"Unbecoming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unbecoming in women. There were two proud women, and their names were contemptible; the name of the one, Deborah, meaning wasp, and of the other, Huldah, weasel. Respecting the wasp it is written (Judges iv. 6), "And she sent and called Barak," whereas ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... people were industrious, they might, of their own produce, carry on a very advantageous trade with strangers; there being but few things in which they could be excelled; but (he adds) it is to be hoped, the Europeans will never let them into the secret." A remark unbecoming humanity, much more christianity!] ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... out, the untameable children of the forest, the lords of the lake and of the river, some of them absolutely handsome, their costume being in the highest degree chivalric; many, unluckily, are clad in a mixed fashion, half Indian, half American,—grotesque, but unbecoming when compared with the gaudily turbaned and kilted Creek, or the plumed and painted Winnebago, who, leaning on his rifle beneath a forest tree, and listening with a keen, unwearying aspect for the coming tread of ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... eighty-three, notwithstanding his long public services and his acknowledged worth. This was too great a disappointment for the retiring statesman to bear complacently, or even philosophically. He gave vent to his irritated feelings in unbecoming language, exaggerating the ignorance of Jackson and his general unfitness for the high office,—in this, however, betraying an estimate of the incoming President which was common among educated and conservative men. I well remember at college the contempt ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to enter into details which would be unbecoming to the modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other more important groupings were during the course of these months, and which were the columns that took part in them. Of French's drive in the south-east, and of Blood's incursion into the Roos-Senekal district some account has ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in a condition to defend himself, much less to make any reprisals: his resentment therefore against him was no less implacable than it had been against Augustus,—But the emperor had also disobliged him. Count Zobor, the chamberlain, had taken very indecent and unbecoming liberties with his character, in the presence of his own Ambassador at Vienna; and that court had given shelter to 1500 Muscovites, who having escaped his arms, fled thither for protection. As he was now so near, he therefore thought best to call the emperor first to ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... was filled with agony. And quickly advancing towards Lakshmana while reproving him still, Rama asked him, 'O Lakshmana, is the princess of Videha still alive? I fear she is no more!' Then Lakshmana told him everything about what Sita had said, especially that unbecoming language of hers subsequently. With a burning heart Rama then ran towards the asylum. And on the way he beheld a vulture huge as a mountain, lying in agonies of death. And suspecting him to be a Rakshasa, the descendant of the Kakutstha race, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thought it very unbecoming to sit there before us, but he made her do it. He would say, with his big, jolly laugh, "Don't be minding the little girls," and pull her down on his knee and hold her there. To my dying day I shall never forget the expression on ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative ...
— The Federalist Papers
... of austerity or the callousness that ensues upon the healing of a wound. The Ayletts were a stately race, and the few who, while she was in her teens, had carped at her lack of pride because of her disposition to choose friends from the walks of life lower than her own, and criticised as unbecoming the playful familiarity that caused underlings and plebeians—the publicans and sinners of the aristocrat's creed—to worship the ground on which she trod—the censors in the court of etiquette conferred upon her altered demeanor the patent of ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... no little curiosity to hear what the President would say in his message, in regard to the issue upon which he had sustained so conclusive a defeat. He was known to be in a state of great indignation, and as he had broken forth during the campaign in expressions altogether unbecoming his place, there was some apprehension that he might be guilty of the same indiscretion in his official communication to Congress. But he was saved from such humiliation by the evident interposition of a judicious adviser. The message was ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... table with Thrym on one side of him and Loki on the other. Then the feast began. Thor, not noticing that what he did was unbecoming to a refined maiden, ate eight salmon right away. Loki nudged him and pressed his foot, but he did not heed Loki. After the salmon ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... of the Countess and her daughter. No momentary suspicion had crossed the mind of the Countess till after their arrival in London; and then when the suspicion did touch her it was not love that she suspected,—but rather an unbecoming familiarity which she attributed to her child's ignorance of the great life which awaited her. "My dear," she said one day when Daniel Thwaite had left them, "you should be less free in your manner with that ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... all at the same time, and showing off their red-stained palms and the soles of their feet to the best advantage. Some of the women were very pretty, but very properly they modified their charms by dressing in the most unbecoming manner possible. Their head-dress was a little cloth of gold and silver cap hung all round with pendent ornaments, and these were becoming enough, but the remainder of the dress was much more trying. A short body ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... consciousness, as an abiding influence on the minds of the scholars, is for the teacher to determine in his own mind and bring it about. Without being arrogant, without being dictatorial, without being or doing anything that is disagreeable or unbecoming, he must yet make up his mind to put forth in the class a distinct power of self-assertion. He must determine to make them feel that he is there, that he is there all the time, that he is there ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... unbecoming," said Father Francis, gravely, though a twinkle in his eye showed that he was not so profoundly shocked as his penitent appeared to be. "But go to graver matters. Immodesty, said you? I shall be very sorry, if this is so. You did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... little proof against the inroads of beauty and passion as Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon. And if heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle out from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a Forsyte of the Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then the prime force, and that "family" and the sense of home and property counted as they do to this day, for all the recent efforts to "talk ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... asked, but why should I rise early? The reply is, to remain too long in bed is 1. waste of time, which is unbecoming a saint, who is bought by the precious blood of Jesus, with his time and all he has, to be used for the Lord. If we sleep more than is needful for the refreshment of the body, it is wasting the time with which the Lord ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... Athena or Zeus, you would think both of yourself and of the artist, and if you had any understanding (power of perception) you would try to do nothing unworthy of him who made you or of yourself, and try not to appear in an unbecoming dress (attitude) to those who look upon you. But now because Zeus has made you, for this reason do you care not how you shall appear? And yet is the artist (in the one case) like the artist in the other? or the work in the one case like the other? ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... scandalous practice unbecoming soldiers whose duty it is to defend the liberty and property of the Inhabitants of the country to make free with and rob them of that property; it is therefore ordered that no person belonging to ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... Towards Mr. Dutton she always had a stronger impulse of confidence than towards any one else she had ever met; but she felt that he might think it unbecoming to say that she had perceived a certain dislike on her father's part towards Mark ever since the rejection of the agency and the marriage, which perhaps was regarded as a rejection of herself. He had a habit of dependence on Mark, which resulted in personal liking, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... something of the joy they were in at the sight of a boat and pilots to carry them away to the person and place from whence all these new comforts came; but they told me it was impossible to express it by words, for their excessive joy driving them to unbecoming extravagancies, they had no way to describe them but by telling me that they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to give vent to their passion suitable to the sense that was upon them; that in some ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... day in Westminster Abbey, with the usual flow of epithets, on the difference between the Catholic religion and that of the Puritans, the Bishop of Lincoln rose, and declared that his language was unbecoming in a pulpit, put an end to the sermon, and forced ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... If it be unbecoming, as I acknowledge that for the most part it is, to speak disrespectfully of Works that have enjoyed for a length of time a widely-spread reputation, without at the same time producing irrefragable proofs of their unworthiness, let me be forgiven upon this occasion.—Having had the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... in the cities of men—it seems incredible that when this promenade was laid out a few years ago, the householders along the water's edge absolutely refused to turn their front windows away from Beacon Street. Furthermore, they ignored the fact that their back yards and back windows presented an unbecoming face to such an incomparably lovely promenade, and the inevitable household rearrangement—by which the drawing-rooms were placed in the rear—was literally years in process of achievement. But such conservatism is one of Boston's idiosyncrasies, which we must accept like the ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... so unbecoming in you to be thus warm!" said my Aunt Dorothea. "Enthusiasm is always in bad taste, no matter what it is about. You will not see half-a-dozen ladies in the room in white ribbons. Nobody expects the Prince ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... accomplishments was pitched in a minor key. Her gentleness was universally commended, but she spent her time chiefly in needlework. She knew no language but her own; she could neither sing nor play upon any instrument, accomplishments which were then considered by Germans to be unbecoming in a lady.[1072] On the 12th of December, 1539, she arrived at Calais; but boisterous weather and bad tides delayed her there till the 27th. She landed at Deal (p. 385) and rode to Canterbury. On the 30th she proceeded to Sittingbourne, and thence, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... studiously kept in. Then, good-humoured as he is thought to be in the main to other people's servants, and this even to familiarity (although, as you have observed, a familiarity that has dignity in it not unbecoming to a man of quality) he is apt sometimes to break out into a passion with his own: An oath or a curse follows, and such looks from those servants as plainly shew terror, and that they should have fared worse had they not been in my hearing: with a confirmation in the master's ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... a friendship to be taken seriously? The very kindest thing is to treat it lightly, humorously, as I did. She ought to be laughed out of tolerating such an unbecoming relationship. A woman of her age ought not to be able ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... have the promise of my assistance. As he spoke this with a gay and negligent air, I imagined it a thing of no great consequence, or if it were, he was a man of too much honour, and also knew me too well to desire or expect I would engage in any thing unbecoming that character: indeed I could think of nothing but an amour or a duel, tho' I was far from being able to guess of what service I could be to him in the former. I was, however, unwarily drawn in to give my word, and he then made me the confident of a passion, which, he said, had received its birth ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... we before observed, set the fashions at Tetuan, and her style of dress was not unbecoming. The Moorish women wore large veils, or they may be called what you will, for their head-dresses descend to their heels at times and cover the whole body, leaving an eye to peep with, and hiding everything else. Now Miss Hicks found ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... a little boyish conceit in his tone, as he stood there, not altogether unbecoming his fresh color and simplicity. Yet, when his eyes met those of Miss Euphemia, he colored, he hardly knew why, and the young lady ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... promote the health which shows itself in the complexion. It is the young lady who interprets literally the Scotch invitation "come into the fire," and who spoils the backs of library novels by holding them too near the comfortable hearth, she it is who suffers from the ignoble and unbecoming liberties that winter takes with the human countenance. Happier and wiser is she who studies the always living and popular Dutch roll rather than the Grecian bend, and who blooms with continual health and good temper. Our changeful climate affords ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... the background; out at elbows, down at the elbows, down in the world. inglorious; nameless, renownless[obs3]; obscure; unknown to fame; unnoticed, unnoted[obs3], unhonored, unglorified[obs3]. shameful; disgraceful, discreditable, disreputable; despicable; questionable; unbecoming, unworthy; derogatory; degrading, humiliating, infra dignitatem[Lat], dedecorous[obs3]; scandalous, infamous, too bad, unmentionable; ribald, opprobrious; errant, shocking, outrageous, notorious. ignominious, scrubby, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... not telling him of what he had heard, simply told AEthelwold that on a certain day he intended to visit the lady himself. AEthelwold, in alarm, hurried to his wife and begged her to conceal her beauty and clothe herself in unbecoming attire, so that she might not win the king's admiration; but she did just the reverse, and enhanced her natural beauty by donning handsome raiment and jewellery. Her plan succeeded, the king fell ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... "What a singularly unbecoming way Eva Jonelet has taken to doing her hair in," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "it's ugly hair at the best of times, but she needn't make it look ridiculous as well. Some one ought to ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... transactions of courts and ministers, like an etherial being from a superior element. There I shall hope to see your lordship outstrip your contemporaries, and tower above the pigmies of the day. To repeat an idea before delivered, might be unbecoming in a fine writer, but it is characteristic and beautiful under the personage of a preceptor. The fitnesses which nature bestowed upon your frame would not have done alone. But joined with the lessons I have taught you, they ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... you've recently been guilty of conduct grossly unbecoming a soldier. But you've served your guard house period, and you'll be busy, for many weeks yet to come, in working out the fines imposed against you. For breaches of discipline it is the intent of the authorities to provide sufficient punishment. It is not, however, the purpose to keep on punishing ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... beautifully in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the room, now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile—a face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, and happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... appealed to for his opinion. The speaker replied, that he had seen bills that had originated in the lords that, he thought, ought not to have been brought into the lower house, but that he never presumed to judge upon them himself, and in this in stance it would be very unbecoming in him to do so, therefore' he would leave it for the house to determine as was thought right. The second reading was carried by a majority of one hundred and five, against twenty-nine; and on the 31st of May, when the house went into committee on the bill, several amendments ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... was arrayed like the most elegant State Puppet, after the newest Paris fashions. She left off her natural lively movements, and assumed the stiff and stately deportment of her husband and the ladies of the Court, who considered it unbecoming to turn their head ever so little on one side. She almost wholly forgot how to walk, while she was constantly driving to balls, concerts, and parades, to cockchafer-hunts and fly-chases. Her chief delight was in finery: ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... money and not give you its worth in return; and then the lugger is Guernsey built, and carries a good King George's commission. In my part of the world we never take gold unless we sell something of equal valie. Gifts and begging we look upon as mean and unbecoming, and the next thing to going on to the town as a pauper; though if I can sarve you lawfully, like, I'm just as willing to work for your money as for that of any other man. I've no preference for king's ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... has been treated as a bugbear. This levity is, at least, unseasonable, and, most of all, unbecoming some who resort to it. Who has forgotten the philippics of 1794? The cry then was, reparation—no envoy—no treaty—no tedious delays. Now, it seems, the passion subsides, or, at least, the hurry to satisfy it. Great Britain, they ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... considered, [that] may be free from vulgarism"—may yet be assumed, by a friendly jury, to be likely to "arouse a libidinous passion ... in the mind of a modest woman." (I quote exactly! The court failed to define "modest woman.")[57] Yet further, it is held that any book is obscene "which is unbecoming, immodest...."[58] Obviously, this last decision throws open the door to endless imbecilities, for its definition merely begs the question, and so makes a reasonable solution ten times harder. It is in such mazes that the Comstocks ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... necessity and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks that height of spirit that might otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if, after all these propositions were made, I should rise up and assert that such counsels were both unbecoming a king and mischievous to him; and that not only his honour, but his safety, consisted more in his people's wealth than in his own; if I should show that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that, by his care and endeavours, they may be both easy ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... paganism almost (fere) without danger. Boccaccio, however, did not hold this liberal view consistently. The ground of his apostasy lay partly in the mobility of his character, partly in the still powerful and widespread prejudice that classical pursuits were unbecoming in a theologian. To these reasons must be added the warning given him in the name of the dead Pietro Petroni by the monk Gioacchino Ciani to give up his pagan studies under pain of early death. He accordingly determined to abandon them, and was only brought back from this cowardly resolve ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... roughness; wicked mode of life. {ungeb[ae]re}, sf. despairing lamentation. {ungebant}, aj. unbeaten, untrodden. {ungebatten}, aj. useless, worthless. {ungeborn}, part. aj. unborn. {ungeburt}, sf. low birth. {ungef[u:]ege}, aj. very great, powerful; bad, unbecoming, coarse, uncouth, rude; av. {ungefuoge}. {ungehabe}, sf. sorrow, grief. {ungel[i]che}, av. immeasurably, incomparably. {ungel[o]net}, aj. unrewarded. {ungelouplich}, aj. incredible. {ungel[u:]cke}, sn. misfortune. {ungemach}, sn. misfortune, ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... hesitated, believing it to be an unbecoming pleasantry, then waved vaguely to the driver, and ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... with flying draperies and countenances of mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating themselves into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the squirrels were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight," and, being used to ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... him, seek him for guidance, direction, and protection, and submit to his will with patience and resignation of soul. It gives the law, not only to his words and actions, but to his very thoughts and purposes; so that he dares not entertain any which are unbecoming the presence of that God by whom all our thoughts are legible. It crushes all pride and haughtiness, both in a man's heart and carriage, and gives him an humble state of mind before God and men. It regulates the passions, and brings them into due moderation. It gives ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... once to his post and meet the charges. Scott had openly given it as his opinion that General Wilkinson was equally guilty with Colonel Burr. Soon after his return he was arrested and tried by a court-martial at Washington, near Natchez, in January, 1810. The first charge was for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," and the specification was "in withholding at sundry times men's money placed in his possession for their payment for the months of September and October." Another charge was "ungentlemanly ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... son, George Hubert, has by conduct unbecoming to a gentleman and a Pendyce, proved himself unworthy of my confidence, and forasmuch as to my regret I am unable to cut the entail of my estate, I hereby declare that he shall in no way participate in any division of my other ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ground, Ulick, Mick, and the Captain were already there: Quin, flaming in red regimentals, as big a monster as ever led a grenadier company. The party were laughing together at some joke of one or the other: and I must say I thought this laughter very unbecoming in my cousins, who were met, perhaps, to see the death ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... struggle on. For one thing, though Baillie thought there was a "woful longsomeness" in the slow English forms of debating at such a time, it was felt by the English members that, in so important a business as the settling of a new constitution for the National Church, hurry would be unbecoming. But, besides this, the Assembly was not a body legislating in its own right. It had been called only to advise the Parliament; and, though its deliberations were with closed doors, was not all that it did from day to day pretty well known, not only in Parliament, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of incompetence, malpractice and conduct unbecoming to a physician which I am lodging against your colleague in the Red Service here," the Black Doctor said angrily. "Of course, I was confident that neither of you two could have contributed very much to this bungling mess, but it is ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... which the great city would never again give a thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming that a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man—a black frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and arms—a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... Lawrence Bury, with real or well-assumed enthusiasm; but Zelma, replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... a winter's wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon—the mother of L'Aiglon at twenty—married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon's death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... indulging the funereal temperament of an ancient woman. As Alexa ran through the heather in the morning, she looked not altogether unlike a peasant; her shoes were strong, her dress was short; but now she came and went in a soft-colored gown, neither ill-made nor unbecoming. She did not seem to belong to what is called society, but she looked dignified, at times almost stately, with an expression of superiority, not strong enough to make her handsome face unpleasing. It ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... mule was sick, Laohwan said, and a veterinary surgeon had to be sent for. He came with unbecoming expedition. Then in the same way that I have seen the Chinese doctors in Australia diagnose the ailments of their human patients of the same great family, he examined the poor mule with the inscrutable air of one to whom are unveiled the mysteries of futurity, and he retired with his fee. The ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... and gathered her expensive furs about her monumental form. "I have no wish to criticise," she said; "but unless the Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of such—such unbecoming scenes, I ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... sorry," she said, "if I have said anything unbecoming. You see," she continued, after a moment's pause, "the subject which we were talking about did not seem to me to ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... followed. According to the Roman Catholic belief, Mary is Queen of heaven, and of angels—the superior being; consequently, there is propriety in making the angel deliver his message kneeling: but even according to the Protestant belief the attitude would not be unbecoming, for the angel, having uttered his salutation, might well prostrate himself as witness of the transcending miracle, and beneath the overshadowing presence ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... The conscience-stricken culprit of a few minutes before had disappeared, leaving in his stead an arrogant young man, demanding explanations in a voice of almost unbecoming loudness. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... came from Mr. Gascoigne, who begged Miss Merry if possible to get the key. But this readiness to explain the mystery was thought by Mrs. Vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in an undertone that Mr. Gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her taste. However, the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the lock with an emphasis rather offensively rationalizing—as who should say, "it will not ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... aware of since their appointment, and it is plain, that the savings spoken of by the noble baron as having been effected by their recommendation are completely swallowed up by the project of a free press. My lords, I cannot help thinking that it is wholly unnecessary and greatly unbecoming of the government to form such an establishment, of such a description, in such a place as Malta; and the more particularly, as the object for which it is made, must be both of a dangerous tendency to this country, and fraught with evil to others. The free press ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... them as soon as possible, for she strongly dissented from the old-fashioned idea that a good cry was consoling. On the contrary, she thought that the headache and unbecoming traces of emotion that followed tears had a particularly depressing effect, and left one with nerves. She resolved to dismiss the subject for the moment, anyhow, and to go to Vera's in the afternoon to meet Madame Zero and two or three of Vera's ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... closed to the schemes on foot for the suppression of republican government on this continent. While our present necessity compels us, as of course, to act with great circumspection, yet it would be unbecoming our dignity to quietly ignore the spoliation of Mexico. It is often said that President Lincoln, in his letter accepting the Baltimore nomination, has repudiated this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dance; dey are to be at my ball—dey take one half dozen tickets. I must call dere wid my cards; and I shall, if you will give me leave, accompany you now, and mention dat I know you to be un homme comme il faut, above being guilty of an unbecoming action. I flatter myself I have some interest wid de ladies of de family, and dat dey will do me de favour to speak to monsieur leur cher pere ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... little hand tore them out of my grasp, and I saw Leila, who turned away laughing. She wore a short grey dress and a jacket of the same colour and a small round hat. I must confess that this costume of a Parisian dressed for walking was most unbecoming to her fairy-like beauty and seemed a kind of disguise. And yet, seeing her so, I felt that I loved her with an undying love. I tried to rejoin her, but I lost her among the crowd ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... he said, solemnly, "it would be unbecoming in us to separate from our friend without duly honoring Her Gracious Majesty's name." Then, raising high the flask, he called out with great ceremony, and dropping his brogue entirely: "Gentlemen, I give ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor
... observer, whose eyes no glitter can dazzle, no mist suffuse. The many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will hold a place forever among that limited number, who, like Lucretius and Epicurus—without range or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth, look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to arrogant authority; sufficiently conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... thief and murderer, Hugh slunk out and attended to the trunks and bags, watching all the time for the dreaded plain-clothes man and his cohorts, trembling with a nervous fear so unbecoming in a strong man that the baggage master smiled in derision and imagined he was looking upon a "greenie" who was making his first voyage and was afraid of the sea. Offering up a prayer of thankfulness, he bolted into his own stateroom soon afterward and came forth later on ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... I went up to the grate, and waited several minutes, until at last a door of the inner room opened, and a nun entered. Her face bore the traces of deep melancholy; but notwithstanding that, and the unbecoming dress which half concealed her form, I thought I had never seen a woman so lovely, so completely beautiful. I stood in mute wonder ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... left as far as the Campbells were concerned, though it was said that Mrs. Campbell called Doctor Wells on the telephone and in her shrill voice denied vigorously that her son had acted in any manner unbecoming to "the son of a gentleman" and that for her part she thought that the school was a poor one and that she wished they wouldn't have such games as football "which work the boys up to excitement and ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... well enough to trust me to carry it up to the next term, I am sure I shall be glad to take it." He evidently dreaded the rebuke that would be implied in a failure to be renominated; yet it seemed unbecoming to him, in the critical condition of the country, to make any personal effort to that end. To these considerations were added his extreme weariness and longing for release from his oppressive burdens. He was also, as Mr. Welles records in his Diary, "greatly ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... faces, wear the gay sarong and white kabaja customary in Eastern Java. The men, in shapeless gowns and wide trousers, with broad hats of battered straw on their close-cropped hair, afford a sorry spectacle of unbecoming and disorderly attire, conveying grotesque hints of Japanese ideas beneath the squalid ugliness overlaying them. The fishermen, conveniently unclad for the necessities of their calling, wear only a yellow or scarlet waist-cloth, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... man was accused of a crime very unbecoming a philosopher: I mean bribery and extortion. You know that he was sentenced by the House of Lords to pay a fine of about four hundred thousand French livres, to lose his peerage and his dignity of Chancellor; ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... which he had fortunately not drained. He had recovered sense and consciousness, but still a dim and misty depression clung to his nerves and darkened his mind. His natural courage, and the Greek nobility of pride, enabled him to vanquish all unbecoming apprehension, and, in the judgment-court, to face his awful lot with a steady mien and unquailing eye. But the consciousness of innocence scarcely sufficed to support him when the gaze of men no longer excited his haughty valor, and he was left to loneliness and silence. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... these extraordinary stimulants and excitements, operating in connection with the influence of habit, the people were strongly inclined to have a dance. Mr. B. told them that dancing was a bad practice—and a very childish, barbarous amusement, and he thought it was wholly unbecoming freemen. He hoped therefore that they would dispense with it. The negroes could not exactly agree with their manager—and said they did not like to be disappointed in their expected sport. Mr. B. finally proposed to them that he would get ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... or heroines of our world of dreams. In reality, such remembrances are rather unpleasant: every sin, every evil thought, may, like a clock with alarm or chimes, be repeated at pleasure; then the question is if we can trust ourselves to give an account of every unbecoming word in our ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to tell you, my dear father, of the affair, it is so shocking. The chill of the first hearing has not left me. I am excited body and mind, and you know how faithfully I have tried to school myself against excitement—it is unbecoming—only the weak suffer it. Rather than trust myself to the narrative—though as yet there are no details—I plucked a notice from a wall while coming, and as it was the first I had of the news, and contains all I know, I ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... hats appeals to the constructive instinct of every woman aside from the matter of thrift, which should always be taken into consideration. Some one will say, "I would not wear any hat I might make." How often have we worn unbecoming hats, poor in workmanship, besides paying some one handsomely for the privilege. Let us try to form some standard by which to judge of the worth of a hat instead ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... boy, as I told you before, I don't believe the first word of all this. 'Cause it's impossible, you know, for any man of our race to do anything unbecoming of a Lytton and a gentleman. And I think a man's family ought to stand by him in a case like this. So I not only came myself, but I fotch Charley, and if I had had another son I would a-fotched him too. I don't know but I'd a fotched your aunt Kitty and the girls, only, as I said to them, ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... an absence of almost four years from my family and private affairs, more than seven months of which I have waited to know their pleasure respecting me here, has so exceedingly embarrassed and distressed me, that I hope I shall not be deemed guilty of an unbecoming impatience in pressing to know, if Congress have any further commands for me, and in what manner my past transactions, as their agent and commissioner, are to be adjusted and closed. I have heretofore written repeatedly and particularly to Congress ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... with my means, it would be unbecoming to remain at home, when, if I may so express it, 'human nature is abroad.' I go to quicken my sympathies, to open my heart to my kind, and to avoid the cruel regrets that tortured the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not in the least aware that he was such a man,' murmured Somerset, looking wistfully after the minister.... 'Whatever you may have done, I fear that I have grievously wounded a worthy man's heart from an idle wish to engage in a useless, unbecoming, dull, last-century argument.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Spy came by it, it must be said that the forest was not far from the great city where Spare lived in such high esteem. All things had gone well with the cobbler till the King thought that it was quite unbecoming to see such a worthy man without a servant. His Majesty therefore appointed one of his own pages to wait upon him. The name of this youth was Tinseltoes, and nobody in all the court had grander notions. Nothing could ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... religious system may be proved by a long connected chain of demonstrative arguments. But if I might be allowed, without offence, to give my opinion in this matter, as far as you are concerned, I should say, that such an assertion is in you unbecoming, as well as the conduct you observe in consequence unjust and imprudent. The assertion is in you unbecoming, because, whatever you may think, the question, whether there was ever a divine revelation given, or a miracle wrought, or whether, supposing such things done, they can ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... hard to please. So he at once decided that Miss Elizabeth Templeton was not to his taste. In the first place, he did not admire big women—and she was tall, and decidedly massive. Her dress, too, was singularly unbecoming—a big woman in a cotton blouse and a battered old hat was a spectacle to make him shudder. Miss Templeton's blue muslin and dainty ruffles ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... even in the most prejudiced circles. I am an example of some of the workings of the social system of this illustrious country on the individual native, during the early part of the present century; and, if I may say so without unbecoming vanity, I should like to quote myself for the edification ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of this more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is sadly in want of occupation. He has no taste for any of those field sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago. He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had never really liked, and what inducement was there for him to study at Battersby? He reads neither old books nor new ones. He does not interest himself ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... to act in any manner that may bring reproach upon myself and family, and hold clandestine proceedings unbecoming in any man of character, I take the liberty of distinctly avowing my love for your daughter and humbly request your permission to pay her my addresses, as I flatter myself my family and expectancies will be found not unworthy ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... had, for a long time, no further advantage over Edith than might be afforded by an opportunity of censuring a less artfully disposed head attire or an unbecoming robe; for the lady was judged to be inferior in these mysteries. The silent devotion of the Scottish knight did not, indeed, pass unnoticed; his liveries, his cognizances, his feats of arms, his mottoes and devices, were nearly watched, and occasionally made the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... gratification of the crowd of lookers-on; and if the crowd were gratified, their mission was fulfilled. But I did sometimes think upon the cost of these expensive outfits,—how some girls equally poor with me must toil and struggle to obtain means for an indulgence so unbecoming their position,—how others, the wealthy ones, who, having never earned a dollar, knew nothing of its value, clothed themselves with all the lavish finery that money could command, while the meek sewing-girl who passed them on her way to the tailor's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... this end so much as good housekeeping. The first thing for the housekeeper to realise is that it is impossible for him to attend to his housekeeping in the stiff and unbecoming garments of his business hours. When he begins his day he must ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... him was that he had asserted Palestine to be a poor land. This was held to contradict the Scriptural statement that it was a land flowing with milk and honey. The minutes of the trial are painful reading. It was conducted on both sides with unbecoming violence. Among other expressions used by Calvin, the public prosecutor, were these: that he regarded Servetus's defence as no better than the braying of an ass, and that the prisoner was like a villainous cur wiping his muzzle. Servetus answered in the same tone, his spirit unbroken by abuse ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... to many the time seemed wasted. They were subjected to daily lectures on morals and patriotism by professors who talked to them as to a group of fourth-grade boys, and sought to impress upon them that it would be unbecoming in a Y secretary to flirt with the girls of the street of Paris and London, or to lie around drunk in a front-line trench. But the professors could not help it; they were fifty and their habits were formed. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... talk to THEM! I, a white man's wife, must not be too familiar with every girl, else they would seek to get presents from me with sweet words. Besides, could I carry home the fish and cooked fowl sent thee by old Tiaki? That would be unbecoming to me, even as it would be if thou climbed a tree for a coconut,"—and the daughter of the Tropics laughed merrily as she patted ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... behind the veil of the family circle, we are more convinced than ever that fraternal affection an all the boasted nobility of sisterly love dwindle down to a series of petty quarrels and jealousies as painful as they are unchristian and unbecoming. The reserve, or rather the hypocrisy of politeness, put on before strangers, is no criterion of the inward domestic life. Some one has said of ladies, "A point yielded or a pardon begged in public means so many hair-pullings behind the scenes." But this is too sweeping; ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... she writes more decorously. Miss Nussey, as usual, had been thinking unwarrantable things, and had made a most unbecoming joke about Jupiter and Venus, which outraged Charlotte's "common sense". "The idea of the little man," says Charlotte, "shocks me less. He still sends his little newspaper; and the other day there came a letter of a bulk, volume, pith, judgment and knowledge, fit to have been ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... amiable and virtuous Mistress Culling?" says old Nevil: "an apology? what for?"—"For unbecoming and insolent behaviour," ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... revealed. We see naught before us now but the image of our Lady of Grand Pouvoir illumined by the lamp of Repentigny, but the sun of righteousness will yet arise with healing on his wings for us all! But oh, my children, let nothing be done hastily, rashly, or unbecoming the daughters ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Dormant should have allowed the old gentleman to make this will. If he knew the intention, my Father said, it would have shown a more proper sense of his responsibility if he had dissuaded the testator from so unbecoming a disposition. That was long before any legal question arose; and now Mr. Dormant came into his fortune, and began to make handsome gifts to missionary societies, and to his own meeting in the town. If I do not mistake, he gave, unsolicited, a sum to ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... and provoking evils, which will justly offend all the observers of them. 2. Sullen, sour, and churlish language and behavior, which is offensive unto all sorts of persons; for this is an evil altogether unbecoming the followers of Jesus Christ. 3. A cross, captious, and contradictive spirit and conduct, delighting in opposition to the judgment of the church and her rulers. This is very scandalous to the brethren, and very reproachful unto ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... Mr. Willems," said Leonard, hurriedly. "It is unbecoming between white men with all those natives looking on." Leonard's legs trembled very much, and his voice wavered between high and low tones without any attempt at control on his part. "Restrain your improper violence," ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... maid, she belonged to that extraordinary class of people who can keep a secret; and I must do her the justice to say, that she never directly or indirectly betrayed her trust. And whenever she reproved the girls for what she called rompish tricks, which, she insisted, were very unbecoming in young ladies, she constantly endeavoured to look at Constantia as expressively as she did at the 'brown ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... little bit of a scrimmage that's just took place, and forgive our unperliteness, seeing as how a many of us has never had a chance of larnin' how to behave ourselves in delicate sitivations. Your honour doesn't need to be told—at least, we hopes not—that we didn't mean nothing in any way unbecoming or disrespectable to you or the rest of the hofficers—no, not by no manner of means whatsomever. All we want to say is just this here: that all hands on us, down to the powder-monkeys, begs most respectably to wolunteer for this ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... ambiguous and more uncomplimentary than "shrewd" were also applied to him, and his manner of dominating his juries did not always call forth praise from his contemporaries. In one of the newspaper obituaries at the time of his death it is admitted that he had been "charged with resorting to tricks unbecoming the dignity of a lawyer," but the writer adds that it is an open question if some, or indeed all of them were not legitimate enough, and might not have been paralleled by the practices of some of the ablest of British and Irish barristers. ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... scarce have been over sixteen years of age—a beautiful blonde, with golden hair and eyes of that deep blue wherein dwells a world of expression. In complexion she was divinely fair; her cheeks were suffused with just enough of a rich carnation to redeem her angelic countenance from an unbecoming paleness. Her figure, petite and surpassingly graceful, had scarce yet attained the matured fullness of womanhood; yet it was of exquisite symmetry.—Her dress was elegant without being gaudy, and tasteful ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... only become odious by the clamour of feminine complainants since the disappearance of the bonnet. It was awful as the helmet of Minerva, inviolable as the cestus of Diana. Nor was the bonnet of thirty-years ago an unbecoming headgear—a pretty face never looked prettier than when dimly seen in the shadowy ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... took place the next day with a ceremony not unbecoming in itself, though, unsuited to his high rank. Dan Francesca Bargia, Archbishop of Cosenza, acted as chief mourner at St. Peter's, where the body was buried in the chapel ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she was sorry because Aunt Anne was dead, and he was more and more conscious of the unbecoming lightness and freedom where he found himself at the death of Aunt Anne. He had not dared acknowledge it to himself. He couldn't, for shame. But whereas, in the past years, when he ventured to formulate his own life a little and see what it had done to him and how he could go on meeting it, he had ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... can only characterise the Quarterly Reviewer's treatment of Mr. Darwin as alike unjust and unbecoming. Language of this strength requires justification, and on that ground I add the ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... high; for, remember that you are now a soldier!" he would say to the newest recruit who had just scraped through with a margin of chest. His thunderous wrath and sorrow when one of his "boys" was guilty of conduct unbecoming a soldier were something which, in time, impressed even the least impressionable. His old regiment, which he delighted to talk about, he had left a ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... half round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! I had been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I was compelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as unnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becoming as a horridly unbecoming disguise. Off went my cap, therefore, and off went the wig after it, leaving my own shaggy curls for the sole ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... delight and admiration of the envious, and excited the tongues of the slanderous. Those acquainted gathered in the window-niches and cosy corners, maliciously criticising the motley crowd, and eminently consoled with the sure prospect of the ruin of the late banker, surrounding himself with such unbecoming splendor and luxury, the bad taste of his arrogant, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... her it wasn't giving up beautifully to fret herself into an unbecoming illness, to carry her disaster on her face. She would come to me looking more ruined than ruinous, haggard and ashy, her eyes all shrunk and hot with crying, and stand before the glass, looking at herself and dabbing on powder in an utter ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... begun with her gray hair in neat little curls, deranged one so with convulsive hand that it came all down her cheek, and looked most rakish and unbecoming. Even Zoe and Fanny had turned from lambs to leopardesses— patches of red on each cheek, and eyes like ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... report to you about your household. Moreover, so far as my concerns go, there is absolutely nothing new. There are two kinds of letters left which please me very much: one, of the informal and jesting sort; the other, serious and weighty. I do not feel that it is unbecoming to adopt either of these styles. Am I to jest with you by letter? On my word I do not think that there is a citizen who can laugh in these days. Or shall I write something of a more serious character? What subject is there on which Cicero can write seriously to Curio, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... softening. Fox attributes to Henry "some part of the good Samaritan," and puts most prominently forward his desire and endeavour to save the poor (p. 345) man's life. Milner ascribes to him a violence of temper, altogether unbecoming the melancholy circumstances of that hour of death, and directs our thoughts chiefly to his attempt to force a conscientious man ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... out of the new world. We must well remember that our own Government was taxed with injustice and oppression by the United States during their great struggle; and the British press for years past has, and is still, teeming with every kind of abuse and unbecoming satire against Spain and Portugal for their conduct ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... match, though he was a man not easily deceived, and the two were married and settled in the Villa Negroni, which the Cardinal had built near the Baths of Diocletian. Having attained her first object, Vittoria took less pains to play the saint, and began to dress with unbecoming magnificence and to live on a very extravagant scale. Her name became a byword in Rome and her lovely face was one of the city's sights. The Cardinal, devotedly attached to his nephew, disapproved of the latter's ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... earth, nothing so destructive to the complexion. Blister me, how I shall look in the side box to-night, wretchedly upon my soul. [looking in the glass all the while.] Yet it adds something of a languishing air, not altogether unbecoming, and by candle light may do mischief; but I must stay at home to recover some colour, and that may be as well laid on too; so 'tis resolved I will go. Oh 'tis unspeakable pleasure to be in the side box, or bow'd ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... their liberty, that each took arms, and kept at his own house, in order to be ready, if Charles should make any such attempt. The Cerchi and the leaders of the Bianchi faction had acquired universal hatred by having, while at the head of the republic, conducted themselves with unbecoming pride; and this induced Corso and the banished of the Neri party to return to Florence, knowing well that Charles and the Captains of the Parts were favorable to them. And while the citizens, for fear of Charles, kept themselves in arms, Corso, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... will answer you frankly. The man whom I punished last night, I punished because I have proved him to be guilty of conduct unbecoming to a gentleman. I punished him because he broke the one social law which in my country, at any rate, may not ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... threat would not be carried out, for however naughty she might be she was a companion with whom conversation was possible, and a walk alone with Nanna and Margaretta would be dull. She was relieved, therefore, at three o'clock to find that Sophia Jane was ready to go too, dressed in a very unbecoming poke bonnet and black cape. They might be out one hour and a half, Aunt Hannah said, but there was a little delay at starting because each of the elder girls wished to go in a different direction. Nanna preferred the town, and Margaretta to walk on ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... habitually silent, but when he did speak, he was very apt to say something apposite, and generally containing the pith of the matter under discussion. I remember once, when I was reproaching his brother Henry and his sister with what I thought the unbecoming manner in which they criticised the deportment and delivery of a clergyman whose sermon they had just listened to (and who certainly was rather an unfortunate specimen of outward divinity), Mr. Morton Berkeley suddenly turned to me, and said, "Why, Mrs. Butler, he is only the rusty ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... La Creevy, rubbing her hands, 'if Mrs Nickleby took the apartments without the means of paying for them, it was very unbecoming a lady.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... suavity of temper which so eminently qualify you to preside over our deliberations, your public usefulness would have been seriously diminished. But the great county which does itself honour by sending you to the House required from you nothing unbecoming your character, and would have felt itself degraded by your degradation. And what reason is there to doubt that other constituent bodies would act as justly and considerately towards a judge distinguished by uprightness and ability as ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... living with widowed mother. Fair record on the whole. Reprimanded once, not for negligence, but for some foolish act unbecoming his position. Thorough acquaintance with the museum and its exhibits. A valuable man, well liked, notwithstanding the one lapse alluded to. At home and among his friends regarded as the best fellow going. A little free, perhaps, when unduly excited, but not given to drink and very fond ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... appraisingly, a little cruelly. The effect of her beautiful figure was almost ruined by the cheap and unbecoming clothes in which she was attired. Her hat, with its huge hatpins and ultra-fashionable height, was hideous. She exuded perfumes. Her silk stockings and suede shoes were the only reasonable things about her. The former ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the back on any one. Orientals generally think it respectful to pretend not to be able to look another in the face. If ladies are thought to have the right to decide whether to continue acquaintances or not, they salute first. If it is thought unbecoming for them to salute first, then men do it. Which of the great premises is correct it would be impossible to say. The notion of correctness fails, because it implies the existence of a standard outside of and above usage, and no such standard exists. There is an assumed principle ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Ferris, stepping up to be admired. The men's decorations consisted of garlands draped across their shoulders and tied with huge bows of ribbon. On their heads they wore classic wreaths which Daisy and Hal had made, and which were really not unbecoming. The procession formed in the hall, and went out across the lawn to ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... was in the former instance; indeed, quite natural and noble, with a cheerful air of animal as well as spiritual confidence; a gallant bearing, curiously reminding one of a certain illustrious duke, as I have seen him walking some dozen years ago by a lady's side, with no unbecoming oblivion of his time of life. I observed, also, that he no longer committed himself in scornful criticisms, or, indeed, in any criticisms whatever, at least as far as I knew. He had found out that he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... issued, so the introduction reads (R. 274), because "the instruction of youth" in the country had "come to be greatly neglected" and "the young people were growing up in stupidity and ignorance." The King, therefore, issued the new regulations "to the end that ignorance, so injurious and unbecoming to Christianity, may be prevented and lessened, and the coming time may train and educate in the schools more enlightened ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... dismission of this complaint Major de Barner requested of the Governor satisfaction and punishment upon the accuser, and a notary, one Robin, who prepared notarial acts, in an unbecoming affrontive manner. This request was made under three heads: first, that Despin might be exemplarily punished, not merely for a false dishonoring accusation of Major de Barner, a commanding officer and injurious to his whole battalion, but punishment for the personal insults to Major ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... done nothing to offend my Maker, it is unnecessary for me to seek reconciliation with Him. I have done all that I could for religion; it is not my fault if her interests are not identical with those of the church. But pardon me that I should have strayed to themes so unbecoming to my character as host, and yours as my guest. Let us speak of science, art, life, and its multitudinous enjoyments. Your holiness, I know, is a distinguished patron of the fine arts. And as you are fond of painting, allow ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... come away. Becky hardly so much as spoke to him or noticed her sister-in-law. Pitt Crawley declared her behaviour was monstrously indecorous, reprobated in strong terms the habit of play-acting and fancy dressing as highly unbecoming a British female, and after the charades were over, took his brother Rawdon severely to task for appearing himself and allowing his wife to join in such ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... measure, has lost much of the love and confidence of his people! I am glad and proud to be the one chosen to put an end to the career of a monarch whose vices and follies—which might have suited a gambler and profligate—are entirely unbecoming to the Sovereign Ruler of a great Realm! I shall have no fear in carrying out my appointed duty to the letter! I here declare my acceptance of whatever punishment may be visited on one who removes from life a King who brings kingliness into contempt! And,—as our Chief, Sergius Thord, suggested ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... natural-looking people, like Pirlaps and Avrillia; but some were of chocolate, like Yassuh, and some were Chinese, with long pigtails of black buttonhole-twist; and some were Parisians, with hats exactly like the one that the Japanese doll wore so unbecomingly. (Yes, Sara knew in her heart that it was unbecoming, though she would not have admitted it, even to you.) On the gay Parisian lady-fairies, however, these hats were charming—but hardly more striking than the many-colored headdresses, made of humming-bird's feathers, that attracted so much attention when a band of wild Indians went whooping down ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... a good deal. He retired by himself and examined the ring, and could see nothing in it unbecoming a Christian to wear. It was a chased gold ring, with a bright emerald, which last had a red foil, in some lights giving it a purple gleam, and inside was engraven "Elegit," much defaced, but that his sister ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... story is told of an early settler who was elected to the territorial legislature of Illinois. Till then he had always worn buckskin clothes, but thinking them unbecoming a lawmaker, he and his sons gathered hazel nuts and bartered them at the crossroads store for a few yards of blue strouding, out of which the women of the settlement made him a coat ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... enemies of the Patriarch. Nothing, however, was said about his heresy: that charge was ridiculous. But he was accused of slandering the clergy—he had called them corrupt; of having neglected the duties of hospitality, for he dined generally alone; of having used expressions unbecoming of the house of God, for he was severe and sarcastic; of having encroached on the jurisdiction of foreign bishops in having shielded a few excommunicated monks; and of being guilty of high treason, since he had preached against ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... these feeble measures has either been adopted against his opinion or executed surreptitiously and contrary to the directions he had given." After the final collapse of Austria, Minto writes of Thugut: "He never for a moment lost his presence of mind or his courage, nor ever bent to weak and unbecoming counsels. And perhaps this can be said of him alone in this whole empire." Jan. 3, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... critic, while noticing those faults, should have abstained from using contemptuous language respecting the historian of British India. It ought to be known that Mr Mill had the generosity, not only to forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimony with which he had been assailed, and was, when his valuable life closed, on terms of cordial friendship ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... work to be done. Indeed, it was not clear to respectable Florentine brains, unless they held the Frate's extravagant belief in a possible purity and loftiness to be striven for on this earth, how life was to be carried on in any department without human instruments whom it would not be unbecoming to kick or to spit upon in the act of handing them their wages. Some of these very men who passed a tacit judgment on Tito were shortly to be engaged in a memorable transaction that could by no means have been carried through without the use of an unscrupulousness as decided as his; but, as their ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... takes command; Burr acts as brigade major; Arnold resolves on demanding a surrender of Quebec, and that Burr shall be the bearer of a sealed message; refuses, without first reading its contents; after reading, considers it unbecoming an American officer, and declines delivering it; receives complimentary letters for his intrepidity in the attack; letter from Ogden; army moves to the mouth of the Sorel; Burr determines on leaving it, which Arnold forbids, but he persists; in Albany is notified that General Washington ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... The male-bird sat roosting with his eyes closed, his head sunk deep into his shoulders. Outwardly he bore a look of great humility, of languishing expectation, and a droll look of guiltiness wholly unbecoming ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... uncle trusted me a deal more than he trusted Barbara. She was strange from a child. Fond of the men,' as if that were an unusual and unbecoming form of philanthropy. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... fit, colors that match, cosy houses and cheery rooms cost little more, except in thought and attention, than ill-fitting and unbecoming garments and gloomy and unsightly dwellings. Attractiveness of dress, surroundings, and personal appearance is a duty; because it gives free exercise to our higher and nobler sentiments; elevates and enlarges our ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... good I'll never begin to value it until it's gone." Her excited, fluttering manner blew about her almost with a commotion of the atmosphere, and reminded Adams at times of a tempestuous March breeze shaking a fragile wind flower. It was unnatural, overdone, unbecoming, but it seemed at last to have got quite beyond her control, and the pretty girlish composure he remembered as one of her freshest charms, was lost in her general violence of animation. Of late he knew that she had fought off her natural exhaustion ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow |
