"Unconventional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instructor who counts out loud and waves his arms in time to a mechanical piano. Between five and six, this student, led by a yell-leader, applauds football practice. The growing tendency of American university students to spend their evenings in extravagant relaxation, at the moving pictures, or in unconventional dancing, is said to be willful and an indication of an important moral sag of recent years. It would be interesting also to know if Arkwright, Hargreaves, Watt, or Darwin, Edison, Henry Ford, or the Wrights, or other persons ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... slightest objection to having a naval officer for a driver—if you have none. I must say, though, I shall be eager to learn the reasons for your rather—rather unconventional behavior." ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... landing; but at five on Tuesday, Mr. Whipple came to my door to say that the Kilauea was not in Lahaina roads, and was probably laid up for repairs. I was much disappointed, for the mild climate had disagreed with me, and I was longing for the roystering winds and unconventional life of windward Hawaii, and there was not another steamer ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... were soon made and cheerfully accepted. I believe I was unconventional enough to tell the exact truth concerning my occupation, and matters were soon on a friendly footing. Indeed I may say at once that the stately college don we have heard so much about never made his appearance during our ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... War of Secession, and I am not sure that Messrs. Mason and Slidell were not trotted out. The Foreign and Home Secretaries, the very distinguished civil servants declared, would not unlikely be agitated when they heard of the shocking affair. Soldiers, no doubt, were by nature abrupt and unconventional in their actions, and the Foreign and Home Offices would make every allowance, realizing that we had acted in good faith. But, hang it all—and they gazed ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... had a human love for the forest flowers; she says to thee, Madhari Creeper: 'Oh, most radiant of twining plants, receive my embraces, and return them with thy flexible arms: from this day, though at a distance, I shall forever be thine.' How unconventional! I fancy Mlle. L. must have inherited this style of conversation from her mamma; all very well, when confined to flowers and 'creeping' things; but one day, as she was out walking, she met 'by chance—the usual way,' Prince Dashuranti, and our young lady said pretty much the same sort ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... He was certainly an unconventional guest in a country house. My father had rented a deer-forest on a long lease from Cluny Macpherson, and had built a large house there, on Loch Laggan. As that was before the days of railways, the interior of the house at Ardverikie ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... after him. The starving survivors of his settlement on the Roanoke River were taken on board by Drake's returning squadron and carried home to England, where they all arrived safely, to the glory of God, as our pious ancestors said and meant in unconventional sincerity, on ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... think of the future, not the past, and I feel very sure that if we married, the result would be death to our friendship. We had a splendid time, and we might still have a splendid time, if you could be unconventional and realise how many other women are also. But probably you have decided against my suggestions, or I should have heard from you. So I suppose you hate me, and I'm awfully sorry to think it. You won't come to me, then. But that doesn't lessen my obligations, and I'm going to take every possible ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... separated from the suburban village of Camden Town by open fields and green pastures. A few doors away Godwin had his study, where he spent most of his industrious day, often breakfasted and sometimes slept. Both partners of this daringly unconventional union had their own particular friends and retained their separate places in society. Some quaint notes have survived, which passed between them, borrowing books or making appointments. "Did I not see you, friend Godwin," runs one of these, "at the theatre last night? I thought I met a ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... dulled her cheeks. Her smile had the fresh innocence of a child's and she possessed a curious felicity of manner which was delightful though a little puzzling. Her view of strikes and the important work of the Ministry was fresh and quite unconventional. Sir James, who had all his life moved among serious and earnest people, found Miss Molly's easy cheerfulness very fascinating. Even portentous words like syndicalism, which rang in other people's ears like ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... ultimate death from pneumonia and dropsy. Beethoven, though he adhered to the sonata form of the classic school, introduced into his compositions such daringly original methods that he must be regarded as the first of the great romantic composers. Some of his latest compositions notably, were so very unconventional that they found no appreciation, even among musicians, until years after his death. Technically, his art of orchestration reached such a perfection of general unity and elaboration of detail that he must stand as the greatest instrumental ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... part, quite as vaguely ill at ease. She saw before her one of those men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as "nice," that is to say, correct in all the superficial appointments of style, dress, manners, and feature. Yet there was a decidedly unconventional quality about him: he was totally unlike anything or anybody that she could remember; and as the attributes of originality are often as apt to alarm as to attract people, she was not entirely ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... very quietly. Only two or three people in the church. He called for me. It was unconventional, but I was nervous and weak, and he knew he could give me strength. We went up the aisle together, hand in hand. The man who was to give me away followed behind. Many people in America are married in their own homes, but I preferred a church. I've been sorry since. It has seemed a ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... bulky, as it has to be packed up and moved about nearly every day, and it has to be carried on the backs of the reindeer in summer, or drawn by them in sleighs in the winter. So it is nothing more than a most unconventional form of tent, not altogether unlike the wigwam of the Red Indian, or the dwelling of many other nomadic people. A few long poles are stuck up on a circle, with their ends fastened together to form a sort of cone, and over this framework is stretched a covering of coarse woollen material. ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... would be unconventional and foolish. I respect the conventions. They're so sensible. And because it would be unfair to you, and to Mrs. Fenger, and ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... uniform, sir"—Jasper Ewold took in the cowboy outfit with a sweeping glance which warmed with the picturesque effect—"it's a great improvement on the regulation; fit for free delivery in Little Rivers, where nobody studies to be unconventional in any vanity of mistaking that for originality, but nobody need ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Whitehall who opened this unconventional letter passed it up to his chief, who in turn passed it on to the Adjutant-General, who thrust it into a pigeon-hole reserved for such curiosities. Now, as it happened, a week later the Adjutant-General ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fine girl," he continued, "and good. Has a heart of gold. She's wearing me to a shadow. I wanted something fresh and unconventional. I didn't grasp what it was going to do. She's the girl that gets up early in the morning and rides bare-back—the horse, I mean, of course; don't be so silly. Over in New South Wales it didn't matter. I threw in the usual local colour—the eucalyptus- tree and the kangaroo—and let her ride. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... a nice little place here for her work—quiet and unconventional. I hope you think well of her talent, sir? You might go further and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... talk, and the fulness of his knowledge, and so enjoyed the conversation that he asked if he might hope to have a further opportunity of having another discussion. "Come any day you like except Sundays," said the unconventional old sailor, "and I may assure you it will give me great pleasure." They parted with feelings of growing respect for each other. The parson evidently made some weighty communication to Mr Humbert, as that gentleman's attitude towards Burnside soon underwent a marked ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... popular theme, "Make Germany Pay!" was initiated by Col. CLAUDE LOWTHER, who not long ago produced a specific scheme for extracting twenty-five thousand millions from the enemy—a scheme which by its unconventional handling of the rules of arithmetic excited the amazed admiration of professional financiers. Possibly Mr. BONAR LAW, as ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, was jealous because he had not thought of it first. At any rate he subjected ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... carried out, would not quite content me. The "compunctious visitings" would continue still. I look out of the window and see a sparrow on a neighbouring tree, loudly chirruping. And as I listen, trying to find comfort by thinking of the perils which do environ him, his careless unconventional sparrow-music resolves itself into articulate speech, interspersed with occasional bursts of derisive laughter. He knows, this fabulous sparrow, what I have been thinking about and have written. "How would ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the place on foot and by an unconventional route, may go to Sora via Pescasseroli. Adventurous souls will scramble over the Terrata massif, leaving the summit well on their right, and descend on its further side; others may wander up the Valle dei Prati and then, bending to the right along the so-called ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... was for once really filled with a wish to help. She meant to do her full share of work. Also she was determined to enjoy herself. The prospect of camp-life was alluring. There was a gipsy smack about it that satisfied her unconventional instincts. It seemed almost ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... parlor of one of the old Pennsylvania Avenue hotels in Washington, a few months before the nominating convention. A number of well-known politicians were present, but probably the most prominent was Horace Greeley. The writer had never before seen the great editor, and was considerably amused by his unconventional independence on that occasion. He occupied an easy chair with a high back. Having given his views at considerable length, he laid his head back on its support and peacefully went to sleep; but the half-hour ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... said. She was a breezy old lady with a military moustache and an unconventional manner with her clientele. 'You come to me an hour a day, and, if you haven't two left feet, we'll make you the pet of society ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... splendid unconventional morality," she went on, musing with half-closed eyes over the ash of her cigarette. "After awhile you men ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... Mrs. Easterfield hurried down-stairs in search of Lancaster. She did not care what any one might think of her unconventional eagerness; she wanted to find him, and she soon succeeded. He was sitting in the shade with a book, which, when she approached him, she did not believe ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... the author seems to take the most pleasure in depicting is the passionate loyalty of a girl to her lover or of a young wife to her husband, and her portrayal of this trait has feeling, and is set off by an unconventional style and brisk movement.—The Book ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... The whimsical, unconventional interposition of the reader, and the author's reasoning with him, aSterne device, is employed so constantly in the book as to become a wearying mannerism. Examples have already been cited, additional ones are numerous: the fifth section is devoted to such conversation ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... imagination has enforced upon them, are rarely so imaginative that the practical is wholly obscured. Margaret was accepting the situation, was planning soberly to turn it to the best advantage. Obviously, much hung upon this unconventional, this vulgarly-sensational marriage being diplomatically announced to the person from whom she expected to get an income of her own. "No," said she to Joshua, in response to his nervously-made offer. "You must wait down in the office while ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... exception, and that he contrived to leave it really exceptional. It did not in the least degree break the rounded clearness of his loyalty to social custom. It did not in the least degree weaken the sanctity of the general rule. At a supreme crisis of his life he did an unconventional thing, and he lived and died conventional. It would be hard to say whether he appears the more thoroughly sane in having performed the act, or in not having allowed ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... the same level. Gilet is the man of distinct gifts, of some virtues, or caricatures of virtues, who goes to the devil through idleness, fulness of bread, and lack of any worthy occupation. He is extraordinarily unconventional for a French figure in fiction, even for a figure drawn by such a French genius as Balzac. But he is also hardly to be called a great type, and I do not quite see why he should have succumbed before ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set. It affords you then an inordinate amount of self-esteem. You have the self-satisfaction of courage without the inconvenience of danger. But the desire for approbation ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... Gilmour was most unconventional. His sermons were direct talks, without any attempt at rhetoric. They were plentifully illustrated, largely from events in his own experience. Laughable allusions or quaint ways of putting things were frequently ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... another kind. The country was largely Protestant, and the Emperor, Maximilian II, was not only a friend to toleration, but to Lutheran ideas. Under his auspices a conciliatory, neutral, and unconventional Catholicism came into existence, accepting the doctrinal compromise which had been tendered more than once, discouraging pilgrimages, relics, indulgences, celibacy, and much that had been the occasion of scoffing, an approach to Erasmus, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... expressed in safe unvarying formulas. A guileless people! Ships tossing at sea; minds firmly anchored to the commonplace. Abundance for the body; diet for the spirit. The monotony of a nation intent upon respecting laws and customs. Horror of the tangent, the extreme, the unconventional. God save the King. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Men. Utter Humility. His Simplicity and Informality. Keen Sense of Humor. His Unconventional Methods of Work. Power as a ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... them (and sometimes in the first case most of all), succeed only in being themselves, and that is what Borrow does. His attraction is rather complex, and different parts of it may, and no doubt do, apply with differing force to this and that reader. One may be fascinated by his pictures of an unconventional and open-air life, the very possibilities of which are to a great extent lost in our days, though patches of ground here and there in England (notably the tracts of open ground between Cromer and Wells in Borrow's own county) still recall them. To others he may be attractive ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... rest—did as Damaris bade him. Standing in the conflicting gaslight and moonlight, the haunted quiet of the small hours broken only by the trample and wash of the sea, he read Darcy Faircloth's letter from its unconventional opening, to its equally ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... if her defiance did not come from pure wilfulness. But she says and does the most unconventional things simply for the pleasure of shocking people. It isn't that she doesn't know, it's that ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... is not necessarily academic because it is thorough, but only because it is dead. Neither is a drawing necessarily academic because it is done in what is called a conventional style, any more than it is good because it is done in an unconventional style. The test is whether it has life and ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... on the floor of the reception-room, was a picture of abject, horrid soul-torture. At last, through the subtlety of this unconventional sleuth, along methods which were never dreamed of in the ordinary police category, he had been broken on the wheel which he ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... her errand, but there was some delay in opening the bank when she returned—an interval filled pleasantly by the visitors with interested scrutiny of the shameless Genevieve Maud, whose airy unconsciousness of her unconventional appearance uniquely attested her youth. When the money finally came, rolling out in pennies, five-cent pieces, and rare dimes, the look of good-natured wonder in the old black eyes peering wolfishly over the hedge changed quickly to one of keen cupidity, but the children saw nothing ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... expressed his opinion that the National League had been the tenants' best, if not their only, friend. "You have got," he said, "a very ignorant, poor people, and the law should look after them, instead of which it has only looked after the rich." To hold opinions so unconventional in the service of a Unionist Viceroy was impossible, and in a year other fields for Sir Redvers' activities were found. Sir West Ridgeway, who succeeded him, served as Mr. Balfour's lieutenant during the latter's efforts to "kill Home Rule with kindness," and it is significant to find him ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... in this volume have been published serially in The State of South Africa, in a more or less abridged form, under the title of "Unconventional Reminiscences." They are mainly autobiographical. This has been inevitable; in any narrative based upon personal experience, an attempt to efface oneself would ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... attention was riveted to it at the age of 20, when I spent a holiday with A., a companion with whom I was, and still am, on terms of great friendship. We enjoyed many things in common, studied together and discussed most unconventional matters, but not this. Previously we had always occupied separate sleeping apartments; on this occasion we were abroad in a country place, and were compelled to put up with what we could get. We not only had to share a room, but a bed. I was not surprised ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 1669, she accepted the protection of some admirer. Who he may have been at first, how many more there were than one, how long the various amours endured, it is idle to speculate. She was for her period as thoroughly unconventional as many another woman of letters has been since in relation to later times and manners, as unhampered and free as her witty successor, Mrs. de la Riviere Manley, who lived for so long as Alderman Barber's kept mistress and died in his house. Mrs. Behn has ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... or four missionaries. Obviously, it would not be very likely that two single workers of opposite sex would be included in the group; to say nothing of the fact that such an allocation of workers would normally be considered highly unconventional! Usually single women workers were sent to one station, and a man (or men, if there were that many) to another. Missionary travel, except for going to a summer resort, was usually confined to one's own district, and ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... tables there were no garments or hats, bags or boxes; no trace remained of the obstinate conspiracy of gloves and veils, handkerchiefs and ribbons, to break the captivity of the drawer. The room was like an unoccupied guest-chamber. Yet in every detail of furniture and decoration it spoke of an unconventional but exacting taste. Trent, as his expert eye noted the various perfection of color and form amid which the ill-mated lady dreamed her dreams and thought her loneliest thoughts, knew that she had at least ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... had not lost zeal for the unconventional, and fortune favoured us. A man passing in a skiff told us that a road leading to the Weyanoke houses could be reached by rowing up a tiny bayou that joined the creek a ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... year added thousands to the numbers of Eastern men who migrated West to enjoy some of the liberty of a region where lands were cheap and the social life unconventional; every decade added new voices and able leaders to the Western group in Congress, who clamored unceasingly for the enactment of laws aimed at the rapid development of that section. New England, where the rise of industrial towns necessitated an increasing number of laborers, took fright, or ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... at her unconventional greeting, replying, "If I say something fresh it must be a lie. You know, Mrs. Henniker, how hard I'm kept at it, with hospital ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... to letting down the barriers even in these unconventional surroundings. You can adjust the matter to suit yourself, but I ab-so-lute-ly refuse to sit cheek by jowl with the cook ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... asked him, the pleasure of doing so would have been mine. Mrs. Coldfield pointed you out to me as a most ungrateful fellow, because you never called on your father's or mother's friends any more, but preferred to gallivant round the world. You will stay? We are very unconventional here." ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... where I was sitting and stepping to the front called on the house to cheer President Wilson. There was, for a moment, surprise at such unconventional action, but the whole house soon broke ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... dead. It is true. He is dead, dead and buried. And a fluttering, chirping host of men, little men and unseeing men, have heaped him over with the uncut leaves of Kim, wrapped him in Stalky & Co., for winding sheet, and for headstone reared his unconventional lines, The Lesson. It was very easy. The simplest thing in the world. And the fluttering, chirping gentlemen are rubbing their hands in amaze and wondering why they did not do it long ago, it ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... was, that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson! Such songs as he sang, such stories as he told, such a breezy, unconventional atmosphere as he brought into that prim little house, where stagnant dullness had reigned for years! He worshipped Aunt Olivia, and his worship took the concrete form of presents galore. He brought her a present ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for men—paid to expose her young, unclothed limbs and body! Yet—could it be possible! Was this the girl hailed as a comrade by the irrepressible Ogilvy and Annan—the heroine of a score of unconventional and careless gaieties recounted by them? Was this the coquette who, it was rumoured, had flung over Querida, snapped her white fingers at Penrhyn Cardemon, and laughed disrespectfully at a dozen respected pillars of society, who appeared to be willing to support her in addition ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... his pivotal action, is never left alone, but he fits in somewhere; the Whole takes him up and directs him, and adjusts him into the providential plan; not simply from without but through himself. Such is this poet's loyalty to his Idea; he has faith, deep, genuine faith, yet unostentatious, quite unconventional at times; a most refreshing, yes, edifying appearance to-day, even for religious people, though he be ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... undeserving of the high praise which has been bestowed upon it, but that the praise has been to some extent undiscriminating. It has now become almost a tradition to hold up to our admiration Coleridge's chapter on poetic diction, and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in a preface that is as unconventional in manner as it is stimulating in most of its substance, maintains the tradition. As a matter of fact, what Coleridge has to say on poetic diction is prolix and perilously near commonplace. Instead of making to Wordsworth the wholly sufficient answer that much poetry of the ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... Bill Jones had been unconventional in other relations besides that of sheriff. He once casually mentioned to me that he had served on the police force of Bismarck, but he had left because he "beat the Mayor over the head with his gun one day." He added: "The Mayor, he didn't mind it, but the Superintendent of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... take on the speech conventions of the adult. But even though the crassness of the form of expression of the wish disappears with age, there is no reason to suppose that the human organism ever gets to the point where wishes just as unconventional as the above do not rise to trouble it. Such wishes, though, are immediately repressed; we never harbor them nor do we express them clearly to ourselves ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Burton?" she asked, "and how long have you been officiating as child's companion? You're certainly a happy-looking trio—so unconventional. I hate to see children all dressed up and stiff as little manikins, when they go out to ride. And you look as if you had been having SUCH ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... was, Gregory felt with some bewilderment that his behaviour was hardly normal. He was not in the habit of offering magazines and sweets to young women. But his solicitude expressed itself in these unconventional forms and luckily she found nothing amiss with them. She was accustomed, no doubt, to a world where such offerings ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... was not quite what every highly respected family ought to be. For a long time now Lizabetha Prokofievna had had it in her mind that all the trouble was owing to her "unfortunate character," and this added to her distress. She blamed her own stupid unconventional "eccentricity." Always restless, always on the go, she constantly seemed to lose her way, and to get into trouble over the simplest and more ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... not treat the matter so lightly. Of course it was an exaggeration of the other girl, but it showed that some people who seem very innocent will bear looking after. Too bad that pretty girls must spoil everything by being vain and—well, careless! But the two I mention are very unconventional." ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the other tables, the girl waved her handkerchief at the swiftly-approaching motor. Waldron, from the back seat, raised an answering hand—though without enthusiasm. Above all things he hated demonstration, and the girl's frank manner, free, unconventional and not yet broken to the harness of Mrs. Grundy, never failed to ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... to drive her home when the picnic should be over. She had asked Mister Masters to drive out with her; and how much that had delighted him nobody knew (alas!) except Mister Masters himself. She had during the last few weeks given him every opportunity which her somewhat unconventional soul could sanction. In a hundred ways she had showed him that she liked him immensely; and well—if he liked her in the same way, he would have managed to show it, in spite of his shyness. The drive out had been a failure. They had gotten no further in conversation than the beauty ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... in an intellectual point of view. He did not care to be a doctor, lawyer, or clergyman, and certainly not a professor. He would have liked to pack a satchel, and start westward, prospect for a railroad, gold or silver mine, and live the rugged, unconventional camp-life. Once he had ventured to suggest this noble ambition; but his timid mother was startled out of her wits, and his grandmother said with a sage shake ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... handsome, gifted, and unconventional, and all these things appeal to men. You can attract all the admirers you want, and more than you need, to enlarge your ideas of life, and extend your ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... after nightfall. When I grew calm enough to notice whither my feet had strayed, I found myself on the Mill Road. Instinctively I felt I should not go so far from home in the darkness unattended; but I was naturally courageous as well as unconventional, and the desire was strong on me to tell Mrs. Blake my good news. I got on safely until Daniel Blake's light was in sight, when, just before me, I heard rough voices talking and laughing. I turned and was about ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... are continuously appearing in different magazines and reviews. Particularly well known are Stewart Edward White, '95, Katharine Holland Brown, '98, Franklin P. Adams, '03, and Harry A. Franck, '03, no less well known as an unconventional traveler. Michigan has also left her mark in journalism, from Liberty E. Holden, '58, editor and publisher of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and William E. Quinby, of the same class, of the old Detroit Free Press, ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional, but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act. Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but—' ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... shops, electric lights, and mixture of native and foreign population, seemed strangely crowded and modern after the scenes they had recently left; too modern by far to suit Stevenson, who preferred the unconventional wild life of the islands they had ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... of her voice and manner, of which I have spoken, that made all her words sweet and gentle, however unconventional they ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... his father-in-law's boldness. I was on the best of terms with him and he was the most kind and friendly of publishers. It often happened, however, in going over my plans for the new Cornhill, he thought this or that proposal on my part might prove too expensive, too risky, too radical, or too unconventional. In such cases he always said that we had better take the decision to Mr. George Smith. On the first occasion I was a little alarmed as to what the result might be. I felt that Mr. Smith might naturally support his son- in-law in the direction of caution, and that the appeal to Caesar might ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... disturbed you. I am really not unconventional—though certainly no slave to convention. Still there are limits . . . it is bad enough to intrude in this way, and I do not know what you can say or think of the time ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... unsatisfied conqueror, is a singularly unconventional figure. He is a man of action, with some of the sympathies of the scholar and the lover; resolute in the attainment of ends which he sees to be, in themselves, vulgar; his ambition rather an instinct than something to be pursued for itself, and his soul ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... so late," said he, "and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... accompanied her sister and mother to California, in the earnest hope that nature contained something worth saying to her, and was disappointed to find she had already discounted its value in the pages of books. She hoped to find a vague freedom in this unconventional life thus opened to her, or rather to show others that she knew how intelligently to appreciate it, but as yet she was only able to express it in the one detail of dress already alluded to. Some of the men, and nearly ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... 'unconventional style and the boyish enjoyment of his pastime'—to use Lord Desborough's words—which were characteristic of Sir Charles. His mischievous attempts to distract his adversary's attention, his sudden drops to the ground and bewildering recoveries, his delight at the success ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... by Flack's. The house itself was more pleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owing to the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventional flattening and rounding of the roof. Nature, too, had made so many improvements that the general effect ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... he found it possible to work; but on what might be called the personal side, his interest was nil. True, he liked her trim appearance, though he would never have dreamed of comparing it with Toni's more unconventional attraction. He admired her quiet independence, and recognized her at once as belonging to his own world; but he never thought of her in any relation save that of secretary and general assistant; and even Toni was sufficiently wise to recognize ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... believed him too clever a man to imagine for a moment that she had any real affection for him. They were pals, that was all. He liked her very much—she was sure of that. But it was not love. How could a woman of her character expect to inspire decent love in any man? Theirs was a careless, unconventional tie, which could be broken to-morrow. A quarrel, and she would see him no more. She shivered. The mere thought of such a contingency was decidedly unpleasant. It's so easy, she mused, to become accustomed to automobiles, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... eyes, high, thin cheek-bones marked with scarlet, and a wide, humorous mouth that was somehow droll in its expression even when she was angry or serious. She was rarely angry; she was unexacting, good-humoured, preferring animals to people, and unconventional in speech and manner. Her father and Anne sometimes discussed her anxiously; they confessed that they were rather fearful for Alix. For Cherry, neither one had ever had ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... disapproving of the different combinations without gratitude or sentiment; she knew that self-interest prompted all of the offerings that were not merely sent just because it was the right thing to do. There was one unconventional bunch, however, that caught her eye. It was a mere handful of scarlet flowers tied loosely together with ribbons of their own colour and the same tint of green as their leaves. It was from a young subaltern in the regiment, a boy whom she had noticed first ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Katie's, but it is clear that it was not very much. It is interesting and characteristic that Terry wants it to appear to have been "graft," while Katie looks upon the money as honest wages, received in an unconventional way. ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... suspicious and shy of him until they saw that he was quite as shy of the women; and then they made him a confidant, and told him all their woes and troubles, and exhibited all their little jealousies and ambitions, in the innocent hope that he would repeat what they said to Lester. They were simple, unconventional, light-hearted folk, and Van Bibber found them vastly more entertaining and preferable to the silence of the deserted club, where the matting was down, and from whence the regular habitues had departed to the other ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... richness, that they might chatter in gangways and nod to their friends. It was all so elaborate, so hollow! and yet in the minds of these buzzing, voluble persons one could generally discern a trickle of unconventional feeling, which could have ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that the prospects were good; the only trouble being that the prodigy intended to render a concerto by a strange composer—a stormy and unconventional thing which would annoy the critics. Moses suggested something that was "classic"; and agreed with Mrs. Hartman that there ought to be something corresponding to "good ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... not telling you where I am staying as I do not want to give you the bother of answering this rather unconventional letter. As for presents I have ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... bread pellets at the girls, they will call me unmannerly. If I don't they will call me stiff. You may have noticed that those pseudo-intellectuals who like to think themselves Bohemian are always terrified when they are brought up against anything that really is unconventional. On the other hand, your true Bohemian is disgusted if anybody describes him by that word; if there is one word that he detests more than Belgravia, it is Bohemia. No, I ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... unconventional," said Dehra, addressing Lady Helen, rather than me, "but, if the English Ambassador can stand it, I will answer for the King ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... cares of this world, where everything is ruled by confusion and error to the verge of madness. It was absolutely terrible to me to read your charges against T. What I felt is difficult to describe; it was like a longing for death. About this young T. I recently wrote to you in a very unconventional manner. Two things make me overlook all his shortcomings, and attach me to him to such a degree that I feel inclined to place much confidence in him. One of them is his boundless love for you, the absolute abandonment of his impertinence ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... voice was rather loud, her movements were free and angular, and her expressions very unconstrained. Nobody ever saw Mrs. Marx anything but neat, whatever she possibly might be doing; in other respects her costume was often extremely unconventional; but she could dress herself nicely and look quite as becomes a lady. Independent was Mrs. Marx, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... This unconventional use of adjectives is marked in the Whilomville tales. In one of them Crane refers to the "solemn odor of burning turnips." It is the most nearly perfect characterization of burning turnips conceivable: can anyone improve upon ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... to you by this time, Mr. Tallente," she said, as she watched the coffee in a glass machine by her side, "that I am a very unconventional person." ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... see, dreams are such intimate, unconventional mysteries. Dreams have no regard for law or custom The soul and the body seem equally free and without sin or shame. I have a curious feeling of awe about sleep and dreams. It's the surest evidence I have ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... wife to the husband. Women who are in a position to know from personal knowledge of radical people declare that there are still relatively few educated women who deliberately cut loose from monogamic standards; and that they are most commonly found among certain intimate and unconventional groups of students and professional workers, especially those who are united in "Bohemian life" by artistic or literary interests. But while such sexually anarchistic women are not common in America, ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... not built on the hard set square lines of the former type. These persons have enormous imagination, their creative faculties largely developed. They are inventive, unconventional, emotional, demonstrative, and in fact the complete opposite in character to the class who possesses the square type ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... on purpose! He wanted to see me—what impudence! I am beginning to realise what one has to expect if one—if one takes an unconventional step." ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... cones a foot and a half long. And when these superb arms are outspread, radiating in every direction, an immense crownlike mass is formed which, poised on the noble shaft and filled with sunshine, is one of the grandest forest objects conceivable. But though so wild and unconventional when full-grown, the sugar pine is a remarkably regular tree in youth, a strict follower of coniferous fashions, slim, erect, tapering, symmetrical, every branch in place. At the age of fifty or sixty years this shy, fashionable form begins to give way. Special branches are thrust out away from ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... those days when any seaside town was a possible future Brighton, Lymington is never likely to become crowded with visitors again, but artists find many good studies on the river and in the town and even on the "soppy" flats themselves, and there are salt baths at high tide for those unconventional holiday-makers ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... to Kapus Elsa had been a very severe blow. She had really reckoned on Bela. He was educated and unconventional, and though he professed the usual anti-Semitic views peculiar to his kind, Klara did not believe that these were very genuine. At any rate, she had reckoned that her fine eyes and provocative ways would tilt successfully against the man's ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... never seemed to know her own popularity; and Christina's slow liking grew into a real and warm affection as the passing days gave her more and more occasion. In the matter of "style," it appears, Dolly had enough to satisfy her; thanks to her mother; for Dolly herself was as unconventional in spirit and manner as a child should be. In school work proper, on the other hand, she was a pattern of diligence and faithfulness; gave her teachers no trouble; of course had the good word and good will of every one of them. Was it the working of ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... stripes of darker blue; his soft shirt, with its rolling collar; his red tie, knitted of soft silk, and tied in a loose sailor's-knot. She liked his clothes, and she liked the way he wore them. They suited him. They were loose and comfortable and unconventional, but they were beautifully fresh and well cared for, and showed him, if indifferent to the fashion-plate of the season, meticulous in a fashion of his own. "It's hard to imagine him dressed otherwise," she said, and instantly had a vision of him ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... with dignity. "We need not go over the ground. Mr. Fenton made us acquainted, I presume, because he agrees with me in seeing nothing wrong in my position, however unconventional it may be. You will see that if I had been ashamed of the fact I could easily have ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... upon its surface; they would not have neglected to follow up advantages, would not have persisted in lines of attack that created public sympathy for me. They would not have so crudely exploited my unconventional marriage and my financial relations with old Ellersly. But they dared not go near the battle-field; they had to trust to agents whom their orders and suggestions reached by the most roundabout ways; and they were busier ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... sympathy. It was therefore doubly remarkable that on the ground of benevolence, he scarcely discriminated between the claim on him of a woman, and that of a man; and his attitude towards women was in this respect so distinctive as to merit some words of notice. It was large, generous, and unconventional; but, for that very reason, it was not, in the received sense of the word, chivalrous. Chivalry proceeds on the assumption that women not only cannot, but should not, take care of themselves in any active struggle with life; Mr. Browning had no theoretical objection to a woman's taking ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... to whom the unconventional ways of "the Golden Shoemaker" gave great offence; and that was Mr. Bounder, the coachman. As a coachman, Bounder was faultless. His native genius had been developed and matured by a long course of first-class ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the party spoke together and leaned to look, it was quite a sensation. But apparently by common consent they left whatever move was to be made to the bride; and to my surprise this move was most unconventional. She got up with an abrupt gesture and started over to our table—alone. This, for a girl of her sort, was going some. I glanced doubtfully at Worth. He ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... Crusoe-like variety of functions. A knight-errant to the core, the atmosphere of Williams under Hopkins gave him his consecration. His comrades recognized him as an intellectual leader, essentially religious but often startlingly unconventional, "under great terrestrial headway," "the most strenuous man I ever saw." He said of himself: ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Hermione Lester, a great creature, an extraordinary creature, free from the prejudices of your sex and from its pettinesses, unconventional, big brained, generous hearted, free as the wind in a world of monkey slaves, careless of all opinion save your own, but humbly obedient to the truth that is in you, human as very few human beings are, one who ought to have been an artist but who apparently ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Cleveland's startling and unconventional method of dealing with this controversy has been explained by all kinds of conjectures. For example, it has been charged that his message was the product of a fishing trip on which whisky flowed too freely; on the other hand, it has been asserted that the message was an astute political play for ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... ample consolation for the loss of Helen Blantock, and in the end lose interest in her and her titled grocery man, will not surprise the reader. The manner in which it is effected, however, involves some rather unconventional details, worked out, of course, through the agency of a delightful American girl. Anyone who has read "The Heavenly Twins" will doubtless find something to stir reminiscence in the intercourse between Lord Lane and the Boy. In this the chief ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... inquiry they found it was the famous Spray, in which Captain Joshua Slocum, of Boston, sailed alone around the world. They called on the adventurous skipper at once and invited him to visit Vailima, which he did on the following day. Mrs. Stevenson was delighted with the unconventional ways and conversation of the captain, and, indeed, found in him much that was kindred to her own spirit. When he wished to buy some giant bamboo from her plantation for a mast for his little vessel, she, of course, made him a present of it, and had it cut and taken down by the natives. He told ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... Autobiography" category. As such, every attempt has been made to reproduce it exactly as it was printed and as it won the award. In particular, inconsistent hyphenation of compound words is pervasive in this text and has been retained. Unconventional punctuation—for example using a comma to splice two sentences—has also been retained ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... story. The hero, an independent and vigorous thinker, sees life, and tells about it in a very unconventional way. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... introduction and incentive to a branch of our literary history that is not without its fascination. But I must also own to a less unselfish motive, for I imagined that not without its reward of delight would be a temporary sojourn among the books which, for their boldness of utterance or unconventional opinions, were not only not received by the best literary society of their day, but were with ignominy expelled from it. Nor was I wrong in ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... spirits—the heritage of her years—getting more and more uncertain, and of being wrought up to a perilously high-strung pitch. She felt as if she were panting for liberty to breathe, to express her discordant mood in some unconventional manner. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... unconventional has a greater appeal than the more standardized type of home, remodeling an old barn into a country home has its advantages. This is particularly so if one can find either a capacious one of roughly laid ledge stone, once popular in parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... to give them their old decent names, Tweeddale and Ettrick. Think of having been called Tweeddale, and being called PEEBLES! Did I ever tell you my skit on my own travel books? We understand that Mr. Stevenson has in the press another volume of unconventional travels: Personal Adventures in Peeblesshire. Je ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He felt that every moment was precious. He had never met a girl like this before—she would never seem quite the same again. He didn't at all feel like a character in a play, the appropriate feeling in an unconventional situation—instead, he had a sense ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... no one who has caught the inconsequent, yet perfectly sincere spirit of the Village better than John Reed. In reckless, scholarly rhyme he has imprisoned something of the reckless idealism of the Artists' Quarter—that haven for unconventional souls. ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... included because, however faulty in technique, they do serve to illustrate a past that can never come back, and men and women who were outwardly crude and illiterate but at core kind and chivalrous, and nearly always humorously unconventional. The bunch grass, so beloved by the patriarchal pioneers, has been ploughed up and destroyed; the unwritten law of Judge Lynch will soon become an oral tradition; but the Land of Yesterday blooms afresh as the Golden ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... are unconventional, badly dressed, and always hungry. Go into the kitchen, and I will tell them to give ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov |
