"Unbecoming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... until it was time for prayers: so that it was in the sacred retirement of her own chamber that the remonstrance was delivered at last. The Rector said he was very sorry to find that she still gave way to temper in a manner that was unbecoming in a clergyman's wife; he was surprised, after all her experience, and the way in which they had both been schooled in patience, to find she had still to learn that lesson: upon which Mrs Morgan, who had been thinking much on the subject, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... consolation, but he is making a fool of himself by chasing round a geisha. What a dandy rogue. We might let that go if he wouldn't make fuss about others making fools of themselves. I understand through the principal he stopped your going even to noodle houses or dango shops as unbecoming to the dignity of ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... have given an erroneous and unbecoming sense to Cicero's exclamation, when they suppose that the object understood, as connected with altera, related to himself. Hope is never applied in this signification, but to a young person, of whom something good or great ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... And whereas, cruelty is not only highly unbecoming those who profess themselves christians but is odious in the eyes of all men who have any sense of virtue or humanity; therefore, to restrain and prevent barbarity being exercised towards slaves, Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... aggression of foreign influence and its insidious and dangerous assaults upon all that Americans hold dear, politically and religiously. It appears to be to prevent injury to the Republic from the ill-timed and, I may say, unbecoming tamperings with the laws, and habits, and deeply sacred sentiments of Americans by those whose position, alike dictated by modesty and safety, to them as well as to us, is that of minors in training ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... details which would be unbecoming to the modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other more important groupings were during the course of these months, and which were the columns that took part in them. Of French's drive in the south-east, and of Blood's ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my dear father, of the affair, it is so shocking. The chill of the first hearing has not left me. I am excited body and mind, and you know how faithfully I have tried to school myself against excitement—it is unbecoming—only the weak suffer it. Rather than trust myself to the narrative—though as yet there are no details—I plucked a notice from a wall while coming, and as it was the first I had of the news, and contains all I know, I brought it along; and if you care to hear, perhaps our friend Sergius ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... would come every morning and lick a wound he had received from a dog. He entertained me with the like witticisms three or four months together, of which this was one of the most favourable, whereupon I made these reflections that it was more unbecoming a Minister of State to say silly things than to do them, and that any advice given ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... table with Thrym on one side of him and Loki on the other. Then the feast began. Thor, not noticing that what he did was unbecoming to a refined maiden, ate eight salmon right away. Loki nudged him and pressed his foot, but he did not heed Loki. After the salmon he ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... maturity, of dignified exterior, with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable character, should happen to set his heart upon her, and the only way to make him happy was to give up her weeds and go into those unbecoming colors again for his sake,—why, she felt that it was in her nature to make the sacrifice. By a singular coincidence it happened that a gentleman was now living in Rockland who united in himself all these advantages. Who he ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to what it was in the former instance; indeed, quite natural and noble, with a cheerful air of animal as well as spiritual confidence; a gallant bearing, curiously reminding one of a certain illustrious duke, as I have seen him walking some dozen years ago by a lady's side, with no unbecoming oblivion of his time of life. I observed, also, that he no longer committed himself in scornful criticisms, or, indeed, in any criticisms whatever, at least as far as I knew. He had found out that he could, at least, afford to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... fix a generous eye on the future. I believe, firmly believe, that my future will atone for my past,—morally, I mean; I want you to understand that I have wronged no man but myself, that I have been guilty of no act unbecoming a gentleman. Now look at me and tell me that you ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Thomas Morton, an English lawyer, who was more than once brought to book for unpuritanical conduct. Here was collected, in 1628, a number of waifs and strays, and other persons, not in sympathy with the rigorous habits of the Puritans, whose proceedings were of a more or less licentious and unbecoming quality, calculated to disturb the order and propriety of the realm. Endicott, on being apprised of their behavior, went thither with some armed men, and put a summary end to the colony; Morton was sent back to England, and the "revelries" which he had countenanced or promoted ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... ludicrous but unbecoming contest seems to have taken place on the 4th of June 1545, when Mons. Lorge de Montgomery arrived from France with auxiliary troops: "Upon the same day, the Bischope of Glasgow pleit with the Cardinall about the bering ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... then. Her uncle trusted me a deal more than he trusted Barbara. She was strange from a child. Fond of the men,' as if that were an unusual and unbecoming form of philanthropy. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... this?" Randall impatiently asked. "I know now that it was my daughter you had on board your boat. What you think about my actions doesn't worry me in the least. Your quibbling is childish and unbecoming to a man of your age. You will change your tune, though, let me tell you that, when you are called upon to face the charge of being involved in my daughter's ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... your money and not give you its worth in return; and then the lugger is Guernsey built, and carries a good King George's commission. In my part of the world we never take gold unless we sell something of equal valie. Gifts and begging we look upon as mean and unbecoming, and the next thing to going on to the town as a pauper; though if I can sarve you lawfully, like, I'm just as willing to work for your money as for that of any other man. I've no preference ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the matter was left as far as the Campbells were concerned, though it was said that Mrs. Campbell called Doctor Wells on the telephone and in her shrill voice denied vigorously that her son had acted in any manner unbecoming to "the son of a gentleman" and that for her part she thought that the school was a poor one and that she wished they wouldn't have such games as football "which work the boys up to excitement and get them into ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... did receive, as has been stated, a beautiful head-dress from a sister in New York, who had obtained it from a friend in Paris. The style was quite attractive, though neither unbecoming nor showy. Mrs. Bates had her own share of vanity, and wished to appear at a large party soon to take place, in this head-dress, where she knew it must attract attention. Although a little vain, a fault that we ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... now but the image of our Lady of Grand Pouvoir illumined by the lamp of Repentigny, but the sun of righteousness will yet arise with healing on his wings for us all! But oh, my children, let nothing be done hastily, rashly, or unbecoming the daughters of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... it to her it wasn't giving up beautifully to fret herself into an unbecoming illness, to carry her disaster on her face. She would come to me looking more ruined than ruinous, haggard and ashy, her eyes all shrunk and hot with crying, and stand before the glass, looking ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... measures has either been adopted against his opinion or executed surreptitiously and contrary to the directions he had given." After the final collapse of Austria, Minto writes of Thugut: "He never for a moment lost his presence of mind or his courage, nor ever bent to weak and unbecoming counsels. And perhaps this can be said of him alone in this whole empire." Jan. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... cool. The male-bird sat roosting with his eyes closed, his head sunk deep into his shoulders. Outwardly he bore a look of great humility, of languishing expectation, and a droll look of guiltiness wholly unbecoming to his ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... scene of the setting sun in the Robbers, I know of no part in Schiller's plays, which equals the whole of the first scene of the fifth act of the concluding play. It would be unbecoming in me to be more diffuse on this subject. A translator stands connected with the original author by a certain law of subordination, which makes it more decorous to point out excellencies than defects; indeed, he is not likely to be a fair judge of either. ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... physical training given them, to many the time seemed wasted. They were subjected to daily lectures on morals and patriotism by professors who talked to them as to a group of fourth-grade boys, and sought to impress upon them that it would be unbecoming in a Y secretary to flirt with the girls of the street of Paris and London, or to lie around drunk in a front-line trench. But the professors could not help it; they were fifty and their habits were formed. They had been talking to boys from eight to ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... nothing about that. Mr. Dusautoy once called to ask for my support for a vestry meeting, but I make it a rule never to meddle with parish skirmishes. I believe there was a very unbecoming scene, and that Mr. Dusautoy was in ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my boy, as I told you before, I don't believe the first word of all this. 'Cause it's impossible, you know, for any man of our race to do anything unbecoming of a Lytton and a gentleman. And I think a man's family ought to stand by him in a case like this. So I not only came myself, but I fotch Charley, and if I had had another son I would a-fotched him ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the toilsome duties of a courier for two years, having been every where with orders and letters. I was tired of this troublesome and unbecoming business. I sent to the king petition after petition, asking for my discharge, and soliciting for a more honorable appointment. But I was repeatedly refused, for his majesty did not think my abilities would ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... about ill-fitting, unbecoming, or shabby apparel which not only robs one of self-respect, but also of comfort and power. Good clothes give ease of manner, and make one talk well. The consciousness of being well dressed gives a grace and ease of manner that even ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the preacher in an ecstasy haranguing the foolish rabble, who now realised, with an unbecoming joy, that the Last Day was yet to face; the gaping, empty prison; the open windows crowded with excited faces; the church bell from the Vier Marchi ringing an alarm; Norman lethargy roused to froth and fury: one strong man holding ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mine aunt can, in her own house, be the sole judge; and methinks, as she has not deemed it necessary to request the honour of your lordship's company, it were unbecoming in me to permit you to take the trouble of attendance;—you have already had but too much ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... liberty from all the efforts of the Roman empire, would still be sufficient, were they worthy of their generous ancestors, to defend them against the utmost violence of the English tyrant: that it was unbecoming men, born to the most ancient independence known in Europe, to submit to the will of any masters; but fatal to receive those who, being irritated by such persevering resistance, and inflamed with the highest ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... of Worcester, sat perfectly still for a moment with her mouth open, a condition which was entirely natural but unbecoming. ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... any right to infer such a thing from a likeness!" said the Duke, angrily. "Really, Evelyn, your talk is most—most unbecoming. It seems to me that Mademoiselle Le Breton has already done you harm. All that you have told me, supposing it to be true—oh, of course, I know you believe it to be true—only makes me"—he stiffened his back—"the more determined to break off the connection between her ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... miracles: in consequence of which the city was one scene of vows, sacrifices, supplicatory processions, and prayers. For the Romans in times of danger take extraordinary pains to appease gods and men, and look upon no ceremony of that kind in such times as unbecoming or beneath ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... with heavy dignity, but keeping up her head as she had been taught in her youth. Nothing was more unbecoming than ducking the head and sticking out the back. Sophia went slowly, holding to the balustrade, so very slowly that Henrietta did not attempt to start. She said softly to Rose, 'How slowly she goes. I've never noticed ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of this more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is sadly in want of occupation. He has no taste for any of those field sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago. He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had never really liked, and what inducement was there for him to study at Battersby? He ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... or "To the Left," is the most pathetic and melancholy sound in the world. If, putting aside my own comfort, I have sometimes wished for the sake of a dear, sentimental old friend at home, who loves such idle illusions with an ardor unbecoming his years, that I might ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... such as a dropped acorn on his head, a fallen leaf, or a little moss shaken from the boughs. Finally, he takes leave of them,—points out the way to Utgard Loke's palace, advises them not to give themselves airs at his court,—as unbecoming "such little fellows" as they were, and disappears in the wood; "and"—as the old chronicler slyly adds—"it is not said whether the OEsir wished ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Unyoro at all excepting through Uganda, and we could not have put foot in Uganda without visiting its king." Without deigning to answer, Kamrasi, in the metaphorical language of a black man, said, "It would be unbecoming of me to keep secrets from you, and therefore I will tell you at once; I am sadly afflicted with a disorder which you alone can cure." "What is it, your majesty? I can see nothing in your face; ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... a year had passed could Sweden bring herself to consign the remains of her Gustavus to the dust. Then came a hero's funeral, with pomp not unmeaning, with trophies not unbecoming the obsequies of a Christian warrior, and for mourners the sorrowing nations. In early youth Gustavus had loved the beautiful Ebba Brahe, daughter of a Swedish nobleman, and she had returned his love. But etiquette and policy interposed, and Gustavus ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... than you, Doctor Brown, say that they have a right to do so." The debate waxed hotter and hotter, until some of the other members of the mess joined in with the doctor against the pilot, and the caterer, thinking that the noise the disputants made was unbecoming the members of a well-regulated mess, ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... sat, and in a most formal manner Kaiser Bill was tried and convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and of traitorously destroying the American flag, and was sentenced to be shot at sunrise ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... General Wilkinson was equally guilty with Colonel Burr. Soon after his return he was arrested and tried by a court-martial at Washington, near Natchez, in January, 1810. The first charge was for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," and the specification was "in withholding at sundry times men's money placed in his possession for their payment for the months of September and October." Another charge was "ungentlemanly and unofficerlike conduct," the specification being ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... something of the joy they were in at the sight of a boat and pilots to carry them away to the person and place from whence all these new comforts came; but they told me it was impossible to express it by words, for their excessive joy driving them to unbecoming extravagancies, they had no way to describe them but by telling me that they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to give vent to their passion suitable to the sense that was upon them; that in some it worked one way, and in some another; and that some of them, through ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... like a summary of the faults which they display. And none of our young authors, actual or potential, can find anywhere else a more striking and salutary example of the harm which such a one can do to himself by indulging in this very unbecoming practice. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... He deserves great credit for what he has done, and it is very unbecoming of you to make fun ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... disappointment even in her inmost soul would be flying in the face of providence; her spirits struggled up to their normal high level, and once more she was the happiest of women. It was another fortnight before she could leave the house, but the languor was a new and pleasant sensation and not unbecoming the weather. Warner read aloud instead of to himself, and they wondered that they had never discovered this firm subtle link in comradeship before. The rainy summer is the winter of the tropics, and they felt the same delight ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... had made a most unbecoming will. It was a brief document, dated five years before his death, and was to the effect that he bequeathed to his dear daughter Lydia all he possessed. He had, however, left her certain private instructions. One of these, which excited great indignation in his ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... instantly roused up, yawned, and began to look alert. The moment the floor was unoccupied, Mr. Buckstone rose, with an injured look, and said it was evident that the opponents of the bill were merely talking against time, hoping in this unbecoming way to tire out the friends of the measure and so defeat it. Such conduct might be respectable enough in a village debating society, but it was trivial among statesmen, it was out of place in so august an assemblage ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... could be austere. Meanness, thanklessness, loquaciousness, jealousy, an unbecoming attire, evil thoughts, whatever is sensual, whatever is coarse, any promenade in mud actual or metaphorical, severely it condemned. Particularly was avarice censured. "There are many who do not like to ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... that the military establishment is "uneconomic" because it cuts no bricks, bales no hay and produces nothing which can be vended in the market places, it is not unusual to hear some military men concur in this strange notion. That acquiescence is wholly unbecoming. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... one of Kuru's race was saying go unto Yudhishthira, a loud sound of wailing arose from all the warriors there present. Beholding his royal father of great splendour, emaciated and pale, reduced to a state unbecoming of him, worn out with fasts, and looking like a skeleton covered with skin, Dharma's son Yudhishthira shed tears of grief and once more said these words. 'O foremost of men, I do not desire life and the Earth. O scorcher of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... New York without any prejudice against the Americans, and I now take leave of their commercial capital with feelings of esteem and regret. In the society I frequented I neither saw nor heard anything unworthy of, or unbecoming the descendants of Britons. Some little peculiarities, the natural result of circumstances, I certainly noticed; some differences also in their social life; but I shall leave it to those who are disposed to find fault to ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... proficiency as rendered him respected during his youth. He was much addicted to the harmless diversions of that age, yet they did never abate his progress in his studies, nor his detestation of any thing immoral or unbecoming the character of a scholar. He was put to the university in the new town of Aberdeen, where he made great proficiency, till at last he was admitted master of arts, with the universal approbation of the regents of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... gleam of light through the shutters of the upstairs windows. So Larkin was back already? He took the front steps in a jump and raced up the stairs in a manner most unbecoming to a First Lieutenant with a score of victories to ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... nails!" and thought no more about it. Indeed, she could have given no explanation, save that "things were different." Perhaps our Rita is growing up, inside as well as outside? Certainly the pretty airs and graces have given way to a womanly and thoughtful look not at all unbecoming ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... dispel. In the second act, Hernando Cortez appears, with soldiers. While the costumes of the indians were gay, and more or less attractive, those of these European warriors were ludicrously mongrel and unbecoming. The new-comers demanded that Montezuma acknowledge the authority of the King of Spain and the cross of Christ. Conversations, demands, replies, tableaus, sword-dances, etc., ensued. Finally, Montezuma and his warriors yielded, and ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... disproportionate, disproportionated[obs3]; inharmonious, unharmonious[obs3]; inconsonant, unconsonant[obs3]; divergent, repugnant to. inapt, unapt, inappropriate, improper; unsuited, unsuitable; inapplicable, not to the point; unfit, unfitting, unbefitting; unbecoming; illtimed, unseasonable, mal a propos[Fr], inadmissible; inapposite &c. (irrelevant) 10. uncongenial; ill-assorted, ill-sorted; mismatched, misjoined[obs3], misplaced, misclassified; unaccommodating, irreducible, incommensurable, uncommensurable[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to imagine any time for a young man more propitious than the present, or any society more agreeable than London. Morals, as the newspapers would say, are in abeyance, conscience is looked upon as pedantic, especially in women, and unbecoming." As the two walked up St. James' Street together, Harding noticed that Owen, notwithstanding his chatter about morals, was thinking of Evelyn, and took very little interest in the display of the season—in the slim nobility ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Gourmandise is not unbecoming to women: it suits the delicacy of their organs and recompenses them for some pleasures they cannot enjoy, and for some evils to which ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... unaware that this will seem to some—this empty doting on infinity, this standing and staring at All-knowledge—a mere dizzying exercise, whirling one's head round and round in Nothing, for Nothing. And I am not unaware that it would be unbecoming in me or in any other man to feel superior to ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the Sunday office, in the breviaries until lately in use, made many hearts rejoice over the occurring feast. But the almost total omission of the ancient and beautiful Sunday Masses was a misfortune and, in a sense, an unbecoming practice, which broke away from ancient liturgical rule and tradition. The abbreviation of the Sunday office in the new breviaries and the rule laid down in Title IV., sect. 2, restore Sunday's office and Sunday's Mass to their ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... six short months. Mrs. Chilton's eyes were lusterless, her cheeks pallid and shrunken, and her forehead crossed and recrossed by fretful lines. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and her hair was combed tightly back in the unbecoming fashion that had been hers when Pollyanna first had seen her, years before. All the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and sourness that had ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... a private room, where clothes and shoes were furnished him, in which he looked like any other reasonable man. On his return to the ball-room, he lost no time in making his acknowledgments to the princess, and explaining the cause of his unbecoming attire. The princess, with a natural goodness of heart and true hospitality, was anxious to do what she could to restore her strange guest to satisfaction with himself, and to establish him in some credit with the company: she had besides ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a smile and sauntered over to the piano. The unbecoming blush mounted slowly to Ruth's face and her eyes were bright as she watched him. When his hands ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... could not avoid being shocked by the different manner in which you spoke of her. Perhaps I told you so too abruptly: if I had loved you less, I should have been more cautious and more calm—if I had esteemed you less, calmer still. I could then, possibly, have borne to hear you speak in a manner unbecoming yourself. Forgive me the pain I gave you—the pain I now give you, my dearest Olivia! My sincerity is the best security you can have for my future love. Banish therefore this unjust, this causeless jealousy: moderate this excessive sensibility for both our sakes, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the cabildo arrogated to itself authority, interposing a letter to his illustrious Lordship that was very offensive to his dignity, complaining of the severity of his government, in terms that libeled his uprightness, and other expressions that were very unbecoming and inappropriate to the dignity of a cabildo. Accordingly, for the sake of their reputation, his illustrious Lordship was not willing to make the document public, and he only showed it privately to the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... dazzle, no mist suffuse. The many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will hold a place forever among that limited number, who, like Lucretius and Epicurus—without range or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth, look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to arrogant authority; sufficiently conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine and a benevolence untrammelled by creed; too wise to be wholly ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... sadly shaken when the actual moment of parting with the exquisite, rose-hatted, gray-frocked Julie came; her face worked pitifully in its effort to smile; her tall figure, awkward in an ill-made unbecoming new silk, seemed to droop tenderly over the little clinging wife. Margaret, stirred by the sight of tears on her mother's face, stood with an arm about her, when the bride and groom drove away in the ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... Miles's assistance, which so enraged poor Barbara that even to the instant of death, she could hardly prevail with herself to forgive her, and never spoke of her without a kind of heat, very improper and unbecoming in a person ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... came the fatal blow. "As to the character of your heroine, I felt at a loss how to describe it, but you have done it for me in the last speech of Madame Brudo." Madame Brudo was the heroine's aunt. "'Margaret, my child, never play the jilt again; 'tis a most unbecoming character. Play it with what skill you will, it meets but little sympathy.' And this, be assured, would be its effect upon an audience. So that I must reluctantly add that, had I been still a manager, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... a profound obeisance, and a discomposure which his station rendered not unbecoming. It was obvious to most persons present, that the gratitude of the beautiful Princess was expressed in a manner more acceptable to the youthful life- guardsman, than that of Alexius Comnenus. He took the ring with great demonstration of thankfulness:—"Precious ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Rankine, written towards the close of the year, and his poem, A Poet's Welcome. They must at least be all read together, if we are to have any clear conception of the nature of Burns. It is not enough to select his Epistle to Rankine, and speak of its unbecoming levity. This was the time when Burns was first subjected to ecclesiastical discipline; and some of his biographers have tried to trace the origin of that wonderful series of satires, written shortly afterwards, to the vengeful ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... written in answer to some strictures of Lady Dacre's on what appeared to her coarseness of language in my play of "The Star of Seville," which she thought unbecoming a "young lady." If I remember rightly, too, she said that the introduction of a scene in a bedchamber might be deemed objectionable. I had asked her permission to dedicate the play to her, which she had granted; and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... emigrant, whom I occasionally saw at Mad. de C's. I then remarked her for the uncommon attraction of her features, and the elegance of her person; but was so much disgusted at a tendency to republicanism I observed in her, and which, in a young woman, I thought unbecoming, that I did not promote the acquaintance, and our different pursuits soon separated us entirely. Since this period I have learned, that her conduct became exceedingly imprudent, or at least suspicious, and that at the general persecution, finding her republicanism ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... thought of flight, None of retreat, no unbecoming deed That argued fear; each on himself relied, As only in his arm the moment lay Of victory. 416 MILTON, Par. Lost, Bk. vi., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... I went up to the grate, and waited several minutes, until at last a door of the inner room opened, and a nun entered. Her face bore the traces of deep melancholy; but notwithstanding that, and the unbecoming dress which half concealed her form, I thought I had never seen a woman so lovely, so completely beautiful. I stood in mute wonder ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... snow within the memory of the "oldest inhabitant"—the mercury full ten degrees below zero. I had just changed my dress for the fifth time, and sister Anna was offering me this consolation, "I must say, Clara, that that is the most unbecoming dress you have, you look like a perfect scare-crow," when the sound of sleigh-bells coming up the avenue, sent my heart up in my throat, and myself quicker than lightning down to the "hall-door," there to welcome—not my darling Edgar and his proud, beautiful sister, and Anna's ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... unmolested to Mrs. Hardcastle, who stood just beyond, looking fagged and jaded, and as if she were heartily thankful that in all his life Dick could never come of age again. One of the next arrivals was Bell Masters, very fine in her new dress, but flushed and overheated to an unbecoming degree. She rowed up smartly, shipped her oars in true nautical fashion, sprang from the boat, and held out her hand to her companion with a hardly repressed sneer: "Pray allow me to ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... this resolution comparatively easy of accomplishment. He constituted himself a sort of general censor of judicial and official shortcomings, and from his seat on the bench gave utterance to petulant and unbecoming strictures on various transactions with which he had no ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... longer heard the noise of his boots along the square, he thought the priest's behaviour just now very unbecoming. This refusal to take any refreshment seemed to him the most odious hypocrisy; all priests tippled on the sly, and were trying to bring back the days ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... been guilty of conduct grossly unbecoming a soldier. But you've served your guard house period, and you'll be busy, for many weeks yet to come, in working out the fines imposed against you. For breaches of discipline it is the intent of the authorities to provide sufficient punishment. It is not, however, the purpose ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... they can, by way of fighting off distress; and though speculating {p.119} farmers and landlords must suffer, I think the temporary ague-fit will, on the whole, be advantageous to the country. It will check that inordinate and unbecoming spirit of expense, or rather extravagance, which was poisoning all classes, and bring us back to the sober virtues of our ancestors. It will also have the effect of teaching the landed interest, that their connection with their farmers should be of a nature ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... people, and practise yourself to it so that the power may increase with you. There is nothing so alluring to the citizen as that. If there be a softness which you have not by nature, so affect it that it shall seem to be your own naturally. You have indeed a way with you which is not unbecoming to a good-natured man; but you must caress men—which is in truth vile and sordid at other times, but is absolutely necessary at elections. It is no doubt a mean thing to flatter some low fellow, but when it is necessary to ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Don Pablo was a general of division, while Leon had reached the grade of a colonel. But as soon as the fighting was over, both resigned their military rank, as they were men who did not believe in soldiering as a mere profession. In fact, they regarded it as an unbecoming profession in time of peace, and in this view I ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... names and qualities territorial of these gentlemen; the whilk, as may befall honourable soldados, they had reason sufficient to conceal while serving as private gentlemen in a regiment, though disdaining to receive halberds, as unbecoming their birth. He that aligned himself forenenst me was styled the Chevalier d'Herblay; and, the word being given, ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... we thus educate, and who proves to be competent to bear us company, often disappoints us when she is left alone. She may then show her incapability, and her occasional actions may be done in such an unbecoming manner that both good and bad are equally displeasing. Are not all these against us men?—Remember, however, that there are some who may not be very agreeable at ordinary times, yet who flash occasionally upon us with a ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... and advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his war whoop you advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw out any side-remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... complaint Major de Barner requested of the Governor satisfaction and punishment upon the accuser, and a notary, one Robin, who prepared notarial acts, in an unbecoming affrontive manner. This request was made under three heads: first, that Despin might be exemplarily punished, not merely for a false dishonoring accusation of Major de Barner, a commanding officer and injurious to his whole battalion, but punishment for the personal insults to Major de Barner ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... such abominable deeds—killing his father, marrying his mother. Where lies the blame! Where the poetic justice! Suddenly it occurs to him: OEdipus was a passionate fellow, lacking all Christian gentleness—he even fell into an unbecoming rage when Tiresias called him a monster and the curse of the whole country. Be humble and meek! was what Sophocles tried to teach, otherwise you will have to marry your mothers and kill your fathers! Others, again, pass their lives in counting the number of ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... "hush! thou beast, man!—If thou dost not respect my gray hairs, because I have been e'en too much of a routier myself, respect the boy's youth and innocence, and let us have no more of such unbecoming daffing." ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... a hissing, "What do you mean by one wife only? Why do not you ask, whether we live with one harlot? What is a wife but a harlot? By our laws it is not allowable to commit fornication with more than one woman; but still we do not hold it dishonorable or unbecoming to do so with more; yet out of our own houses we glory in the one among another: thus we rejoice in the license we take, and the pleasure attending it, more than polygamists. Why is a plurality of wives denied us, when yet it has been ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... vehemence is both unbecoming and displeasing; and in future you would do well to recollect that, as a child submitted to my guidance by your mother's desire, it is disrespectful both to her and to me to insist upon a course at variance with our judgment ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... more considerate than usual to me—I bethought me that perchance a Friend is at times a trifle too circumspect in his words, a trifle too circumscribed in his actions. He must be seemly in his carriage and speech, must not allow unbecoming emotion to prey upon him, must build the body from the spirit, and not the spirit from the body. I had tried to do all these, and yet there were times when sensation overpowered calculation, and it would have afforded me peace to have held friend Barbara within my arms and said ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... prepared, and when the important lots were put on the table, the company had, as a rule, some serious deduction to make from the account printed by the auctioneers. The noble vendor did not see anything unbecoming in attendance to note the prices of lots during the earlier stages, and did not disguise his gratification when a book brought a heavy profit. Yet twenty years ago it was almost accounted a disgrace for an ancient family even to part with its heirlooms. In those cases, when want ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... straw hat with savage energy; for once in her life noticed with distinct satisfaction that it was secured at an unbecoming angle, then, hearing through the jalousies the sound of approaching wheels, marched resolutely ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... mixed with dung when they had occasion to repair the walls of their hovels. In Greece, even the very poorest retired to their houses and ate with closed doors; the Egyptians felt no repugnance at eating and drinking in the open air, declaring that unbecoming and improper acts should be performed in secret, but seemly acts in public. The first blind alley they came to, a recess between two hovels, the doorstep of a house or temple, any of these seemed to them a perfectly natural place to dine in. Their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... needs imitate the affection he displayed for the fishmonger, and to that end began to make free with his horse, which, after sundry friendly bites of the mane, and otherwise exhibiting himself in a manner very much unbecoming a horse of such good morals, reared and had done serious damage with the bones of the other, but for the interposition of his master, who separated them with the stock of his big whip. Peace being ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... honour reward; while Nelson, who also knew when he had distinguished himself in the national interest, expected to be rewarded, and on occasions when it was too tardily withheld, he became peevish, whimpered a good deal about his illtreatment, and on more than one occasion showed unbecoming ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... at all times; but, established as my practice is, I would scorn to importune those gentlemen, and impertinently to place their names before the public in a position which every sensible man must declare to be that of extreme negligence, ignorance, or unbecoming officiousness. ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... or, to obtain a certain amount of property, without intending to give up business. If it be unscriptural to be engaged in our calling, merely, even for the sake of earning the means for procuring the necessaries of life for ourselves and family, how much more unbecoming that a child of God should be engaged in his calling for the sake of any of the last mentioned reasons.—This second point, then, Why do I carry on this business? Why am I engaged in this trade or profession? ought first to be settled in the fear of God and according ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... circumstances, it was only a wonder that she was not more spoiled than seemed to be the case. Indeed, as Hardy stood up in the corner opposite to the landlady's chair, a silent onlooker at the scene, he couldn't help admitting to himself that the girl held her own well, without doing or saying anything unbecoming a modest woman. And it was a hard thing for him to be fair to her, for what he saw now in a few minutes confirmed the impression which his former visit had left on his mind—that his friend was safe in her ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... a good deal. He retired by himself and examined the ring, and could see nothing in it unbecoming a Christian to wear. It was a chased gold ring, with a bright emerald, which last had a red foil, in some lights giving it a purple gleam, and inside was engraven "Elegit," much defaced, but that his sister could not see; therefore he could not comprehend her vehement injunctions ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... debate shall directly or indirectly by any form of words impute to any Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... supper, and then modestly approach and knock at the door. As the good-hearted man knew that his guests were "posted" about the meal in progress in the next room, the invitation to supper was given, and, shall I say it, accepted with an unbecoming lack of reluctance. ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... before you start, it will be best so. Otherwise, you must take the trouble to come here,—where, I am afraid, you will not be received as a welcome guest. I have told mamma that if I cannot see you here in a manner that is becoming, I shall go out and meet you in the streets, in a manner that is unbecoming. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... making. There is no reason in her antecedents that people should drop their voice when they speak of her. But some women are never at their ease till they have given some damnable twist or other to their position before the world. The attitude of upright virtue is unbecoming, like sitting too straight in a fauteuil. Don't ask me for opinions, however; content yourself with a few facts and with an anecdote. Madame Blumenthal is Prussian, and very well born. I remember her mother, an old ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... expressed in a shrill strain of half-religious oaths, like flashes of hell-fire to Gaston's suddenly- awakened sense. It was the invincible nature of the royal lad to speak, and feel, on these mad, alto notes, and not unbecoming in a good catholic; for Huguenots never swore, and these were subtly theological oaths. Well! the grandparents repressed as best they could their apprehensions as to what other hunters, what other disconcerting ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... D'Aigremont to present a memorial to the King, in which he requested his Majesty to grant him a benefice. Louis XIV. did not approve of the liberty thus taken by his chairman, and said to him, in a very angry tone, 'D'Aigremont, you have been made to do a very unbecoming act, and I am sure there must be simony in the case.'—'No, Sire, there is not the least ceremony in the case, I assure you,' answered the poor man, in great consternation; 'the abbe only said he would give me a hundred Louis.'—'D'Aigremont,' said the King, 'I forgive you on account ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan |
