"Undesirable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when cross and hungry, can be as undesirable a social companion as a Cockney cad, and the Countess's distinguished friend did not show to advantage in the scene which followed. Yes, there had been an accident. It was unheard of—abominable; entirely the fault of the chauffeur. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... criminal. Her father was a pickpocket, he died in prison. Now I ask you, Faith, what can you expect from this girl? According to your Bible are not 'the iniquities' of the fathers visited upon the children, and are the innocents to blame for their undesirable inheritance? Furthermore, that girl's mother was what we call an outcast. Can you reasonably look for morality of any sort in the offspring of such an infamous union? You do not answer, because ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... went on at Perry's Bend—that was a matter which concerned only the ranches near that town—as long as no vexatious happenings sifted too far south. But they had so sifted, and Perry's Bend, or rather the undesirable class hanging out there, was due to receive a ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... speak of puppets," she murmured, "as though theirs was a most undesirable existence. Have you never tried to be ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... These, however, had to be abandoned for stronger places of refuge. On entering the town they found that the greatest confusion and excitement prevailed. The church had been set apart as an asylum for the women and children, who had to put up, however, with the undesirable accompaniments of fire-arms and gunpowder. Public meetings were being held; picquets of armed citizens were being despatched to watch the main roads. All the houses were thronged to suffocation with refugees—white, brown, and black. The streets, squares, yards, gardens, and other ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... in which it is possible to get rid of anger, worry, fear, despair, or other undesirable affections. One is that an opposite affection should overpoweringly break over us, and the other is by getting so exhausted with the struggle that we have to stop—so we drop down, give up, and DON'T CARE any longer. Our emotional brain-centres strike work, and we lapse into a temporary ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... wasteful felling of forests is now being restricted by the authorities to some extent. Great areas have already been denuded, and it is stated that this has had some undesirable effect on the rainfall in certain regions. The natives of the more remote districts—as in the States of Vera Cruz, Guerrero, &c., are abominably wasteful in timber-cutting, sacrificing whole trees for the obtaining of a single plank at times. There is a nomadic ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... knowledge of the circumstances, but now, knowing the facts, he advised that the whole matter be allowed to simmer down quietly. He still took issue with his respected friend the squire on the illegality of the means used to rid the community of a most undesirable member. The squire replied with heat, referring to the case of The Commonwealth versus Hodgins, and the subsequent action of Hodgins versus The Commonwealth for damages. It was very evident that he would ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... passed without further success. One must have patience, much patience, in birdland. It may take years to secure what will prove satisfactory views of some species. Many snaps, when taken, prove undesirable after development, and each week adds to the uncertainty of finding anything "at home" when next you come. While the percentage of successful incubation is fairly large, yet the numerous enemies of the feathered tribe make the uncertainty ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... nurse. They were plainly too much for him, and he had to acknowledge his defeat. The experience was good for him; he did not realize this at the time, nor did he enjoy the sensation of not getting what he wanted. Nevertheless, a reverse or two was due. Not that his success was having any undesirable effect upon him; his Dutch common sense saved him from any such calamity. But at thirty years of age it is not good for any one, no matter how well balanced, to have things come his way too fast ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... the one pastime which could be practiced without making a noise of any sort to attract undesirable attentions, the boy took to it in self-defence. But before long it had become his passion. He read, by stealth, everything that fell into his hands, a weird melange of newspapers, illustrated Parisian weeklies, magazines, novels: cullings from the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... to qualify the prejudice with which republicans are apt to contemplate any thing aristocratic; for although the legal title to these things inheres in but one man, yet in a very important sense they belong to the whole community, indeed, to universal humanity. It may be very undesirable and unwise to wish to imitate these institutions in America, and yet it may be illiberal to undervalue them as they stand in England. A man would not build a house, in this nineteenth century, on the pattern of a feudal castle; ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... shadows on either side of the north-and-south line would be unequal. And though a slope towards north or south would not affect the equality of such shadows, and would therefore be admissible, yet it would clearly be altogether undesirable; since the avoidance of a slope towards east or west would be made much more difficult if the surface were tilted, however slightly, towards north or south. Apart from this, several other circumstances make it extremely desirable that the surface ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... their guard against barbarian inroads from north, south, east and west, from Scythians and Libyans, Persians and Carthaginians, the mandate clause of the Covenant would have seemed both theoretically undesirable and practically impossible. No Greek writer ever dreamed of a system of international co-operation between the governments of the world as men then knew it. All of them thought in terms of competition and ever-recurrent warfare or, at best, of a precarious ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... increasing habit of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... itself undesirable occurs in obedience to a general law which is not only desirable, but of infinite necessity and benefit. It is not desirable that Topper and Macaulay should be read by tens of thousands, and Wilkinson only by tens. It is not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... average, or mean type than the younger members. This, according to them, may sometimes work out in the production of great ability or genius in the eldest or elder members, but oftener still shows itself in highly undesirable characters, whether of mind or of body, the latter often leading to premature decease. There is hence inferred a powerful argument against the limitation of families, which means a disproportionate increase amongst the aberrant members of ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... point if they wished to do so, but will speak freely to him. Not that, mind, I am aware of there being anything like a feeling of distance between me and them, but necessarily they must just feel that I am forty and their Bishop, and so I might perhaps influence them too much, which would be undesirable. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shelter, and the interior of the tent made as comfortable as circumstances would permit; thus completing the first portion of their task. The next thing was to construct a shelter for the powder—and in fact their little all, in the shape of worldly possessions, which they thought it undesirable to put into the tent. Two more cocoanut-trees were selected; another stout sapling was cut and secured between them, as in the case of the tent, though not quite so high from the ground, and then a quantity of other and somewhat lighter saplings were procured to form a roof, which by ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... so often told that they must not walk at their monthly periods, must not study, must not ride, etc., etc., that it really is no wonder that they feel it a very undesirable thing to be a woman. My observation leads me to believe that if girls from earliest childhood were dressed loosely, with no clothing suspended on the hips, if their muscles were well developed through judicious exercise, they would ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... bloom into beauty and perfection. She would have liked to be able to assert that Jacqueline's health would not permit her to sit up late at night, that fashionable hours would be injurious to her, that it would be undesirable to let her go into society as long as she could be kept from doing so. But Jacqueline persisted in never being ill, and was calculating with impatience how many years it would be before she could go to her first ball—three or four possibly. ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... it is not a cruel punishment to have to go to Rome again this winter, though it will be an undesirable expense, and we did wish to keep quiet this winter,—the taste for constant wanderings having passed away as much for me as for Robert. We begin to see that by no possible means can one spend as much money to so small an end—and then we don't work so well, don't ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding (sanft und nachgiebig), and convinced from what he had seen during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... blacks, however, was not easy. In the first place, so many persons of color had risen to positions of usefulness among progressive people and had formed connections with them that an abrupt separation was both inexpedient and undesirable. Exceptions to the hard and fast rules of caste were often made to relieve the people of color. Moreover, the miscegenation of the races in the South and especially in large cities like Charleston and New Orleans had gone to the extent that from these centers ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... that may be intercepted by them. Short branch sewers constructed for the conveyance of foul water alone are usually 9in or 12 in in diameter, not because those sizes are necessary to convey the quantity of liquid which may be expected, but because it is frequently undesirable to provide smaller public sewers, and there is generally sufficient room for the storm water without increasing the size of the sewer. If this storm water were conveyed in separate sewers the cost would be double, as two sewers would be required in the place of one. In the main sewers the ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... this matter out; but the more he reflected on it the more serious it appeared. Of one thing he became quickly convinced: New York at present was no place for him. A moment ago it seemed far away and extremely desirable, now it was altogether too close at hand and most undesirable. His father's reference to the stupidity of the police persuaded him finally that his whereabouts were unknown, but how long they would remain so was of course a question. It was useless to attempt further concealment. In the first place, he lacked means of moving, nor could ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... as they have no character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being, are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them was so ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... have perceived at once that the chief source of disaster had been the location of the settlement upon the Jamestown peninsula. The small area which this place afforded for the planting of corn, and the unhealthfulness of the climate rendered it most undesirable as the site for a colony. Former Governors had refused to desert the peninsula because of the ease with which it could be defended against the Indians. But Dale at once began a search for a spot which would afford all the security of Jamestown, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... your friend really is?" said Miss Tredgold when she had watched the departure of this most undesirable acquaintance. ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... warned my mother and myself against making her acquaintance," said the girl. "He said she was a most undesirable person." ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... of nitrate of potash and 3 parts of chlorate of potash (dry) are separately ground in a mortar, and repeatedly sifted through another wire gauze sieve, having 1,000 meshes to the square inch, in order that the oxygen mixture shall not be ground to an impalpable powder, as this is very undesirable. It absorbs moisture rapidly, and interferes with the regularity of the combustion when very fine. 330 grains of the powder are weighed out (after drying), and intimately incorporated with 30 grains of coal—better with a spatula than by rubbing in a mortar—and then introduced into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... sense, it meant "Nurture." "Educit obstetrix," says Varro. "Educat nutrix, instituit paedagogus, docet magister." Thus, education, discipline, and instruction are three things as different in their purpose as the dame, the usher, and the teacher. But these distinctions are undesirable and the child ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the doctor answered, "and the circumstance you mention makes a long stay here undesirable. Have you noticed that many of the natives here seem to be suffering from skin diseases of one ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... evident that she must join the others if she did not wish her absence to excite undesirable comment, and going out she came face to face with Sally in the corridor. The girl stopped, and saw the sympathy ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... woman;—nay, worse than fictitious or idle; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of woman, is, according to our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable. The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even to think for herself. The man is always to be the wiser; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowledge and ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... single fool in any community, however small; but a family of fools is fortunately somewhat rarer. Every county, however, can boast of one fool-family, and York County is always in the fashion, with fools as with everything else. The unique, much-quoted, and undesirable Boomshers could not be claimed as indigenous to the Saco valley, for this branch was an offshoot of a still larger tribe inhabiting a distant township. Its beginnings were shrouded in mystery. There was a French-Canadian ancestor somewhere, and a Gypsy or Indian grandmother. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Kensington Natural History Museum in the evening. This would be most useful, especially to people living at the East End, and the amusement thus afforded, though perhaps not rollicking, would at all events be solid. To keep out undesirable characters, it would be as well to admit nobody who could not produce his baptismal certificate, and a recommendation from the clergyman of his parish, countersigned by a resident J.P. I am sure that people would jump at a chance of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... home, 'White Ladies'. This decision will necessitate the loss or conversion of one of the dressing-rooms, a fact which fills us with the gravest misgivings, since there are only eleven in the whole mansion. At the same time, thee conventions of a prudish age make it undesirable that a second bath should be installed in one of the rooms already existing for that purpose. We think the fourth room on your right, as you leave the back stairs, going south. This is locally known as the Green Room and takes its name, not, as you may imagine, from the fact that the ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... been proved conclusively even on the physical plane that a "a Man thinketh in his heart so is he." The great thing to avoid is Fear and Worry thoughts. These and all other undesirable thoughts are due to bad health partially but it is even a greater truth that physical degeneration is due to bad thinking. Fear affects the heart. During epidemics such as plague, cholera, etc., you generally first ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... given; and since we are, or should be, in a measure, the endorsers of those whom we present to our friends, a due degree of care should be exercised in so doing, lest inadvertently we force upon another what may prove an undesirable acquaintance. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... at the railroad station or by a main road. It is, of course, impossible to prevent the property adjoining a railroad from being the least attractive, because it is the most undesirable for residence purposes; but it is entirely practicable to have a neat railroad station with well-kept surroundings. Some of our more progressive railroad companies have perceived that it is good business to make their stations and grounds attractive and most of them will be willing to meet ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... great portion was in vellum bindings, in wretched condition. Here was Jay's Polyglot, and the matrimonial Sanctius again! There was a very respectable sprinkling of Spanish and French Dictionaries; some few not wholly undesirable Alduses; and the rare Louvain edition of Sir Thomas More's Works, printed in 1566, folio.[146] I saw too, with horror-mingled regret, a frightfully imperfect copy of the Service of Bayeux Cathedral, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a need for caution in choosing your friends, or you may find yourself in the power of someone who will prove to be an undesirable companion. ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... parties with such candor that the Tory historian, Lord Stanhope, while evidently desirous to defend it by implication, passes a slight censure on it in the phrase that "the course pursued by the King was most unusual, and most extreme, and most undesirable to establish as a precedent;"[89] while, on the other hand, so rigid a Whig as Lord Campbell urges in his favor "that if it be ever excusable in a King of England to cabal against his ministers, George III. may well be defended for the course he now took, for ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire experience at the office had gone far to sober ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... playwrights in asserting that there were more things in man, and more excuses for man, than were dreamt of in Prynne's philosophy, were the Jesuit Casuists, who, by a fatal perverseness, used all their little knowledge of human nature to the same undesirable purpose as the playwrights; namely, to prove how it was possible to commit every conceivable sinful action without sinning. No wonder that in an age in which courtiers and theatre- haunters were turning Romanists by the dozen, and the priest-ridden queen was the chief patroness of the theatre, ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... manner or direction, according to the will of parents and the nature of the environment. The child, consequently, may be educated. By education we mean the training and developing of desirable instincts and capacities and the inhibiting of undesirable ones so that the child may be able constantly to adjust himself ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... had found her element. For there is for each one of us a place in this world, some niche into which one really fits. And though this place may seem crowded, or ugly, or undesirable to other people, if it should be our own, it holds a feeling of comfort and of possession that no other ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... name failed to be publicly broached in connection with the shooting, though his influence over Miss Tuttle could not be forgotten, suggesting to some that she had acted as his hand in the deed which robbed him of an undesirable wife. But this I would not believe. I preferred to accept the statement that she had stopped short of the library door in her suspicious visit there, and that the ribbon-tying, which went for so much, had been done at home. That these ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... and whose appetite was very seldom fully satisfied at home. She explained to the rest that Nelly was in her class at Sunday school; and Stella mentally put it down as another objection to going there, that it involved the possibility of such undesirable acquaintanceships. Alick was much interested in the little wanderer; and even after the rest had set off towards the farmhouse, which they were to visit before returning, he remained beside her, drawing from her, bit by bit, her touching history, until she began to remember how ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... oxide 30 in the air may have harmful effects on one breathing the air for about 8 hours. Propylene oxide is less toxic than ethylene oxide but is still highly toxic. A concentration of 100 parts per million of propylene oxide breathed for about 8 hours may have undesirable effects. Naturally, when fuel air explosive devices are stored in a confined 35 area such as aboard a ship, exposure for 8 hours ...
— U.S. Patent 4,293,314: Gelled Fuel-Air Explosive - October 6, 1981. • Bertram O. Stull
... certain course there is no knowing where we shall be able to stop with any show of consistency; there would be no reason for stopping anywhere in particular, and we should be led on, step by step, into action or opinions that we all agree to call undesirable ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... John Merrick at the rate of two dollars a day, being firmly resolved to "make hay while the sun was shining" and absorb as much of the money placed in his hands as possible. To let "school-teacher" into this deal and be obliged to pay her wages was an undesirable thing to do; yet he reflected that it might be wise ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Rumania is famous, some of the women's dresses being so heavily embroidered in gold and silver that from a little distance the wearers look as though they were enveloped in chain mail. A considerable and undesirable element of Rumania's population consists of gipsies, whence their name of Romany, or Rumani. The Rumanian gipsies, who are nomads and vagrants like their kinsmen in the United States, are generally lazy, quarrelsome, dishonest and ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... rough and ready tribunal; its decisions. Magisterial trial of offences on the spot. The Christian Panchayat; its doubtful results; fans the spirit of discord; undesirable reiteration of incidents. Want of wholesome reserve. Knowledge of evil. Out-caste villagers no longer servile; disposal of dead carcases; burial ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... don't care. I shall go straight to the embassy,' said Bruce. 'No, I sha'n't. I'll send them back and write him a line—tell him that Englishwomen are not in the habit of accepting presents from undesirable aliens.... I consider it a great liberty. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... in successful meal planning is the avoidance of two dishes in the same meal made from the same food. For instance, tomato soup and tomato salad should not be served in the same meal, for the combination is undesirable. Corn soup contrasts much better with tomato salad than does the tomato soup, for it has the bland flavor that is needed to offset the acid salad. Some housewives, it is true, object to such planning on the ground that it does not give them opportunity ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... ought, and the child's appearance is ruined by the flat, broad bridge of the nose and the gaping mouth. The tale of troubles due to adenoids is not even yet exhausted; a considerable amount of discharge collects about them which it is not easy to clear away, it undergoes very undesirable changes, and is then swallowed to the great detriment of the stomach and the digestion. The removal of septic tonsils and of adenoids is most urgently necessary, and usually involves little distress or danger. The change in the child's health and appearance ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... neither did she take particular pains to hide her preference. Indeed, it was too strong to permit her so to do. Not that she was animated by the half-divine, soul-searing breath of passion, such as animated her sister, which is a very rare thing, and, take it altogether, as undesirable and unsuitable to the ordinary conditions of this prosaic and work-a-day life as it is rare. But she was tenderly and truly in love after the usual young-womanly fashion; indeed, her passion, measured by the everyday ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... adventure to no one else. He did not even attempt to locate the house into which he had been decoyed. To show too much interest in the affair would only be to attract attention to himself and his movements, which was undesirable, whether it were her Majesty who had taken occasion to test his courage, or others who, knowing the Queen's schemes, sought to defeat them. One thing appeared certain. Some token was to come into his possession, and was to bring ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... of these classes will be assigned as accounting for this anomaly. The explanation is inadequate, however; seeing that the same contrast holds among other classes. Of a score of townspeople, few, if any, would prove ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable to work a horse soon after it has eaten; and yet, of this same score, supposing them all to be fathers, probably not one would be found who had considered whether the time elapsing between his children's dinner and their resumption of lessons was sufficient. Indeed, on cross-examination, nearly ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... can be diminished in size or closed altogether. For instance, when the outer air is very cold, or the wind blows directly into the inlet, the amount of cold air entering it may lower the temperature of the room to an undesirable degree. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... oracularly, "is generally considered a sort of clearing house for undesirable politicians. The consuls to those little ports are, as a rule, ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... are Nannie's only neighbors, and perhaps you would consider them rather undesirable friends; but when I tell you how they came at once with blankets and food, and all sorts of friendly offers of shelter and help, you will think that some white people might well ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... deterred by any considerations of prudence from attempting the theft of Sterne's corpse. There was no such ceremony about his funeral as would lead them to suppose that the deceased was a person of any importance, or one whose body could not be stolen without a risk of creating undesirable excitement. On the whole, therefore, it is impossible to reject the body-snatching story as certainly fabulous, though its truth is far from being proved; and though I can scarcely myself subscribe to ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... type—no good American could for a moment doubt that it will be as perfect as everything else American—is to be brought about by a combination of all the best characteristics of the different European races, and the elimination, by some strange alchemy, of all their undesirable traits—for even a good American will admit that European races, now and then, have some undesirable traits when they first come over. It is a beautiful, a hopeful, and to the eye of faith, a thrilling prospect. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... journey to Ohio and back in a two-horse carriage, over all kinds of roads, through all the changes of weather likely to occur at this season, and I may add, among all kinds of people, might look like an undesirable undertaking. But for myself I can say I do not dread making the start. I am best satisfied and most delighted when doing something for God and humanity. But the company I have on this visit makes the anticipation of it especially pleasant. ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... as long as possible while we quietly oust them, little by little, by developing the good qualities. Surely the less we use deterrents the better, since they are often the child's first introduction to what is undesirable or wrong. I am quite sure they have something of that effect on grown people. The telling us not to do, and that we cannot, must not, do a certain thing surrounds it with a momentary fascination. If your enemy suggests that there is a pot of Paris ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... patronage he is proud) not a man you may take liberties with. For SCHEHERAZADE, taking mean advantage of a French agglomeration of letters which did not represent his name, to hail him as "JACK" was characteristic, and therefore undesirable. But, as everybody knows, DINARZADE, at the approach of each successive morning, was obliged to make this appeal to his brother, in order to circumvent the bloodthirsty designs of the Sultan (for particulars of which, see original). So ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... guessed the motive that prompted it but the more contented she seemed, the more violently Mr. Joe flirted with her rival, till at last weak-minded Miss Clara began to think her absent George the most undesirable of lovers, and to mourn that she ever said "Yes" to a merchant's clerk, when she might have said it to a merchant's son. Aunt Pen watched and approved this stratagem, hoped for the best results, and believed the day won when Debby grew pale and silent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... servitude scarcely less cruel, was the certain fate of all conquered people; the terror of which hurried men from habitations to which they were but little attached, to seek security and repose under any climate that, however in other respects undesirable, might afford them refuge from the fury of their enemies. Thus the bleak and barren regions of the North, not being peopled by choice, were peopled as early, in all probability, as many of the milder and more inviting climates of the Southern world; and thus, by a wonderful disposition ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... uncircumcised, as having no social status, were consigned to inferior places in hades: so among the Hebrews.[144] The omission of proper funeral ceremonies was held in like manner to entail deprivation of privilege in hades: the shade had an undesirable place below, as among the Babylonians and the Hebrews,[145] or was unable to enter the abode of the dead, and wandered forlorn on the earth or on the border of the Underworld, as was the Greek belief.[146] Exposure of the corpse ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Calcutta. The new church was regarded as a necessity; for a great many 'garden houses' had sprung up in and about the Mount Road, in the area that was called the 'Choultry Plain,' and the Directors of the Company agreed with representations from Madras that it was undesirable that English residents within the bounds should be able to stay away from the Church-services on Sunday with the reasonable excuse that the nearest Anglican church—St. Mary's in the Fort—was too far away from their houses for them to be expected ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... young man, after some questions, purchased a bottle. Upon this, others of the company began a little to wake up as it were; the scales of indifference or prejudice fell from their eyes; now, at last, they seemed to have an inkling that here was something not undesirable which might ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... lip with futile indignation against Lady Tressidy, and against Fate—never against Karine. It was evident that the footman had received the most stringent orders as to what he must do in case of so undesirable an emergency as a visit from Mr. Noel Stanton. He had probably been asked if he was certain of being able to recognise me again, had answered that he believed he would be so, but on suddenly being ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... manifest to those who were watching him. He had a kettle tied to his tail. Now this animal must surely have argued in his own mind, that running away with a tin kettle is a sure way of attracting undesirable notice; also, that proceeding through a public thoroughfare with such an appendage is injudicious, and likely to result in trouble. The circumstance of the runaway dog and the tumult after him had left its impression upon him; and, travelling on his experience, he rightly judged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... true feeling about his heart, and almost persuaded himself that he had better take his hat and wander forth anywhere into the streets. It mattered little what might become of himself. If he could drink himself out of the world, it might be an end of things that would be not altogether undesirable. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... motor transport, the practice with the French and British has become well defined. The best type of truck is one of medium weight, and of the best construction obtainable. It should be emphasized that medium-priced or inexpensive trucks are undesirable. It is very distinctly the opinion of French and British transport officers that it is better to have too few trucks, all of which are reliable, than to take "any old truck" and have it break down at critical moments during operation. Inferior trucks ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... black be used in painting the eyes. Now we come to the eyebrows and eyelashes. These are of the same colour as the hair, but usually darker in tint. Do not try to make out the separate hairs, or hardness, which is very undesirable, will ensue. Sometimes in finishing the eyelashes you will improve them with a few fine strokes after the wash of colour is laid on. The hair must be painted broadly in large masses, and its natural fall on the forehead, its tendency ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... scenes in novels and plays in which undesirable suitors were tackled by champions of convention—scenes in which they were even bought off and started in new lands. Would not Yossel go to a new land, and how much would he want over and above his fare? He led ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... did," he jested. "I remembered how I was asked to quit here, too. In the days when General Fred Furniss was also looked on as an unruly, rather undesirable member of the student body ... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... American people,—the occupation, viz.: of accumulating wealth. The automatic fulfillment of the American national Promise is to be abandoned, if at all, precisely because the traditional American confidence in individual freedom has resulted in a morally and socially undesirable distribution of wealth. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... report on housing conditions in Newark, New Jersey, we are informed that old dilapidated buildings, long closed as undesirable for habitation, were opened and rented to Negroes. These houses were rented out as housekeeping apartments regardless of the fact that there were no facilities for such purposes. Kitchen ranges, lavatories, baths, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... necessity of the driver of the Stenton stage this phenomenon was highly undesirable,—the glassy road enormously increased the labor of the horses; Gordon's vigilance might not for a minute be relaxed. The blazing sun blurred his vision, the cold crept insidiously into his bones. The stage slowly made its way into the valleys, over ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... for the gratification of their own lusts are ready to do harm to others, the suppression of government authority, far from being a blessing to others, would only increase their miseries. The suppression of the governmental type of society is not only undesirable so long as there is only a minority of true Christians; it would not even be desirable if the whole of a nation were Christians, but among and around them were still unchristian men of other nations. For these unchristian men would rob, outrage, and kill the ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... inquire on what principle the House of Lords deals with Liberal measures. The right hon. Member for Dover[8] by an imaginative effort assures us that they occupy the position of the umpire. Are they even a sieve, a strainer, to stop legislation if it should reveal an undue or undesirable degree of Radicalism or Socialism? Are they the complementary critic—the critic who sees all the things which the ordinary man does not see? No one can maintain it. The attitude which the House of Lords adopts towards Liberal measures is purely tactical. When they returned to ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... being thus cleared, Sennacherib pressed on southwards, for the Egyptians were collecting their forces against him. The nearer he came to the enemy the more undesirable did he find it that he should leave in his rear so important a fortress as Jerusalem in the hands of a doubtful vassal. Notwithstanding the recently ratified treaty, therefore, he demanded the surrender of the city, believing that a policy of intimidation would be enough ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... growing-up process most essential for character is literally expunged from life for them. One need spend but an hour in a city park to see that many children are restrained from the slightest running or frolic because it would soil their clothes or be otherwise "undesirable." The author recalls a private school for girls in which laughter was checked at recess ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... understands. For some purpose monsieur came to Beauvais with an attempt to deceive mademoiselle with this little iron trinket. It is not possible to let such a thing pass, and it is most undesirable that monsieur should be allowed to have the opportunity of again practicing such deceit. Mademoiselle listened to him, feigned to be satisfied with his explanation, in fact, met deceit with deceit. My opinion was that ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... abolished. At the hearing before the committee, the other evening, a gentleman asked whether the change of the qualification excluding women did not show that their voting was found to be inconvenient or undesirable. Not at all. It merely showed that the male property-holders out-voted the female. It certainly showed nothing as to the right or expediency of the voting of women. Mr. Douglas, as I said, had a theory that the white male adult squatters in a territory ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... excusable criminals. When we examine men by the prejudice of skin, such as prevails in the United States, we are not long in discovering that it rests in great part on a misunderstanding: men mistake coexistence for amalgamation. I do not fear to affirm that the second would be as undesirable as the first would be desirable. Why dream of blending or of assimilating the two races? Why pursue as an ideal frequent marriages between them, and the formation of a third race: that of mulattoes? America does right to resist such ideas, and to inscribe her testimony against ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... unfailing comfort to remember that his father was within his reach, and he would see him the next Sunday. And the one thing he had dreaded was spared him—namely, having to share a room with several other men, who might prove worse than undesirable company. For the ex-butcher, the man who was a byword in the country-side for his rough speech, in this showed himself capable of becoming a gentleman, that he had sympathy with a gentleman: he would neither allow Cosmo to eat with the labourers—to which Cosmo ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... think differently on many matters," she said. "But we are both agreed, I am sure, in feeling the sincerest interest in Isabel's welfare. I beg to suggest to you, Miss Pink, that Mr. Hardyman, as a near neighbor of yours, is a very undesirable neighbor while Isabel remains in ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... to that undesirable mind of his that Rusper's head was the most egg-shaped head he had ever seen; the similarity weighed upon him; and when he found an argument growing warm with Rusper he would say: "Boil it some more, O' Man; boil it harder!" or "Six minutes at least," allusions Rusper could never make head ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... and to the Hindoos who in their medical works give the plant the Sanscrit name of "Dadrughna," meaning "to cure herpes." The Pharmacopoeia of Bengal recommends cassia in the form of an ointment made by mixing the crushed tender leaves with simple ointment. This preparation is, in our opinion, undesirable on account of its liability to become rancid and vaseline should be the excipient used. Another application for herpetic eruptions is the juice of the leaves mixed with an equal quantity of lemon juice. The Malays use the leaves dried in ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... hot tailor-shop. He panted "Press m' suit while I wait?" They gave him a pair of temporary trousers, an undesirable pair of trousers belonging to a short fat man with no taste in fabrics, and with these flapping about his lean legs, he sat behind a calico curtain, reading The War Cry and looking at a "fashion-plate" ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... short stage to-day," said Maitre Leroux. "In truth, I am unwilling to travel late in the evening, and prefer stopping at the house of a friend to taking up our quarters at an inn where we might meet with undesirable companions." ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... by heating iron until all the undesirable elements are burned out by air blasts which furnish the necessary oxygen. The iron is placed in a large retort called a converter, being poured, while at a melting heat, directly from the blast furnace into the converter. While the iron in the converter ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... slightest preference, except as her father's daughter. And yet she had refused to look and listen. And then, upon knowledge, came shame and humiliation and rage at finding she had boldly proffered herself and was found undesirable. It was the birth of her woman's heart. The happy, careless girl's heart was dying, and the new life did not come without much ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... excess and plethora of sweets, becomes insipid: the spirit of action droops: and it is oftentimes found at such seasons that slight annoyances and molestations, or even misfortunes in a lower key, are not wholly undesirable, as means of stimulating the lazy energies, and disturbing a slumber which is, or soon will be, morbid in its character. I have known myself cases not a few, where, by the very nicest gradations, and by steps too silent ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... legal matters, and he shook his head when Peter made the suggestion that probably his brother had died in infancy. 'The conclusion I have arrived at, after years of legal work,' he said, 'is that the undesirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted one dies. Those who encumber the ground remain longest upon it, and the person in receipt of a large annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived. However, we have so far not found a single trace of the existence ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... require a high or low temperature or a very moist atmosphere and plants that bloom only in summer are undesirable. Procure fresh sandy loam, with an equal mixture of well-rotted turf, leaf mold, and cow-yard manure, with a small quantity of soot. In repotting plants use one size larger than they were grown in. Hard-burned ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... influences from without. It may, however, be unfortunate and extremely inconvenient to be so organized unless one recognize and gain the power of closing himself, of making himself positive to all detrimental or undesirable influences. This power every one, however sensitively organized ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... his early-aroused sense of the social injustice and privations imposed upon the poorer classes both in town and country, which he carefully observed during his experience as a land-surveyor, might easily have had an undesirable effect upon his general character had not his intense love and reverence for nature provided a stimulus to his moral and spiritual development. But the "directive Mind and Purpose" was preparing him silently and unconsciously until ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... be removed with some difficulty, and they are so tough as not to be readily crushed. If one escapes when captured, it will instantly return to the horse, or, perchance, to the head of its captor, where it is an undesirable guest. Another ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... homely comparison after I had left him for the night. It moved me strangely. I read the letter he had lent me the letter of Cecilia, who found the Berkshire moors so banal. Yes, she promised to prove a very undesirable help-meet on the veld, so far as I could judge. I thought over things generally that night, and I made up my mind to make a Quixotic offer in the morning. I would offer to take on Leonard's work. Let him go home and ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... Sir Austin! had you not been so blinded, what an Aphorism might have sprung from this point of observation! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between sister and brother, that during the Magnetic Age her daughter's presence at Raynham was undesirable. Instead of nursing offence, her sole thought was the mountain of prejudice she had to contend against. She bowed, and said, Clare wanted sea-air—she had never quite recovered the shock of that dreadful night. How long, Mrs. Doria ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for her. And one of my chief concerns, one of my first duties, is, of course, to see that she makes a good marriage. She is a great heiress—she would be the natural prey of fortune-hunters. I must protect her, I must direct her. With one hand I must keep away undesirable suitors, with the other hand I must catch a desirable one. But now observe my perplexities. Your cousin is peculiar. She is not in the least like the typical submissive young Italian girl. She is excessively self-willed, capricious, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... considers his attentions seriously, I will sound her on the subject. And this brings me back to what I was going to say originally; you must inquire about the men Kathleen meets. She is at the impressionable age and as apt as not to pick up an undesirable parti." ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... time of peace when the calamity that turned the inhabitants to stone came upon them, for only one soldier was in the guard hut—doubtless being there merely to give an alarm, or possibly to keep out undesirable strangers. ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... the theoretical part of it need not be so highly developed as in theology. But while the subject of the lectures is, strictly speaking, natural theology rather than natural religion, I think it would be not only difficult but undesirable to confine our attention to the purely theological or theoretical part of natural religion: in all religions, and not least in the undeveloped savage religions with which we shall deal, theory and practice fuse with and interact on each other ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... never esteemed him more highly than when he refrained from all but a droll look, and uttered not one word of the sportive courtship that is so peculiarly unwholesome and undesirable with children. Perhaps she thought her colonel more a gentleman than she had done before, if that were possible; and she took an odd, quaint pleasure in the idea of this match, often when talking to Alison of her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge |
