"Repellant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... primitive, literal in his conception; the ramifications were, for the nonce, fairly relegated to limbo. He could not kiss Ruth because the acquired conscience—struggling on its way to limbo—made the idea repellant. Analysis would come later, when the primitive conscience, satisfied, would cease to ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Dickens has described as "that under-done pie-crust cover, which is technically known as law calf." There are other uncouth and unwholesome specimens everywhere abroad, "whom Satan hath bound", to borrow Mr. Henry Stevens's witty application of a well-known Scripture text. Such repellant bindings are only fit to serve as models to ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... dear?" said the old lady. I believe that she meant to be gracious, but there was something in her manner, or, perhaps, rather in her voice, so repellant, that Alice felt that they could hardly become true friends. "If what, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... a small whetstone, a small hammer, matches, and some volatile oil, like citronella, lavender, wintergreen, or other black fly and mosquito repellant. It is almost suicidal to slap a mosquito on the back of your neck with a keen grafting knife in your hand. A supply of parowax and alcohol for the lantern's sake should ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... shock hair, which hung down like pieces of tarred rope, and with the lower part of the face veiled by a black, stringy beard, was thrust far enough within to show the shoulders. Directly behind appeared another face, placed on a shorter body, but none the less repellant in expression, and the two were forcing their way into the room, when ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... falling away from the plump, graceful shoulders, and mingling with the sweep of her black cashmere wrapper in rich, graceful contrast. One fair hand gathers up the crimson fabric and, instinctively, the other thrusts itself out in a repellant gesture, as the soft voice utters, in tones of ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... impassioned lover as to conceal the recreancy he had fostered in his own heart, Harry did not notice the coolness of this greeting. Then, too, his self-satisfaction had always done him the invaluable service of preventing a ready perception of the repellant attitudes ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... trees opened out, and flanked by two huge wheat elevators and a great water tank, the prairie city stood revealed. It was crude and repellant, devoid of anything that could please the most lenient eye, for the bare frame houses rose, with their rough boarding weathered and cracked by frost and sun, hideous almost in their simplicity, from the white prairie. Paint was apparently an unknown luxury, and pavement there was none, though ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... repellant nature of the Australian coast has had upon the southern progress of semi-civilisation is remarkably distinct. Each successive wave of improvement from the Asiatic continent seems to grow weaker and weaker as it travels south, until it breaks ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... revealed, a deeper Spiritual philosophy than Swedenborg or Davis heralded. Of course we welcome the opening day and its new light and promise, for the old theologies are wearisome emptiness and humbug, and the new isms cold and repellant or insufficient in their testimony. We do not expect that a new church will arise and a new sectarianism follow. But a new conception of life, its origin, purpose and destiny may come to lift the people of America out of the old religious rut. And in consequence the old depressing question, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... herself with an ample and more stylish wardrobe, and though the invitation had interested her but mildly, the effect of shrewdly-made and neatly fitting garments on her figure had been a revelation. Like the touch of a man's hand, fine raiment had seemed to her hitherto almost repellant, but it was obvious now that anything which enhanced her effectiveness could not be dismissed as valueless. To arrive at definite conclusions in regard to her social surroundings was less easy for Selma. Benham, in its rapid ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... dents [Fr.], take the bit between the teeth; sell one's life dearly, die hard, keep at bay; repel, repulse. Adj. resisting &c v.; resistive, resistant; refractory &c (disobedient) 742; recalcitrant, renitent; up in arms. repulsive, repellant. proof against; unconquerable &c (strong) 159; stubborn, unconquered; indomitable &c (persevering) 604.1; unyielding &c (obstinate) 606. Int. hands off!, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... stood gaunt and grim against the smiling morning. Its shuttered windows giving an expression of blindness or the repellant mask of death. A dead house, that was what it was. Its doors and windows closed on the tragedy that had been enacted within its massive stone walls. It seemed more like a fortress than a house where warm human faces had once looked forth, and where laughter ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... remark, for she unconsciously gave the impression that she had been more repellant than had actually been true. He soon checked himself, however, and said gravely, "Ella, you take these things ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... her eyes, as though they were things almost separate from herself. And she stood like a queen, who knew herself to be all a queen, strong on her limbs, wanting no support, somewhat hard withal, with a repellant beauty that seemed to disdain while it courted admiration, and utterly rejected the idea of that caressing assistance which men always love to give, and which women often love to receive. At the present moment ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... acrid winter, these first- flower young women; their scent is lacerating and repellant, it smells of burning snow, of hot-ache, of earth, winter-pressed, strangled in corruption; it is the scent of the fiery-cold dregs of corruption, when destruction soaks through the mortified, decomposing earth, and the last fires of dissolution ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... who look so rigidly virtuous and repellant that it is a satisfaction to feel one's self just a ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... inquired warmly for Miles, with knowledge and interest in naval affairs derived from a sailor brother, Miles's chief friend and messmate in his training and earlier voyages. There was something in Joanna Bowater's manner that always unlocked hearts, and Anne was soon speaking without her fence of repellant stiffness and reserve. Certainly Miles was loved by his mother and brothers more than he could be by an old playfellow and sisterly friend, and yet there was something in Joanna's tone that gave Anne a sense of fellow-feeling, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may as well be told, but only the name of a town, nearly contiguous to which was their residence, a small estate. Lord Mount Severn welcomed Isabel; Lady Mount Severn also, after a fashion; but her manner was so repellant, so insolently patronizing, that it brought the indignant crimson to the cheeks of Lady Isabel. And if this was the case at the first meeting, what do you suppose it must have been as time went on? Galling slights, petty vexations, chilling annoyances ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and ices with which she was supplied scarcely passed her lips. She only pretended to eat. Her ease of manner and fine freedom of conversation were gone, and the gentleman who had been fascinated by her wit, intelligence and frank womanly bearing now felt an almost repellant coldness. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... impotent or unmeaning such may be. This is the very poorest form of finding delight, in what from the nature of the case can be shared by few. For its incommunicableness is its only recommendation. It is an icy repellant, freezing up the kindly flow of sympathy with universal humanity; and uncompensated loss of that best ingredient of earthly felicity—the interchange of friendly feelings and offices; that store of wealth, from which the more that take, and the fuller their ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... Allis, nor hamper you now in your brave acceptance of the task that has come to you, because of wrong done before. It is distasteful to me, of course; it would be to any right-minded mother, to have her daughter in a position so repellant; but, strange as it may seem I'd rather you went ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... organs: glandular structures; sometimes eversible, sometimes in the form of hair tufts or pencils for diffusing odors that may be repellant or attractive; most frequently found in males as ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... though, on the other hand, he was very far from feeling safe against harm. With a coolness that must have awakened admiration among the barbarians, the youth, standing in the middle of the group, folded his arms, and smilingly looked in the repellant faces, none of which were at a greater ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... distinguish the civilized man from the barbarian. Nor does the value of these things lie in personal satisfaction alone. There is a culture that is selfish and exclusive, that is self-centered and conceited. The intellectual snob is quite as repellant as any other. But this is true of the moral distortion of all good qualities. The culture that narrows the sympathies, instead of enlarging them, has surely missed the object that should give its chief worth ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... could not, let this prize escape him now. A wave of desire surged through his being. He took a step toward her, his trembling arms open to seize her lithe, seductive body. But she, retreating, held him away with repellant palms. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... The present, all about me, was unreal, unnatural, repellant. I saw the big ships lying in the stream, the Alert, the California, the Rosa, with her Italians; then the handsome Ayacucho, my favorite; the poor dear old Pilgrim, the home of hardship and hopelessness; the boats passing to and fro; the cries of the sailors at the capstan or falls; the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... impatience, when at last she drew aside, and cautiously invited him to enter. Further acquaintance with Mrs. Wick led him to understand that the cold, misgiving in her eye, the sour rigidity of her lips, and her generally repellant manner, were characteristics which meant nothing in particular—save as they resulted from a more or less hard life amid London's crowd; at present, the woman annoyed him, and only the clean freshness of her vacant rooms ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... summit, but Glenveigh Castle should be a lady's bower, instead of a fortalice. Behind the castle the mountain slopes are clothed with young trees. The castle itself is a very imposing building from the outside; grand, strong, rather repellant; inside it has a comfortless; ill-planned, unfinished appearance. The mantel-piece of white marble with the Adair arms carved on it—the bloody hand, the motto valor au mort, the supporters two angels—lies in the ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... "psychological studies." He was a dreamy, romantic, fine-grained lad, proud as a tiger-lily and sensitive as a blue-bell. What mad caprice led him to join the army I never knew; but I did know that there he was wretchedly out of place, and I foresaw that his rude and repellant environment would make of him in time a deserter, or a suicide, or a murderer. The letter at first seemed a wild outpouring of despair, for it informed me that before it should reach me its author would be dead by his own hand. But when I had read farther I understood its spirit, and realized ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... retreated quickly to her recognized corner of the hearth; but when the youth, hoping that the morsel might lead to a friendly acquaintance, offered a caress, her back and tail went up instantly, and she became the embodiment of repellant conservatism. He looked at her a moment, and then ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... covered with saffron silk; to stimulate the chocolate hue of the dadoes common to this type of room, he used pieces of violet wood deepened with amarinth. The effect was bewitching, while recalling to Des Esseintes the repellant rigidity of the model he had followed and yet transformed. The ceiling, in turn, was hung with white, unbleached cloth, in imitation of plaster, but without its discordant brightness. As for the cold pavement of the cell, he was able to copy it, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in England is further guaranteed by the very fervour of English religious feeling; for active interference with prostitutes involves regulation of prostitution, and that implies a national recognition of prostitution which to a very large section of the English people would be altogether repellant. Thus English love of freedom and English love of God combine to protect the prostitute. It has to be added that this result is by no means, as some have imagined, hostile to morality. It is the opinion of many foreign ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... palest brown, without any shadow of what painters would call a "warm tint," auburn or gold, running through it; his slow, quiet movements, rare speech, and a certain passive composure of aspect, altogether conveyed the impression of a nature which, if not positively repellant, was ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... his men with gold, with extravagant promises, perhaps with offers of the body and blood of an aristocrat hateful to their kind. Lastly, there was the wild, desolate environment, a tortured wilderness of jagged lava and poisoned choya, a lonely, fierce, and repellant world, a red stage most somberly and fittingly colored for ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... a superb talker, more brilliant than any I have ever heard in England, but nothing like what he became later. His talk soon made me forget his repellant physical peculiarities; indeed I soon lost sight of them so completely that I have wondered since how I could have been so disagreeably affected by them at first sight. There was an extraordinary physical vivacity and geniality in the man, an extraordinary charm in his gaiety, and lightning-quick ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... means of prevention are spraying your horses with the following fly repellant: Crude Carbolic Acid, 10%; Oil of Tar, 25%; Crude Oil, 65%. Mix thoroughly. This prevents the gadfly from depositing her eggs ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... the truth, I am not surprised that his people should still keep on seeking information; for Thomas Glahn was in many ways an uncommon and likable man. I admit this, for fairness' sake, and despite the fact that Glahn is still repellant to my soul, so that the bare memory of him arouses hatred. He was a splendidly handsome man, full of youth, and with an irresistible manner. When he looked at you with his hot animal eyes, you could not but feel his power; even I felt it ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... acquaintance with, and comfort her, was the prompting of her benevolent heart; so she put a blue glass bottle of smelling-salts into the mournful lady's hand, which was immediately returned with a dignified, repellant bow. The basket of provisions was next offered; but this the weeping fair one, it was clear, did not see; and my honest widow, not a little disconcerted, made yet another attempt to console one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... us into a land of desolation. He makes for the sight blossoms of ugliness; for the smell repellant odors; for the taste bitterness and gall; for the hearing harsh discord, and death for the touch that is the only relief from a desert whose scrawny life lives but to ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... by which the induration and crystallisation of rock-materials (even siliceous conglomerate, limestone and rock-salt) had been effected! These extravagant "anti-Wernerian" views the young student might well regard as not one whit less absurd and repellant than the doctrine of the "aqueous precipitation" of basalt. There is no evidence that Darwin, even if he ever heard of them, was in any way impressed, in his early career, by the suggestive passages in Hutton and Playfair, to which Lyell afterwards called attention, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... through that day and the next. There was nothing about her that was stiff or repellant, but, nevertheless, Drew felt that she was keeping him at arm's length. It was as though she had served notice that she would be a jolly comrade, ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... I don't think they'll try your life any more, though you must be always on your guard.' Although the conversation of this young robber was most sincere, the above words slipped from his lips like dripping oil, and he had in his face a cunning look, strange and repellant as of yore. But the cunning was now against his confederates, and ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... literature does not select scenes of life which are beautiful in themselves, scenes which we would have liked to live through, full of radiant happiness and joy; he does not eliminate from his picture of life that which is disturbing to the peace of the soul, repellant and ugly and immoral. On the contrary, all the great works of literature have shown us dark shades of life beside the light ones. They have spoken of unhappiness and pain as often as of joy. We have suffered with our poets, and in so far as ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... friendship with one who had such a mine of fabulous interest in her three Saratogas. Nevertheless, all the letters from Robinson to Laramie, in speaking of her, said she was "worth seeing, but—not attractive." "If anything," wrote one woman, "she is actually repellant in manner to half the ladies in the garrison." This was her status until late that spring, and then came another story,—a queer one, but only Mrs. Bruce received it, and she showed the letter to her husband, who bade her to burn it and say no word of its contents. Ere long another ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... with which he followed him with his eye, when an interval of peace and comparative happiness had set childhood's spirit free, and lent a degree of graceful gayety to all his motions,—I saw the brimming measure of the father's love. Could it be but his morbidly repellant pride, his jealous guarding of the domestic privacies, his vigilant pacing up and down forever before the close-drawn curtain of the heart?—was there no Bluebeard's chamber there? No! Pride was all the matter,—pride was the Spartan fox that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... attention; and although she has all the appearance of being clever, refined, and possessed of a brilliant intellect, those qualities will have no irresistible attraction for me if she intends to hide them behind a cold, haughty, repellant manner." And therewith I dismissed her from my mind, and addressed myself to the skipper, "This new ship of yours is a magnificent craft, Captain," said I. "I fell incontinently in love with her as the waterman was pulling me off alongside. She is far and ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Lavengro, the Scholar, the Gypsy, and the Priest has after his fitful hour come into his own, and there abides securely. Borrow's books,—carelessly written, impatient, petulant, in parts repellant,—have been found so full of the elixir of life, of the charm of existence, of the glory of motion, so instinct with character, and mood, and wayward fancy, that their very names are sounds of enchantment, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... witness the heroic way Jerry goes into the collar at a hard steep hill or some swirlin', rushin' ford. Sech bein' Jerry's work habits I'm prepared to overlook a heap of moral deeficiencies an' never lays it up ag'in Jerry that he's morose an' repellant when ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... the hospital is still very heavy. The wards are bare and repellant and the days are long and dreary for the sick men. We do all we can to cheer them up, have phonograph concerts, magic lantern shows, with the magic missing, and baby organ recitals. The results are often ludicrous, but the appreciation of the men for our slightest effort is so hearty that ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... facts of life, they must, in either serious story or serious play, be portrayed. If they are so portrayed that the vice is alluring and the virtue repugnant, the play or story is immoral; if so portrayed that the vice is repellant and the virtue alluring, they play or ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... society small-talk of a young man in the presence of ladies, he is never shy, and his flow of language and gesture is as natural to him as reserve and brevity to the Englishman. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon, especially the Briton, seems repellant in comparison with the Spanish-American, and to cultivate selfishness rather than ceremony in his own ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... His shapely hands were grimy, his eyes of a peculiarly light shade of blue were hollow and haggard looking. His face, emaciated and ghastly, was almost livid. A clean-cut chin was covered with several weeks' growth of beard. Yet, underneath all these repellant externals, there was in his every attitude that indefinable refinement of manner which the world always associates with a gentleman. His dark hair, disheveled and matted, was unusually thick and bushy, with the exception of one spot, in the center of his ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... see and consult with her. He then observed a singular change in her, both in her appearance and conduct. No longer the radiant, loving Elfrida, her beauty now had been dimmed and she was unsmiling and her manner towards him repellant. She had nothing to say to him except that she wished him to leave her alone. Accordingly he withdrew, feeling a little hurt, and at the same time admiring her extraordinary skill in disguising her natural loveliness and charm, but almost fearing that ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson |
