"Uncomely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a sweep as lovely as a flying bird's, and on the bashful little streets, whose lights chime on the darkness like the rounding of a verse. Strange streets they are, where beauty is unknown and love but a grisly phantom; streets peopled, at this hour, with loose-lipped and uncomely girls—mostly the fruit of a yellow-and-white union—and with other things not good to be talked of. I was philosophizing to my friend about these things, and he was rhapsodizing to me about the stretch of lamplights, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... distinctly better than English; and French verse, above all while Hugo lives, it will not do to place upon one side. What is more to our purpose, a phrase or a verse in French is easily distinguishable as comely or uncomely. There is then another element of comeliness hitherto overlooked in this analysis: the contents of the phrase. Each phrase in literature is built of sounds, as each phrase in music consists of notes. One sound suggests, echoes, demands, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no manner of means settled. They had the daring trespasser on their domain treed, and almost within their reach; and, indeed, to keep out of the way of their uncomely claws, Kit was obliged to gather himself up in the smallest possible space and cling to the topmost boughs. The bears now allowed themselves a short respite for breathing, during which they gave vent to their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn with the beauty ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... of the epoch have preserved her face to posterity; the grief-stricken face of a hard-featured but commanding and not uncomely woman, the fountains of whose tears seem exhausted; a face of austere and noble despair. A decorous veil should be thrown over the form of that aged matron, for whose long life and prosperity Fate took such merciless ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it is heroic. They do not abstain from the gratification of an intemperate wish under the belief that it is sinful, but in obedience to their reason, which rejects the commission of a vicious act because it is uncomely. In the first case, God is their judge; in the latter, themselves. The comparison need only be proposed, to humble the pride that made it necessary. How do these systematizers refine and subtilize? How do they dwell on the principle ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Mr. Swartz and entered. The clerk looked at her in astonishment. She was unrecognizable. Her dress was ragged and dirty; the hands and face that once rivalled the Parian marble in whiteness, were tanned by toil, and lay shrivelled and dried. Her hair was dishevelled and gathered up in an uncomely heap on the back of her head. She looked like the ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... sage. 'Know thyself,' was the Greek's principal lesson, and you wisely obey it. Every silent confession, every desire for inward purification, must begin with the purpose of knowing ourselves and, if in so doing we unexpectedly encounter things which tend to make our beloved selves uncomely, and have the courage to find them just as hideous in ourselves as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... no encouragement to go on, so young Robert sat and pondered till his father, chafing under the silent rebuke personified in every line of the son's uncomely face, sent him to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... that is in so far as four sides, a floor and a ceiling comprise one. Of that I had no doubt. A sort of uncomely offshoot from the main inn building, built on piles in the earth after the fashion of the seashore houses of the Malay—but much dirtier and incomparably more shaky. For many a long year, longer than mine horrid host would care to recollect, this now unoccupied space had served admirably ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... removed her veil, and indeed she did have two ghastly looking scars, but she had exaggerated her disfigurement, for despite the scars hers was not an uncomely face to look upon. Her eyes were beautiful, and the detective was led to say with chivalrous truth ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... indeed. Her neck was lean; her arms were thin. She made up for lack of quality by display of quantity. In her decollete costume she appeared as if composed of bones and diamonds. The diamonds represented the bulk of Miss Norsham's wealth, and she used them not only for the adornment of her uncomely person, but for the deception of any possible suitor into the belief that she was well dowered. She affected gauzy fabrics and fluttering baby ribbons, so that her dress was as the fleecy flakes of snow clinging to ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... seventeen I became attached to a young girl, to whom I owe the sort of life which I adopted. I was not uncomely then, I had a mild disposition and affectionate ways. The decorum which I noticed in the girl had drawn my attention to her beauty. I found in her, moreover, so much indifference to her charms, that I would have sworn she was ignorant of them. How simple minded I was at that time! What a ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... were mixed with the smaller china ware. And, when George entered the shop, the hunchback's wife was behind the counter. Like Mrs. Lake, he paused to think where he could have seen her before; the not uncomely face marred by an ugly mouth, in which the upper lip was long and cleft, and the lower lip large and heavy, seemed familiar to him. He was still beating his brains when ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... some such oath, both profane and uncomely, "I see a man on the verge of the sky-line, going along laboriously. A pilgrim, I trow, or some such fool, with the nails of his boots inside them. Too thin to be worth eating; but I will have him for the fun of the thing; and most of those saints ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... to the great discomfort of their steeds, down the steep and rugged sides of the sierra, avoiding, for reasons of safety, the high-road from Salinas to Vittoria, which lay at a league or two on their right, was a man of middle age and tawny complexion, mounted on a lean and uncomely, but surefooted horse, whose long tail, which, if allowed to flow at will, would have swept the ground, was doubled up into a sort of club, about a foot long, and tightly bound with worsted ribands of bright and varied colours. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... now had she known the meaning of utter stillness. She saw a bird, a poor brown, unkempt little being; it had no song to offer the silence, and in a little flew away listlessly. She had seen a rabbit, a big, gaunt, uncomely wretch, disappearing silently ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... Rembrandt strength, unfortunately passion for the grotesque and the fanciful often lending a touch of caricature. Downright ugliness must have had an especial charm for the future illustrator of the Inferno, his unconscious models sketched by the way being uncomely as the immortal Pickwick and his fellows of Phiz. A devotee of Gothic art, he reproduced the medival monstrosities adorning cornice and pinnacle in human types. Equally devoted to nature out of doors, the same taste predominated. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... than himself, entered the bed-chamber of this noble youth, and attacked him by kindling right furiously the furnace of his flesh. The evil one plied the bellows from within, while the damsels, fair of face, but uncomely of soul, supplied the evil fuel ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... in the narrow doorway, blocking his exit, and looked at him with keen, deep-set dark eyes. In spite of her withered aspect and wrinkled face, she was not an uncomely old woman and there was about her a dignity of carriage and manner that pleased Alan. It did not occur to him to wonder why it should please him. If he had hunted that feeling down he might have been surprised to discover that it had its origin in a curious gratification over the thought that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... This uncomely being had the unhealthy complexion, hollow eyes, slouching mien, and straggling beard common to his tribe. His yellow hair, cut closely at the back of the head, as if to save the trouble of brushing, was long in front and at the sides; being plastered down over his forehead and advancing above ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... so used to him that, like the others of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... and they repented of their flight, after they were persuaded by himself that he had beforehand warned them of his sufferings, and that these sufferings were prophesied of. They saw him ascend. The rulers in heaven were commanded to admit the King of Glory, but seeing him uncomely and dishonoured they asked, "Who is this King of Glory?" God will keep Christ in heaven until he has subdued his enemies the devils. He will return in glory, raise the bodies of the dead, clothe the good with immortality, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... was la vieille from the very day that she counted her wedding presents, mostly chickens, and turned them loose in the dooryard—sometimes she enjoyed the fine excitement of seeing her vieux catching and branding his yearling colts. Small but not uncomely they were: tougher, stronger, better when broken, than the mustang, though, like the mustang, begotten and foaled on the open prairie. Often she saw him catch two for the plough in the morning, turn them loose at noon to find their own food ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... care, in those days, to make a fetish of your conscience; you would recognise your failures with a nod, and so, good day. But the time for these reserves is over. You have wilfully introduced a witness into your life, the scene of these defeats, and can no longer close the mind's eye upon uncomely passages, but must stand up straight and put a name upon your actions. And your witness is not only the judge, but the victim of your sins; not only can she condemn you to the sharpest penalties, but she must herself share feelingly in their endurance. And observe, once more, with what temerity ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was now far advanced, and the great white house had grown silent. As Blount entered, he met no one at first, but finally at the door of a half-darkened room midway of the hall, he heard the rustle of a gown and saw approaching him the not uncomely figure of the quasi-head of the menage, Mrs. Ellison. The latter moved slowly and easily forward, pausing at the doorway, where, so framed, she presented a picture attractive enough to arrest the attention ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... sodden fields and dour skies. The rain was weeping on the roof as if it were shedding the tears of old sorrows; the willow by the gate tossed its gaunt branches wildly, as if it were some passionate, spectral thing, wringing its fleshless hands in agony; the orchard was haggard and uncomely; nothing seemed the same except the staunch, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... be good-looking," thought Claudius, "for I have noticed that where the men are uncomely the women are often the reverse. A Berlin professor has boldly likened the male Bavarian to the gorilla and the caricaturists have taken his cue. They are of the beer-barrel shape, coarse, rough, quarrelsome and quick to enter into a fight. ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... early period whose fame has survived. These sculptors worked in wood, and by their proficiency we may form a pretty accurate idea of the state of art in Greece when Homer wrote. The works of Ddalus are described by Pausanias as rude and uncomely in aspect. In his Grecian tour, Pausanias twice makes mention of a statue of Hercules by Ddalus, from which circumstance it would appear to have been held in high estimation. On this statue Flaxman observes—"In the British Museum, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Honest and worthy Macro; Your love and friendship. [Exit Macro.] ——Who's there? Satrius, Attend my honourable friend forth.-O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear, What base uncomely things it makes men do! Suspect their noblest friends, as I did this, Flatter poor enemies, entreat their servants, Stoop, court, and catch at the benevolence Of creatures, unto whom, within this hour, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... Heroism is virtue; manliness is virtue; devotion is virtue. Sum up those remembered deeds of which the centuries speak, and you will find them noble, virtuous. Seen as it is, and with the light of history on its face, vice is uncomely as a harlot's painted face. King Arthur is virile and he is noble, engaging and fascinating us like a romance written by a master, full of persuasive ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... chiefly at the extremities, and it was precisely here that they all drooped and achieved this hint of goblin distortion—in the growth, that is, of the last few years. What ought to have been fairy, joyful, natural, was instead uncomely to the verge of the grotesque. Spontaneous expression was arrested. My mind perceived a goblin garden, and was caught in it. The place ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... and symmetry of figure Queen Crucha yields neither to Semiramis of Babylon nor to Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons; nor to Salome, the daughter of Herodias. But she offers in her person certain singularities that will appear beautiful or uncomely according to the contradictory opinions of men and the varying judgments of the world. She has on her forehead two small horns which she conceals in the abundant folds of her golden hair; one of her eyes is blue and one ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... seen at a glance, has been set out with more than mediaeval indifference to exactness of measurements and squareing, and the chancel diverges phenomenally from the axis of the nave. The elevations are gaunt in their plainness, and the now unplastered rubble-work is rough and uncomely, but the dimensions are ample, the walls lofty, and the chancel arch undeniably imposing." Of the bases here he says: "These slabs are commonly attributed to the Romans, but it is not easy to see what part of a Roman building they can ever have formed. The truth is that they bear no resemblance ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... she wore no cap, and possessed hair of quite an undimmed auburn, shading small and naturally young-looking features, she had no youthful aspect, nor apparently the wish to assume it. You could have wished her attire of a newer fashion. In a well-cut, well-made gown hers would have been no uncomely presence. It puzzled you to guess why a garment of handsome materials should be arranged in such scanty folds, and devised after such an obsolete mode. You felt disposed to set down the wearer ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... a very uncomely obelisk on his battle-field of Denain near by, and General de Dampierre by a column in the public square of Anzin itself. Why should not Anzin set up a statue ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... only because he was unworthy and failed to make her happy, but because he stood in his—Richard's—way. Hating the man all the more fiercely because, whatever the uncomeliness of his moral constitution, he was physically very far from uncomely. And so, along with nobler incitements to hatred, went the fiend envy, which just now plucked at poor Dickie's vitals as the vulture at those of the chained Titan of old. Whereupon he fell into a meditation somewhat ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... uncomely, and old and gray, A woman walked in a Scottish town; And through the crowd, as she wound her way, One saw her loiter and then stoop down, Putting something away in her old, torn gown. "You are hiding a jewel!" the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... d'Aguilar slowly, yet as one who expected some such answer. "In age we are not unsuited, nor perhaps in fortune, while of rank I have enough, more than you guess perhaps. I vaunt not myself, yet women have thought me not uncomely. I should be a good friend to the house whence I took a wife, where perchance a day may come when friends will be needed; and lastly, I desire her not for what she may bring with her, though wealth is always welcome, but—I pray you to believe ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... people—Paul, his cousin, and I—had disposed our uncomely, useful, middle-aged bodies in the big wicker chairs and left them there while our young souls wandered abroad in the sweet, dark glory of the night. At least Paul and I were doing this, as we sat, hand in hand, thinking of a May night twenty ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various |
