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Unseemly   Listen
adjective
Unseemly  adj.  Not seemly; unbecoming; indecent. "An unseemly outbreak of temper."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unseemly" Quotes from Famous Books



... Claverhouse, as has been already shown, was himself singularly averse to all rioting and drunkenness, as well as to profane amusements of every kind; and, as he was indisputably one of the sternest disciplinarians who ever took or gave orders, it is unlikely that he would have countenanced any such unseemly revels in the men under his command, with whom, moreover, he was in these years thrown into unusually close personal contact. But, in truth, the story, so far as he is concerned, is too foolish to need any solemn refutation. It has been only examined at this length ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... puzzled me grievously, for they were blotted and scrawled in many places, as if somebody had put him out. These likewise I thought fit, after long consideration, to write better, and preserve, great as the loss of time is when men of business take in hand such unseemly matters. However, they are decenter than most, and not ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... better employment for him, be fitter to hold a plough, or handle a flail, or a scythe, has such a look with it!—This is like my low breeding, some would say, perhaps,—but I cannot call things polite, that I think unseemly; and, moreover. Lady Davers keeps me in countenance in this my notion; ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... which should at this moment be in my safe here. No. 7436? Very likely, very likely. Yes, here is my key. But not content with the disconcerting effect of that, professor, the box contained—and I protest that it's a most unseemly thing to quote any text from the Bible in this way to a clergyman of my position—well, here it is. 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth—' Why, I have a dozen sermons of my own in my desk now on that very verse. ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... Freedom. 225 O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth's rivalry! and they, who long Enamoured with the charms of order, hate 230 The unseemly disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the Victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage[118:1] Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud 235 And dashed the beauteous ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... describe every nook of that darling old house, and every thing surrounding it, from its old-fashioned chimneys—wherein the domestic swallows have sung their little ones to sleep each successive summer, time out of mind—to the unseemly nail that projected its Judas-point from one of the crosspieces of that same little gate, and which always contrived to give a triangular tear to my flying robes every time they fluttered through that dear little gate. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... money. Permit us to say further, that as we would most gladly escape from the insulting jeers, and ribald sneers and coarse ridicule of the unthinking multitude without, we pray you to allow us, at our own proper charges, so to guard the avenues of access from the street, as to prevent all unseemly ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... society, and we cannot ignore it or disregard it. Has any human being a right to look on at human suffering, and turn away contemptuously? to see men drowning and refuse to throw them the plank which lies conveniently by? to pass by the chamber of dying, with loud, unseemly revels? to titter and laugh alongside of the grave where an unrecognized brother is being buried? to feast upon costly wines and far-fetched elaborate viands at tables overloaded with fresh flowers and artistic gold, while the pallid faces of a hundred hungry ones are looking on, and who are ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... of early and impecunious marriage, his professional career would not be weighted by family cares, the whole world was once more open before him, and the slate clean. These were considerations which could not prudently be overlooked, though it would be unseemly to emphasise them too strongly when the poignancy of regret should dominate ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... no use talking like that. Making a man's house so unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza will hear if we don't mind." (He meant the servant.) "Just think if either of the parsons in this town was to see us now! I hate such eccentricities, Sue. There's no order or regularity in your sentiments! ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... sunlight of your smile, and the gentleness of your young girlish voice, dispelled much melancholy from my mind, I thought—no matter what. But now the case is altered—you see in me a mere lump, a deformed creature, a being unseemly to look upon, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... sure to lead the common people into endless mistakes, and the Women would gain whatever the Circles lost, in the deference of the passers by. As for the scandal that would befall the Circular Class if the frivolous and unseemly conduct of the Women were imputed to them, and as to the consequent subversion of the Constitution, the Female Sex could not be expected to give a thought to these considerations. Even in the households of the Circles, the Women were ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... their spleen against the Regent's spinney? Were charitable boxes handed round, And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea? Perchance the Demoiselle refused to moult The feathers in her head—at least till Monday; Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt A tract presented to be read on Sunday— But what is your opinion, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... the shears and thimble is capable of effecting. If there be the most unpleasant disproportions in the turn of your limbs—any awkwardness or deformity in your figure, the enchantment of this mighty wizard instantly communicates symmetry and elegance. The incongruous and unseemly furrows of your shape become smooth and harmonized; and the total want of all shape is immediately supplied by the beautiful undulations of the coat, and the graceful fall of the pantaloons. And all this is by the potency of your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various

... Mr Hendrie intends to publish entire with notes, the "De Magerne MS." in the British Museum. I believe artists are already giving up the worst of vehicles, the meguilp, made of mastic, of all the varnishes the most ready to decompose, as well as to separate the paint, and produce those unseemly gashes which have been the ruin of so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... count, and it was hard for them to keep from unseemly hurry. At ninety Chick-chick got down on his knees in the tunnel and as Apple said "One hundred" he disappeared. Matt and Apple counted again and this time it was Matt who disappeared, and Apple was left alone. But he stuck bravely to his counting until ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo

... them for a little, but the noise broke out during the last prayer, and with the final word of the Benediction my gentlemen thrust their way through the congregation, that they might be the first at the church door. I have never seen so unseemly a sight, and for a moment I thought that Governor Nicholson would call the halberdiers and set them in the pillory. He refrained, though his face was dark with wrath, and I judged that there would be some hard words said before ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... dignity before my followers forbade my standing thus before a seated barbarian, and I made a gesture for him to rise. This he answered in an unseemly manner by ejecting from his mouth a brownish fluid, projecting it over and beyond the balustrade in front of him. Then looking upon me as if about to laugh, and yet with a grave face, he uttered something in an unmusical voice which I ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell

... too, had habits which made me draw my clothes as tight around me as I could, and shrink away mentally into the smallest compass possible. I had noticed the like, to be sure, ever since we left Washington; but to-night, in my weary, faint, and tired-out state of mind and body every unseemly sight or sound struck my nerves with a sense of pain that was hardly endurable. I wondered if the train would go on all night; it went very slowly. And I noticed that nobody seemed impatient or had the ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... they frequently leap from their horses and fight on foot; and train their horses to stand still in the very spot on which they leave them, to which they retreat with great activity when there is occasion; nor, according to their practice, is anything regarded as more unseemly, or more unmanly, than to use housings. Accordingly, they have the courage, though they be themselves but few, to advance against any number whatever of horse mounted with housings. They on no account permit wine to be imported to them, because they consider that men degenerate ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... majesty, two soldiers are without who held watch in the corridor; they declare that a long, white figure, with a veiled face and black gloves, passed slowly by them the whole length of the corridor, and entered this room; they, believing that some unseemly mask wished to approach your majesty, followed the figure and saw it enter this room. They ran hither to seize the masker, but your majesty knows no ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... barely seen her party, as I passed it with a double row of gazers interposed, all eager to catch the sunlight of Majesty, appearing to care little how much she might be annoyed or they abased by their unseemly gaping. I hope no Americans contributed to swell these groups, but after what I have seen here I am by no ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... the young man was shocked that they should reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal before which, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered somewhat stiffly: "Yes, you have been away a very ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... ball, after passing through the head of a seaman, went clean through both the youth's distended cheeks, and this without touching a single tooth. Whether this affected the flavour of the orange is not told, but the historian gravely records that "when the wound in each cheek healed, a pair of not unseemly dimples remained." Happy middy! He would scarcely ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... "They're an unseemly mess." The man struck at an overhanging bough savagely. "And your brother has power enough to remove the worst of them if he wanted to. That ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... the QUEEN had not entirely subsided; and some few greetings must have caught the KING'S ear, that were not expressive of unbounded loyalty; but these formed a very slight proportion of the people. LORD CASTLEREAGH came in also for his share of these unseemly greetings; but his noble glance and really majestic appearance; his smile, not of disdain, but which marked an unflinching firmness of resolve; speedily converted their anger into applause. THE DUKE ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... explain to me this folly of Miss Church-Member, who has not only disgraced her cause before the fiendish Mr. World, but who also continues with him in such unseemly intimacy?" ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... impudent, insolent. Importance, consequence, moment. Impostor, pretender, charlatan, masquerader, mountebank, deceiver, humbug, cheat, quack, shyster, empiric. Imprison, incarcerate, immure. Improper, indecent, indecorous, unseemly, unbecoming, indelicate. Impure, tainted, contaminated, polluted, defiled, vitiated. Inborn, innate, inbred, congenital. Incite, instigate, stimulate, impel, arouse, goad, spur, promote. Inclose, surround, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... arrested by one of the detective watch, and taken before the police commissioner of the Tuilleries section, he was recognized as the same individual who, the evening before, at the opera, had interrupted the performance of Charles VI. with most unseemly cries. After the customary medical and legal proceedings, he was ordered to be sent to the Charenton Hospital. But opposite the porte Saint-Martin, taking advantage of a lock among the vehicles, and of the Herculean strength with which he is endowed, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... women! Dash the children's brains out against the stone wall! Violate young girls! Mutilate their fair bodies so that they will be unseemly when they are found by the husband or father. Burn, steal, kill—but remember that your Kaiser and the War Staff have promised to stand between you and God Almighty and the Day of Judgment! Even if Jesus did say, "Woe unto them that ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis

... lip, and was looking carefully round her, when they were both disturbed by the unseemly behaviour of the ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... as anxiously; waiting with ear wide open to every rumour; waiting with an eye on every shadow—to know whether the storm is going to break or blow away. There is something disconcerting, startling, unseemly in being waited on by those who you know are in turn waiting on battle, murder, and sudden death. You feel that something may come suddenly at any moment, and though you do not dare to speak your thoughts to your neighbour, these thoughts are talking busily to ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... future. I have but a short time to remain as the sole inhabitant of this now useless globe, and the manner of my taking off is not of the slightest moment. This old world's day is now passed, and I realize in that fact the reason for its unseemly behavior, first knocking its toughened crust so rudely against the earth and then coquetting in this manner with Mars. It certainly no longer shows any respect for the race it has nourished, and hence I see that my day, too, will soon be over. Whatever may ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... was raging, high words passing, people pushing and squeezing together in an unseemly manner, round a window in the corner of the ballroom, close by the door through which the Chevalier Strong shouldered his way. Through the opened window, the crowd in the street below was sending up sarcastic ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. He loved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... by singing in the choir. They are as usefully employed as those who neither sing nor say,—as usefully even as those who sing upon the stage. They are as usefully employed as if they worked from dawn to dark in the innumerable servile, degrading, unseemly, unmanly, and often most unwholesome and pestiferous occupations to which by the social economy so many wretches are inevitably doomed. If it were not generally pernicious to disturb the natural course of things, and to impede in any degree the great wheel of circulation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... neglected. Now they approach so much nearer the splendour of Thunder-ten-tronckh, as to have a door at least, if not windows. They are, in short, preserved and protected. So much for the novels. I observed decent children begging here, a thing uncommon in England: and I recollect the same unseemly practice formerly. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Heaven approves the story, if they do not. Thus God Himself would act, for God is love. Thus love must needs act, if it be the kind of love that "suffereth long and is kind, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." And if we ask what becomes of justice, Jesus assures us that love is the only real justice. For the ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson

... be removed therefrom forthwith. Confounded at receiving such an impudent and audacious reproof at the hands of my own kindred, I knew not what to do or say, or what reply I should make; nor could I divine for what reason this unseemly and grievous affront had been put upon me. It afterwards came to light that the letter was written in order to serve as an occasion for fresh attacks; for, before many days had passed, another letter came to me bearing the name of one Fioravanti, written in the following ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... what's to be done with that brat Jonathan Winthrop; now that his father's away, he behaves more unseemly than wont. The master on trial yonder has made him a witch, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... was adorned with garlands and votive offerings, and an exquisitely wrought silver censer diffused its perfume on the marble altar in front. This complaisance on the part of some of the younger members of the family drew from the elder a gentle remonstrance, as having an unseemly appearance for those bearing the Christian name; but they readily answered, "Has not Paul said, 'We know that an idol is nothing'? Where is the harm of an elegant statue, considered merely as a consummate work of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... disadvantageous; inappropriate, unfit &c. (inconsonant) 24. ill-contrived, ill-advised; unsatisfactory; unprofitable &c., unsubservient &c. (useless) 645; inopportune &c. (unseasonable) 135; out of place, in the wrong place; improper, unseemly. clumsy, awkward; cumbrous, cumbersome; lumbering, unwieldy, hulky[obs3]; unmanageable &c. (impracticable) 704; impedient &c. (in the way) 706[obs3]. unnecessary &c. (redundant) 641. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... divine suggestion. Divine law is ordered by God through a prophet. The purpose of natural law is to remove wrong and promote right, keeping men from robbery and theft so that society may be able to exist. Conventional law goes further and tends to remove the unseemly and to promote the becoming. Divine law has for its purpose to guide men to true happiness, which is the happiness of the soul and its eternal life. It points out the way to follow to reach this end, showing what is the true good for man to pursue, and what is the ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... may," replied Florian, "it is not quite becoming to speak thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth: there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor: but even so, a little charitable prevarication would be ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... centuries—have brooded over them by day and dreampt of them by night till sometimes we seemed moldering away ourselves, and growing defaced and cornerless, and liable at any moment to fall a prey to some antiquary and be patched in the legs, and "restored" with an unseemly nose, and labeled wrong and dated wrong, and set up in the Vatican for poets to drivel about and vandals to scribble their names on forever ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... were studded with gold and precious stones; the tables were profusely spread with gold and silver plates, goblets, and vases. Two bards stood before the King's couch, and sung of his victories. Wine was drunk in great excess; and buffoons, Scythian and Moorish, exhibited their unseemly dances before the revellers. When the Romans were to depart, Attila discovered to them his knowledge of the treachery which had been carried ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... ran against his grandmother in the hall, instead of his usual, "Oh, excuse me, grandmother," it was "Prithee grant me gracious pardon, fair dame. Not for a king's ransom would I have thus jostled thee in such unseemly haste!" And Ginger, instead of giving Keith a slap when he teasingly penned her up in a corner, to make her divide some nuts with him, said, in a most tragic way, "Unhand me, villain, or by my troth thou'lt rue this ruffian ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston

... even forced some of them upon his host. It is further alleged that under the malign influence of Peleg and several glasses of aguardiente the commander lost somewhat of his decorum, and behaved in a manner unseemly for one in his position, reciting high- flown Spanish poetry, and even piping in a thin high voice divers madrigals and heathen canzonets of an amorous complexion, chiefly in regard to a "little one" ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... those cool, cerulean depths; I would—Ah! I had forgotten you, you devils! What! are you waiting for me? Are you growing impatient? How many of you are there? One, two, three, four—stop, stop. I cannot count you if you swarm around the boat in that unseemly fashion! Why, there are hundreds of you, thousands, millions! The sea is black with you! Your waving fins cover the ocean to the farthest confines of the horizon! And you are all waiting for me! Very well, then, I shall ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... all this unseemly wrangling, when it was almost a crime to raise one's voice against an order of the commander, I lay the blame upon the two colonels, Cox and Paris, who, instead of holding their men firmly in check, as was their duty, openly declared that General Herkimer was in the wrong; ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... I, folding my arms and glancing from one to other disdainfully, "your mirth is as unwarranted as unseemly! The money in question was expended in the service of—of one who—whose need was instant and great. I have the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... with impatience during the farewells in the Castle, but Ambrose represented that the good man was giving them much of his time, and that it would be unseemly and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... too insolent, Sir Richard!' said Charles Edward. 'Have you inveigled me into your power to bait me in this unseemly manner? And you, Redgauntlet, why did you suffer matters to come to such a point as this, without making me more distinctly aware what insults were to be ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... ladies and gentlemen toddled about in flowered dressing-gowns and talked with their thumbs, as it would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire usually do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed into unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and then, and once somebody said bravo, but as a general thing a discreet reticence prevailed, and the actors might have gone through the piece on their heads in an extravagant desire to elicit signs of approval: they would only have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... Mess President, was everlastingly piping all hands on deck at unseemly hours to save the home and push it back into shape; we were householders in the fullest sense of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various

... battery of eyes from neighbors' windows, and perhaps a crowd of street urchins and admiring servants, the happy couple start out on their wedding journey. I think it is better taste to wait until dark, almost, so as to avoid all this unseemly publicity, and I am averse to having the coachman and horses decked with white ribbons; but, of course, one does not marry every day in the year, and these little eccentricities are pardonable on such—shall ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... home from her wanderings, stretched her hammock and herself in it between two trees in a rose-sweet nook at Greenvale, and gave herself up to a reckoning of assets and liabilities. Decidedly the balance was on the wrong side. Miss Esme could not dodge the unseemly conclusion that she was far from pleased with herself. This was perhaps a salutary frame of mind, but not a pleasant one. If possible, she was even less pleased with the world in which she lived. And this ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... interruckted," said Nan, frowning upon the unseemly scrimmagers. Order was instantly restored, and the young lady ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... During this unseemly argument, the Model Man, the Treasure, and the Doctor were all having an unpleasantness on their own account. The Doctor was imploring our Captain to take himself off and let somebody else bowl. He said: "Can't you see they've ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... said as much to me," Marjory said, colouring; "but oh! Archie, it seems dreadful, such an unseemly bustle and haste, to be betrothed one day and married the next! Whoever heard of ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... bricked passage up-stairs, which serves well for bedroom and sitting-room in one. The chief drawback in this arrangement is, that the landlady inexorably removes all washing apparatus during the day, holding that a pitcher and basin are unseemly ornaments for a sitting-room. The deal table, of course, serves both for dressing and for feeding purposes, but it is fortunately so long that an end can be devoted to each; and on the whole it is possible ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... "I wish to think of all this, and not judge hastily. Take off those unseemly weapons, which are far from suited for my student son. Let this be done at once, Serge. You, Marcus, will follow me to my room, and be there an hour hence. I have much to say to you, my boy, ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... ministered at the altars of God were forbidden to take any part in the infliction of capital punishment. On the trial of a peer impeached of high treason, the prelates always retire, and leave the culprit to be absolved or condemned by laymen. And surely, if it be unseemly that a divine should doom his fellow creatures to death as a judge, it must be still more unseemly that he should doom them to death as a legislator. In the latter case, as in the former, he contracts that stain of blood which the Church ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... cheer its weariness, and to exalt its sordidness. The German life revolves like the village festival with the pastor in the midst—joy and laughter and merry games do not fear the holy man, for he wears no unkindness in his eye, but his presence checks everything boisterous or unseemly,—the rude word, the petulant act,—and when it has run its course, he uplifts his hands and leaves his ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... even though I were to see you again clinging to the rock and imploring it to take pity on your thirst. And he who dies for you, Unorna—of him you ask nothing, save that he will crawl away and die alone, and not disturb your delicate life with such an unseemly sight." ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... of many failings therein; I know also, that a man by his conversation may soon overthrow, what by argument or persuasion he doth labour to fasten upon others for their good. Yet this I can say, I was very wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them averse to going on pilgrimage.[73] Yea, for this very thing, they would tell me I was too precise, and that I denied myself of things, for their sakes, in which they saw no evil. Nay, I think I may say, that if what ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... he had raised for his cattle—his old log barn, which stood on the worst land of the farm, but when it was raised the woods around were dark and drear, and he knew not the good soil from the bad; yet now he thought how, in this unseemly place, he had stored his crop and toiled for years with unfailing health, where his arm retained its nerve, unstrung neither by summer's heat nor winter's cold, when the voice of his son, a tall stripling, ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan

... fall a large lump of dirt right in the middle of the cloth. The poor woman was half dead with fright; so great was her despair, she could think of no other way of remedying the thoughtlessness of the fowl then by covering the unseemly patch with a plate in which she put the fine fruits taken at random from her pocket, losing sight altogether of the symmetry of the table. Then, in order that no one should notice it, she instantly fetched the soup, seated ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... upon us. Fathers and mothers regard their children with painful solicitude. Not even parental partiality can close the eye to decaying teeth, distorted forms, pallid faces, and the unseemly gait. The husband would gladly give his fortune to purchase roses for the cheeks of the loved one, while thousands dare not venture upon marriage, for they see in it only protracted invalidism. Brothers look into the languishing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... The Estates then in a long letter not merely maintain the right of the English crown, but also reject the Pope's claim to decide respecting it as arbiter, as incompatible with the royal dignity: even if the King wished it, yet they would never lend a hand to anything so unseemly and so unheard of.[48] The King, without regard to the Pope, continued his campaigns against Scotland with ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... attraction between two persons of the opposite sex who were not man and wife, there was no such word in my native tongue. One loved one's wife, mother, daughter, or sister. To be "in love" with a girl who was an utter stranger to you was something unseemly, something which only Gentiles or "modern" Jews ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... dare say it!" interrupted Mrs. Meredith. "Thou fallen, sin-eaten child! Go to thy room and stay there for the rest of the day. 'T is all of a piece that thou shouldst disgrace us by unseemly conduct with a stable-boy. Fine talk 't ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... Troezene. It was acted in the archonship of Ameinon, in the fourth year of the 87th Olympiad. Euripides first, Jophon second, Jon third. This Hippolytus is the second of that name, and is called [Greek: STEPHANIAS]: but it appears to have been written the latest, for what was unseemly and deserved blame is corrected in this play. The play is ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... freedom of thought and freedom of speech. The little personal idiosyncrasies which some of the reformers affected, such as long hair in the men and short hair in the women,—there is surely some psychological reason why reformers run to such things,—served as convenient excuses for gibes and unseemly interruptions at their public meetings. On one memorable occasion, at Syracuse, New York, in November, 1842, Douglass and his fellows narrowly escaped tar and feathers. But, although Douglass was vehemently denunciatory of slavery ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... feelings of sober-minded people when given there. Good church music gives us great pleasure, without exciting us to dancing or drinking; the Taj does the same, at least to the sober-minded. [W. H. S.] The regulations now in force prevent any unseemly proceedings. The gardens at the Taj, of Itimad-ud-daula's tomb, of Akbar's mausoleum at Sikandara, and the Ram Bagh, are kept up by means of income derived from crown lands, aided by liberal ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... his minister. He used to come to church late on the Sabbath morning; and he never remained till the service was over, but would rise and stride out in his spurs in the noisiest way and at the most unseemly times. Rutherford's nest at Anwoth was not without its thorns. And that such a crop of thorns should spring up to him and to his people from Lady Cardoness's house, was one of Rutherford's sorest trials. The marriage- day, from which so much was expected, came and passed away; ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... that are done, O God! there is none without thee; In the holy ether not one, nor one on the face of the sea, Save the deeds that evil men, driven by their own blind folly, have planned; But things that have grown uneven are made even again by thy hand; And things unseemly grow seemly, the unfriendly are friendly to thee; For no good and evil supremely thou hast blended in one by decree. For all thy decree is one ever—a Word that endureth for aye, Which mortals, rebellious, endeavor to ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... suits us. I feel sure that in their hearts the American people like to have their public men live comfortably. This house is small compared to many in New York, and I flatter myself that we shall be able to satisfy everyone that we are rootedly opposed to unseemly extravagance of living." ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... opposite wisdom seems to be insane and consuming: "All we the other gods have thee against us, O Jove! when we would give grace to men; for thou hast begotten the maid without a mind— the mischievous creature, the doer of unseemly evil. All we obey thee, and are ruled by thee. Her only thou wilt not resist in anything she says or does, because thou didst bear her—consuming ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... a very good instance of an unseemly matter neatly wrapped up. The good men recoiled from the plain words—"It is lawful for Christian men at the Command of a king to slaughter as many Christians as ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... mustn't be so shy," said Miss Sellars. "I don't like shy fellows—not too shy. That's silly." And Miss Sellars took my arm with a decided grip, making it clear to me that escape could be obtained only by an unseemly struggle in the street; not being prepared for which, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... "I sent the men all back to their places, and explained to them that, when a command was given, they were not to obey it in confusion and unseemly haste, but regularly and in order, each one following the man who stood before him. 'You must regulate your proceeding,' said I, 'by the action of the file-leader; when he advances, you must advance, following him in a line, and governing your ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... spoke, the deep earnestness imprinted on his features, convinced Josephine that the general would not condescend to indulge in a joke of so unseemly a character, and a lovely blush overspread the face of ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... intended to create an atmosphere of vice, which Odette had since repeated to him, he had welcomed them as a proof of Mme. Verdurin's warm-hearted and generous friendship. But now this old memory of her affection for Odette had coalesced suddenly with his more recent memory of her unseemly conversation. He could no longer separate them in his mind, and he saw them blended in reality, the affection imparting a certain seriousness and importance to the pleasantries which, in return, spoiled the affection ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... case of Semper Idem aroused a vast deal of unseemly yet highly natural curiosity. He had been found in a slum lodging, with throat cut as aforementioned, and blood dripping down upon the inmates of the room below and disturbing their festivities. He had evidently done the deed standing, with head bowed forward that he might ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... that Jacobi declared that he had some thoughts which—if he should entertain them—would put him to death: and perhaps we have weapons in our intellectual armory that are to save us from disgrace and impertinent relation to the world we live in. But this book will excuse you from any unseemly haste to make up your accounts, nay, holds you to fulfil your career with all amplitude and calmness. I found joy and pride in it, and discerned a golden chain of continuity not often seen in the works of men, apprising me that one good head and great heart remained in England,—immovable, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... a most unseemly proceeding, and declined to accompany her wilful daughter, but the latter did not wish to miss what she knew would become an historical event of great importance, and rode away on her bicycle, accompanied ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... shilling out. It was a useful trick, taught him by an expert in the art of rigging the thimble and the pea. Nickie, when he had fairly good clothes, often attended church merely to practise it. To-night the exploit was more an act of unseemly and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... but noblemen and gentlemen, which shall be tied to residence in those towns they dwell next, at such set times and seasons: for I see no reason (which [614]Hippolitus complains of) "that it should be more dishonourable for noblemen to govern the city than the country, or unseemly to dwell there now, than of old." [615]I will have no bogs, fens, marshes, vast woods, deserts, heaths, commons, but all enclosed; (yet not depopulated, and therefore take heed you mistake me not) for that which is common, and every ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... austerity never chilled them, but whose tragic story and the impression she made of already dwelling in a heaven of her own, notwithstanding her sweet and consistent humanity, placed her on a pinnacle where any display of affection would have been unseemly. Only once, after the beautiful ceremony of taking the white veil was over, and Teresa's senses were faint from incense and hunger, ecstasy and a new and exquisite terror, Sister Dominica had led her ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... "By Allah, never saw I more niggardly wight than he, that piper little of good and wit! He gave me an hundred blows with a stick yesterday and but one dinar, for all I taught him to fish and made him my partner; but he played me false." Replied she, "Leave this unseemly talk, and open thine eyes and look thou bear thyself respectfully, whenas thou seest him after this, and thou shalt win thy wish." When he heard her words, it was if he had been asleep and awoke; and Allah ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... a hat of your own selection or voice thoughts of your own thinking is to invite unseemly mirth, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... man who had to look after the behaviour of the paupers, could in quiet times occasionally "thrash a boy or two to keep up appearances" without much questioning, and though not possessing the penal authority of the Constable, had a great deal of the detective tact to exercise in preventing unseemly brawls, &c. At the Royston Fair the Beadle's was a notable figure, and of this kind of duty the {55} following instruction to Spicer, the old Bellman and Beadle in 1791, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... now carries a swathe of snow along the tops of the graves, as though the "sheeted dead" were at some melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall with a crash and jingle, like a solemn mockery of the echo of the unseemly mirth of one who is now ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... latter was reading the instrument that was placed before his eyes, there was no evidence of uneasiness to be detected in the unmoved features of the latter. Mark Heathcote had too long schooled his passions, to suffer an unseemly manifestation of surprise to escape him; and he was by nature a man of far too much nerve, to betray alarm at any trifling exhibition of danger. Returning the parchment to the other, he said with ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... been inconvenient to another person; but long habit made it, whether seated or walking, perfectly easy to the worthy Bailie. In the latter posture it occasioned, no doubt, an unseemly projection of the person towards those who happened to walk behind; but those being at all times his inferiors (for Mr. Macwheeble was very scrupulous in giving place to all others), he cared very little what ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... Vlac, who had officially signed his name to Morus's preface. The mixture of fanatical choler and grotesque jocularity, in which he rolls forth his charges of incontinence against Morus, and of petty knavery against Vlac, is only saved from being unseemly by being ridiculous. The comedy is complete when we remember that Morus had not written the Clamor, nor Vlac the preface. Milton's rage blinded him; he is mad Ajax castigating innocent sheep ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... or as easy as at first sight. I did not like to shout. The silence of the place, only broken by the sobbing of the waves, hundreds of feet below, forbade it, while to knock at the old iron-studded door was equally unseemly. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... lives?" I asked gloomily, and, unseemly though it might be, it was perhaps hardly strange that I could not bring myself to wish anything but that he ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... Chief Justice Draper the Anderson case was closed and the fugitive disappears. As a result, however, of the unseemly action of the Brantford magistrate the Canadian law was revised so as to take from the control of ordinary magistrates jurisdiction as regards foreign fugitives from justice, leaving such cases with county ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... were instantly complied with. The wholesome sunlight burst into the room, and checked, as if by magic, the unseemly mumming of these deluded convulsionaries. Mrs. Colfodder sank down exhausted upon the sofa. Betty ceased to be Red-Jacket. Mr. Stellato gave up his scalping-knife, flopped feebly upon a chair, and again became a transparent jelly-fish of philosophy and water. It was harder to bring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... half-laughing, half-crying with vexation, but firmly grasping in one hand a tuft of coarse, straight black hair, and in the other a section of Filipino shirt the size of a lady's kerchief—all she had to show of her predatory visitor and to account for the unseemly disturbance they ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... consequences of civilization that we are denied the privilege of unmasking at the behest of the elemental emotions; that we are constrained to bleed decorously. Making shift to lean heavily on Penelope, Kent came through without doing or saying anything unseemly. Mrs. Brentwood, who had been sleeping with one eye open, and that eye upon Elinor and Ormsby, made sure that she had now no special reason to be ungracious to David Kent. For the others, Ormsby ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... has at first cowered and shuddered on hearing the message, now speaks calmly and with dignity). My greeting take unto your lord and tell him what I say now: Should he assist to land me and to King Mark would he hand me, unmeet and unseemly were his act, the while my pardon was not won for trespass black and base: So bid him ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner

... the boys set out in company with the captain to find the trucker. That individual put up a strong protest at taking out his horses at the unseemly hour, but a piece of coin slipped into his hand at the opportune moment by Ned ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... be proven that in October past, after a bitter quarrel with Miss Stair, the accused espoused in a hasty (and in a person of his rank and station), unseemly manner, his mother's cousin, Miss Isabel Erskine; that since that time he has been little in her presence, leaving her alone at the time when a woman most needs the comfort and support of a husband's presence, and paying marked ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... you, gentlemen, ever voted or intended to invest Dr. Royce with that right. He himself now publicly puts forth a worse than "extravagant pretension" when he arrogates to himself this right of literary outrage. He was not appointed professor by you for any such unseemly purpose. To arrogate to himself a senseless "professional" superiority over all non-"professional" authors, to the insufferable extent of publicly posting and placarding them for a mere difference of opinion, is, from a moral point of view, scandalously ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... very much like an errand-boy, and also felt that he was called on to perform his duties as such at rather an unseemly time, but he said nothing, and took the slip of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... law regulations to wed a girl he had injured. He lured her into a secluded spot the day after their marriage, and deliberately murdered her. According to the prevalent custom, Tom Otter's corpse was hung in chains. The day selected for that purpose inaugurated a week of merry-making of the most unseemly character. Booths were pitched near the gibbet, and great numbers of the people came to see the wretch suspended. It is reported that some years later, when the jaw bones had become sufficiently bare to leave ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... Deiokes established the rule, which he was the first to establish, ordaining that none should enter into the presence of the king, but that they deal with him always through messengers; and that the king should be seen by no one; and moreover that to laugh or to spit in presence is unseemly, and this last for every one without exception. 112 Now he surrounded himself with this state 113 to the end that his fellows, who had been brought up with him and were of no meaner family nor behind him in manly virtue, might not be grieved by seeing him and make plots against him, but ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... well-worn saddle, and brought Arion out of his snug box, and wisped him and combed him, and blacked his shoes, and made him altogether lovely—a process to which the intelligent animal was inclined to take objection, the hour being unseemly and unusual. Poor Bates sighed over his task, and brushed away more than one silent tear with the back of the dandy-brush. It was kind of Miss Violet to think about getting him a place; but he had no heart for going into a new service. He would rather have ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... in the forest, felling timber, My wife came running out in mortal fear: "The seneschal," she said, "was in my house, Had ordered her to get a bath prepared, And thereupon had taken unseemly freedoms, From which she rid herself and flew to me." Armed as I was I sought him, and my axe Has given his bath ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate. He marvelled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man, when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... son appears at Sichem crown'd, With young and heedless council circled round; Unseemly object! but a falling state Has always its own errors joined with Fate. Ten tribes at once forsake the Jessian throne, And bold Adoram at his message stone; 'Brethren of Israel!'—More he fain would say, But a flint stopped ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... I after in the field espied, Performing wondrous feats of chivalry, I was surprised by Love, ere I descried That freedom in my Love, so rash a guide, I lay this unction to my phantasy, That no unseemly place my heart possest, Fixed on the worthiest ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... mused the king; 'put out his eyes; those eyes which look with unseemly boldness at his uncle and ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae

... good-will, had taken to calling frequently,—and how she had been pleased, for his benefit, even to don her cap with rose-purple ribbons, and her yellow gown of tru-tru levantine; but how, later on, having flown into a rage with her neighbour, on account of the unseemly question: "What might your capital amount to, madam?" she had given orders that he should not be admitted, and how she had then commanded, that everything, down to the very smallest scrap, should be given to Feodor Ivanitch after her death. And, in fact, Lavretzky ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... force, Flamininus had not failed to remind the Achaeans that such separate arrangements as to the disposal of a part of the spoil were in themselves unjust, and were, in the relation in which the Achaeans stood to the Romans, more than unseemly; and yet in his very impolitic complaisance towards the Hellenes he had substantially done what the Achaeans willed. But the matter did not end there. The Achaeans, tormented by their dwarfish thirst for aggrandizement, would not relax their hold on the town of Pleuron in Aetolia ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... and elderish, and then, almost without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful; with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly humor had been exorcised. In manner he was bland, ornate, gestureish, ample; giving the sense that in nothing less commodious than a church could he loose his person and his powers to their full expression. He was genially familiar; the church-man who is a good fellow. Yet never did he let one forget ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... license in the writing of these stories, in that I have caused ladies at times to tell, and oftentimes to list, matters that, whether to tell or to list, do not well beseem virtuous women. The which I deny, for that there is none of these stories so unseemly, but that it may without offence be told by any one, if but seemly words be used; which rule, methinks, has here been very well observed. But assume we that 'tis even so (for with you I am not minded to ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... child with no man's aid, We find no record of a man-child born Without the aid of woman! Fatherhood Is but a small achievement at the best, While motherhood comprises heaven and hell.) This ever-growing argument of sex Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense. Why waste more time in controversy, when There is not time enough for all of love, Our rightful occupation in this life? Why prate of our defects, of where we fail, When just the story of our worth would need Eternity for telling, ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... pleasure, profligacies and laughter, I would not be able to recall a single passage in it. It is because it was full of moments and days tragic, bitter, sinister in their warnings, dull or dreadful in their monotonous scenes and unseemly violences, that I can see or hear each separate incident in its detail, can indeed see or hear little else. So much in this place do men live by pain that my friendship with you, in the way through which I am forced to remember ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... are attracted to the services. To vegetate in one spot is killing to the spirit of the individual who is truly fitted to play a lead part in bold enterprises, and for that reason there is something very unseemly and unmilitary about ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... desire that all things in the holy congregation might (as St. Paul commandeth) "be done with comeliness and in good order." But as for all those things which we saw were either very superstitious, or wholly unprofitable, or noisome, or mockeries, or contrary to the Holy Scriptures, or else unseemly for honest or discreet folks, as there be an infinite number nowadays where papistry is used; these, I say, we have utterly refused without all manner exception, because we would not have the right worshipping of God any longer ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... terror that rendered them dumb and helpless. And as they looked at it, from out the trunk, shot an enormous thing—white and glistening, and fashioned like a human tongue. And after pointing derisively at them, it withdrew; whereupon all the fruit shook, as if convulsed with unseemly laughter. They then saw between the foremost branches of the tree a big eye. The white of it was thick and pasty, the iris spongy in texture, and the pupil bulging with a lurid light. It stared at them with a steady stare—insolent and quizzical. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... receiving no consolation from the pope, and no redress from the emperor. Wounded pride, wronged affection, and a cankering jealousy of the woman preferred to her, (which though it never broke out into unseemly words, is enumerated as one of the causes of her death,) at length wore out a feeble frame. "Thus," says the chronicle, "Queen Katherine fell into her last sickness; and though the king sent to comfort her through Chapuys, the emperor's ambassador, she grew worse and worse; and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... moment of passionate and unreflecting fervour. Neither the profferer nor the refuser could have regarded it in the light of a bribe. Even when the veto had been pronounced, the daily contest between the two tribunes in the Forum never became a scene of unseemly recrimination. The war of words revolved round the question of principle. Both disputants were at white heat; yet not a word was said by either which conveyed a reflection on character ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... swelled with a marvelous rapidity. Every cellar and room and garret, every little alley and hidden rookery, "hawk's nest" and "wren's nest," poured out its unseemly denizens, white and black, old and young, male and female, the child of three years old, keen, alert and self-protective, running to see the "row" side by side with the toothless crone of seventy; or most likely passing her on the way. Thieves, beggars, pick-pockets, vile women, ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... feats that made the Confutators butts of scorn and derision. At any rate, the Lutherans were charged with having failed, at the public reading, to control their risibilities sufficiently. Cochlaeus complains: "During the reading many of the Lutherans indulged in unseemly laughter. Quando recitata fuit, multi e Lutheranis inepte cachinnabantur." (Koellner, 411.) If this did not actually occur, it was not because the Confutators had given them ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... Pennell!" he exclaimed, "I'm blest if I hadn't." He pushed his arm out and glanced at his watch. "Oh, there's plenty of time, anyway. I'm lunching with this blighter down town, padre, at some special restaurant of his," he explained, "and I take it the sum and substance of his unseemly remarks are that he thinks we ought to get ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... several friends were amongst the gay crowd, and he noted with deep displeasure that his wife turned pale when the accident happened and was strangely excited throughout the occasion. In the carriage, as the pair returned, he taxed her with her unseemly demeanour, and a violent quarrel ensued, in which she exclaimed, "I love him. I fear you. I hate you. Do as you please with me." And Anna flung herself to the bottom of the carriage, covering her face with her hands and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... men of Zonu fear that Yahn is greater and overskilled in the Law. Moreover it hath been said that Time will bring the hour when the wealth of Yahn shall be such as his dreams have lusted for. Then shall Yahn leave the earth at rest and trouble the shadows no more, but sit and gloat with his unseemly face over his hoard of Lives, for his soul is a usurer's soul. But others say, and they swear that this is true, that there are gods of Old, who be far greater than Yahn, who made the Law wherein Yahn is overskilled, and who will one day drive a bargain with him that shall be too hard for Yahn. Then ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... —Yet these unseemly and desolate appearances do not prevent the attendance of congregations more numerous, and, I think, more fervent, than were usual when the altars shone with the offerings of wealth, and the walls were ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... private houses, and the other part, the unclean or negligent order or sparekeeping of the house of prayer, by permitting open decaies, and ruines of coveringes, walls, and wyndowes, and by appointing unmeet and unseemly tables, with fowle clothes, for the communion of the sacraments, and generally leavynge the place of prayers desolate of all cleanlynes, and of meet ornaments for such a place, whereby it might be known a place provided for divine service." And the commissioners ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... the harvesting. And thou, if thou wilt accomplish such deeds as these, on that very day shalt carry off the fleece to the king's palace; ere that time comes I will not give it, expect it not. For indeed it is unseemly that a brave man should yield to ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... them up to vile passions; for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; (27)and in like manner the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves the recompense of ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... is awful!" said Dorothy. She was shivering and sick with terror at this unseemly midnight revelry of her grandfather's old mill. It was as if it had awakened in a fit of delirium, and given itself up to a wild travesty of its years ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... of London to Harwich, where a frigate and two sloops of war were waiting for the coffin. The mob were resolute that their Queen's funeral should pass through the city. The first struggle between the crowd and the military took place at the corner of Church Street, Kensington. The strange, unseemly, contention was renewed farther on more than once; but as bloodshed had been forbidden, the people had their way, and the swaying mass surged in grim determination straight towards the Strand and Temple Bar. The captain of the frigate into whose keeping the coffin ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... did'st resigne thy Manhood, and the Place Wherein God set thee above her made of thee, And for thee, whose perfection farr excell'd 150 Hers in all real dignitie: Adornd She was indeed, and lovely to attract Thy Love, not thy Subjection, and her Gifts Were such as under Government well seem'd, Unseemly to beare rule, which was thy part And person, had'st thou known thy self aright. So having said, he thus to Eve in few: Say Woman, what is this which thou hast done? To whom sad Eve with shame nigh ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... professional dignity gave way. Dropping into the nearest chair, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed again, while Mr. Baxter grew more and more shamefaced, and Miss Roberts more and more exasperated at his unseemly merriment. When he could speak again, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... popular amusements diverted him from his duties; he was feared only as a father is feared. I can conceive that he was sometimes intolerant of human infirmities; that no one dared to obtrude familiarities or make unseemly jokes in his presence; that few felt quite at ease in his company,—oppressed by his bearing, and awed by his prodigious respectability and grave solemnity. Not that he was arrogant and haughty, like a Roman cardinal or an Oxford Don; he was simply dignified and undemonstrative, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... not for us that I have come?— Let not unseemly things live in my mouth; Yet I would praise thee as thou praisest me, But in a manner that my people use, Things to approach in song they list not speak. And song, thou knowest, inwrought with chiming strings, Sweetens with sweet delay loving desire: Also thine eyes will feed, ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... his complexion fair, and his mouth and eyes alive with fun and merriment. This, however, seldom found vent in laughter. His intercourse with the grave Huguenots, saddened by their exile, and quiet and restrained in manner, taught him to repress mirth, which would have appeared to them unseemly; and to remain a grave and silent listener to their talk of their unhappy country, and their discussions ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... the custom that no poor man should have any right to the game, the birds, or to the fish in the running waters. This seems to us unseemly and unbrotherly, and not to be in accordance with the Word of God. Moreover, in some places the authorities let the game increase to our injury and mighty undoing, since we have to permit that which ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... seen him once when she was a very little girl. He had been pointed out to her by one of her father's cowboys who, for reasons of his own, heartily hated and a little feared the old man. Since then the girl's lively imagination had created a most unseemly brute out of the enemy of her house, a beetle-browed, ugly-mouthed, facially-hideous being little short ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... more ado he pushed his way up close to Elsa's side, elbowing Barna Moritz with scant ceremony. An angry word rose to the younger man's lips, and a sudden quarrel was only averted by a pleading look from Elsa's blue eyes. It would have been very unseemly, of course, to quarrel with one's host on such an occasion. Moritz, swallowing his wrath, withdrew without a word, even though he cursed Bela for a ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... to pay bills at the end of a month, they often spend it in sake, and that they sometimes get sake in shops and have it put down as rice or tea. "The old, old story!" I looked at the dirt and barbarism, and asked if this were the Japan of which I had read. Yet a woman in this unseemly costume firmly refused to take the 2 or 3 sen which it is usual to leave at a place where you rest, because she said that I had had water and not tea, and after I had forced it on her, she returned it to Ito, and this redeeming incident ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... form of Frederick Seward in the hall, descended the stairs in three leaps, and was out of the door and upon his horse in an instant. It is stated by a person who saw him mount that, although he leaped upon his horse with most unseemly haste, he trotted away around the corner of the ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... ventures to call this book indecent, he will certainly have his tongue torn out in hell." So far as the written play is concerned, its language is altogether unobjectionable; on the stage, by means of gag and gesture, its presentation is often unseemly and coarse. What the Chinese playgoer delights in, as an evening's amusement, is a succession of plays which are more of the nature of sketches, slight in construction and generally weak in plot, some of them based upon striking historical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... to his unceremonious bearers, as they were about to transport him to the place designated by their Captain; "I have one word yet to say. Honest and loyal Rebel, though I do not accept your service, neither do I refuse it in an unseemly and irreverent manner. It is a sore temptation, and I feel it at my fingers' ends. But a covenant may be made between us, by which neither party shall be a loser, and in which the law shall find no grounds of displeasure. ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... at Manchester, represents the giant Tarquin at his morning's repast; it being fabled that he devoured a child daily at this meal. The legs of the infant are seen sprawling out of his mouth in a most unseemly fashion. Some have supposed that Tarquin was but a symbol or personification of the Roman army, and his castle the Roman station in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the Dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior, wrote upon the chair of the Doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man, on being brought before the Forty,[56] ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... stinging contempt and scorn. Jefferson replied with elaborate denials, solemn protests of disinterested virtue, and counter accusations. Hamilton was back at him before the print was dry, and the battle raged with such unseemly violence, that Washington wrote an indignant letter to each, demanding that they put aside their personal rancours and act together for the common good of the country. The replies of the two men were characteristic. Hamilton wrote a frank and manly letter, barely alluding to Jefferson, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... human quarrels, taught him that between two such men the intercession of a priest would not, at that moment, be of any avail. Their own notions of honor and self-respect would alone be able to restrain them from rushing into unseemly excesses of language and act; so the good Bishop stood with folded arms looking on, and silently praying for an opportunity to remind them of the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... them a governess they'd improve; but, instead of that, they get worse and worse: I don't know how it is with their learning, but their habits, I know, make no sort of improvement; they get rougher, and dirtier, and more unseemly every day.' ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... lips. "I can't tell you, darling, seeing she is a woman. An unpleasant adventure befell her once for which I was partially responsible. And she has hated me with most unseemly vehemence ever since." ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... by the prosecution are said to have hastened his death. The right feeling and sound sense of the nation has guided the Press of this country into safe channels, and few books are fatal now on account of their unseemly ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... was not allowed to see the "Dragon's Face" because he refused to kneel. At that date England was not in a position to punish the insult; but it had something to do with the war of 1839. In 1859 it was pitiful to see a power whose existence was hanging in the scales alienate a friend by unseemly insolence. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... cause of all this. When I returned from church I was startled to see the inn thrown into the greatest confusion. The reverend fat friar was running round the place bellowing like a bull, calling for his noble mule, and vowing vengeance on the profane thief, which unseemly appellation he was pleased to bestow ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... violent Perturbations are to be diligently avoided by Bucolicks, whose nature it is to be soft, and easie: For in small matters, and such must all the strifes and contentions of Shepherds be, to make a great deal of adoe, is as unseemly, as to put Hercules's Vizard and Buskins on an Infant, as Quintilian hath excellently observ'd. For since Eclogue is but weak, it seems not capable of those Commotions which belong to the Theater, and Pulpit; they must be soft, and gentle, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... near them behind their backs, and was about to intrude upon them. Elisaveta gave a sudden faint outcry at the unexpectedness of an unseemly apparition. A dirty, rough-looking man, all in tatters, was almost upon them; he had approached them upon the mossy ground as softly as a wood fairy. He stretched out a dirty, horny hand, and asked, not at all ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... Thou nothing? What is it which these witness against Thee?" He affected to believe that it was something of enormity that had been alleged; but it was really because he knew that nothing could be founded on it that he gave way to such unseemly excitement. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... id est cum patinis") he is to be mulcted in a pint of wine. If a stranger is introduced without leave ("ad mensam communitatis ad comedendum vel videndum secretum mensae"), the penalty is a quart of good wine for the fellows present in Hall. For unseemly noise, especially at meals, and at time of prayers, the ordinary penalty is a quart of ordinary wine ("vini mediocris"). For speaking in the vernacular, there is a fine of "the price of a pint of wine," but, as the usual direction about drinking ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... of so fair a temple? Vanity, vanity, all was vanity; a miserable, personal vanity, too, unrelieved by one noble aspiration, one generous feeling; the whited sepulchre spoken of of old, beautiful without, but dark and unseemly within. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier



Words linked to "Unseemly" :   indecent, unbecoming, uncomely, unseemliness, improper, indecorous, untoward



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