"Undesirable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he were still a boulevardier of Paris, occupier of the top floor in the Imperial Flats, there was another Frenchman in London to whom I must introduce you, namely, Professor Paul Ducharme, who occupied a squalid back room in the cheapest and most undesirable quarter of Soho. Valmont flatters himself he is not yet middle-aged, but poor Ducharme does not need his sparse gray beard to proclaim his advancing years. Valmont vaunts an air of prosperity; Ducharme wears ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... drumstick. Having tested the violin with it in the manner before referred to, and there being no bad reports from the body of the instrument, the hurt, seat of injury, or lesion, may be in the neck, fingerboard, or even the scroll, any part being liable to give out its undesirable note, or interfere with the proper emission of musical tone from the strings. There is no portion of the violin that will not under certain provocations join too willingly in the production of unwelcome sounds if the exciting conditions are present—those ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... ambitious and lovesick young barrister was thus pining in unwelcome obscurity, his old acquaintance, Jacques Rollet, had been acquiring an undesirable notoriety. There was nothing really bad in Jacques' disposition, but having been bred up a democrat, with a hatred of the nobility, he could not easily accommodate his rough humor to treat them with civility when it was no longer safe to insult them. The liberties he ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... objurgations as the advocate frantically resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by a glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess leveled a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her, who began a series of contortions ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Cathay." We shall look back upon a past. We shall have a truly national existence. It will be but natural, as it will be most wise, that we take heed of those elements which have ever been so potent in strengthening national character. One of these has been briefly hinted at above. Yet it may be undesirable to perpetuate the memory of events in which the whole country cannot participate, which will not for the remainder of this century be thought of by one section without shame and confusion of face, and which will only tend to keep alive the sad old jealousies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... merry worthy was no longer capable of understanding them. Frequent calls for whisky-and-soda, added to a nice taste for champagne at dinner, left the Captain in that maudlin condition in which a man is first cousin to all the world—at once garrulous and effusive and generally undesirable. Alban had, above all things, a contempt for a drunken man; and leaving Forrest to the care of others of his kind, he went out into the street and ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... which is not a wholly undesirable quality. He began to wonder how it would feel to own a few of these valuable fellow-creatures. He reached out and touched lightly a young mulatto woman who sat beside him with an infant in her arms. The peculiar dumb expression on her face was lost on Eliphalet. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and developed many undesirable traits of character, Major Appleby was too kind-hearted to see them, and too obstinate to be warned ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... spirits. Lord Reay, who was then Governor of Bombay, was invited to preside and declined only after asking for instructions from the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, who, though not unfriendly, held that it was undesirable for the head of a Provincial Government to associate himself with what should essentially be a popular movement. Mr. Bonnerji, who was selected to take the chair, emphatically proclaimed the loyalty of the Congress to the British Crown. ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... pity me, I did," he jested. "I remembered how I was asked to quit here, too. In the days when General Fred Furniss was also looked on as an unruly, rather undesirable member of the student body ... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... circumstances offered her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in her crude form, with her hair down her back, and altogether in a state of dubious promise, was a most undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being at once ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle Glegg's presence, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... despatched, I smoked a pipe on the bench in the porch, and Mr. Martin, who evidently had few visitors, became almost communicative. Undesirable patrons, he gave me to understand, had done his business much harm. By dint of growls and several winks he sought to enlighten me respecting the identity of these tradekillers. But I was no wiser ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... logic, the metaphysical Machiavellians, the Brahmins, advanced to thin out the undesirable females,—women considered at all times in that land of overpopulation of less value than men,—by the simple expedient of self-destruction. He knew the Brahmins' thesis culled from their Word ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... to me about handling the warning," boomed Carfon. "If it should be delivered from apparently empty air, directly at those we wish to address, it would give the enemy an insight into our methods, which might be undesirable." ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... was a bad business man, Sperm was a good doctor. Anthony was out of the wood. Very well. Considering the nature of the peril with which the wood had been quick, the less the fugitive saw of strange doctors, the better for him. To insist upon the gravity of his late disorder was most undesirable. Besides, if at this juncture a specialist's visit to Bell Hammer could serve any useful purpose, Heron was the man to pay it. It was he who had walked and talked with Lyveden when the latter's brain had been sick. So he alone ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... I did not doubt. I knew that such men as the late Baron were often compelled, in their own interests, to receive visits from mysterious and often undesirable persons, most of whom were paid for their information. Every giant of finance employs his secret agents, whose duty it is to keep his principal informed of the various political and other secrets in Europe. Indeed, the great financiers know ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... table is not available, the dining room table should be used. Skirts, bodices, ruffles, and bias bands should be cut on firm, even, and large surfaces. If cut upon the floor or bed and pressed on a coarse crash towel, the garment will have the undesirable ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... anything but what he could wish it. The pale face and almost gasping respiration, in the worst cases, are not unknown to the experienced observer. In such cases the preventive (inhibitory) influence of certain ingoing impulses is but too obvious. Such undesirable messages may pass in through the eyes when the young singer looks out on the throng that may either approve or condemn; or they may originate within, and pass from the higher part of the brain to the lower ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... the others having gone for McKinley. While it is true that thousands of our foreign-born citizens are intelligent, honest and patriotic—a credit to the land of their adoption—it is likewise true that following in their wake we find Huns, Pollocks, Sicillians, "Souwegian" and other undesirable offscourings of the old world, imported by Mark Hanna and other "industrial cannibals" to degrade our labor and debauch our politics. It is the vote of this latter class, and the scarcely less corrupt and ignorant "coons" ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... therein a bond between them; when he became convinced that no quarrel, only indifference, or perhaps despisal, separated them, he began again to despair, and felt himself urged once more to speak. Seizing therefore an opportunity in such manner that she could not escape him without attracting very undesirable attention, he began a talk upon the ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... some tendency to ill-health in the plant that was too ready to bloom into beauty and perfection. She would have liked to be able to assert that Jacqueline's health would not permit her to sit up late at night, that fashionable hours would be injurious to her, that it would be undesirable to let her go into society as long as she could be kept from doing so. But Jacqueline persisted in never being ill, and was calculating with impatience how many years it would be before she could go ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... that she was, as it were, holding court. In their carriages the other women sat comparatively neglected. It was in vain that she tried to put a quick end to this curious and undesirable state of things. Smith continued to bring to her side all those whom he ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... service, apart from individual reception, is unmeaning. The habitual attendance of persons who are not regular communicants—unless it be in the case of those who for any reason are as yet unconfirmed—falls short of full discipleship and is intrinsically undesirable. But this objection does not apply to attendance at the service on the part of communicant Churchmen who yet on a particular occasion do not communicate: and to attend throughout the service without personally communicating is a procedure infinitely ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... on those who had tried to take him captive. A band of armed men was sent down, and the forest swept clear of the marauders—at least for a while. Will Ives had his wish, and met Simon Dowsett face to face in a hand-to-hand struggle; and although the latter did all to deserve his undesirable sobriquet, he was overpowered at last and slain, and his head carried in triumph to his native village, where, after the savage custom of the day, it was exposed on a pike on the ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that it didn't fly like him. Peter didn't stop to think of that. It was enough for him that a member of the Hawk family was headed that way, and he didn't care a twitch of his funny little tail which member it was. He felt that the stomach of one was quite as undesirable a place for Peter Rabbit as the stomach of another, and he had no intention of filling any if he could ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... the oven. With the doors closed, a fire was built in the stone furnace and fed from the outside with cocoa-husks and brush. Such an oven does not dry the nuts uniformly. The smoke turns them dark, and oil made from them contains undesirable creosote. Hot-water pipes are the best source of heat, except the sun, but Lam Kai Oo was paying again for his poverty, as the poor man must do the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... there liked it. Sailors enjoyed their visits to Jolo. Quite a number of sailors told me that they had been in a great many towns of the tropical countries, but that they would rather live in Jolo than any of them. The most undesirable feature of the town is that there are no pleasure retreats except to go to the mountains and among the Morros, and besides, we soldiers were confined very closely within the walls and on duty. The town is very small. A man can walk all through in ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... marriage without charging any bride price."—for he wanted a son-in-law to help him in his work. A common servant in the employ of the village headman heard him and said "I will accept the offer;" the man had not bargained for such an undesirable match but he could not go back from his word; so he agreed and said that he would choose a night; and he waited till it was very cold and windy and then told the headman's servant to sleep out that night. The servant ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... esteemed him more highly than when he refrained from all but a droll look, and uttered not one word of the sportive courtship that is so peculiarly unwholesome and undesirable with children. Perhaps she thought her colonel more a gentleman than she had done before, if that were possible; and she took an odd, quaint pleasure in the idea of this match, often when talking to Alison of her views of life and education, putting them in the form of what would become ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... political account, for she suddenly left Carlsbad, making it known throughout France, by means of the press, that she had been compelled to quit the baths, and to interrupt the cure, in consequence of the undesirable attentions which Prince George of Prussia persisted in forcing upon her. Naturally, the newspapers made the most of her story, and were filled with denunciations and abuse of the prince, some of the sheets asserting, by way of explanation of his conduct, that he was mentally unbalanced, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... with which the King twice interrupted the proceedings, produced an undesirable effect. He was inclined to meet the general wishes, without surrendering however any part of his prerogatives. But at the same time he expressed himself about these in the exaggerated manner peculiar to him, which was exactly calculated to arouse ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... Riley Sinclair that Cartwright had not yet fully ascertained whether or not his companion came from that very town. And, although the day before, he had decided that Sour Creek was most undesirable and all that pertained to it, this unasked confirmation of his own ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... me, dividing his attentions between cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice—an admitted privilege of the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was not fully a third smaller ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... old enough to form any such ties, they often receive matrimonial overtures; it is therefore highly necessary to know how to treat them. The offer of a man's heart and hand is the greatest compliment he can pay you, and, however undesirable to you those gifts may be, they should be courteously and kindly declined; and since a refusal is, to most men, not only a disappointment, but a mortification, it should always be prevented, if possible. Men have various ways of cherishing and declaring their ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... every imperfect or undesirable plant should be rooted out and destroyed, so that none but the best can fertilize each other. In early spring the litter must be either removed from the plants and the ground between the rows given a cultivation to loosen the surface, or it may be raked ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a chivalrous adventure had vaguely passed through my mind during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was fluttering round an undesirable candle. Till now I had no idea of the extent to which ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... a defect of the eye, depending upon some irregularity of the cornea or the lens, in which light rays in different meridians are not brought to the same focus. It is to a certain extent hereditary, but plays an insignificant role. It is an undesirable trait, but cannot be considered ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... emigrate, though declaring to the Jewish delegation that pleaded for mercy, Zapadnaya graniza dlya vas otkrita ("the Western frontier is open to you"), was still, Pharaoh-like, reluctant to see so many "undesirable citizens" leave, and prohibited the formation of organizations to accomplish the end. The orthodox were against the movement on religious grounds, because it was "forcing the end" of Israel's trouble before the destined day of God arrived.[11] But ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... these, it is thought, only where they are largely subsidized by southern patronage, it is not so now. The desertions that are taking place from their ranks will, in a short time, render their position undesirable for any, who aspire to gain, or influence, or reputation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... antennae and tarsi and metatarsi and tracheae and stomata and wing-muscles and leg-muscles and ganglions,—all plain enough, I do not doubt, to those accustomed to handling dor-bugs and squash-bugs and such undesirable objects of affection ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... architectonic powers were restored if not woman's; to say nothing of his prolonged sojourn—would at last rouse the law-makers to the imperious necessity of eugenics, birth control, sterilization of the unfit, and the expulsion of undesirable races. It might even stimulate youth to a higher level than satisfied it at present. Human nature might ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... work, problems hardly touched on, however, in our book, which was devoted to exposition rather than argument. Such problems were: How far is political propaganda inseparable from political education, and in what respects is such propaganda desirable or undesirable? How can political differences among the masters themselves be made to play a helpful rather than an injurious part? Does the introduction of politics into the curriculum open a way, as the very able reviewer in The Westminster Gazette suggested, for Prussianism in its most insidious ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... her. And one of my chief concerns, one of my first duties, is, of course, to see that she makes a good marriage. She is a great heiress—she would be the natural prey of fortune-hunters. I must protect her, I must direct her. With one hand I must keep away undesirable suitors, with the other hand I must catch a desirable one. But now observe my perplexities. Your cousin is peculiar. She is not in the least like the typical submissive young Italian girl. She is excessively self-willed, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the rapid development of the special class of refrigerating apparatus commonly known as the dry air refrigerator, which, in the first instance, was specially designed for use on board ship, where it was considered undesirable to employ chemical refrigerants. Owing to their simplicity, and perhaps also to their novelty, these cold air machines have very frequently been applied on land, under circumstances in which the same result could ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... sachets and waist-belts and flowers and face powder lay pell-mell. For a long while the drawer had not had the periodical setting straight which woman grants it, and its contents were aged, dingy and undesirable—camisole-ribbons like boot-strings, lace collars long out of fashion, a rose or two crumpled into flat and withered blobs, shapeless and ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... or three months it is better, except at night, when it may be undesirable to take the infant from its crib, that it be held on the nurse's arm during the feeding; later it may lie on its side in the crib provided the bottle is held by the nurse until it has been emptied; otherwise a young ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... boy who presently arrived at No. 6, The Mall, Cluhir, and was practically lifted off the car by the Big Doctor. Francis Aloysius Mangan had many aspects of character of an undesirable kind, but they were linked with one virtue, the Irish gift, of a good-natured heart. With his enormous thick hands, that made Larry think of a tiger's paws, he undressed the boy as cleverly and gently as he had set the broken bones of his wrist. Mrs. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... says the heiress, turning promptly upon him. It is strange how undesirable the very richest heiress can be at times. "Why, it's only just this instant that you told me nothing would keep you away from the Court ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... others, that he had applied the sums he got to the business of the State as secret service money, and had not made any personal profit. He did not, indeed, produce any accounts; but, assuming his defence to be well founded, it is quite possible that the keeping of accounts might have been an undesirable and inconvenient practice. At all events it was certain that Marlborough had not done any worse than other statesmen of the time, in civil as well as in military service, had been in the habit of doing; and considering all the conditions of the period, the defence which ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... dusk. It was the property of two Russian aristocrats, friends of Emile's, who helped the Cause by conveying bombs and infernal machines, and taking off such members of the band as had suddenly found Spain an undesirable residence. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... universal suffrage, if made real by the proportional representation of all minorities, on Mr. Hare's principle. But if the best hopes which can be formed on this subject were certainties, I should still contend for the principle of plural voting. I do not propose the plurality as a thing in itself undesirable, which, like the exclusion of part of the community from the suffrage, may be temporarily tolerated while necessary to prevent greater evils. I do not look upon equal voting as among the things which are good ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... the colonists whom the company entered died or ran away; millions of pounds had been spent, there was no return, and there was little tangible to show for it all—a few thousand white settlers, many of whom, in a phrase current to-day in the States, were "undesirable citizens," living in palisaded cabins. So the little settlement became a crown colony again and came back to the king, but not to him in whose name it had been originally taken, for that king was dead. Louis XIV's name, kept in "Louisiana," claims now but a fragment ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... that the percentage of moisture and sugar is greater and the undesirable acid lower in those vines subject to electrical influences than in those left to natural conditions. There are also experiments which prove the beneficial effects of electricity on vines attacked ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... the convent, the village, the Episcopal See, the Order of St. Francis, by the ears. First, because nobody could make out whether or not she had been christened. The question was a grave one, for it appears (as your uncle-in-law, the Cardinal, will tell you) that it is almost equally undesirable to be christened twice over as not to be christened at all. The first danger was finally decided upon as the less terrible; but the child, they say, had evidently been baptized before, and knew that the operation ought not to be repeated, for she kicked and plunged and yelled like ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... as has been pointed out in connection with the discussion of all the other of man's original tendencies, is not only strong, but may find its outlets in attachment, both to desirable and to undesirable persons or objects. Once aroused, attachment and submission may become as stanch as they are blind. The signs which arouse our loyalty may be and most frequently are glaring rather than important. As Trotter ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... who liked quiet and the river view. He was quite as broad as he was long, though he was not preposterously stout. There was nothing mysterious about him. He was well known in the City. He had merely mistaken an undesirable suburb for a desirable one, a very easy mistake for a foreigner to make; and he was delighted at the cheapness of the house, the greenness of the old lawn, the height of the grimy trees ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... moral[1] character, and were alleged to me as additional reasons for refusing communion with me; and when I demanded a tribunal, and that my accuser would meet me face to face, all inquiry was refused, on the plea that it was needless and undesirable. I had much reason to believe that a very small number of persons had constituted themselves my judges, and used against me all the airs of the Universal Church; the many lending themselves easily to swell the cry of heresy, when they have little personal acquaintance with ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... this is done deliberately, for it must be familiar with the difference between 'enquete judiciaire' and simple police researches. As it desired to escape from every control of the investigation which would yield, if correctly carried out, highly undesirable results for it, and as it possesses no means to refuse in a plausible manner the cooperation of our officials (precedents for such police intervention exist in great numbers) it tries to justify its refusal by showing up ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... was altogether very friendly, if rather grave and dry towards her, as soon as he was convinced that "it was only Joe," and that pity, not artfulness, was to blame for the undesirable match. He was too honourable a man not to see that it could not be given up, and he held that the best must now be made of it, and that it would be more proper, since it was to be, for him to assume the part ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the driver of the Stenton stage this phenomenon was highly undesirable,—the glassy road enormously increased the labor of the horses; Gordon's vigilance might not for a minute be relaxed. The blazing sun blurred his vision, the cold crept insidiously into his bones. The ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and shrubs should be placed so as to obscure undesirable views, such as closets and outbuildings, rough fences, or bare walls. This principle in planting should be observed in the case of trees. Evergreen trees are particularly desirable as screens and shelters from cold winds. No planting should be done, on the other ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... colloquial talents, to a man like John Henderson, in whom so amply dwelt the spirit of originality, must be considered, on the whole, as a misfortune, and as tending to subtract from the permanency of his reputation; he wisely considered posthumous fame as a vain and undesirable bubble, unless founded on utility, but when it is considered that no man was better qualified than himself to confound vice and ennoble virtue; to unravel the mazes of error, or vindicate the pretensions of truth, it ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness—faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money, while the wages of ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... nothing. Ringtail Pete was obviously an undesirable acquaintance; therefore Omar Ben held his tongue, and became interested in the bullfrog. Curiosity, however, conquered ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... men, and from those who had the greatest number of entries in their "conduct sheets" the selection was made. This was greatly deplored, for the reason that many men who were frequent offenders in a minor way were excellent soldiers in the line. On the other hand, the real undesirable was sufficiently astute to keep free from ordinary military "crime." Nevertheless, his presence in the ranks was a continual menace to the preservation of order and to the peace and property of individuals. Experience ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... I was just a mite hasty, but I've been feeling bad about this money question. I wanted to offer a big reward for news of Jane some days ago, but your crusted institution of Scotland Yard advised me against it. Said it was undesirable." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... auditors went for him on Easter day to accompany him to prison inspection, they advised him with all courtesy (warned by what had happened on other inspections) to be kind enough to allow the Audiencia to oppose privately the releases, when these were undesirable, that he intended to grant by his authority. To that request he answered in great heat and fury that he vowed to God that if any auditor contradicted him in the releases of prisoners that he thought best to make during the inspection, he would break his head with a club; and, after dashing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... friend really is?" said Miss Tredgold when she had watched the departure of this most undesirable acquaintance. ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... some good advice to "prevent contention and trouble for the future, that it may not devour for ever, and that, if the Lord please, you may be happier henceforth than to make one another miserable; and not make your place uncomfortable to your present, and undesirable to any other, minister, and the ministry itself in a great measure unprofitable: and that you may not bring impositions on yourselves by convincing all about you that you cannot, or will not, use your liberty as becomes the gospel." Their advice is, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... certain ambiguous respect for his governor's exaggerated dislike of women, as if that horror of feminine presence were a sort of depraved morality; but still morality, since he counted it as an advantage. It prevented many undesirable complications. He did not pretend to understand it. He did not even try to investigate this idiosyncrasy of his chief. All he knew was that he himself was differently inclined, and that it did not make him any happier or safer. He did not know how he would have acted if he had been knocking ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... "efficient." Efficient for what? Efficiency is a relative quality, not absolute. A big German howitzer would be about as inefficient a tool as could be imagined, for serving an apple-pie. Beside, democracy is a goal; we have not reached it yet; we shall never reach it if we decide that it is undesirable. The path toward it is the path of Nature, which leads through conflicts, survivals, and modifications. Part of it is the path of community education, which I believe to be efficient in that it is leading on toward a definite goal. Part of ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... you are so sensible, Ruth," Mr. Hamlin went on. "For I have reason to believe that your friend, Barbara Thurston, has proved herself an undesirable guest, since her arrival in Washington, which I very much deplore. She is dishonorable, for she has secretly entered my study and been seen handling my papers, and she has contracted a debt; for I saw the ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... I said, in my very stupidest manner, "is one of the difficulties which has occurred to me. A man who has been engaged as a Brother finds himself saddled with an undesirable acquaintance after the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Grandpapa and the Magister, whom we were to meet again a week or two later, we hurried on board, and found to our joy that the unsteady Finlanders were not allowed to follow us. With a puff and a whistle the steamer left such undesirable passengers behind, and the last we saw of them was fighting and struggling with one another, each man apparently imagining, in his muddled imbecility, that his own companion had kept him from going on board, whereas ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... without further success. One must have patience, much patience, in birdland. It may take years to secure what will prove satisfactory views of some species. Many snaps, when taken, prove undesirable after development, and each week adds to the uncertainty of finding anything "at home" when next you come. While the percentage of successful incubation is fairly large, yet the numerous enemies of the feathered tribe make the uncertainty of ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... 1666, many new coffee houses were opened that were not limited to a single room up a flight of stairs. Because the coffee-house keepers over-emphasized the sobering qualities of the coffee drink, they drew many undesirable characters from the taverns and ale houses after the nine o'clock closing hour. These were hardly calculated to improve the reputation of the coffee houses; and, indeed, the decline of the coffee houses as a temperance ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... religious faith. The little financier had already begun to pose to himself as a martyr and a public benefactor. In spite of howling mobs and crushing markets he was busy now saving the credit of the Nation! He was one of the group of the king's council engaged in that important work. The "undesirable" had been eliminated and now a vast pool was being formed to support the market and kindly hold the securities until the people could get their breath and make money enough to buy them back at a profit. In due time he knew that his name would be enrolled with ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... you mean?" asked Mr. Hartley, in genuine surprise. "How can a customer who buys largely, and pays promptly, be undesirable?" ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... their medical works give the plant the Sanscrit name of "Dadrughna," meaning "to cure herpes." The Pharmacopoeia of Bengal recommends cassia in the form of an ointment made by mixing the crushed tender leaves with simple ointment. This preparation is, in our opinion, undesirable on account of its liability to become rancid and vaseline should be the excipient used. Another application for herpetic eruptions is the juice of the leaves mixed with an equal quantity of lemon juice. The Malays use the leaves dried in the sun, adding to them a little water and rubbing them ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... sounded from within, followed by the prolonged howling of Rudge, who, either from a too keen appreciation of his master's music or in utter disapproval of it,—no one, I believe, has ever been able to make out which,—was accustomed to add this undesirable accompaniment to every strain from the old man's hand. The playing did not cease because of these outrageous discords. On the contrary, it increased in force and volume, causing Rudge's expression of pain or pleasure ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... and learned, falsified though the picture was, this presented a serious problem. It was made more acute by the fact that the association is embarking on a "five-year-plan" of some importance. Publicity during this period would be more than ordinarily undesirable. It will therefore be necessary to see to it that you have no opportunity to tell what you know before the plan is concluded. I am sure you can see it would be most unwise to accept your simple word on the matter. Your freedom of movement and of communication ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... social function, bearing and rearing children, in their spare time, as it were, while they 'earn their living' by contributing some half mechanical element to some trivial industrial product." It would be impracticable, and even undesirable, to insist that married women should not be allowed to work, for a work in the world is good for all. It is estimated that over thirty per cent. of the women workers in England are married or widows (James Haslam, Englishwoman, June, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... expresses that a man who attended to general character would in five minutes produce a more faithful representation of a tree, than the unfortunate mechanist in as many years, is thus perfectly true and well founded; but this is not because details are undesirable, but because they are best given by swift execution, and because, individually, they cannot be given at all. But it should be observed (though we shall be better able to insist upon this point in future) ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... undesirable acquaintances, and they breed so fast that even one, brought into a house, may cause it to become generally infested in a ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... Vermont for several years as an itinerant Methodist minister before settling down to farming in Edgewood, only giving up his profession because his quiver was so full of little Grants that a wandering life was difficult and undesirable. When Uncle Bart Cole had remarked that Mis' Grant had a little of everything in the way of baby-stock now,—black, red, an' yaller-haired, dark and light complected, fat an' lean, tall an' short, twins an' singles,—Jed ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... trying test of a visit from the elder married sisters; for, as Ethel said, the scent of the tidings attracted both Flora and the Cheviots; and the head-master endeavoured to institute a kind of family committee, to represent to the Doctor how undesirable the match would be, entailing inconveniences that would not end with the poor bride's life, and bringing at once upon Tom a crushing anxiety and sorrow. Ethel's opinion was of course set aside by Mr. Cheviot, but he did expect concurrence from Mrs. Rivers and from Richard, and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The case must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Generally the defendant's word, so far as the jury can see, is as good as his accuser's. If there are other witnesses it is usually not difficult, and certainly not impossible, to show that they have poor eyesight, bad memories, or are undesirable citizens in general. The criminal lawyer learns in his cradle never to admit anything. By getting constant adjournments he wears out the People's witnesses, induces others to stay away, and when the case finally comes to trial has only ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... must first be a member of a church of approved standing.[b] In more liberal Plymouth and Connecticut, the franchise, at first, was made to depend only upon conduct, though it was early found necessary to add a property qualification in order to cut off undesirable voters.[23] In the Connecticut colony, it was expressly enacted that church censure should not debar from civil privilege. When advocating this amount of separation between church and civil power, Thomas Hooker was not moved by any such religious principle ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... little terrier, was not with him to add interest and excitement. Mr. Carter had found Skiddles in the country a year and a half before. Skiddles, then a puppy, was at the time in a most undignified and undesirable position, stuck in a drain tile, and unable either to advance or to retreat. Mr. Carter had shoved him forward, after a heroic struggle, whereupon Skiddles had licked his hand. Something in the little dog's ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... an unpleasant memory—the most beautiful woman in London wedded to a cowpuncher! Angela, are you going to waste your life tied to an undesirable? Here is love and devotion waiting.... I haven't all the gold in the universe, ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... and machine- like, but must be adapted to the causes, and to the man as affected by those causes. Common sense and logic alike require, inevitably, that the moment we predicate a specific cause for an undesirable effect, the remedial treatment must be ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... oblivion. But the humility and lowliness of heart, the mercifulness and peace-seeking which Christ inculcated were essentially powers of self-restraint, not negative but positive attitudes to life. The motive was not apathy but love. These qualities were based not on the idea that life was so poor and undesirable that it was not worthy of consideration, but upon the conviction that it was so grand and noble, something so far beyond either pleasure or pain, as to demand the devotion of the entire self—the mastery ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being, are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them was so implanted in us at the ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... than will pass a 3-1/2-inch ring, these larger stones will prove to be undesirable if placed on the road, as they are almost sure to work to the surface of the gravel layer and become a source of annoyance to the users of the road. Oversize stone can be removed while loading the gravel or while spreading it, if care is exercised and not too large ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... Leyden, in the Fortune, the Anne, the Charity, and the Handmaid, and the numbers steadily increased. The settlers were in the main a homogeneous body, both as to social class and to religious views and purpose. Among them were undesirable members—some were sent out by the English merchants and others came out of their own accord—who played stool-ball on Sunday, committed theft, or set the community by the ears, as did one notorious offender named Lyford. ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... value to me, more necessary to my happiness than to that of most other men? Can I place my hand upon my heart, and affirm that her fortune has no part in the zeal with which I have cultivated Jane's affections? There are few tenants of this globe to whom wealth is wholly undesirable, and very few whose actual poverty, whose indolent habits, and whose relish for expensive pleasure, make it more desirable than ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... girl had found her element. For there is for each one of us a place in this world, some niche into which one really fits. And though this place may seem crowded, or ugly, or undesirable to other people, if it should be our own, it holds a feeling of comfort and of possession that no other ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... all the keynote to the breeder's operations. He is aiming at the production of a strain which shall combine the greatest number of desirable properties with the least number of undesirable ones. This good quality he must take from one strain, that from another, and that again from a third, while at the same time avoiding all the poor qualities that these different strains possess. It is evident ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... Burton formed a friendship with the Algerine hero and exile Abd el Kadir, a dark, kingly-looking man who always appeared in snow white and carried superbly-jewelled arms; while Mrs. Burton, who had a genius for associating herself with undesirable persons, took to her bosom the notorious and polyandrous Jane Digby el Mezrab. [220] This lady had been the wife first of Lord Ellenborough, who divorced her, secondly of Prince Schwartzenberg, and afterwards of about six other gentlemen. Finally, having used up Europe, she made ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... I am under various obligations; and if any acknowledgments have been overlooked, I trust the injured person will forgive me when I have had already to quote so many authorities for so small a book. The popular character of the work renders it undesirable to load the pages with footnotes of reference; and scholars will generally see for themselves the source of the ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... a weedland to suggest how simple and easy a thing it is to make an attractive mass-plantation. One may make the most of a rock (Fig. 26) or bank, or other undesirable feature of the place. Dig up the ground and make it rich, and then set plants in it. You will not get it to suit you the first year, and perhaps not the second or the third; you can always pull out plants and put more in. I should not want a lawn-garden ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... doctrine or belief that in the system of things all that happens, the undesirable no less than the desirable, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... face-models (ladies of position and culture, and often of extraordinary beauty), he had in the matter of figure-models been most unlucky. And this, added to his slight knowledge of anatomy, made all his nude pictures undesirable save those few painted from the beautiful girl who stood for ‘The Spirit of the Rainbow’ and ‘Forced Music.’ What his work from the nude suffered from this is incalculable, as may be seen in the crayon called ‘Ligeia Siren,’ a naked siren playing on a kind of lute, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... I was thus removed was, apparently, the most undesirable that could be imagined but I was not discouraged; I had for some time learned not to judge by appearances. The apartment was dark and unwholesome; but I had acquired the secret of counteracting these influences. My door was kept continually shut, and the other prisoners were debarred ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... ask: "Why did not the editor select Galds' best play, El abuelo, for publication?" I should like to reply to this question in advance. El abuelo, with all its beauties, has certain features which make it slightly undesirable for use by classes of American students in High Schools and the elementary years of College. First, one of its beauties is itself a drawback for this particular purpose; namely, the rather vague and abstract moral it conveys. Then, the main-spring of the plot, like that of Electra, lies in ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... such as prevails in the United States, we are not long in discovering that it rests in great part on a misunderstanding: men mistake coexistence for amalgamation. I do not fear to affirm that the second would be as undesirable as the first would be desirable. Why dream of blending or of assimilating the two races? Why pursue as an ideal frequent marriages between them, and the formation of a third race: that of mulattoes? America does right to resist such ideas, and to inscribe her testimony against ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... reverse the considered judgment it had already arrived at" earlier in the session. It was a "considered judgment" to defeat the Bill by 14 votes in 1912 but not a "considered judgment" to have it carried by 167 in 1911! Sir Edward Grey felt strongly that the House had placed itself in a very undesirable position, but the Conciliation Bill was defeated and Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Lloyd George and the leading suffragists in the Government continued to assure us that the inclusion of Women's Suffrage through an amendment of the Government Bill presented us with by ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... be found in the one whom the governor should appoint. From this it will be clearly seen that for the conduct of military affairs—especially in the condition in which these islands and the new conquest of Maluco at present are—it is undesirable not to be provided in this jurisdiction with a person of much distinction and experience ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... immense diocese of Calcutta. The new church was regarded as a necessity; for a great many 'garden houses' had sprung up in and about the Mount Road, in the area that was called the 'Choultry Plain,' and the Directors of the Company agreed with representations from Madras that it was undesirable that English residents within the bounds should be able to stay away from the Church-services on Sunday with the reasonable excuse that the nearest Anglican church—St. Mary's in the Fort—was too far away from their houses for ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... Moving in the same direction under a common impulse and intent upon a laudable enterprise, race and class distinctions are considered negligible, if, indeed, they are not entirely overlooked or forgotten. The group is, in truth, a sublimated gang with the undesirable elements eliminated and the potential qualities of the gang retained. The gang spirit when impelling in right directions and toward worthy ends is to be highly commended. In the gang, each member stimulates and reenforces the other members, ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... fretting a good deal for the last few weeks at not hearing from Dame Shirley. The truth is, that I have been wondering and fretting myself almost into a fever at the dreadful prospect of being compelled to spend the winter here, which, on every account, is undesirable. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... SHAHSTEAD (a gentleman of whose patronage he is proud) not a man you may take liberties with. For SCHEHERAZADE, taking mean advantage of a French agglomeration of letters which did not represent his name, to hail him as "JACK" was characteristic, and therefore undesirable. But, as everybody knows, DINARZADE, at the approach of each successive morning, was obliged to make this appeal to his brother, in order to circumvent the bloodthirsty designs of the Sultan (for particulars of which, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... true of the undesirable animals fortunately is true also of the harmless fur-bearers. Several causes make against the extermination of these in Canada. The range is so wide that, harassed in one quarter, the animal may get his family around him and make tracks for safer pastures. Hunted in the winter only, he has a ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... short stage to-day," said Maitre Leroux. "In truth, I am unwilling to travel late in the evening, and prefer stopping at the house of a friend to taking up our quarters at an inn where we might meet with undesirable companions." ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... of this long day's ride, the third party, whose undesirable presence and personal knowledge of Mr. Moffat's past career rather seriously interfered with the latter's flights of imagination, was William McNeil, foreman of the "Bar V" ranch over on Sinsiniwa Creek. McNeil ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... "You're a little too eager. And much too docile, Trigger! Considering what's in that handbag, it's not at all likely it will detonate if we brightly hand it to you and let you start pressing. But something or other of a very undesirable nature ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... of the general church boards ready to help us with facts and methods. The Home Missions people gave us one sort of help, and another board, with the longest name of them all, the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals, showed us how to go about an investigation of the town's undesirable citizens and their influence. It is in that sort of business for all of us, ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... graves, not well knowing what is about to happen; many of them, however, finding themselves clutched by demons before they are half awake. It would be a very terrible picture to one who should really see Jesus, the Saviour, in that inexorable judge; but it seems to me very undesirable that he should ever be represented in that aspect, when it is so essential to our religion to believe him infinitely kinder and better towards us than we deserve. At the last day—I presume, that is, in all future days, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had he shown her any slightest preference, except as her father's daughter. And yet she had refused to look and listen. And then, upon knowledge, came shame and humiliation and rage at finding she had boldly proffered herself and was found undesirable. It was the birth of her woman's heart. The happy, careless girl's heart was dying, and the new life did not come without much anguish ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... great inhumanity. A cruel death, or a servitude scarcely less cruel, was the certain fate of all conquered people; the terror of which hurried men from habitations to which they were but little attached, to seek security and repose under any climate that, however in other respects undesirable, might afford them refuge from the fury of their enemies. Thus the bleak and barren regions of the North, not being peopled by choice, were peopled as early, in all probability, as many of the milder and more inviting climates of the Southern ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... incandescence of an intelligence coldly dispassionate, quick and shrewd, lighted those dark eyes. Distinctively a face of Gallic cast, three years of long-drawn torment had served in part to erase from it wellnigh all resemblance to both the brilliant social freebooter of ante-bellum Paris and that undesirable alien whom the authorities had sought to deport from the States. Amazing facility in impersonation had done the rest; unrecognisable as what he had been, he was to-day flawlessly the incarnation of what he elected to ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... be a real advantage to health, as has been demonstrated in other than war times. Because a food is good is no reason for unlimited quantities; an ounce of sugar a day is wholesome—a pound is likely to result in both indigestion and a badly balanced diet. A quarter of a pound of meat a day is not undesirable for an adult, but a pound a day may result in general overeating or in the special ills which are related directly to a large quantity of meat. One of these is an upsetting of a proper balance of food elements in the diet. Diets high in meat are apt to be low in milk and ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... may go; marriage for position may go; but marriage for love, I believe and trust, will last for ever. Men in the future will probably feel that a union with their cousins or near relations is positively wicked; that a union with those too like them in person or disposition is at least undesirable; that a union based upon considerations of wealth or any other consideration save considerations of immediate natural impulse, is base and disgraceful. But to the end of time they will continue to feel, in spite of doctrinaires, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... of apprehension lest her new friend was about to turn out "proper," that acme of undesirable qualities to the girlish mind. If that were so, the future would be robbed of much of its charm; but the discussion of Aunt Margaret and her qualities must be deferred until a greater degree of intimacy had shown Bridgie the difficulties, ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
