"Seemly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Coronary Herbs," as follows: "He beareth argent, a chevron sable between three Columbines slipped proper, by the name of Hall of Coventry. The Columbine is pleasing to the eye, as well in respect of the seemly (and not vulgar) shape as in regard of the azury colour thereof, and is holden to be very medicinable for the dissolving of imposthumations or swellings in ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... "Excellent Sovereign seemly to see, Proved prudence peerless of price, Bright blossom of benignity, Of figure fairest, and freshest ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... be (a) no more than is necessary to distinguish clearly the division into words, and (b) should be as nearly equal as possible. Modern printers, even the best, pay very little heed to these two essentials of seemly composition, and the inferior ones run riot in licentious spacing, thereby producing, inter alia, those ugly rivers of lines running about the page which are such a blemish to decent printing. ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance 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 industrious and 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 that I can give them." And when he came to redeem his ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... Wear seemly gloves; not black, nor yet too light, And least of all the pair that once was white; Let the dead party where you told your loves Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves; Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, But be a parent,—don't ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... neighbours who were not Roman Catholics making for church and chapel, to which half a dozen tinkly bells invited them. The weather had finally cleared up, and a goodly number of people waded past him through the mire. Among them, in seemly Sabbath dress, went Ocock, with his two black sheep at heel. The old man was a rigid Methodist, and at a recent prayer-meeting had been moved to bear public witness to his salvation. This was no doubt one reason why the young scapegrace ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... a pleasant scheme; But take your sword along with you, for that Might in such neighbourhood find seemly use.— But first, how wash our hands ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... she is now home again at Chelsea, a cheery, amiable younger Jane Welsh to nurse her: the tone of her Letters is still full of disconsolateness. I had to proceed hither, and have to stay here till this establishment can be abolished, and all the sad wrecks of it in some seemly manner swept away. It is above three weeks that I have been here; not till eight days ago could I so much as manage to command solitude, to be left altogether alone. I lead a strange life; full of sadness, of solemnity, not without a kind of ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... place seemed deserted. Within the hall she saw no human being,—only heaps of grain, loose ears of corn half torn from the husk, wheat and barley, alike scattered in confusion on the floor. Without delay, she set to work binding the sheaves together and gathering the scattered ears of corn in seemly wise, as a princess would wish to see them. While she was in the midst of her task, a voice startled her, and she looked up to behold Demeter herself, the goddess of the harvest, smiling upon her with ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... said gravely, "there are subjects concerning which it is not seemly to speak without due reverence. He knoweth His own elect. He hath chosen them out from the beginning. He summoned forth from the million, the glorious apostle of reform, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... times, and after that, no matter what happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father's conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... of "Jane Eyre" reached me this morning. You have given the work every advantage which good paper, clear type, and a seemly outside can supply;—if it fails, the fault will lie ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... ought not to have told the story before the servants; but we were too excited to know what was right and seemly. Indeed, so overwrought were we that Ruth had not been divested of her strange garments, and soon after I had finished my narrative I felt how thoughtless I had been, and how ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... reason, to befriend any measures for the repression of Popery; but he stood at the fire afterwards in the House of Lords, for a great while, warming his back and laughing with his friends. I was in the gallery and saw it myself. Laughter is a very good thing, but a seemly gravity is no less good. As might be expected of curs, they barked all the louder when there was no one to stand up to them; and within a week, after numerous insulting proposals made to honour that horde ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... 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
... I would accompany you there, Doctor Blecker. They might only think it seemly in me to bid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... 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 ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... admiring listener. He prayed with fervour and animation, in pure Johnsonian English, and I hope I am not undutiful if I add my impression that he was not displeased with the sound of his own devotions. My cry for help had needlessly, as he thought, broken in upon this holy and seemly performance. 'You, the child of a naturalist,' he remarked in awesome tones, 'you to pretend to feel terror at the advance of an insect?' It could but be a pretext, he declared, for avoiding the testimony of faith in prayer. 'If your heart were fixed, if it panted ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... caused him to be taught cavalarice and archery and all such arts and sciences which it behoveth the sons of the Kings to learn, so that he became perfect in all manner knowledge. At eighteen years of age he waxed seemly of semblance and such were his strength and valiance that none in the whole world could compare with him. Presently, feeling himself gifted with unusual vigour and virile character he addressed one day of the days Firuzah his parent, saying, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 of a possible success; ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... brought him there. She merely shrugged a little, hitched up her buckskin skirt and resumed her task of pounding corn between two stones at the door of the hut, appearing to take no interest in the quarrel that followed. For like a good squaw, she did not think it seemly to interfere in her ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... picturesqueness. 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, its restrained ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... his escort left the court-room, the people literally rushed upon them. A thousand hands, not half so seemly as those which already had clasped his own, were extended towards his. These strong and sturdy hands seemed to promise him protection in case it should be needful for him at any future ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... her daughter in his company. I firmly believe that the discipline of the same bed which Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ed. Bury, vol. ii, p. 37) makes so merry over could have been endured by him without difficulty. His outward conduct was in all these respects most seemly and decorous, yet night after night he could masturbate, his imagination glowing with ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Indra spake:—"He is unclean, And into Swarga such shall enter not. The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits Of sacrifice, if dogs defile the fire. Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast! That which is seemly is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... spiritual pride had entered, to open his heart to that sympathy and charity, which, as they are the characteristics of our mild and forbearing doctrines, should be the study of those who profess to follow their precepts. All that was seemly, and all that was usual, were done; but the purpose of the stubborn sectarian remained unchanged. His final decision is worthy ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... used to conclude, "had the best of that jest besides at least two bottles of claret, for in those days a clergyman took more wine than we would now think seemly, although, mark you, the old gentleman always denounced drunkenness on two grounds: first, because it was an offence against religion, and second, because it ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... trousseau; all brides require trousseaux," said Edith, who, although unorthodox in most things, did not think it seemly that a bride should go to the altar ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... baptized. He addressed him formally as "Joseph Smith senior." The old man had, as it seemed, a great fear of the water. It took both priests of the new sect together to lift and immerse him. There was more splashing than was seemly. The baptism of a farmer named Martin Harris, which ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... 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 ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... acknowledged by all the fraternity to have been in use for centuries. The following lines have found their way into several works, including Ingledew's "Ballads and Songs of Yorkshire" (1860). In some collections the lines are headed "Rules for Seemly Behaviour," and in others "The Barber of Thirsk's Forfeits." We draw upon Dr Ingledew for the following version, which is ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... John Dormay, if, instead of complaining of my boy, you were to look somewhat to your own. I marked, the last time he came over here, that he was growing loutish in his manners, and that he bore himself with less respect to his elders than is seemly in a lad of that age. He needs curbing, and would carry himself all the better if, like Charlie, he had an hour a day at sword exercise. I speak for the boy's good. It is true that you yourself, being a bitter Whig, mix but little with your neighbours, who are for the most part ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... which was due both to our friendship and to some verses which he wrote in my praise. It was an ancestral custom of ours to enrich with honours or money those who had written the praises of individuals or cities, but among other noble and seemly customs this has now become obsolete. I suppose since we have ceased to do things worthy of laudation, we think it in bad ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... edifice had been reared during the preceding summer, by the aid of what was called a subscription; though all, or nearly all, of the money came from the pockets of the landlord. It had been built under a strong conviction of the necessity of a more seemly place of worship than the long room of the academy, and under an implied agreement that, after its completion, the question should be fairly put to the people, that they might decide to what denomination it should belong. Of course, this expectation kept ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... with both hands to her heart and to her lips, declared aloud, amid the tears and grateful benedictions of her people, that she thanked the city more for that gift than for all the cost they had bestowed upon her, and that she would often read over that book. The last pageant exhibited "a seemly and mete personage, richly apparelled in parliament robes, with a sceptre in her hand, over whose head was written 'Deborah, the judge and restorer of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... any more than there is that her destruction was a foregone conclusion. She came with many prognostics of success, though also with a continual possibility that "terrible tragedies" might come of it; and for some time it would appear that her Court was as seemly and pleasant as any Court could be, full of youthful pleasure and delight as became her years and the gay youthful company that surrounded her, but also of graver matters and thoughts and ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... 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. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... our day stands more sturdily for the idea that, whereas art is precious, personality is more precious still; without which art is a tinkling cymbal and with which even a defective art can conquer Time, like a garment not all-seemly, that yet cannot hide ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... thou wert in the old Egyptian realm: I had thee on that morning 'neath the palms when long I lingered where of yore had stood the rose-red city, half as old as time. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! It was a lady called thee into life. She said, Methinks ye need a velvet coat. It is a seemly guise to ride to hounds. Another gave me whip and silvered spurs. Now all have vanished in the darkening past. Ladies and all are gone into the gloom. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite. Thou'st had a venturous and traveled life, for thou wert once in Moscow in the snow. A true ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... never could discover any good-breeding in setting another man, almost expressly, to poke his nose up in the face of my wife, and talk nonsense to her; for, in such cases, nonsense it generally is. It is not a thing of much consequence, to be sure; but when the wife is young, especially, it is not seemly, at any rate, and it cannot possibly lead to any good, though it may not lead to any great evil. And, on the other hand, you may be quite sure that, whatever she may seem to think of the matter, she will not like you the ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... reach the body of the car and looked out of the window, a sight met my gaze that might have made a less sinful man, than one who had spent the best part of his life on railways, give vent to comments that I am persuaded would not appear quite seemly in print. Our car was wedged well-nigh up to the windows in a huge drift, while the wind, which had whipped the harassed snow into fragments as fine as dust, caught up great clouds of the dismembered flakes, and with triumphant shrieks ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... due, polity what is seemly; justice weighs and decides, polity surveys and orders; justice refers to the individual, polity ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... quickly, and get another, and seek out the prettiest and rarest." "Oh, no," replied the boy, "the wild ones have more scent, and will please her better." When he got into the room, the King's daughter said, "Take thy cap off, it is not seemly to keep it on in my presence." He again said, "I may not, I have a sore head." She, however, caught at his cap and pulled it off, and then his golden hair rolled down on his shoulders, and it was splendid to behold. He wanted to run out, but she held him by the arm, and gave him ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... accidental, or there merely for its own sake. He contrasted it with his room at Cambridge, which had been a jumble of things that he loved dearly and of things that he did not love at all. Now these also had come to Dunwood House, and had been distributed where each was seemly—Sir Percival to the drawing-room, the photograph of Stockholm to the passage, his chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his mother to the study. And then he contrasted it with the Ansells' house, to which their ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... sure of what you mean," he cried, "or to be able to say it. Come, come, prince, if the Hebrew claims a right to remonstrate because he is twenty years or so older than I am, surely I may claim the same right, for I am full twenty years older than you. Is it seemly to let your hot young blood boil over at every trifle? Here, let me replenish your platter, for it is ill hunting after man, woman, or beast without a stomach full ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... of others, as men will, even beneath the very eyelids of the god. And so I could understand that this sacrifice was not the yearly celebrating of high mysteries, but the common piety of every day with which it is rather seemly than essential we should begin our labouring. There were, indeed, signs in the apparelling of the temple that more solemn festivals were sometimes held, as the delivery of oracles, the calculation of auspices ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... good seed; To th' end when summer decks the meadows plain, He may have recompense of costs and pain. Or like the maid who careful is to keep The budding flower, that first begins to peep Out of the knop and waters it full oft, To make it seemly show the head aloft, That it may (when she draws it from the stocks) Adorn her gorget white and golden locks. So wise Merari all his study styl'd To fashion well the manners ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... seemly in woman to drink of strong waters or glowing wine," said Barbara, whose tearful eyes rested upon the time-worn features of her father: "but, God knows, my heart is often so full of grateful thanks, that I lack words to speak my happiness; ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... held that it was more seemly that Ambrose should first try his fate with Master Alworthy, but in case of this not succeeding, he promised to write a billet that would secure ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... worked to the surface in a rhythmic shaking of his 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 ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... said in a grave and quiet voice that Marietta had never heard before. "But I am an old man, and I cannot help telling you that it is not seemly for a young girl to be alone at night with a young man, in the place where he lives. You will forgive me for saying so, because I have served your ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... it were as like, as it is true!] [Warburton had explained "like" as "seemly."] Like I ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Pious, well-meant reproof requires a different demeanour and arguments of another sort; at any rate, to have reproved me in public, and so roughly, exceeds the bounds of proper reproof, for that comes better with gentleness than with rudeness; and it is not seemly to call the sinner roundly blockhead and booby, without knowing anything of the sin that is reproved. Come, tell me, for which of the stupidities you have observed in me do you condemn and abuse me, and bid me go home and look after my ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 will be carried lightly, as the victor wears his wreath; while, ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... from the lively crowd of the populace—flashing with repartee, seemly or unseemly, as they gathered close to the door just under the marble slab with its solemn appeal to reverence, "Rispettati la Casa di Dio"—penetrated into the Frari to see where the more pleasure could be gotten, as also to claim their right to be there; for this ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... than the finest eloquence could have done. He seemed at first to shun the bed, as if the object lying there were too powerful a source of grief to bear—seemed to be anxious to discover in some minor souvenirs of sorrow, a preparatory step, which should enable him to approach with seemly and rational composure the mute wreck of his beloved child—the cast-shell of the spirit which had been the pride and joy, the hope and comfort of his life. But presently he succeeded in mastering this sensibility, and approaching the bed, motioned ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... of the fallen Empire. I should say more than is seemly and less than is true. Never was fall more deserved, ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... remember this when we recall the charges that have been made against Elizabeth, and the strange stories that were told of her tricks—by no means seemly tricks—which she used to play with her guardian, Lord Thomas Seymour. The antics she performed with him in her dressing-room were made the subject of an official inquiry; yet it came out that while Elizabeth was less than sixteen, and Lord Thomas was very much her senior, his wife ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... he has taken an intellectual idea and treated it allegorically, and essentially poetically. The Virgin Mary in his story symbolises the "upward meaning mind," fastened in "substance," yet pure and "seemly to the Lord;" and the bramble which clutches her and seeks to smirch her purity is the folly, the muddiness, the stupid cruelty of the world which mocks at all vision, at all idealism—it is the mortal trying to drag down the immortal part of man. Mary is the love of beauty, or of God; the ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... that the King assigned a house to Abu Kir and bade furnish it and he took up his abode therein. On the morrow he mounted and rode through the city, whilst the architects went before him; and he looked about him till he saw a place which pleased him and said, "This stead is seemly;" whereupon they turned out the owner and carried him to the King, who gave him as the price of his holding, what contented him and more. Then the builders fell to work, whilst Abu Kir said to them, "Build thus and thus and do this and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... principle of leave-alone, 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
... fail of lime and means to bind it. For as human beings who may be well inclined to each other by nature, yet hold more firmly together when the law cements them, so are stones also, whose forms may already fit together, united far better by these binding forces. It is not seemly to be idle among the working, and here you will not refuse to be our fellow-laborer;" with these words he reached the trowel to Charlotte, who threw mortar with it under the stone—several of the others were then ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... two striking instances of zeal for God's honour, one in a man, and one in a woman. Have you any such zeal in you? Are your thoughts at all taken up with God's church, God's altar, God's worship? Are you eager that all should be beautiful and seemly in the temple of God? Does it pain you above every other pain when you know of something which is to the dishonour of God and of His Church? Have you any zeal at all like that of David? Have you any self-forgetfulness ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... minds of a great deal of prejudice before we can rightly judge of the direction in which different races need to be improved. We must be on our guard against taking our own instincts of what is best and most seemly, as a criterion for the rest of mankind. The instincts and faculties of different men and races differ in a variety of ways almost as profoundly as those of animals in different cages of the Zoological Gardens; and however ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... that the dress was fitter for her as long as she was guarded by men, and that faith had not been kept with her. Her saints, too, had told her "that it was great pity she had abjured to save her life." Still, she did not refuse to resume woman's dress. "Put me in a seemly and safe prison," she said; "I will be good, and do whatever the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... throbbed beneath the hoods it seemed to me the noise they made was close to being blasphemous. We were right under that hanging figure of the Virgin and of Christ, and to have left the silence unbroken would have been more seemly. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... silly and profane mockery, or in pious commemoration of it, must depend on the time of its adoption, before or since the Reformation; and it is not worth inquiring. The two words are transposed, and bee annexed as being perhaps thought more seemly in such a connection than fly-bug or beetle. The dignified ecclesiastics in ancient times wore brilliant mixtures of colours in their habits. Bishops had scarlet and black, as this insect has on its wing-covers. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... 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 God should delegate the Mediator of a most ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... 1000l. in gold. This I do for security sake, and convenience of carriage; though it costs me above 70l. the change of it, at 18 1/2d per peece. Creed tells me he finds all things mighty dull at Court; and that they now begin to lie long in bed; it being, as we suppose, not seemly for them to be found playing and gaming as they used to be; nor that their minds are at ease enough to follow those sports, and yet not knowing how to employ themselves, (though there be work enough for their thoughts and councils and pains,) they keep ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... He had groomed his horse, and tidied his house, and bathed, and breakfasted. He did not think it seemly to intrude upon the lady before this hour, and now he ascended her steps and knocked at her door. The dogs thumped their tails on the wooden veranda; it was only of late they had learned this welcome for him. Would they give it now, he wondered, if they could see his heart? As he stood there waiting ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... do that which is needful. For it is not seemly that thou shouldst be present where the whole army is ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... So far you have treated me as a friend; but now, sir, it must be different, for to do so any longer would not be seemly. You are going to be an officer. I am going to follow you as a trooper; but till we go to the war I must be dressed as your retainer. Not a lackey, perhaps, but a sort of confidential retainer. That will be best, Master Rupert, in ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... them, at least we can understand. But precedents and arguments from the Supremacy of Henry VIII. suggest the question whether those who use them are ready to be taken at their word and to have back that Supremacy as it was; and whether the examples of policy of that reign are seemly to quote as adequate measures of the liberty and rights of ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... prudent, Richard, by right the Second, Vanquished by Fortune, lies here now graven in stone, True of his word, and thereto well renound: Seemly in person, and like to Homer as one In worldly prudence, and ever the Church in one Upheld and favoured, casting the proud to ground, And all that would his royal ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... thy profane foolery," said Don Rodrigo; "it is not seemly when the life of thy master is at stake. Prepare to give me a full and circumstantial account of this iniquitous business, or by my sword thou shalt severely rue the day thy ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the most melodious to form a regimental choir, "the better to carry on the daily service of singing psalms;" insomuch that the New England camp was vocal with rustic harmony, sincere, if somewhat nasal. These seemly observances were not inconsistent with a certain amount of disorder among the more turbulent spirits, who, removed from the repressive influence of tight-laced village communities, sometimes indulged in conduct which grieved the conscientious ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... to levity, Tema Eyer," said the man in the doorway. "It is not seemly in one whose intelligence entitles him to ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... advised Rachel. "It isn't seemly in a president. Perhaps your committee can think of something appropriate that won't be quite so startling as a turtle. When is ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... thy discretion, good Gelsomina, must know it is not seemly for females of condition to be thrown within walls like these, even by accident, and thou wilt do us much favor, by taking more than common means to be certain that we are unseen. We give thee much trouble, but it shall not ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... mills in its district, the suggestion was dangerously apt of a penitentiary, with its high wooden barrier, around all the building, the only free approach from the world to its corridors through the seemly, humanized office, where abided the heads, the bosses, the free men, who came and went at will. The walls were already beginning to wear that garment of green which the American ivy flings ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... shall be angry with thee!" cried Hester Prynne, who, however, inured to such behaviour on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. "Leap across the brook, naughty child, and run hither! Else I must ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the north for the wedding with a brave company of followers. Hoskuld had also asked many guests, both friends and relations, and the feast was of the grandest. Now, when the feast was over each one returned to his home in good friendship and with seemly gifts. Jorunn Bjorn's daughter sits behind at Hoskuldstead, and takes over the care of the household with Hoskuld. It was very soon seen that she was wise and well up in things, and of manifold knowledge, though rather high-tempered at most times. Hoskuld ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... 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 footpath ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... must know that I did not trust to others exclusively. I trusted also to myself—to what I saw. I saw the Stoics going through the world after a seemly manner, neatly clad, never in excess, always collected, ever faithful to the mean which all ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... come Swayne. Albe thy seemly feature set no sale But honest truth vpon thy novell tale, Yet (for this world is full of subtiltee) We wish ye go with vs for companie Unto a wise man wonning[125] in this wood, Hight Aramanth, whose wit and skill is good, That he may certifie our mazing doubt How this straunge chaunce and ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... carelessly and not ungracefully, on his rifle; "the art of taking the creatur's of God, in traps and nets, is one that needs more cunning than manhood; and yet am I brought to practise it, in my age! But it would be quite as seemly, in one like you, to follow a pursuit better becoming your ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to show that the kirk officer, not having had a university education, could not be expected to know the very spot on which it ought to lie. Gavin saw that the minister joined in the singing more like one countenancing a seemly thing than because he needed it himself, and that he only sang a mouthful now and again after the congregation was in full pursuit of the precentor. It was noteworthy that the first prayer lasted longer than all the others, and that to read the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... by the words of Bishop Guerin, let out their horses at the full speed of their legs, and attacked the enemy. But the Flemish knights prick not forward to the encounter, indignant that the first charge against them was not made by knights, as would have been seemly, and remain motionless at their post. The men of Soissons, meanwhile, see no need of dealing softly with them and humoring them, so thrust them roughly, upset them from their horses, slay a many of them, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I am no free to swear [*Some of the strict dissenters decline taking an oath before a civil magistrate]—we aye gaed to the Antiburgher meeting—it's very true, in Bailie Mac-Candlish's time (honest man), we keepit the kirk, whilk was most seemly in his station, as having office—, but after his being called to a better place than Kippletringan, I hae gaen back to worthy Maister MacGrainer. And so ye see, sir, I am no clear to swear without speaking to the minister—especially ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... take boat so soon, Mr. Griffith, it would be seemly that due preparations should be made to receive the ladies, who are to honor us with their presence; shall I take that duty ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... eagerly to the details with which the Marquis now thought it necessary to entrust him, the messenger who had been despatched to the Tower of Wolf's Crag returned with Caleb Balderstone's humble duty, and an assurance that "a' should be in seemly order, sic as the hurry of time permitted, to receive ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... had finished the examination of his fresh group of prisoners the hour was late. He did not wish to keep any of the partners in confinement, and so he arranged that they should go back to their quarters at the fort for the night. The prisoners promised that they would behave in seemly fashion, and do nothing of a hostile nature. There is evidence to show that before {124} morning many papers were burned in the mess-room kitchen at the fort. Word was also brought to Lord Selkirk that a quantity of firearms and ammunition had been removed from ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... as with Religion, so with that child of the pair, so with Love. Boy and maid, man and woman, in this country stand as children hand in hand before their parent, who is God. Hand in hand, in seemly innocence, naked, without shame, or underthought or afterthought, they stray about the flowery meads. Their hearts are by chance enkindled, each burns, fire seeks the embrace of fire; they touch, they mingle, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... taught French because he vowed he hated France and the French and all their ways. She was taught to curtsy and to dance because it pleased him to have a woman walk well and he believed dancing kept the figure supple. She was taught needlework because he thought it seemly for a woman to sew and he liked the line of the head and neck bent over an embroidery frame. She was taught to knit because he remembered that his mother had told him that delicate finger tips were daintily polished by an hour's knitting a day. He was—though he wouldn't ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... tragical business it was—to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing from within its seemly robe, which was made to hide it.' There is no joy of the hunter here! The words are as 'tragical' and tender as were those of the melancholy Jaques. That 'warm milk and rent udder' seems to make the stately creature ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... difficult to see how it came to be thought more seemly that the Israelites should undertake the journey to Jehovah. This was at first put in the form that they appeared there before the face of Jehovah to worship Him and offer Him a sacrifice (Exodus iii. 12), and at their departure they received the ark instead of Jehovah Himself, who continued to dwell ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... 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 ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... hovels. In Greece, even the very poorest retired to their houses and ate with closed doors; the Egyptians felt no repugnance at eating and drinking in the open air, declaring that unbecoming and improper acts should be performed in secret, but seemly acts in public. The first blind alley they came to, a recess between two hovels, the doorstep of a house or temple, any of these seemed to them a perfectly natural place to dine in. Their bill of fare was not a sumptuous one. A sort of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... give to be thine a fair grove, an holy, Priapus, Where thy Lampsacus holds thee in chamber seemly, Priapus; God, in every city, thou, most ador'd on a sea-shore Hellespontian, eminent most ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... seemly that you should mention such garments in the presence of senores!" broke in the girl of the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to submit the Constitution to the states, and before the news of the action had reached Philadelphia. The zeal of the Federalists was so intense that they could wait no longer, and they hurried the event with a high-handed vigour that was not altogether seemly. The assembly was on the eve of breaking up, and a new election was to be held on the first Tuesday of November. The Antifederalists hoped to make a stirring campaign, and secure such a majority in the new legislature as to prevent the Constitution from ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... 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 in her descent: there ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... willingly, would quit these themes— Which are not seemly in a poet's dreams. More pleasing topics now demand my pen, Though often sung by many wiser men. The subject of my verse had early felt That sensibility within him dwelt. So constituted was he, that at school, When he should have been conning grammar's rule— ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... that graze to-day, I wot, they let him go his way, Nor once looked up, as who should say: "It is a seemly man." For many lads went wooing aye Across the fields ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... sayst, Moves and directs thee; then no flattery needs. Enough for me that in her name thou ask. Go therefore now: and with a slender reed See that thou duly gird him, and his face Lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence. For not with eye, by any cloud obscur'd, Would it be seemly before him to come, Who stands the foremost minister in heaven. This islet all around, there far beneath, Where the wave beats it, on the oozy bed Produces store of reeds. No other plant, Cover'd with leaves, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... his credit, the banker advancing the money of his customers upon the credit of the merchant, the frugal man slowly accumulating the store which is to support him in old age, the ancient institutions of Church and University with their seemly provisions for sound learning and true religion, the parson in his pulpit, the poet pondering his rhymes, the farmer eyeing his crops, the painter covering his canvases, the player educating the feelings. Burke saw all this with the fancy ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
