"Uncomplimentary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ox content to be muzzled while treading out the corn. He spoke of his soldiers as such poor and miserable creatures as their captains did not dare lead them into battle. Wellington sometimes was as uncomplimentary to his. He bitterly criticized Ormond. Grey had granted him the custody of Barry's Court. He wrote in February, 1581, to Sir Francis Walsingham, with whom he had established a correspondence. He asked the Secretary to obtain from the Deputy Grey his confirmation in the post. He accused Ormond ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... cannot fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when I think that I shall never spend another in this country. You cannot describe or analyze the lure of the land and its people, but it is there, and grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will welcome home an uncomplimentary homesick comrade when ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... request would be granted. Moreover if contemporary chronicle can be trusted he even expressed a preference for the scaffold, as the milder fate of the two. The lady, however, not being aware of those uncomplimentary sentiments, made her proposal to the magistrates, but was dismissed with harsh rebukes. She had need be ashamed, they said; of her willingness to take a condemned traitor for her husband. It was urged, in her behalf, that even in the cruel Alva's time, the ancient custom ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pleasantly) Not a single one of those words do I part with for golden sovereigns, not if some purchaser comes along: uncomplimentary remarks about us from you are good coin of the realm. Your heart is fastened to us here with one of Cupid's spikes through it. Out with oar and up with sail, speed your fastest and scud away: the more you put out to sea, the more ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... when they sit for their pictures in Venice," said Blanche. "How fresh Mr. Islington looks! It's really uncomplimentary ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The name seems to be obsolete, unless it is disguised as Goad. The occurrence in medieval rolls of Diabolus and le Diable shows that Deville need not always be for de Eyville. There was probably much competition for this important part, and the name would not be always felt as uncomplimentary. Among German surnames we find not only Teufel, but also ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... involving Church and State, and the infallibility of our newly risen Jeremiah. Thus full-handed, thinkest thou in a suit the Prince of India against the venerable Hegumen of all the St. James', His Majesty will hesitate? Is thy opinion of him as a politician so uncomplimentary? ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the somewhat uncomplimentary and insubordinate language in which you express yourself," said Gowdy, "which I overlook under the peculiar circumstances, I reckon I must admit that I did assume an attitude on your part of which you are incapable, and that such an assumption was insulting—if a private ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... back to Colby Hall the students were free in their comments on the game, and there were many uncomplimentary things said about Brassy and Halliday. Those two players tried to excuse themselves as best they could; but a baseball player who has not made good seldom gets ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... repaired to a hotel and, in a close room, the stranger told Terrence that his name was John Henry, and that he had lived for several years in Canada. He told Terrence a story of the perfidy and treason of New Englanders; which produced many uncomplimentary ejaculations from the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... their money on projects of disinterested beneficence, vying with one another in the sums they expend to be enabled to write M.P. after their names? Is it likely he will suppose that it is for his interest they incur all this cost? And if he form an uncomplimentary opinion of their part in the affair, what moral obligation is he likely to feel as to his own? Politicians are fond of treating it as the dream of enthusiasts that the electoral body will ever be uncorrupt: truly enough, until they are willing to become ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... I made these uncomplimentary remarks, gave a scream of rage, and, drawing his scimitar, rushed on to despatch me at once (it was the very thing I wished for), when the third person sprang forward, and seizing ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be in trouble," Kaiser observed dryly. And on that uncomplimentary comment King Karl slept, his face ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... flush overspread his listener's face. The positiveness of his tone, she thought, carried with it a certain uncomplimentary criticism of her suggestion. The Colonel saw it, and, as if in apology and to prove his case, added, in a gentler tone: "Only this afternoon at the club I heard Cobb speaking in the most outrageous manner about our most treasured institutions. It is not his fault perhaps. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... an outbreak of open hostilities between the two schools: the Philistines charged the Birchites in the open street with being afraid to meet them in the field. These base insinuations led to frequent exchanges of taunts and uncomplimentary remarks; and, last of all, matters were brought to a climax by a stand-up fight between Tom Mason, Acton's predecessor as dux, and young Noaks. The encounter took place just outside the stronghold of the enemy, the Birchite so far getting the best of it that at the end of a ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... had mentioned the trip that morning. Had Sir Marcus said something inadvertently, which had so piqued Corkran that he threw over his appointment on the impulse? Or had he perhaps been dishonourable enough to glance at a letter, in which Lark referred to him in terms uncomplimentary? ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... but from those alterations he was obliged to dissent. Then he said some very heavy things against the Lord Chancellor, and increased in acerbity as he described what he called the altered mind of his honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General. He then made some very uncomplimentary allusions to the Prime Minister, whom he accused of being more than ordinarily reserved with his subordinates. The speech was manifestly arranged and delivered with the express view of damaging the Coalition, of which at the time he himself made a part. Men observed that things were very ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... uncomplimentary remarks about his hostess under his breath, deliberately passed by several eligible wallflowers, chose out the youngest child in the room, and led ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... saloon on a friendly mission; I had forgiven my worst enemies,—I could conceive of none worse than the Boomsbys,—and I was not willing to have any words with the most virulent one of the family. I walked out of the saloon. I heard some further uncomplimentary allusions to myself as I closed the door behind me; but I believed that was the last I should ever see of ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... I am uncomplimentary? I'm not really, you know. Every one knows you're a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but then you're not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... relieved to notice the uncomplimentary nature of the suggestion. "And ye see I could call her 'Miss Pottinger,' which ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... drillmaster, and he permitted no lagging or indifference on the part of the recruits. Neither did he hesitate to single out any rookie who did a thing improperly. But the sergeant's method of drilling was wholly manly. He was patient, even if firm, and he called no rookie uncomplimentary names. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... Livingstone knows a heap more 'bout wicked ways an' doin's than me an' Miss Yorke does, Gov'nor," he said to uncle Rutherford, altogether innocent of any uncomplimentary inference which might be drawn, "an' so ye'd know the best ways out of 'em. Yes, I says to myself, says I, if there's enny one knows the ways out of a bad scrape, it'll be them city born and bred gentlemen; so I come along to tell ye afore I tole Miss Yorke ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... his polite inquiries in a dazed, bewildered way. I recollect, also, that Lady Sutherland made an impression of softness and warmth, and that she said something about "changing my feet," which I looked upon as a mysterious and uncomplimentary suggestion. ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... an antipathy for me," mused Van Berg. "Stanton, no doubt, has told her of my uncomplimentary remarks, and possibly of the fact that I declined an introduction. That's awkward, for if I should now ask to be presented to her, she would very naturally decline, and so we might drift into something as closely resembling a quarrel as is possible in the case of two people who have never spoken ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... next few minutes were noisy and profane. E. Holliday Kendrick was responsible for most of the noise and all of the profanity. He stormed up and down the office, calling his cousin every uncomplimentary name that occurred to him, vowing the whole story to be a lie, and that the land should be his anyway; threatening suit and personal vengeance. His last words, as he strode ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... when it reaches its extremity; short wide trousers terminate at the knees, at which points they are met by a pair of Wellington boots. He entreats his equally strangely dressed companion to pay no attention to the uncomplimentary remarks of certain rude people who stand at the door and seem strongly inclined to subject them to the discipline of the pump. The pretty girl in attendance expresses to herself a hope that "the creatures will ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of Athole, having learned that Cultoquhey was in the habit of mentioning his Grace's family in such uncomplimentary terms, invited the humorist to Dunkeld, for the purpose of giving him a hint to desist from the reference. After dinner, the Duke asked his guest what were the precise terms in which he was in the habit of alluding to his powerful neighbours. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the big room, and she heard Giovanni's monotonous voice, as he talked to his wife. But there was shadow under the glass-house, and a moment later she was tapping softly at the door. Pasquale looked down from the grating, and was about to say something uncomplimentary when he recognised her, for he could see very well when there was little light, like most sailors. He opened the door at once, and stood ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Well, of course he was not exactly one of the slim ones, but why should this rather uncomplimentary remark be fired ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had discovered the elixir of youth. Had he not to that end refused even to wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and the hair of the head! Exalted by that discovery, had he not been unsparingly uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex? Even ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... for truckling to the forces of disorder in Ireland, than for its cowardly and treacherous treatment of women. She made no attempt to spare Frank's feelings. Indeed, she pointed many of her remarks by uncomplimentary references to Lord Torrington, Secretary of State for War, and the immediate chief of Mr. Edward Mannix, M.P. Lord Torrington, so the public understood, was the most dogged and determined opponent of the enfranchisement of women. He absolutely refused ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... all his cousin's behaviour during dinner, had struck young Clive, who was growing very angry. He growled out remarks uncomplimentary to Barnes. His eyes, as he looked towards his kinsman, flashed out challenges, of which we who were watching him could see the warlike purport. Warrington looked at Bayham and Pendennis with glances of apprehension. We saw that danger was brooding, unless the one young man could be restrained ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boxing-match in San Francisco. Women are forbidden to attend such events, so that a special permission had to be obtained for her. She was warned beforehand that the audience might manifest its disapproval in terms both audible and uncomplimentary. She entered the arena in considerable trepidation of spirit. It was an important match—for the lightweight championship of the world. She occupied a ring-side box where, it is likely, everybody saw her. There were ten ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... then regretted in a few well chosen words the knight's accident; but Don Quixote replied with an exalted speech, saying that if he had fallen to the depths of the bottomless pit, the glory of having seen such a noble and worthy pair would have lifted him up. Then, of course, he said something uncomplimentary about his squire, who did not know how to tighten the girths of a saddle, although he could not help giving him credit for ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... recur in a later chapter, and the mediaeval Troubadours and Minnesingers. To the present day sentimentality in love is so much more abundant than sentiment that the adjective sentimental is commonly used in an uncomplimentary sense, as in the following passage from one of Krafft-Ebing's books ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Maria was awed by this address, or else the very uncomplimentary manner in which she herself was alluded to startled her into a realization of the steep down which she was rushing and toward what pit her path inclined. Be that as it may, she contentedly munched the second pail ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... did Cornwallis object that the Addington Cabinet could not venture on the unpopular act of curbing freedom of the Press in Great Britain. The First Consul, who had experienced no such difficulty in France, persisted now, as a year later, in considering every uncomplimentary reference to himself as an ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a Mr. Swain, was a sturdy Britisher with a very red face and cool blue eyes, not easily impressed; if Lanyard were not in error, Mr. Swain entertained a private opinion of the lot of them, Captain Monk included, decidedly uncomplimentary. But he was a civil sort, though deficient in sense of humour and inclined to be a bit abrupt in a ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... proceeded to further defend herself and family from the charge of rollicking, and to draw uncomplimentary parallels from the Proverbs between the laughter of certain persons and the crackling of thorns under a pot, when a timely diversion was effected by a sounding knock at the little front door. The maid put ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... to beam, and she would have danced for joy; but the King's uncomplimentary remarks hurt her a little. She was quite sure that she could find her way home, a big girl of four years ought certainly to know her own house. She knew exactly where it stood. Near the rushing silver brook, a ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... dispute the count after every hand has been played. It draws attention to the fact that you are anxious to win. It also draws uncomplimentary remarks from your opponents and sometimes occasions the use of ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... a voyage, and despatches her to the office of some judge, or some syndic. The judge is apparently a man of severe morality, but in reality a libertine: he retains his serious expression on seeing a pretty woman enter, and makes sundry very uncomplimentary ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... agent in San Francisco on the day of the delivery of the claim. The syndicate made no opposition to this characteristic precaution of the Chinaman. It was like them not to travel with money, and the implied uncomplimentary suspicion of danger from the community was overlooked. See Yup departed the day that the syndicate took possession. He came to see me before he went. I congratulated him upon his good fortune; at the same time, I was embarrassed by the conviction that he was unfairly forced into a sale of ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... MS. by a contemporary reader who was certainly not an admirer; and upon whom W.H.'s cockneyisms, Gallicisms, egotisms, and "ille-isms" generally, seem to have had the effect of a red rag upon an inveterately insular bull. "A very ingenious but pert, dogmatical, and Prejudiced Writer" is his uncomplimentary addition to the author's name. Then here is Cunningham's Goldsmith of 1854, vol. i., castigated with equal energy by that Alaric Alexander Watts,[2] of whose egregious strictures upon Wordsworth we read not long since in the Cornhill Magazine, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... of Daniel Fowle, who in the previous July had removed from Boston, where he had undergone a brief but uncongenial imprisonment on suspicion of having printed a pamphlet entitled "The Monster of Monsters, by Tom Thumb, Esq.," an essay that contained some uncomplimentary reflections on several official personages. The "Gazette" was the pioneer journal of the province. It was followed at the close of the same year by "The Mercury and Weekly Advertiser," published by a former apprentice of Fowle, a certain Thomas Furber, backed by a number of restless Whigs, ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... holiday together. Aunt Mary and Aunt Barbara, Serena and Letty, and Seth and Jonathan were all in a whirl from morning until night. Serena thought that the phonograph was an invention of the devil, and after hearing the uncanny little machine repeat that very uncomplimentary remark which she had just made about it, she was surer than before. Serena did not relish being called an invention of the evil one, herself, but it does not do to call names ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... (known to the company); to the one at his left, the name of an object. Then each in turn gives aloud the name which his neighbor whispered to him, and tells why he or she resembles the object, making the comparison complimentary or otherwise. The uncomplimentary comparisons are generally the most laughable, and of course all understand that 't is "all for fun", so no one takes any offence. For instance: "Mr. J. resembles the harbor bar, or did this morning, because there was a heavy swell rolling over him;" the company understanding ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... in Spain. After forty years in Europe he wrote, partly from memory, his "Royal Commentaries," an account of the country of his Indian ancestors. Of the Inca Manco, of whom he must frequently have heard uncomplimentary reports as a child, he speaks apologetically. He says: "In the time of Manco Inca, several robberies were committed on the road by his subjects; but still they had that respect for the Spanish Merchants that they let them go free ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... had filled the ape's mouth had turned to pleas. The tightening noose was stopping the circulation of the blood in his legs—he was beginning to suffer. Several apes sat near him highly interested in his predicament. They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each of them had felt the weight of Taug's mighty hands and the strength of his great jaws. They ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wit and deftness of the crab would be quite uncomplimentary in default of special notice of the plug of sand with which it stops its burrow. As a rule it is about an inch thick, and in content far more than a crab could carry in a single load. How does the creature, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... appeared following the incident in the sheriff's office, there was a detailed account of Dunlavey's now famous "ten day edict," together with some uncomplimentary comments upon the latter's action. This was signed by Hollis. He called attention to Dunlavey's selfishness, to the preparations that had been made by him to shoot down all the foreign cattle on the Rabbit-Ear. He made no reference to his part in the affair—to ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Before an opinion uncomplimentary to the colored man's interest in the professional and business ventures of his race-variety can be of weight, there are several antecedent facts of primal value to be considered. If devotion to either ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Fredericksburg was a large open field extending to the bluff near the river; on the right was a dense thicket of pines and undergrowth. In this we had to form. The Seventh experienced some trouble in getting into line, and many camp rumors were afloat a few days afterwards of an uncomplimentary nature of the Seventh's action. But this was all false, for no more gallant regiment nor better officered, both in courage and ability, was in the Confederate service than the "Bloody Seventh." But it was the unfavorable nature of the ground, the difficulties experienced ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Almidor, hiding behind the jessamine bower, had overheard all the uncomplimentary references to himself, and, burning with a desire of vengeance, hastened to the King, and told him that his daughter intended quitting the faith of her ancestors and flying with the Christian Knight. This so enraged the King that, yielding to the suggestions of the ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... little, I confess, that a magazine of such unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America, should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I must stand to it, Godfrey—there's a touch of the magnanimous in the affection which exists among Americans for Christopher North, and all his high Tory fraternity. Seldom ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... by Captain Dyer, when suddenly we heard ourselves cursed loudly and fluently in extremely plain American, and there emerged from a neighbouring thicket a very angry infantry officer. On venturing to inquire the cause of his most uncomplimentary remarks, I found that he was in command of skirmishers who were going through the brush to see whether there was anything left there which needed shooting up. As many of the Insurgent soldiers dressed in white, and as American civilians were not commonly to be met in Insurgent territory, these ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... ever seen any workman display in all his life before. He marvelled that Mr. Britling lit his house with acetylene and not electric light. He thought fresh eggs were insanely dear, and his opinion of Matching's Easy pig-keeping was uncomplimentary. The roads, he said, were not a means of getting from place to place, they were a dedale; he drew derisive maps with his finger on the table-cloth of the lane system about the Dower House. He was astonished that ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... laying an information, to be sure!" says Mr. Jack; on which George burst forth into language much too violent for us to repeat here, and highly uncomplimentary to Miss Lydia. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know how to reply to it, whether he ought not to get up to answer her salutation; and being so uncertain and abashed and excited, he did nothing at all, but gazed again with an absorption which was not uncomplimentary. She gave him from time to time a ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... that the Brownsville Clipper had on many occasions praised the business competitor of Alfred's father and, while Uncle Billy was a candidate for county judge, not only assailed his loyalty but referred to all his family in uncomplimentary terms, Alfred became an ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... shy of Ester since the morning's trials, and were at that moment sympathizing with each other in a manner uncomplimentary to her. However, they slid down from their perch and slowly ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... frigate-class proper and the sloop-of-war proper, and like all hybrids, such as the armored cruiser, shared more in the defects than in the virtues of either. It was therefore not a new coinage, and its uncomplimentary suggestion applied rather to the grudging legislation than to the unlucky victims. Of course, promotion was stopped till this block was worked off; but the immediate gain was retained. Before the trouble came on afresh the War of Secession, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... an anxious time. Every day I studied myself and watched and waited for the first sign of growing grace, for the dawning glory. Sometimes I thought I could see the change already under way, and then again the same plain Nelly Winship looked at me from the uncomplimentary glass, and away flew all ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... young jackanapes, or we will sink you," sung out a man from forward. The doctor was attending to one of the wounded natives, so they did not observe him, perhaps. Although the command was issued in a very uncomplimentary style, Jerry and I agreed that it would be useless to disobey it; so going about, while he stood at the helm, I ran forward and let fly the jib-sheet, while the foresail ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... he qualified the statement. "Only we was goin' to play King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table! He wanted to be her knight"—an uncomplimentary thumb indicated the Honorable Archie—"and—and so did I." This time his eyes went to Barbara, who was listening, her teeth sunk in her lip. "He wanted to be her knight—an'—an' he ain't got no call to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... man's a fool!" were the uncomplimentary remarks of the bystanders, who a minute before had looked ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Satan, wincing at this uncomplimentary allusion to himself, replied rather warmly: "My dear sir, were it not for the fact that I feel in particularly good spirits this morning, I should resent your ill-timed remarks and leave you to end your miserable existence with rope or pistol," and ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... to be greatly moved by his physical beauty, and just now she could not turn away from him. His long-limbed, slender figure (which, while still graceful and lithe enough, was not a model of perfection, as she fondly imagined), his pale, dark face, his dark eyes, even his rather impolite and uncomplimentary abstraction, held fascination for her. Not having been greatly smiled upon by fortune, she had fallen to longing eagerly and fearfully for this one gift which had been so freely vouchsafed to Dolly, who had neither asked nor cared for it. Surely there was some ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... followed by others in which the poet argues in self-confutation that blackness of feature is hideous in a woman, and invariably indicates moral turpitude or blackness of heart. Twice, in much the same language as had already served a like purpose in the play, does he mock his 'dark lady' with this uncomplimentary interpretation of dark-coloured ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... came to tell me that my "friend with the big head" had just called to see what he could do for us. "Big-head" was Mr. Bradlaugh. The description was facetious but by no means uncomplimentary. Our meals had been ordered in from "over the way," and I might expect some refreshment shortly. While he was speaking it was brought up. He then left me, and I devoured the coffee and toast with great avidity. My appetite was far ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... source of heat and light and of the blessings which these bring to earth, is responsible largely for the divine significance bestowed upon light. Darkness very deservingly acquired many uncomplimentary attributes, for danger lurked behind its veil and it was the suitable abode of evil spirits. It harbored all that was the antithesis of goodness, happiness, and security. Light naturally became sacred, life-giving, and symbolic ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... "that's not uncomplimentary. Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad of a degrading quality. Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... said, with sudden honesty. It was a relief to be as brutal and uncomplimentary as possible; it offset the silver-covered prayer books, the breakfast tray, the bejewelled Pom, the whole studied, inane effect of a discontented woman trying to play coquette up ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... this uncomplimentary speech, Dane glanced into a near mirror and ran his slim hand through his hair. He cast such a complacent look at his reflection that Giles could not forbear a smile. The man was a compound of treachery, courage, and vanity. He had some virtues and not a few vices, and was one of those ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... I know that?" returned Elfreda. "I know, too, that you don't wish me to say anything against those two girls. All right, I won't, but I warn you, I'll keep on thinking uncomplimentary things about them. Last June, after that ghost party, I promised Grace I would never try to get even with Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton, but I didn't promise to like them, and if they attempt to interfere with me this ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... it," he answered stoutly. "You're the most uncomplimentary person I know. I was just thinking what a hardy pioneer I'd become, and that's the way you dash me ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... not clean, to say the least of them. In this they are a contrast to the Brahmans, and to some other high-class Hindus, whose ceremonial ablutions are many. In South India, the Mohammedan is described by a vernacular expression which is as uncomplimentary as it is filthy, and which is intended to classify them among the lowest in their habits. When cholera and similar epidemics prevail in the regions with which I am familiar, the Mohammedan, with the Pariah, on account of unclean habits, becomes the first ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... first, but lit a fresh cheroot and said something uncomplimentary about the sex in general. Georgina had started on a search for Georgie Porgie, who might be in Rangoon, or across the Black Water, or dead, for aught that she knew. Chance favoured her. An old Sikh policeman told her that Georgie Porgie had crossed the Black Water. She ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... he ain't fussin' with that dog again!" grumbled Shoop. "The dam' fool!" Which, as it is the spirit which giveth life to the letter, was not altogether uncomplimentary. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... regiment to a point on the edge of the river, near the ford, where it was held. This balloon undoubtedly rendered excellent service in locating positions of the Spanish works and developing an ambush which had been laid for us, but the poor, ill-fated balloon certainly received many uncomplimentary remarks during our stay in ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... without this parenthetic vindictiveness toward the uncomplimentary miller; and now Mrs. Tulliver had put the notion into his head, it presented itself to him as a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver the most deadly mortification,— and a pleasure of a complex kind, not made up of crude ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... afraid I cannot controvert you if that is uncomplimentary, because I don't know what ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... being uncomplimentary, am I?" smiled the Greek. "I am merely referring to the ingenuity of your plots. Sometimes your books baffle and annoy me. If I cannot see the solution of your mysteries before the book is half through, it angers me a little. Of course in the majority of cases I know the solution ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... M. Pierce, no mean judge of men, there was nothing to worry about in that direction. That snake, he considered, was scotched. It might take time for said snake, who was a young snake with a head full of poison (his uncomplimentary metaphor referred, I need hardly state, to Mr. Harrington Surtaine), to come to his serpentine senses; but in the end he must realize that he was caught. The committee wasn't so smugly satisfied. Time was going on and there was no word, one way or ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... call him one. Apparently fearing that the story of his behavior to old soldiers would be spread to his discredit, he now apologized for the "mistake," and offered to have a breakfast cooked for them, but they were past being mollified, and left him with the most uncomplimentary epithets at the command of two old soldiers ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Murmuring similar uncomplimentary remarks, mingled with expressions of surprise, the voice of the woman gradually died away, and the people in the golden cave were left to discuss their situation and form hasty plans for ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... had the strength, which he hasn't," exclaimed the widow with uncomplimentary fervor. "He's Aaron's son, and Aaron hadn't much to learn from them as is where he's gone too," and she ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... country lady, is amusingly indicative of past legacies or memorials, as well as of the tastes of the yeomanry: "A toad-stone, two Turkies (Turquoise), six thumb-rings, three alderman's seals, five gemels, and foure death's head." The enumeration concludes with the uncomplimentary observation, "these ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... this "a humiliating anecdote;" and both Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Keightley have exhausted rhetoric in the effort to explain it away. As told, it is certainly uncomplimentary; but considerable deductions must be made, both for the attitude of the narrator and the occasion of the narrative. Walpole's championship of his friends was notorious; and his absolute injustice, when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to the readers of his Letters. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... public, was altogether unrestrained. In 1880 Emile Augier's admirable comedy, "L'Aventuriere," was revived at the Comedie Francaise, and the author confided the part of Clorinde to Sarah Bernhardt. After the first representation, however, she was so enraged by an uncomplimentary newspaper criticism that she sent in her resignation to M. Emile Perrin, director of the theatre, quitted Paris, and went to England, where she gave a series of representations, and, appearing there for the first time, caused a veritable sensation in London society. Meanwhile, M. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Jimmy curtly. In spite of himself he was always miffed by the uncomplimentary way in ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... remember all I said to the portly, well-fed, swaggering cockney upstart; but there was so much in it uncomplimentary to himself and his driving, that the crowd already assembled cheered, as all crowds will cheer profane and personal language; and he was glad enough to gather up his reins and touch his horses, and trot off, without ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... landlady very long to find out that her lodger had a queer kind of fear and dislike of women. When she was doing the staircase and landings she would often hear Mr. Sleuth reading aloud to himself passages in the Bible that were very uncomplimentary to her sex. But Mrs. Bunting had no very great opinion of her sister woman, so that didn't put her out. Besides, where one's lodger is concerned, a dislike of women is better ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... certain," the latter proclaimed to her daughter; "while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's wonderful how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin." Somehow, with this commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary impatience. Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a disagreeable object with a sharp point. She considered this in the long periods when, partly by preference, she ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... my image just now was both uncomplimentary and unjust: for, parallel with the change in the poet to which I have referred, a still more unnatural change is making itself apparent in the type of the publisher. It would almost seem as if the two are changing places. Instead of the poet ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... she proceeded to paint the improvement which would follow in glowing colours, and in this she was urged by two motives—one, an honest desire to smarten Lilac up a little, and the other, to vex and thwart her aunt, Mrs White; to pay her out, as she expressed it, for sundry uncomplimentary ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... laughable, since it is giving an elevated artistic pleasure to others. If a gentleman who saw us in the street were suddenly to burst into tears at the mere thought of our existence, it might be considered disquieting and uncomplimentary; but laughter is not uncomplimentary. In truth, however, the phrase 'grotesque' is a misleading description of ugliness in art. It does not follow that either the Chinese dragons or the Gothic gargoyles or the goblinish old women of Rembrandt were in ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... gift to him last week, and I do not think very much of that Gouverneur," I made answer with excellent falseness, because I had had no thoughts since my presentation to that Gouverneur Faulkner that were not of him. I had obtained the uncomplimentary remark upon the ship, from the lady of Cincinnati, who said it about the doctor of the seasickness ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... SALISBURY born on St. Blaise's festival. Consequently might be expected to set the Thames on fire. This said with a sneer, should go splendidly at a second-rate Radical luncheon-party. On the 14th, if you receive an uncomplimentary missive, say it is less suggestive of Valentine than Orson. This capital jest should make you a welcome guest in places where they laugh until the end of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... to that none might be sure, for he sat facing the wall in a corner of the bunk-room. No misunderstanding could there have been about his remarks, muttered though they were. They were uncomplimentary to all veterinary inspectors in general, and most pointedly uncomplimentary to one in particular. Below they were leading Old Silver away ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him make that remark to the stranger in the dark—it was in Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his talk—most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favourably: among these latter yourself. I say 'favourably'—nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person in the town—not one; but that you—I THINK he said you—am almost sure—had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... a hundred florins for the equipment of this company. I do not wish to have a regiment of out-at-elbow tatterdemalions at my heels." And his eye swept in an uncomplimentary manner over Ercole's apparel. "See that you dress ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... in Beach's Indian Miscellany, p. 33.] The Delawares, it appears, were accustomed to term all their enemies "snakes." In this case they simply translated the native name of the Iroquois tribe (the "Mountain People"), and added this uncomplimentary epithet. As the name, unlike the word Mohawk, is readily pronounced by the people to whom it was given, and as they seem to have in some measure accepted it, there is not the same reason for objecting ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... you: you are no longer so young as not to see what duties your offices impose upon you. A cardinal should be above reproach and an example of right living before the eyes of all men, and then we should have just grounds for anger when temporal princes bestow uncomplimentary epithets upon us; when they dispute with us the possession of our property and force us to submit ourselves to their will. Of a truth we inflict these wounds upon ourselves, and we ourselves are the cause of these troubles, since we by our conduct are daily diminishing the authority ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for the "Enterprise," for which he received ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to trace the origin of this new theology, the apotheosis of the Dog. It is certainly altogether un-Biblical. The whole tenor of Scripture is decidedly uncomplimentary to the species. It is even proclaimed as a new commandment, "Beware of dogs." They are everywhere presented as the symbol of all that is unclean, noisy, greedy, and dangerous. The nearest to a compliment I can find is the saying that "a living ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... died in 1857 and after his death Sand startled Paris with "Elle et Lui," an obvious answer to "Confessions of a Child of the Age, "De Musset's version—an uncomplimentary one to himself—of their separation. The poet's brother Paul rallied to his memory with "Lui et Elle," and even Louisa Colet ventured into the fracas with a trashy novel called "Lui." During all this mud-throwing the cause of the trouble calmly lived in the little Italian town of ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... Aspel by the hand, Mr Blurt gave him a greeting so hearty that two street boys who chanced to pass and saw the beginning of it exclaimed, "Go it, old 'un!" and waited for more. But Aspel shut the door in their faces, which induced them to deliver uncomplimentary remarks through the keyhole, and make unutterable eyes at the owl in the window ere they went the even tenor ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... well-acquainted with the honest independence of Gladding to be offended at his uncomplimentary frankness. Nor, indeed, looking at it from Tom's point of view, could he avoid feeling a certain respect for that right-mindedness, which regarded not merely the personal remuneration to be received, but, also, the general benefit to be produced. He ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... somebody's turned—" began Jack, on the point of saying something uncomplimentary about Sid, but ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... There were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain unpopular dignitary. One sufferer had got three days for not saluting him. Another had "here two days slept and three nights lain awake," on account of this same "Dr. K." In one place was a picture of Dr. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... once scared, and that was when he found a man leaning against the boat one pitch-dark night, just after the fishers had hauled. Joe thought the fellow was loafing, so he hit him a clout on the head, and made very uncomplimentary remarks. The victim of the assault took it very coolly, and one of the ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... fellow-prisoners, and Germans in general, The man's swagger, in fact, delighted them, and helped to bolster up the fading spirits of many an unfortunate captive in the camp—of many a man, who, but for the jibes and uncomplimentary remarks of this robust prisoner, would long since have given up hope and have ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... reader. "To go preach to the first passer-by," says Montaigne, "to become tutor to the ignorance of the first I meet, is a thing I abhor;" a thing, in fact, naturally distressing to the scholar, who will therefore ever be shy of offering uncomplimentary assistance to the reader's wit. To really strenuous minds there is a pleasurable stimulus in the challenge for a continuous effort on their part, to be rewarded by securer and more intimate grasp of the author's sense. Self-restraint, a skilful economy of means, ascesis, that ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... of jurors,—with their whims and fancies and prejudices,—that he won verdict after verdict in the face of the ablest opponents and placed himself by general consent at the head of the jury lawyers of the Suffolk Bar." Adjectives less 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," ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... and abused them most forcibly, calling them "old women," and several other uncomplimentary epithets for soldiers. I divided among them forty rounds each, and I swore solemnly by their prophet, "that I would not give them another cartridge from this spot (Chorobeze) until we should reach Major ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... sight of me, which was some time after my entrance because I had dropped unseen into a convenient corner, they rushed forward and urged me to participate in their revels. I declined. They had been hurling distinctly uncomplimentary and obscene epithets concerning Britain through the room. My decision was construed into an affront to the All-Highest. A big, burly, drunken soldier wanted to fight me. The crowd pressed round keenly anticipating ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... to take second, where he laughingly came to anchor, chaffing Cooper, who was making some very uncomplimentary remarks about himself. ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... represented the duchess's one concession to morbid sentiment. After the demise of the duke she had found it so depressing to be invariably addressed with suave deference by every male voice she heard. If the butler could have snorted, or the rector have rapped out an uncomplimentary adjective, the duchess would have felt cheered. As it was, a fixed and settled melancholy lay upon her spirit until she saw in a dealer's list an advertisement of a prize macaw, warranted a grand talker, with a vocabulary of over ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... come to fall in love with you?" asked Joan. "I don't mean to be uncomplimentary, Dad." She laughed, taking his hand in hers and stroking it. "You must have been ridiculously handsome, when you were young. And you must always have been strong and brave and clever. I can see such a lot of women falling in love with you. But not ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... suggested by my physical peculiarities, were bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... attempts impossible jumps without discrimination. During the summer she spends a considerable part of her time in "getting fit" for the labours of the autumn and winter. Sometimes she even plays cricket, and has been known to address the ball that bowled her in highly uncomplimentary terms. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... between them grew to such an extent that Washington was obliged to issue orders condemning its indulgence. The Kip's Bay panic offered a favorable opportunity for emphasizing these charges, and the Connecticut and Massachusetts runaways came in for their full share of uncomplimentary epithets. The Connecticut men were remembered particularly, "dastards" and "cowards" being the terms which greeted their ears. All this of course could not but be ruinous to the discipline of the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... acquaintances, including the Stanhopes, considerable alarm. For, a singularly absent-minded man, Mr Ward was not only in the habit of unconsciously uttering aloud his most secret reflections in a voice which could not fail to reach the ears of those most concerned, but his often uncomplimentary criticisms were sometimes, in complete mental aberration, actually addressed to the subject of his thoughts. At a dinner party this was extremely embarrassing, and when he was seen, according to his usual habit, to be engaged in stroking his chin contemplatively, preparatory to giving vent unwittingly ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Nelly; not that she had the least intention of doing any such thing, but because, being somewhat of a belle, she was unaccustomed to uncomplimentary criticisms and much affronted by them. Furthermore, for the same reason, she escorted Annie home, and stayed so long talking, that Joe before she returned had to go off about his milking, which annoyed ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... his own. Yet he recognized the truth of the resemblance; it was uncomplimentary, but he felt relieved. The desperado came forward, and to the boy's surprise began to climb the small ridge of outcrop until he reached the fallen tree. Johnny saw that he was carrying a heavy stone. "What's the blamed fool goin' to do?" he said ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... and think nothing of it, and unparliamentary epithets are freely bandied about. At times there have been scenes unsurpassed only in the French Assembly, and one or two members have kept up a continued fire of uncomplimentary interjections. But it is only fair to remember that the great majority of the House belong to the lower middle class, and are found wanting, even if judged by the not very elevated social and educational standard of the colonies. Many of them ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Dwyer said next was so uncomplimentary to the gallant Captain Scott that that overwrought individual seized the sporting editor by the shoulder, and shoved him into the hands ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... remarks uncomplimentary to himself was no uncommon occurrence, but he rarely troubled to notice them. Now and again, however, as the previous anecdote shows, he broke his rule. Once at a public gathering a lady said, loudly, to a companion, "There is ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... been heard, for no sooner were the words out of his mouth than he saw, rising up from the brushwood, the men of whom he had just spoken in such uncomplimentary terms. ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... formed an hereditary caste, and it was unlawful for the son of a pope to be other than a pope. They are taken from the lowest class, and are generally quite as uneducated, and are looked down upon by their flocks. "One loves the Pope, and one the Popess" is an uncomplimentary proverb given by Gogol. "To have priests' eyes," meaning to be covetous or extortionate, is another. The drunkenness in all classes strikes Russian statesmen with dismay, and the priests and the popes, are ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... this case," he said persuasively. "You have called in the police," and as McIntyre commenced some uncomplimentary remark, he added with sternness. "Don't interfere, sir. Now, Grimes, your statements imply one of two things—some member of the household either went downstairs after you had retired, and opened the window in the reception room to admit the person ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln |
