose-yards. How valiant ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... astonished at this rough mode of having a service done him, was not sorry to extricate himself thus from the affair, having had time to reflect how very awkward it might be for him to be recognized, after striking the head of the judicial authority, the agent of the very Cardinal who was to present him to the King. He observed also that around him was assembled a crowd of the lowest class of people, among whom he blushed to find himself. He therefore ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... being awkward," said the voice of Mr. Pogram in his ear. "I say, do you think—no hand himself, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and he waded across, steadying her, while the current rippled round his legs. Some of the stones were covered, but with his support she sprang across the gaps and the effort did not hurt her foot as much as she had thought. He was not awkward. She liked his firm grasp, and his care that she did not fall; particularly since she saw he was satisfied to give her the help she needed and knew when to stop. After she got across she thanked ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... standpoint of structure, too, "The Fortunate Foundlings" is an improvement over the haphazard plots of Mrs. Haywood's early romances, though the double-barreled story necessitated by twin hero and heroine could hardly be told without awkward interruptions in the sequence of one part of the narrative in order to forward the other. But the author doubtless felt that the reader's interest would be freshened by turning from the amorous adventures of Louisa to the daring deeds ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... beside the sorry body they were taking away with them, they themselves felt like pariahs among the throng of the humble who had been consoled or healed; they seemed embarrassed by their very luxury, and recoiled, awkward and ill at ease, covered with shame at the thought that Our Lady of Lourdes had relieved beggars whilst never casting a glance upon that beautiful and powerful lady agonising unto death amidst all ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... that his pocket was empty. Happily some friends were near to rescue him from his difficulty, but the crucial moment of the incident was to be perpetuated in all its ludicrous humour by an artist of a later generation, who, in the painting entitled "An Awkward Position," depicted the poet at the moment when he discovered his pockets ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... broken tooth, a fallen cheek ... it seems little enough, but one has a sort of standard. I had a microscopic eye, you know, and a little blemish was a serious thing to me. I was always in search of something that I could not find; then there were awkward strains in the characters of people—they were mean or greedy or selfish, and all my pleasure was suddenly dashed. I am speaking," he went on, "with a strange candour! I don't defend it or excuse it, but there it was. I did once, as a child, I believe, care for one person—an old nurse of ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sure," said Hayles, with a blank countenance. "It appears to me, sir, as it's an awkward business for all parties. Here's the girl gone, and no one knows where. When a girl don't come back to her own 'ome all night, things look serious, sir; and it has been said as the last place she was seen was ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a very awkward thing. One of those happily awkward things which crown a man conqueror more surely than all the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... roof we went; now descending, now ascending a few steps; now walking along narrow gutters, between battlement and sloping roof; now crossing awkward junctions—trying doors many in tower and turret—all in vain! Every one was bolted on the inside. We had grown quite silent, for the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... narrative,—such a style may be ungrammatical, it may be inelegant, it may be one tissue of mistakes, but it can never be devoid of merit. The first and the true function of the writer has been thoroughly performed throughout; and though the manner of his utterance may be childishly awkward, the matter has been transformed and assimilated by his unfeigned interest and delight. The gusto of the man speaks out fierily after all these years. For the difference between Pepys and Shelley, to return to that half-whimsical approximation, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Florida with awkward hesitation, and a half-defiant, half-imploring look at him. "You must have all sorts of people applying to you, as a consul; and you look after their affairs—and try ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... a meeting!—in the midst of men and women, elbowing, crowding, embracing, exclaiming, rejoicing, chaffing, weeping! It was an awkward state of things, but as every one else was in the same predicament, and as all were more or less swallowed up in their own affairs, Miles and his mother were fain to make the best of it. They retired under the partial shelter of a bulkhead, where block-tackles and nautical ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Somehow, the question sounded harsh, but the man seemed not to notice. There was an awkward silence during which the old man continued to stare out ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... attraction was so strong that he had serious thoughts of emigrating with "the beauteous Queen of the Dingle," but he dallied with the idea with characteristic waywardness until it was too late. He sought to postpone awkward decisions, to divert himself and amuse Isopel by making his charmer learn Armenian—the language which he happened at the time to be studying. Isopel bore with it for some time, but the imposition of the verb "to ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... and running errands to the shops, there are none that go naked, probably few that suffer want, and all are decent looking enough. And here are big, tall, half-grown girls, the quaintest of all, with their awkward movements, and their laughter, and their earnest occupation with their own little affairs. Now and again they stop on the bridge to watch the lumbermen at work among the logs below, and join in the song of the men as they haul— "Hoi-aho!"—and then ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... Fortunatus was far too long and pretentious a name for common use; so they peremptorily shortened it to "Tus"; then, adding it to the father's appellation, it became "Tailorkin-Fekli-Tus." The first word of this lengthy and awkward combination was soon dropped off, and the other two were combined into one word and became Feklitus. With this the critics were satisfied, and long usage fixed the name so completely on the boy that at last very few recalled the fine name Fortunatus, ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet. The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... her book drop gently on the table, received Egremont with composure and native grace. It is civilization that makes us awkward, for it gives us an uncertain position. Perplexed, we take refuge in pretence; and embarrassed, we seek a resource in affectation. The Bedouin and the Red Indian never lose their presence of mind; and the wife of a peasant, when you enter her cottage, often greets ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright. Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible, living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet, in ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... details of it as accurately as any German maiden at her cookery school. Emily took very kindly to even the hardest housework; there she felt able and necessary; and, doubtless, upstairs, grimly listening to prim Miss Branwell's stories of bygone gaieties, this awkward growing girl was glad to remember that she too was of importance to the household, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... saw no sign of him for nearly a minute; after which he suddenly emerged, with a cry of joy, a good many yards out from the shore. My spirits were so much raised by seeing all this that I, too, hastily threw off my garments and endeavoured to imitate Jack's vigorous bound; but I was so awkward that my foot caught on a stump, and I fell to the ground; then I slipped on a stone while running over the sand, and nearly fell again, much to the amusement of Peterkin, who laughed heartily, and called me a "slow coach," ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... me that C——r asked him why the thing was called the Bride of Abydos? It is a cursed awkward question, being unanswerable. She is not a bride, only about to be one; but ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale face, but before he could stammer a ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... were asked for volunteers. Every man offered himself, though all knew what it meant to cross that stretch of open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed for the honor, and the first man to start-off with the message was an awkward shock-headed chap who, the narrator says, didn't impress by his appearance. Into the blinding hail of bullets he dashed, and cleared the first hundred yards without mishap. In the second lap he fell ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... of Christians I jined was the Hard-shells. I was young an' a raw recruit an' nachully fell into the awkward squad. I liked their solar plexus way of goin' at the Devil, an' I liked the way they'd allers deal out a good ration of whiskey, after the fight, to ev'ry true soldier of the Cross—especially if we got our feet too wet, which we mos' always ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... at the house of the latter. We gather from Burke's "Letters on the Conduct of our Domestic Parties," that it was the first time he had met Pitt in private; and the meeting must have been somewhat awkward. After dining, with Grenville as host, the three men conferred together till eleven o'clock, discussing the whole situation "very calmly" (says Burke); but we can fancy the tumult of feelings in the breast of the old man when he found both Ministers firm as adamant against intervention in France. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... trying to solve, namely, the reason Armida Santini and a man disguised as her husband died in Scotland at the hand of an assassin. But surely I need say no more. It is surely sufficient to convince you that if the truth were spoken, the revelations would be distinctly awkward." ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... Sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste? Some demon whispered, "Visto! have a taste." Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule. See! sportive Fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide. A standing sermon, at each year's expense, That never coxcomb reached magnificence! You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use. Yet shall, my ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... soul. Lazarus paid to stay away from the gate. John the Baptist, in raiment of broadcloth, a circlet of white linen about his neck, and his meat strawberries and ice-cream. The lower classes mentioned mincingly; awkward silences or visible wincings at allusions to death, and converse on eternal things banished as if it were the smell of cabbage. So looked the gay world, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... pageant on the back of dromedaries! The camel is called the ship of the desert. Its swinging motion in the distance is suggestive of a vessel rising and falling with the billows. Though awkward, how imposing these creatures as they move along, whether in ancient or modern times, sometimes carrying four hundred or four thousand travelers from Bagdad to Aleppo, or from Bassora to Damascus! In my text comes a caravan. We notice the noiseless step of the broad foot, the velocity ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... doubts, also, as to the success of the recent expedition to Fantaisie began to revive. His rising reminiscences of his native land, which, with the joint assistance of popularity and philosophy, he had hitherto succeeded in stifling, were indeed awkward. He could not conceive his mistress with a page and a poodle. He feared much that the cargo was not well assorted. Popanilla determined to inquire after ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... characteristic of the Red races.) This sort of distinction, as a writer nobody is likely to have read, can hardly counteract an indistinctness in my articulation, which the best-intentioned loudness will not remedy. Then, in some quarters my awkward feet are against me, the length of my upper lip, and an inveterate way I have of walking with my head foremost and my chin projecting. One can become only too well aware of such things by looking in the glass, or in that other mirror held up to nature in the frank opinions ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... a crowd of children. Two boys had gone away. There remained two growing girls; a shy midget of eight; John, tall, awkward, and eighteen; Jim, younger, quicker, and better looking; and two babies of indefinite age. Then there was Josie herself. She seemed to be the center of the family: always busy at service, or at home, or berry-picking; a little nervous ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... admiration. Tall and gaunt, and angular in person, with his long, spare limbs dangling helplessly about him, and rocked and swayed by the movement of the masses under him, the great warrior was never in all his life before in a position more awkward and undignified. The master of men and emergencies was unthroned for one ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... But disappointments soon began to overshadow his seeming good luck. The first production of the "Flying Dutchman" can hardly be called a success. Wagner himself characterized the performance as being, in its main features, "a complete failure," and the stage setting "incredibly awkward and wooden" (very different from what it is in Dresden to-day). Mme. Schroeder-Devrient was an admirable "Senta," and received enthusiastic applause; but the opera itself puzzled the audience ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... than ten minutes the boat was enveloped in a dense fog. The position was decidedly awkward. Had there been any wind they could have steered by the sound of the surf breaking at the foot of the cliffs, but the sea was absolutely calm, and they could hear nothing. They rowed on for some ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... warningly. Then he smiled, a shy nervous smile. "It would be very awkward," he said slowly, "very awkward indeed, if you happened to come to the throne just now. I really don't know what Brasshay would do. But it's too late for me to begin that sort of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... communicate to her what had been decided about her, and to explain to her, as well, that though she could go and prostrate herself before Madame Wang, she could dispense with seeing dowager lady Chia. This news made Hsi Jen feel very awkward; to such an extent, that no sooner had she got through her visit to Madame Wang, than she returned in a hurry to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... that he could have seen things in any other light. In that final emergency he debated, thrust debate resolutely aside, determined at all costs to go through with the thing he had undertaken. And he could find no word to begin. Even as he stood, awkward, hesitating, with an indiscreet apology for his inability trembling on his lips, came the noise of many people crying out, the running to and fro of feet. "Wait," cried someone, and a door opened. Graham turned, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... to use properly the organs of will, and, not to fall into hardness and heaviness, it prefers to sacrifice something of the aim of movement, or else it seeks to reach it by cross ways and indirect means. An awkward and stiff dancer expends as much force as if he had to work a windmill; with his feet and arms he describes lines as angular as if he were tracing figures with geometrical precision; the affected dancer, on the other hand, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that children that have sex-love in this second stage of its development, as a rule, avoid all direct expressions of their feelings and that lovers are awkward, embarrassed, self-conscious and ill-at-ease in each other's presence. This is true when the conditions are such that their personalities meet in mutual recognition without a third thing as a shield. They are ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... on, Agasha?" I asked her, after a long silence, when it began to be awkward to remain mute ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... awkward as he works on land. In use of arms and hands he reminds one of a monkey, while his clumsy and usually slow-moving body will often suggest the hippopotamus. By using head, hands, teeth, tail, and webbed feet the beaver accomplishes ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... little listening in—and maybe we can rig another surprise if Grange does try to ask advice of someone off world. In the meantime I don't think they are going to meddle with the Salariki. They don't want to have to answer awkward questions if we turn up a Patrol ship to ask them. So—" he stretched and beckoned to Dane, "we shall go to work ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... precautions I made the journey down along the river on foot, carrying from my winter quarters all my household furniture and goods, wrapped up in the deerskin bag which I formed by tying the legs together in an awkward knot; and thus laden fording the small streams and wading through the swamps that lay across my path. After fifty odd miles of this I came to the country called Sifkova, where I found the cabin of a peasant named ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... to the corner of Broadway and Twenty-third street, where Anway stopped, evidently to wait for an eastbound car. This was a little awkward, for the cars bound in that direction were but sparsely filled at this hour. Evan bought a newspaper. Anyway boarded a cross-town car and sat down inside. Evan swung himself on as the car got in motion, and remained out on the back platform, using ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... was a somewhat awkward silence, and Alton fancied that both men were relieved when Mrs. Forel's voice broke in, "Jack, you will look after the men, but don't keep them talking too long. We picked up Mr. Seaforth, and there are one or two more ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... to withdraw. The hunters now advanced, upon which the bears turned, rose again upon their haunches, and repeated their serio-comic examination. This was repeated several times, until the hunters, piqued at their unmannerly staring, rebuked it with a discharge of their rifles. The bears made an awkward bound or two, as if wounded, and then walked off with great gravity, seeming to commune together, and every now and then turning to take another look at the hunters. It was well for the latter that the bears were ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... screamed, 'Pretty! Nay, aunt, you cannot call that baby-faced chit pretty. No air; no breeding; mere dairymaid's beauty. It makes me laugh to think how proud she was of her fine gown and cap, which only showed her awkward gait the more.' And Mistress Dorothy fingered her Flemish lace and the string of beads round her short, thick neck, with profound ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... of Phyl had been delightful, then, little by little, her stiffness and seeming lifelessness had communicated themselves to him. It seemed to him that he had never met a duller or more awkward schoolgirl. His mind was of that quick order which requires to be caught in the uptake rapidly in order to shine. Slowness, coldness, dulness or hesitancy in others depressed him just as dull weather depressed him. He did not at all know with what a burning interest his arrival had been ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... he wound it up; then he looked at it again. 'The great question is,' says he, 'am I fast or am I slow? If I'm slow, we may as well go on with breakfast. If I'm fast, why, there is just the possibility of saving Prince Bulbo. It's a doosid awkward mistake, and upon my word, Hedzoff, I have the greatest mind to ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the name of charity, Monsieur," he said to Francois. "The Comedie-Francaise finds itself in the most awkward quandary. We have prepared a big gala performance at La Monnaie, to raise money for ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... in conclusion, to the excited Almayer, "it is deucedly awkward to have a half-caste girl in the house. There's such a lot of fools about. There was that young fellow from the bank who used to ride to the Vinck bungalow early and late. That old woman thought it was for that Emma of hers. When she found out ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... some skin knocked off their knuckles through awkward handling of the knife and flint, a good fire was at last kindled, as there was no lack of dry wood on the shore. Catharine then triumphantly produced her tin pot, and the eggs were boiled, greatly to the satisfaction of all parties, who were by this time sufficiently hungry, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... mere thread in most instances—requires that the thread shall at least be never allowed to drop. But she cuts or slackens it perpetually, long arguments and digressions intervening, and the dialogue, whose monotony is unrelieved by wit, nowhere compensates for the limited interest of the action. Awkward treatment is but half felt when subject and situations are dramatically strong; but plays with so airy and impalpable a basis as these need to be sustained by the utmost perfection of construction, concision ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... and Jack cocked his gun, believing he would have to fire. Otto, seeing the movement, turned, but at that moment the animal, if he had actually any purpose of opening hostilities, changed his mind, moving off to one side, and continued his awkward gait ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... both to you and Hermia. Unfortunately, she has left New York, and I don't know where to find her. She left town, I am informed, the day after the play was given. I wish she hadn't. It makes things awkward for me. I have the best intentions in the world, but if she ties my hands by silence what can ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... Coarseness of thought naturally brought on coarseness of action. Horace Walpole wrote in 1737, "'Tis no little inducement, to make me wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than they do their coach horses, and have not half the regard for them that they ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... said King, also in English. The Prince looked glum, but interposed no imperial objection. Instead he suddenly shoved the cigarette box under the nose of his dainty relative, who at that unpropitious instant stooped over to watch King's awkward attempt ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... removal of dinner from a public room had subsided; the clatter of plates, and knives and forks—the bustling tread of awkward boobies of country servants, kicking each other's shins, and wrangling, as they endeavour to rush out of the door three abreast—the clash of glasses and tumblers, borne to earth in the tumult—the shrieks of the landlady—the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... infinite, the value of conduct is paramount; but he who lacks intellectual culture, whatever else he may be, is narrow, awkward, unintelligent. The mirror of his soul is dim, the motions of his spirit are sluggish, and the divine image which is ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... What now stands as the second title, The Mistakes of a Night, was originally the only one; but it was thought undignified for a comedy. The Old House a New Inn was suggested in place of it, but dismissed as awkward. Sir Joshua offered a much better name to Goldsmith, saying, "You ought to call it The Belle's Stratagem, and if you do not I will damn it." When Goldsmith, in whose ear perhaps a line of Dryden's lingered, hit upon She Stoops to Conquer.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... steep, but the ice in some of these intervals between the masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like a knife; these places, though not more than three or four short paces in length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the sword leading true believers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs be passed before we could attain to the summit of our ambition. These were in one or two places so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes well turned out for greater ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lumbered with awkward grace to a great wooden pedestal. Cupping down over this was a glass bell, about eight feet high, suspended from ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... occasion consisted of a pig, a sheep, and an ox, the Latin names of which were sus, ovis, and taurus, these being run together in a single manufactured word. Words are not easily made to order, and this one shows how awkward they are when they do ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... he answered; "but the most awkward part of it is that it's from a complete stranger. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... somewhat mortified to find a good, large piece of work assigned him to do before he could get his breakfast, and at first he was exceedingly awkward, and did not know how to set about it; but Industry showed him the way, Order helped him a good deal, and Economy ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... and to supply this defect, we exert more strength and activity than is requisite. "It does not require strength; you need not use so much force; you need not take so much pains;" we frequently say to those who are making the first painful awkward attempts at some simple operation. Can any thing appear more easy than knitting, when we look at the dexterous, rapid motions of an experienced practitioner? But let a gentleman take up a lady's knitting needles, and knitting appears to him, and to all the spectators, one of ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... too disgusting to have him and his poems recalled in this manner after all the world thought they had got rid of the concern.' (1824) 'Mr. Shelley died, it seems, with a volume of Mr. Keats's poetry "grasped with one hand in his bosom"—rather an awkward posture, as you will be convinced if you try it. But what a rash man Shelley was to put to sea in a frail boat with Jack's poetry on board!... Down went the boat with a "swirl"! I lay a wager that it righted soon after ejecting ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... frequently an affected way of holding the knife half-way down its length, as if it were too big for their little hands; but this is as awkward a way as it is weak; the knife should be grasped freely by the handle only, the forefinger being the only one to touch the blade, and that only along the back of the blade at its root, and no ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... hear him, for, as they rushed down over the icy snow, he had his work cut out to check his awkward car, as it nearly mastered him, his heels gliding over the smooth surface and refusing to cut in. Forcing them down, though, the speed began to slacken, till they neared the ascending group of savage faces ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... comfort even with the coming of the tea-things. Tea at the gardener's cottage was a serious meal, with a big cake and little cakes, and preserves and fruit, a fine spread upon a table. You must imagine me, sullen, awkward, and preoccupied, perplexed by the something that was inexplicably unexpected in Nettie, saying little, and glowering across the cake at her, and all the eloquence I had been concentrating for the previous twenty-four ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... no other way and feeling the position a little awkward, appealed to Ruth, who got up and started with her. When they had clambered down the rather steep hill to the meadow's edge Miss Custer affectionately took her arm. "Don't you think picnics are stupid things?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... possible to advance further on the old lines; yet painters, sculptors, architects, and poets of the rising generation had before their eyes the masterpieces of their predecessors, in their minds the precepts of the learned. All alike were rendered awkward and self-conscious by the sense of laboring at a disadvantage, and by the dread of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that one man should be left on a solitary rock, with the corpse of his comrade, while the seething waters prevented any one from coming to his assistance. But even now the life is sufficiently trying. Human nature is apt to be awkward, and it is desirable that the light-keepers should be good tempered, friendly men, who will not soon tire of each other, nor quarrel over misunderstandings and differences of opinion. It must be a happy thing for a man who is a lighthouse watcher, to be God-fearing and ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... my heart," he responded, evidently much relieved, and turned the somewhat awkward conversation to the first available topic, which chanced to be ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... his shoulders and stepped to the door, which he opened, shouting, "The mayor of St. Dizier!" The corpulent form of the mayor, who greeted the emperor with awkward obeisances, appeared immediately. "Pray repeat your statements," said the emperor, "The enemy's troops were here yesterday, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... he who asks too much, goes astray. No one can advise me in this matter, not even Marianne. And, after all, with my uncle, it's like this: 'I am doing you a good turn, and you must repay me.' If he's severe with me, and with Damie, because he's awkward, and we have to run away, where in this wide, strange world are we to go? Here everybody knows us, and every hedge, every tree has a familiar face. 'You know me, don't you?' she said, looking up at the tree. 'Oh, if you could but speak! God created you too—why cannot you speak? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... enjoyable. We have to learn how to work before we can get the full enjoyment from our occupation. You had to learn how to skate and how to dance before you enjoyed skating and dancing. Trying to skate and trying to dance and being awkward, and not knowing how, does not give one the full enjoyment of skating and dancing. But when we do know how and have become skilful, how delightful these recreations are! When we know how to work, work ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... in what you say, master;" both Ch'ien Ch'i and Li Kuei chimed in laughingly; "but pretend you're lazy and don't get down. In the event of our coming across Mr. Lai Ta and our number two Mr. Lin, they're sure, rather awkward though it be for them to say anything to their master, to tender you one or two words of advice, but throw the whole of the blame upon us. You can also tell them that we had not explained to you what was the right ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... this Joe, I am in an awkward fix. I have got myself into a scrape, and I want you to help me out of it. You were good at such things when we were at College, and I want you to try ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... counted: that he did not know where he should look to find characters to fill up the offices; that mere talents did not suffice for the department of State, but it required a person conversant in foreign affairs, perhaps acquainted with foreign courts; that without this, the best talents would be awkward and at a loss. He told me that Colonel Hamilton had three or four weeks ago written to him, informing him that private as well as public reasons had brought him to the determination to retire, and that he should do it ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... evening-school students usually explained that they felt "funny" and were shy and awkward in the school. They went to the same school which their children attended, sat on the same benches, had the same teacher, and read the same books which their children did. Finally, they stopped, deciding that their children could do the learning of English for both themselves ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... times, her nerves seemed to be shaken by the spectacle of my sufferings. Her kind hands trembled and made mistakes, when they had any nursing duties to perform near me. The servants, noticing her, used to say, "That pretty girl seems to be the most awkward person in the house." On the day that followed the ceremony in the chapel, this want of self-control brought about an accident which led to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... which I am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a fib—I wished to have written to Dr. Moore before I wrote to you; but, though every day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on my thoughts, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... a smoke but no wine, thankee, Mr. Verity," said he. "I kem along now' 'coss I want to be aboard afore it's dark. We're moored in an awkward place." ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... and welcome which always accompanies honest minds: his table is the image of plenty and generosity, supported by justice and frugality. After we had dined here, our affair was to visit Avaro: out comes an awkward fellow with a careful countenance; "Sir, would you speak with my master? May I crave your name?" After the first preambles, he leads us into a noble solitude, a great house that seemed uninhabited; but from ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... soul of lawyers reared upon Teutonic custom. They recognised that they were dealing with a new form of community; but they were not prepared to define it or to generalise about it. They preferred to treat each town as sui generis, an awkward anomaly, ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... afternoon. Here he is, at last. The white trousers, blue coat, and yellow waistcoat—and more especially that cock of the hat—indicate, as surely as inanimate objects can, that Chalk Farm and not the parish church, is their destination. The girl colours up, and puts out her hand with a very awkward affectation of indifference. He gives it a gallant squeeze, and away they walk, arm in arm, the girl just looking back towards her 'place' with an air of conscious self-importance, and nodding to her fellow-servant who has gone up to the two-pair-of- stairs window, to take ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... their seats, came an awkward pause. The Duke, still erect beside the chair he had vacated, looked very grave and pale. Marraby had taken an outrageous liberty. But "a member of the Junta can do no wrong," and the liberty could not be resented. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... the significance of which I knew full well, a colored scrap-picture arrived, representing a rosy woman's hand with elegantly curved finger tips offering a bouquet of blue forget-me-nots. The source from whence it came was evident enough to me, and I, awkward churl, was rude enough to send her a rapturous letter of thanks for it, which of course met with a very ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... in which he had taken shelter, had observed Burnett's approach; and overhearing the conversation which had ensued, he knew that the tables were turned, and that his sister was at length in safety. Captain Hawkesford, who feared that very awkward consequences might ensue from his conduct, apologised to Reginald, and made all the excuses he could ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... he is good-looking," thought Frank, "and that makes him a bit conceited; but it will soon wear off. I shall joke him out of it. And he knows so much. He is so manly. He makes me feel like an awkward schoolboy beside him." ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... "Awkward," he said, "yet it's the only way it could have been done. Now, here's a bedpost, exactly like the one in room 168, occupied by Mr. Greene at the Denton. Kirby, you're a powerful man. Can you break that knob off ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... so strained, so stupendous a moment that it would quickly have become awkward and anti-climacteric but for the tact ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... one saw Her features, for her soul covered her face As with a veil of ever-moving life. When she came near, and her bright eyes met his, He seemed to start; his gallantry was gone, And like an awkward boy he sat and gazed; And her laugh too was hushed, and she passed on, Passed out of sight but never out of mind, The king and all his counselors saw this. "Good king, our deer is struck," Asita said, "If this love cure ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... sang with Homer, and carved with Phidias, and philosophized with Aristotle,—as none have ever sung, or carved, or philosophized since. Times and fashions have altered, truly; but these three men are still our Masters in Philosophy, in Sculpture, and in Song. Awkward fact, that the colossal Infant should have lisped in a tongue which for copiousness of diction, and subtlety of expression, absolutely remains to this hour without a rival in ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... interest in him they had wanted to get him away from Ellen. In her innermost self-confidences she did not permit herself the notion that Ellen had any right to him; but still it was a relief to have them off the ship, and to have him left. Of all the witnesses of the fact, she alone did not find it awkward. Breckon himself found it very awkward. He did not wish to be with the Rasmiths, but he found it uncomfortable not being with them, under the circumstances, and he followed them ashore in tingling reveries of explanation and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "He says it's awkward. They have got hold somewhere of one of our old circulars of 1914 in which the property is described as worth about ten million dollars—that was during the boom, you remember—and they claim we are selling it to ourselves for less than one million and that on its face it's a fraud on the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... eyes left his face and became fixed upon an object at the far end of the corridor. Bob turned in time to see Janet Duncan swing on her heel and follow her mother up the stairs. He struggled to find words to tide over what he felt was an awkward moment. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... look at it sensibly it's about the best illness anybody could have in hot weather like this. You've got to keep them warm. The weather does it for you. If it was typhoid now, and you'd got to keep them cool—that would be awkward. Not but it passes me how anybody can catch ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... should be permitted. The graceful kingdom of Art is developed from it, as also the poetry of conversation in jest and wit. Although this sometimes becomes stereotyped into very prosaic conventional forms of speech, it is more tolerable than the awkward honesty which takes everything in its simple literal sense. And it is easy to discover whether children in such play, in the activity of free joyousness, incline to the side of mischief by their showing a desire of satisfying their selfish interest. Then they must be checked, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... in everything else, but he wrote with his left hand—an angular, upright chirography which, Louise thought, showed unmistakably that he was unfamiliar with the use of the pen. "Writing up the log" he called this clerkly task, and his awkward looking characters in the ledger were in great contrast to Cap'n Abe's ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... meaning of this word, there is a slang Australian use denoting an awkward adventure, an unpleasant experience, a troublesome job. In America the slang use is "an easy or agreeable thing." ('Standard.') The Australasian use is an ironical ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... jumping on the firm ice and shouting to me "Il n'y a plus de danger, Monsieur." Here we took off the ropes, and drank some more brandy, and then went as hard as we could, jumping across crevasses, which two days before I should have thought awkward, as if they were cart ruts. We reached Chamouni at 8.30 P.M., having been sixteen and a quarter hours without resting. I was not at all tired; the guides thanked me for having given so little trouble, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to us, ye who do not know where ye are—ye who live among strangers in the houses of dismay and self-righteousness. Poor, awkward ones! How bewildered and be-devilled ye go!... In what prisons are ye flung? To what lowliness are ye bowed? How are ye ground between the laws and the customs? Come away! For the dance has begun lightly, the wind is sounding over ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... of upper rooms. On the sward, a little in advance of the tree, but beneath its shadow, stood the musician, and in that musician Kenelm recognized the wanderer from whose talk he had conceived the idea of the pedestrian excursion which had already brought him into a very awkward position. The instrument on which the singer accompanied himself was a guitar, and his song was evidently a love-song, though, as it was now drawing near to its close, Kenelm could but imperfectly guess at its general meaning. He heard enough to perceive ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... just left school, was going through the awkward phase of discovering her individuality. At the College, with a full program of lessons and games, she had followed the general lead of the form. Now, cast upon her own resources, she was quite vague as to any special bent or taste. The war-time occupations which ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... jeweller. He approached the door and rang the bell; The door was opened by the same young lady, whose manner exhibited not a little embarrassment, when she beheld a total stranger; and he began to feel himself in an awkward position. He was at a loss how to address her till, recollecting that he must explain his visit in some way, he said: "Pardon the intrusion of a stranger; but, by your permission, I would like to enter the house, and have a word of conversation with you." The young girl regarded ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... right. We received tracings of several possible lines of defence, on the plain itself and on the near side of the mountain crest, described as the "Blue Line," the "Green Line," etc., which we were required to reconnoitre with a view to finding Battery positions and O.P.'s. They were all very awkward lines to defend, as the enemy would have splendid observation and we ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... His awkward big-dog attempts at friendliness had been repulsed. She played the Maudie to his Billy Bluff, and all would have been well but that he refused to get back upon her by bounding. Instead, he apparently had come to the conclusion that she ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... see her every night For thirteen days, and had a sneaking notion To pop the question, thinking all was right, And once or twice had make an awkward motion To take her hand, and stammer'd, cough'd, and stutter'd, But, somehow, nothing to the point ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... were I sure of the rudest health, I would not carry my birth, my manners, my habits into that young lord's house. How long would it be, Mrs. Roden, before he saw some little trick that would displease him? Some word would be wrongly spoken, some garment would be ill-folded, some awkward movement would tell the tale,—and then he would feel that he had done wrong to marry the Quaker's daughter. All the virtues under the sun cannot bolster up love so as to stand the battery of one touch of disgust. Tell my father that, and tell him that I have done well. Then ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... men were leaving the Peary. Awkward, swaying objects, they rose up directly in front of ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... held to this doctrine and applied it rigorously. On a certain occasion he was playing Caleb Plummer. In the scene between the old toy-maker and his blind daughter, when the father discovers the dreadful result of his dissimulation—an awkward hitch; and, the climax quite thwarted, the curtain came down. I was ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... actin' dretful liberal, but I knew they had strange ways in Washington anyway. And I didn't know but it wuz their way to make some present to every woman that comes there, and I didn't want to act awkward and out of style, so ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... the fate that would attend any such application. The directors were already decidedly uneasy about their first loan; shareholders had asked awkward questions, and the chairman had found no small difficulty in showing that the investment was likely to prove either safe or remunerative. Again, only a fortnight before, the Government had made ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... March day, and he had been loitering on the west-side docks, looking at faces. He was becoming an expert in physiognomies: his eagerness no longer made rash darts and awkward recoils. He knew now the face he needed, as clearly as if it had come to him in a vision; and not till he found it would he speak. As he walked eastward through the shabby reeking streets he had a premonition that he ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... much elated at being permitted to dance with "the swan-neck," a little faded now, but once a noted beauty. The swan-neck is a famous lady. Ill-natured persons might have added an awkward syllable to famous. She had been very dear to a great Russian magnate who lived in a villa lined with malachite, and loaded her with gifts. But as the marquis, her husband, was always with her and invariably spoke of his wife as an angel, where was the harm? Now the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... awkward ways," said Foh-Kyung, as he turned in at the gate; "in their hearts they have the secret ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... effectually cured of "la maladie imaginaire" by the acuteness of a little real pain. The flambeau of a spruce livery servant setting fire to the greasy tail of a Bath chairman's surtout produced a most awkward rencontre, by which a husband and wife, who had not been associated together for some years, but were proceeding to the ball in separate chairs, were, by the accidental concussion of their sedans in a moment of alarm, actually thrown into each other's arms; and such was the gallantry ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... that our countries were at war; and third—No, I will speak," said I; "you can answer when I have done,—and third, that I had dishonourably killed—or was said to have done so—the man Goguelat. Now, my dear fellow, these are very awkward grounds to be taking. From any one else's lips I need scarce tell you how I should resent them; but my hands are tied. I have so much gratitude to you, without talking of the love I bear your sister, that you insult me, when you do so, under the cover of a complete impunity. I must feel the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I fear that I am a little late, but the trains were awkward. You wrote to me about a bust that is in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle |
