"Discourteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mysterious letter. It has more than surprised, it has really alarmed me. After having made the friendliest advances to you on my side, I find myself suddenly shut out from your confidence in the most unintelligible, and, I must add, the most discourteous manner. It is quite impossible that I can allow the matter to rest where you have left it. The only conclusion I can draw from your letter is that my confidence must have been abused in some way, and that you know a great deal more than ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... said the Countess, who now discerned the cause of her kinswoman's apprehension; "and be assured I did not need your chivalry to defend me against this discourteous faitour, as Morte d'Arthur would have called him. I promise you my kinswoman hath fully righted my wrong; and I am so pleased to owe my deliverance entirely to her gallantry, that I charge and command you, as a true knight, not to mingle in the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... with difficult alternatives. He must either be discourteous to two gentlemanly strangers, one of them his wife's relative, or admit them with some show of politeness. An Italian may be rude, he can never be gauche. Having decided, Capella ushered them into the library with quick transition to ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... Sidney Smith's first appointment Admiral Keith had exhibited a great jealousy of his obtaining a command that rendered him to some extent independent, and had lost no opportunity of showing his feeling. Indeed, there can be little doubt that the discourteous manner in which he repudiated, without any authority from the English government, the convention that would have saved all the effusion of blood and cost of the British expedition was the result of his jealousy of the fame acquired by Sir ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... a shudder, but the gentleman gathered his robe about him, and said with a sudden sternness, "Nay, it were discourteous to draw back now; and indeed I will compel you to come in." Then Ralph knew that he was betrayed; but he bethought him of the little star that he carried with him, and he took it out and held it before him, and said, "Here ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... afraid so, for I saw her look at me quite uneasily more than once. I could not conceal that I was terribly bored. I have no wish to be discourteous to a lady, especially to one of my own church workers; but after what has passed I find it very difficult to ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... body they rode to the castle of the prince who was at war with Meriadus, and next day they marched against the discourteous chieftain. Long did they besiege his castle, but at last when the defenders were weak with hunger Gugemar and his men assailed the place and took it, slaying Meriadus within the ruins of his own hall. Gugemar, rushing to that place where he knew his lady to be, called her forth, and in peace brought ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... that trembled terribly, Vera tore open the envelope. There were only two or three lines there in Fenwick's stiff handwriting; they were curt and discourteous, and very much to the point. They ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... dear."—Lloyd's Poems, p. 185. "When thou most sweetly sings."—Drummond of Hawthornden. "Who dare, at the present day, avow himself equal to the task?"—Music of Nature, p. 11. "Every body are very kind to her, and not discourteous to me."—Byron's Letters. "As to what thou says respecting the diversity of opinions."—The Friend, Vol. ix, p. 45. "Thy nature, immortality, who knowest?"—Everest's Gram., p. 38. "The natural distinction of sex in animals gives rise to what, in grammar, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... more chance. I cannot believe that you can be so deliberately and intentionally discourteous. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... is my guest," he said, a grim twinkle in his eye. "Really I cannot accuse him of planning to run away with Meriem on the evidence that we have, and as he is my guest I should hate to be so discourteous as to ask him to leave; but, if I recall his words correctly, it seems to me that he has spoken of returning home, and I am sure that nothing would delight him more than going north with you—you say you start tomorrow? I think Mr. Baynes will accompany ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to impress him with our utter incredulity in the spiritual nature of his photographs, and yet to give him no loop to hang a charge of discourteous or illiberal treatment on. I asked him to give me, in my private capacity, a sitting at his earliest convenience, and that I should not be satisfied with less than a cherub on my head, one on each shoulder, and a full-blown angel on my breast. ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... business that wins the battles." The struggle of life has become so strenuous that most everyone's nerves are always near the explosive point,—the man who has a system in life has discovered that there is nothing to be gained by being disrespectful or discourteous, or by butting rough-shod into the affairs or interests of other people; tact, diplomacy, flattery, the temperamental capacity to wiggle around the explosive corners of other peoples' irascible nerves to gain your point, is "having a system," and it wins battles. The young wife who ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... walks of life the Negro is liable to meet some objection to his presence or some discourteous treatment. If an invitation is issued to the public for any occasion, the Negro can never know whether he would be welcomed or not; if he goes he is liable to have his feelings hurt and get into unpleasant altercation; if he stays away, he is blamed for indifference. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Mrs. Phillips had warned her would be a "homely affair." She had one other, a greyish-fawn, with sleeves to the elbow, that she had had made expressly for public dinners and political At Homes. But that would be going to the opposite extreme, and might seem discourteous—to her hostess. Besides, "mousey" colours didn't really suit her. They gave her a curious sense of being affected. In the end she decided to risk a black crepe-de-chine, square cut, with a girdle of gold embroidery. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... of Captain Knox. He made some enquiries about Canada, and deplored the rush of cattle across, which was injurious to the interests of graziers, of whom he was one. It would have been discourteous to express the wish that lay in my mind, that they might come in such numbers as to lower the price of cows and grazing also till the poor man might be able to have a cow oftener and milk to his "yellow male" stir-about ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the hostile feelings entertained by English naval officers against the officers of the French fleet, which had recently visited Malta. This roused Mr. Hamerton's indignation; the more so as he never for one moment believed the discourteous and outrageous letter to be genuine. I transcribe his explanation of the incident as given by himself to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... enthusiasm over the proposition; indeed West felt his response almost discourteous, yet this very suspicion aroused his own desire to make one of the party. The fellow evidently disliked him instinctively, and would exert every influence possible to discredit him in the eyes of Natalie. The suggestion even came ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... that you had third-floor apartments," Mr. Bows said; "and was going to say—you will please not take my remark as discourteous—that the air up three pair of stairs is wholesomer for gentlemen, than the air of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... than the figure arose, exclaiming in good French, "Whosoever thou art, it is discourteous in you ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... before Smith came back, though he managed to get several naps, curled up in the bottom of the boat. At last, about eleven o'clock, just as Pierre was getting very nervous, and dreading every minute that one of the white ladies of Normandy (those dames blanches who are so cruel to the discourteous) should appear to him, or a hobgoblin or a ghost, in all of which he was, like most Norman peasants, a firm believer, to his intense relief he heard the carpenter whistling in the distance, and a minute or two later Smith ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... guide, to whom a shade return'd: "Come after us, and thou shalt find the cleft. We may not linger: such resistless will Speeds our unwearied course. Vouchsafe us then Thy pardon, if our duty seem to thee Discourteous rudeness. In Verona I Was abbot of San Zeno, when the hand Of Barbarossa grasp'd Imperial sway, That name, ne'er utter'd without tears in Milan. And there is he, hath one foot in his grave, Who for that monastery ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... say when they refuse to save your life because they don't want to be discourteous to a fellow practitioner," answered Carroll. "Well, if the life of the man I loved was at stake I wouldn't wait for somebody to come and hire me to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... power to take from its numbers, so far as ordinary members are concerned, but it is considered discourteous to ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... after Gareth and bring him back. Even as Gareth overtook the damsel, so did Kay come up with him and cried: "Turn back, Fairhands! What, sir, do ye not know me?" "Yes," answered Gareth, "I know you for the most discourteous knight in Arthur's court." Then Sir Kay rode upon him with his lance, but Gareth turned it aside with his sword and pierced Sir Kay through the side so that he fell to the ground and lay there without ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... months went by, and I wrote asking for another book, and this time came Richard Rolle to my acquaintance—a little dried-up hermit, a holy man too, though I noticed how very discourteous he was to women; severe, critical, and suspicious, merely because they were women. How often I noticed this peculiarity, both in the monks of to-day with their averted eyes, as if the shadow of a woman falling on them were pollution, and long ago, Paul, ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... said Mrs. Drane, "that I should appear to have been discourteous to one who had done us a service, for which, I assure you, we are both very much obliged, but Dr. and Mrs. Tolbridge managed the whole affair of our removal from Mrs. Brinkly's house, and I did not suppose there was any one, besides them ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... go and speak to them,' I said; 'it would seem discourteous to be so near, and not speak to people who have shown me ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... Glover called regularly every evening on Mr. Brock, who, somewhat at a loss to understand the young man's interest, excused himself after the first few minutes and left Gertrude to entertain the gentleman who had been so kind to everybody that she could not be discourteous even if he was ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... stranger passing by, But Simeon thus, discourteous, made reply: "Say, are there in thy city many more, Like unto thee, an ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... the exchange of the conversation of gallant knights and gay courtiers of mine own order and capacity, whose conceits are bright and vivid as the lightning, for that of monks and churchmen—but it were discourteous ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... he had shown, and by his impoliteness. Evidently he was not a gentleman, she thought, or he would surely have obeyed his first impulse and allowed her to get into the train before him. It seemed, too, as if he were determined to be discourteous, for he sat with his shoulder deliberately turned towards the door, and made no attempt to get his Arab out of the way, although the train was just about to start. Domini was very tired, and she began to feel angry with him, contemptuous too. The Arab could not find the money, and the little ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... believed, he is resolved to be a most romance squire, and go in quest of some enchanted damsel, whom if he likes, as to her person (for fortune is a thing below him),—and we do not read in history that any knight or squire was ever so discourteous as to inquire what portions their ladies had,—then he comes with the power of the county to demand her, (which for the present he may dispose of, being Sheriff), so I do not see who is able to resist him. All that ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... was unlike her to have made that remark, and just as unlike her to have taken his rather discourteous reply so good-naturedly. ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... and by many persons, always at night, skulking in the shadow or riding furiously on a horse. He was fierce and haggard and discourteous to travelers, wore a slouch hat which he never took off, and generally kept the lower part of his face muffled in a handkerchief. He always went alone. Some said he slept in church-yards, others that he never slept at all, and still others that he was a wicked ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... sir," he said, with a smile. "Do you know, sir, you look something like my own father—what I can remember of him—that is, he was—" The lad checked himself, fearing he might be discourteous. "That is, he had lost his hair, sir, and he wore his cravats like you, too. I have his portrait ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was too discourteous, he slept as a sea bird sleeps afloat, tossing outside thundering ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Mr. Martyn and another English clergyman set out to lay his translation before the Shah, who was in his camp at Tebriz. There they were admitted to the presence of the Vizier, before whom two Moollahs, the most ignorant and discourteous whom he had met in Persia, were set to argue with the English priest. The Vizier mingled in the discussion, which ended thus: "You had better say God is God, and Mahomet is His prophet." "God is God," repeated Henry Martyn, "and JESUS is ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... collectors of these taxes were abhorred; and they, known as publicans, probably resented the discourteous treatment by inconsiderate enforcement of the tax requirements, and, as affirmed by historians, often inflicted unlawful extortion upon the people. If publicans in general were detested, we can readily understand how bitter would be the contempt in which the Jews would ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... not satisfied. It seemed discourteous to throw the sticks away—so soon, anyway; besides, he had curiosity to know just what they were ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of the company followed her, gazing at me as they passed, the big, fashionable fellow especially giving me a rather impertinent glance. I did not try to pick a quarrel with him on account of this discourteous manifestation. When the cavalcade was at some distance, I went in search of my stick, which I found under a tree on the edge of the precipice; then I continued climbing the steep path, with my eyes fastened upon the rider in the black ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... myself save what I have read or heard. I have no desire to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... can think of a dozen things worse," he rejoined with some positiveness. "Harry might lie; Harry might be a coward; Harry might stand by and hear a friend defamed; Harry might be discourteous to a woman, or allow another man to be—a thing he'd rather die than permit. None of these things could he be or do. I'd shut my door in his face if he did any one of them, and so should you. And then he is so penitent when he has done anything wrong. 'It was my fault—I would rather ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... now Lady Mary's turn to show confusion at the old termagant's talk, and she coloured as red as a sunset on the coast of Kerry. I forgave the old hag her discourteous appellation of "baboon" because of the joyful intimation she gave me through the door that Lady Mary was not to be trusted when I was near by. My father used to say that if you are present when an embarrassment ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... To tell the truth"—with a roguish smile that reminded Ruth of her son's grin—"I was so weak and trembling with saying good-bye and trying to keep up so John wouldn't know it, that I didn't know how I was to get home. Though I'm afraid I was a bit discourteous. I couldn't bear the thought of talking to a stranger just then. But you haven't been like a ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... freedwomen were so called,—which left those large, handsome Roman feet, which we should like to see a little smaller, uncovered. The selection of her jewelry is now all that remains to be done. Sabina owned some curious specimens that were found in the ruins of her house. The Latins had a discourteous word to designate this collection of precious knick-knackery; they called it the "woman's world," as though it were indeed all that there was in the world for women. One room in the Museum at Naples is full of these exhumed trinkets, consisting of serpents bent into rings and bracelets, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... to which he belonged, and said he did not want to stay longer than he need, but would be willing to return whenever wanted. Needless to say that Dr. Drysdale was there, ready to do his duty. Dr. W.B. Carpenter was a strange contrast to these; he was rough and discourteous in manner, and rudely said that he was not responsible for 'Human Physiology, by Dr. Carpenter', as his responsibility had ceased with the fifth edition. It seems a strange thing that a man of eminence, presumably a man ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... stranded opera-company to the ramming of a slaver's dhow. The regret with which he spoke of these free days, which was the regret of an exile marooned upon a desert island, excited all her sympathy for an ill she had never known. His discourteous scorn of the social pleasures of the post, from which she herself was excluded, rilled her with speculation. If he could forego these functions, how full and gay she argued his former life must have been. His attitude helped her to bear ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... making as light as possible of the peril, and stating that the attack upon the chateau was merely a wanton outrage on the part of the French, inflicted by way of retaliation in consequence of the count's refusal to obey a discourteous summons from their general at Ajaccio. I was successful beyond my utmost hopes, my fair companion deriving from my representations a comfort and reassurance which I scarcely intended, but which I certainly had not the heart to take away again, so that by the time we reached ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... It was his discourteous whim to keep them waiting in the back of the room until he had finished. They were offered no seats, but stood against the wall under the eye of the guard who ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... ungentlemanly, discourteous, and wholly uncalled-for interference with my comfort at Newport," she said, her face flushing and tears coming into her eyes, "I don't wonder ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... not mean to be discourteous. But I assure Your Royal Highness that the King said so to me expressly. It is his immortal soul that ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... duty that. Let me discharge the other for you." And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the shoulder. "Sir Rowland," said he, "you're a knave." Sir Rowland stared at him. "You're a foul thing—a muckworm—Sir Rowland," added Trenchard amiably, "and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may Heaven ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... to be unkind or discourteous," continued the doctor's even voice. "Just do not go over to her house so often and by and by she will not come to see you. Play more with Shirley and Sarah, dear—they look up to you ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... you" is just as golden when it applies to our servants. It is only the extremely discourteous man or woman who will address servants in a peremptory, rude tone. And it is especially ill-bred and unkind to be overbearing to servants in the presence of guests, or to scold one servant in ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... indecorous, ribald, gross; unseemly, unbeseeming[obs3], unpresentable[obs3]; contra bonos mores[Lat]; ungraceful &c. (ugly) 846. dowdy; slovenly &c. (dirty) 653; ungenteel, shabby genteel; low, common, hoi polloi[Grk] &c. (plebeian) 876; uncourtly[obs3]; uncivil &c. (discourteous) 895; ill bred, ill mannered; underbred; ungentlemanly, ungentlemanlike; unladylike, unfeminine; wild, wild as an unbacked colt. untutored, unschooled (ignorant) 491. unkempt. uncombed, untamed, unlicked[obs3], unpolished, uncouth; plebeian; incondite[obs3]; heavy, rude, awkward; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... It is discourteous; and so Dona Carmen deems it. Though she does not tell him as much in words, he can take it from ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Rule of Letter Writing.—The great rule of letter writing is, Never write a letter which you would not be willing to see in print over your own signature. That which you say in anger may be discourteous and of little credit to you, but it may in time be forgotten; that which you write, however, may be in existence an untold number of years. Thousands of letters are now on exhibition whose authors never had such a use of them in mind. If you ever feel like writing at ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... through the blinds and could not wait. Tell us the glorious news. The Baron's good words I have already overheard; I listened to them with great entertainment while I was dressing. I hoped he would say something discourteous or foolish, but he was quite discreet until he told Erhaupt that he had kept back none of the money. Then I lost interest. Fiction is never so entertaining to me as the truth and real people. But tell us now of your mission ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... "Discourteous woman, nature's fairest ill, The woe of man, that first created curse, Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins, Proud, disdainful, cruel and unjust, Whose words are shaded with enchanting wiles, Worse than Medusa mateth all our minds; ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... where we were. I noticed one of those Chesapeake "Bug Eyes" lighting just to leeward of us, and, as I opened the conning tower hatch, called to the men aboard to find out where we were. As soon as I did so, he turned his boat around and made straight for the beach. I thought he was rather discourteous. He ran his boat up on that beach and never stopped; the last I saw of him was when he jumped ashore and started to run inland as hard as he and his helper could go. Finally I learned we were just above the mouth of the York or Rappahannock River and I found a sort of inland harbour ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... a free ticket to a concert. She went, and as soon as she reached the hall she was struck by the discourteous and indecent manner in which the bystanders looked at her. A well-dressed woman moved away from her. Some men kept walking around her, grinning at her. She found it ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... there are three points which require especial caution. The first and chief is that the pleasure in question should not be sought in indecent or injurious deeds or words. Wherefore Tully says (De Offic. i, 29) that "one kind of joke is discourteous, insolent, scandalous, obscene." Another thing to be observed is that one lose not the balance of one's mind altogether. Hence Ambrose says (De Offic. i, 20): "We should beware lest, when we seek relaxation of mind, we destroy all that harmony which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... taking, manning, nusling, dieting, curing, bathing, carrying, and mewing them, as it must needes proceede from a greater folly, that they cannot discerne their folly herein. To which you may adde, their busie, dangerous, discourteous, yea, and sometimes despiteful stealing one from another of the Egges and young ones, who, if they were allowed to aire naturally, and quietly, there would bee store sufficient, to kill not onely the Partridges, but euen all the ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... manners for his own good if for nothing else; that a woman's curiosity had aught to do with her exasperation she would have denied. She abhorred curiosity. As a matter of fact, she told herself that he did not interest her in the least, except as a discourteous fellow who ought to be shocked into a consciousness of his bad manners, and therefore the moment the two men were well out of the room she darted to the table, snatched up the magazine, and skimmed through it feverishly. Ah! here ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... because it was possible to defy them with impunity; and editors who had gone through many black hours because of the failure of the great man to keep his promises, and who smarted under the recollection of the discourteous refusal of advances it had been an effort to make, did not spare their arrogant enemy now that it was possible to band ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... present, Pablo, I am the master here; therefore, these people are my guests. It has never been the custom with my people to be discourteous to guests." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... certainly be. I know that it is an impossible hour. I know, too, that to have forced my presence upon you in this manner may seem discourteous. Yet the urgency of the matter, I am ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fact was pronounced for him that—for a long or short period—he had ceased to love his wife. There was something so intimately and conventionally discourteous in his realization that he avoided it even in his thoughts. But it would not be ignored; it was too robust a truth to be suppressed by weakened instincts. He didn't love Fanny and Fanny did love him ... a condition, he felt indignantly, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... cordiality, but not effusiveness. To be discourteous was something she could not be. Besides, she liked Aunt Rachel and pitied her idiosyncrasies. "Why can't she be as nice when she goes to people's houses as she is when she is at home?" she mused. "I love to go there, ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... shall heed your advice to "rise above" the abuse of those who mistake impudence for argument, and ignore the discourteous remarks with which you have so liberally interlarded your discourse. Doubtless you include yourself among that numerous tribe of Texas titans who can "unhorse" me as easily as turning a hen over; and having accorded ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... it will be the last tea-party for me, if the bill before Parliament becomes a law. Mrs. Newville is an estimable lady, a hospitable hostess; having accepted an invitation to be present, it would be discourteous for me to inform her I could not drink a cup of tea from her hand, but I have made up my mind henceforth to stand resolutely for maintaining the principle underlying it all,—a great fundamental, political ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... quote it. I wrote a book called The Child of the Dawn, the point of which was to represent, in an allegory, my sincere belief that the after-life of man must be a life of effort, and experience, and growth. A lady wrote me a very discourteous letter to say that she believed the after-life to be one of Rest, and that she held what she believed to be my view to be unchristian and untrue. The notion that ardent, loving, eager spirits should be required to spend eternity in a sort ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... knights in this country than I supposed there to be." Therewith he turned and went out from that place very haughtily and scornfully, taking that goblet with him, and not one of all those knights who were there made any move to stay him, or to reprove him for his discourteous speech. ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... struck me most was the woman's face. I had looked in her direction, lest I might seem discourteous to some acquaintance; but this was a stranger. The face was that of a woman in an agony of suffering! The wide-open eyes were full of trouble; the whole countenance expressed pain and something like terror. (I am describing the impression made upon me at the ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... their sex, the father or mother of a child of their father's or mother's younger brother or sister, that is, they are called the father or mother of what we should call their first cousin. The Caffres used to think it discourteous to call a bride by her own name, so they would call her "the Mother of So-and-so," even when she was only betrothed, far less a wife and a mother. Among the Kukis and Zemis or Kacha Nagas of Assam ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... me a printed certificate of deposit, opened a compartment in the safe, and tossed in the bag without sealing it. And, as I stood waiting, he lighted a scented cigarette, glanced over at me, puffed once or twice, and finally dismissed me with a discourteous nod. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... out or being entertained, do not play the host or hostess by leading the conversation, even though your talent in that direction be far superior to theirs. You thereby do them an injustice which is exceedingly discourteous on the part of one who ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... a big surprise to me. I was then corresponding with two Boston papers and one in the West. I thought it discourteous in the artists of the new Impressionist school, to sneer a little at Bierstadt's great paintings, as if he could ever be set back as a bye-gone or a has-been. And it gave me great pleasure to say so. I sent several letters to him, and one day I received a card asking me to call at his studio ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... And now, my young friend," said Perkins, with a singular return of his beaming gentleness, "since those two efficient and competent officers and this energetic but discourteous seaman are gone, would you mind telling me WHAT you were ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... senators was chosen in this emergency to wait upon Timon. To him they come in their extremity, to whom, when he was in extremity, they had shown but small regard; as if they presumed upon his gratitude whom they had disobliged, and had derived a claim to his courtesy from their own most discourteous and unpiteous treatment. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... special care, but that he should take to heart the lesson just revealed to him, and allow his people to partake generously of that also. As the vessel was lying alongside a shipbuilding and repairing yard, a large crowd of workmen had congregated to see so unusual a display. Discourteous and jeering remarks were loudly spoken with the studied intention of reaching the ears of the master and owner, and the news of a revolutionary act having been committed within the precincts of an unyielding discipline spread like an electric flash through ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... table sat Britons, Frenchmen, Normans, Angevins, Flemings, Burgundians, and Loherins. Knights had their plate who held land of the king, from the furthest marches of the west even unto the Hill of St. Bernard. A most discourteous lord would he be deemed who sojourned not awhile in the king's hall, who came not with the countenance, the harness, and the vesture that were the garb and usage of those who served Arthur about his court. From all the lands there voyaged to this court ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... previously filled with banditti and malefactors of every description, who committed the most diabolical excesses, in open contempt of law, there was now such terror impressed on the hearts of all, that no one dared to lift his arm against another, or even to assail him with contumelious or discourteous language. The knight and the squire, who had before oppressed the laborer, were intimidated by the fear of that justice, which was sure to be executed on them; the roads were swept of the banditti; the fortresses, the strong- holds of violence, were thrown open, and the whole nation, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Latest moving pictures." In a Morton Park dance-hall: "Use checkroom. Absolutely no clothes allowed in this room." (Attention of Mayor Harrison.) On Franklin Street: "Reign Umbrella Co." In the Spencer Hotel, Marion, Ind.: "Discourteous treatment, by the waiters, if reported to the ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... an excellent physician, but with no knowledge of music; how should he have any, living buried in the country, twenty miles from a railway, forty miles from a concert? Brown had said so much about the blind child that it would have been discourteous for him, Dr. Anthony, to refuse to see and hear her when he came to pass a night with his old college chum; but his assent had been rather wearily given: Dr. Anthony detested juvenile prodigies. But what was this? ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... and changed so, father," Lucina had said; "I did not mean to be discourteous, and I ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous impeachment, and pleaded in mitigation that he had always acted in leading parts and for high salaries. Sergeant Wilkins took neither of those courses, for he knew his audience, and was aware that his connection with ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... my coming below. "I told the Frenchmen something of your story," said he; "if I had not done so, they would have thought you discourteous, and your conduct somewhat strange. However, they now enter into your ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... (the man had a pleasant way with him, too—darn him—with his bright, twinkling eye and his silly little beard), "I'm sure I don't want to be discourteous. If you move me on from here, of course I'll go; but I warn you I shall lie in wait for Mr. McGill just down this road. I'm here to sell this caravan of culture, and by the bones of Swinburne I think your brother's ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... to be discourteous," said Sir Lancelot. "However, when she stands at the turret window to wave me farewell, I will not look up ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... somewhat discourteous in your rectitude," replied Bradford, and hasting forward he came in sight of the Town Square, where some fifteen or twenty of the Fortune passengers were amusing themselves at "stool-ball," a kind of cricket, at pitching the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... enough—surely, Harry, you must see for yourself. People were ready to give you a warm welcome when you returned. I—we—all of us, were only too glad. But you repulsed us all. Why, on the very day after your arrival you were extremely—I am sorry, but there is no other word—discourteous to the Miss Ponsonbys. You have made your friends almost entirely amongst the fisher class, a strange thing, surely, for a Trojan to do, and you now, I believe, spend your evenings frequently in a low public-house ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... that day! With every atom of me longing for her, I yet was able to take her hand and say, with a smile, that was, I doubt not, as mocking as my tone: "By all means let us be friends. And I trust you will not think me discourteous if I say that I shall feel safer in our friendship when we are both ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... gesticulating energetically, and with his forefinger levelled at the speaker, cried: 'Just a word—just one word right there,' and so persisted until Garfield was compelled either to yield or be absolutely discourteous. The General, therefore, got in his word; nay, he held the floor for the remainder of the evening. The conspirators made brave efforts to put him down and cut him off, but they were unsuccessful. At midnight, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... taking a two a.m. train. Remember, I am accusing your husband of nothing. Our conversation could have been pleasant—he refused to allow it to be so. He classified me as a professional detective and put me on that basis in his home. I have merely accepted his invitation to act as one. If I appear discourteous, kindly recall that it ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... away to the house, but his father stopped him; he knew that he had been discourteous—a far worse crime in Lord Royallieu's ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... fancied that the windows did twinkle kindly. The big front door swung open without any discourteous hesitation, and Ken stood in ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... the monster, in a voice so loud and horrible, that it set the bell tinkling, and in a most discourteous manner peculiar to giants, who are notorious ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... nothing for these suggestions; but will not be so discourteous as to refuse a moderate percentage on all amounts received in pursuance of them from Brother ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... opinions on the public acts of public men, to animadvert severely upon them when considered censurable, is both the right and duty of the press; nor have I ever been discourteous, or felt any animosity towards those who have censured my official acts, or denounced my opinions. Had I considered that you had done nothing more in regard to myself, I should have felt and acted differently from what I ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... out of her, and she checked herself suddenly. Robert saw that she was uncertain as to his opinions, and afraid lest she might have said something discourteous. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nothing so discourteous," said Mr. Caryll. "Would it be prying on my part to inquire what may be your interest ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... asked. "If you, the woman, acknowledge yourself vulnerable, how can I, the man, be so discourteous as to assure you that I am proof? And yet, I feel that there is no ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... equal the indignation of the Christian warriors at the insolence of the bravado and the discourteous insult offered to the Queen. Hernando Perez del Pulgar, surnamed "he of the exploits," was present, and resolved not to be outbraved by this daring infidel. "Who will stand by me," said he, "in an enterprise ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... universals from Hegel—"unconsciously," he has the caution to say; but that qualification does not in the least mitigate the mischievous intention and effect of his accusation as a glaring falsification of fact and artful misdescription of my work. It would be inopportune and discourteous to weary you with philosophical discussions. I exposed the amazing absurdity of Dr. Royce's accusation of plagiarism in the reply to his article which, as appears below, Dr. Royce himself anxiously suppressed, and which I should now submit to you, if he had not at last taken fright and ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... Rogero gazed like wight distraught, And hurried here and there with fruitless speed: But when he had recalled the ring to thought, Foiled and astounded, cursed his little heed. And now the vanished lady, whom he sought, Of that ungrateful and discourteous deed Accusing stood, wherewith she had repaid, (Unfitting ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... now down, my lady fair, Light down, and hold my steed, While I and this discourteous knight ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... so graphic. I have met many who have returned from the Front, and what puzzles me in all of them is their unawed acceptance of death. I don't think I could ever accept it as natural; it's too discourteous in its interruption of many dreams ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... forgetting everything but myself,' said the girl with a gesture of impatience. Of course,they were in effect his brother and sister. And she could not be so discourteous as to bid them dine at home. 'But you will not tell ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... by both England and Japan of being discourteous in our diplomatic relations with other countries; it is therefore some satisfaction to know that the Germans in Haiti greatly appreciate the methods which our ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... yet the truth lies somewhere in the vicinity of it. As I said before, so I say again, true love ought to beget a freedom which shall do away with the necessity of ceremony, and much may and ought to be tolerated among near and dear friends that would be discourteous among strangers. I am just as sure of this as of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... out From the glowing arch of a cloudless sky, Flinging her silvery beams about On rock, tree, wave, and gladdening all With just as miscellaneous bounty, As Isabel's, whose sweet smiles fall In half an hour on half the county. Less wild Sir Rudolph's pathway seemed, As he fumed from that discourteous tower; Small spots of verdure gaily gleamed On either side; and many a flower, Lily, and violet, and heart's-ease, Grew by the way, a fragrant border; And the tangled boughs of the hoary trees Were twined in picturesque ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... feared but two persons, Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal Newman; but it was awe of their character that inspired this fear, for no one could cite an instance in which either of them had forgotten his dignity or been betrayed into a discourteous word. Of Mr. Gladstone especially it might be said that he was cast in too large a mold to have the pettiness of ruffled vanity or to abuse his predominance by treating any one else as an inferior. His manners were the manners of the old time, easy but stately. Like his oratory, they were in what ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... Kindliness seems a universal trait in the Pyrenees. It shines out in every nature. One has only to meet it half way. Innkeeper, guide, shopkeeper or peasant, all are unaffectedly good-tempered and well-disposed. A discourteous return would puzzle them; a harsh complaint would wound deeply. The sunshine comes from a nearer sun than in the north. A polite nation, the French are reputed to be; but always underlying this good repute has been the suspicion ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... funny to see your toes sticking through your shoe. No wonder you sat on your foot." Still, despite his discourteous words, his tone changed; it ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... is one of the ablest documents of the entire controversy. Nothing can be better than the calm and high judicial tone in which he lays open every excuse of the Eusebians. He was surprised, he says, to receive so discourteous an answer to his letter. But what was their grievance? If it was his invitation to a synod, they could not have much confidence in their cause. Even the great council of Nicaea had decided (and not without ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... into it, due largely to thoughtlessness, but that they can be easily remedied by a little human sympathy. That is a most welcome creed to an age overburdened with social problems; and to criticise our cheery companion seems as discourteous as to speak unkindly of a guest who has just left our home. But we must consider Dickens not merely as a friend, but as a novelist, and apply to his work the same standards of art which we apply to other writers; and when we do this ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long |
