"Undignified" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Never—never! She was excited, she tingled all over, she had tasted blood! He must be made to understand that she had been aware of having been watched; he must know that he had been seen slinking off shamefully. But to run to the front rail and shout after him would have been childish, crude- -undignified. And to shout—what? What word? What phrase? No; it was impossible. Then how? . . . She frowned, discovered it, dashed at the piano, which had stood open all night, and made the rosewood monster growl ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
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... grunted. "Well, it's undignified, it is almost outrageous to be forced to do such a thing, but you must go to him. Your mother will ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
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... that, at this point, her thoughts should fly to Dan. What a nice boy he was! She would see him to-morrow night—she had promised him that! And before that? Would it be too undignified for her to steal up again to that bench on the after boat-deck—would it—would it precipitate matters? She did not want to do ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
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... Richard groaned under it; he longed to leap forward and denounce the humbug. And the humbug himself? Do you fancy he was easier in his mind? I am sure, on the other hand, that he was actually miserable; and he betrayed his sufferings by a perfectly silly and undignified access of temper, during which he broke his pipe in several places, threw his brandy-and-water into the fire, and employed words which were very plain although the drift of them was somewhat vague. It was of very brief duration. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... even here, I was "under fire." More frequently than was agreeable, a shot would come ploughing up the ground and raising clouds of dust, or a shell whizz above us. Upon these occasions those around would cry out, "Lie down, mother, lie down!" and with very undignified and unladylike haste I had to embrace the earth, and remain there until the same voices would laughingly assure me that the danger was over, or one, more thoughtful than the rest, would come to give me a helping hand, and hope that the old lady was neither hit nor frightened. Several times ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
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... are used as saddle animals, and it is said that they perform good service in this way. This will probably be regarded by our people as a very undignified and singular method of locomotion, but, in the absence of any other means of transportation upon a long journey, a saddle-ox might ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
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... some foreign lord. Thus he would see and conquer the coy maiden queen. The warnings and expostulations of his friends failed to move him from this romantic project, but at length it reached the king's ears, and he strictly forbade the wild-goose project as hazardous and undignified. Erik, however, finally got his father's permission to visit England and make his suit to the queen in his own person. But there were many postponements of the journey, and when finally he left Stockholm ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
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... Allen, making his usual, though undignified, entrance over the railing of the porch, and seating himself with a sigh of content in one of the big chairs. "Say, what was all the row about?" he added, looking with interest at Mollie's still threatening needles, and Betty's general air of preparation for attack. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
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... porridge and Morel with a laugh set to work on his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him. The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
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... mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low, bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact that he had erased for ever from Billie's mind that undignified picture of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was the fact that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had allowed him to kiss her for ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
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... looked up from beneath her trim velvet hat and her blue eyes were defiant. "All that people like you disapprove of; all that you probably consider undignified and unladylike, such ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
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... outfit that followed up the railroad, issuing a Daily Paper, and which had been particularly outspoken in its denunciation of the lawless element. They then proceeded to attack some of the stores, but were met by the townspeople and in the pitched battle that ensued, badly defeated. They made an undignified retreat, leaving fifteen of their number dead in the streets. From this time on the tough element fought shy of the city and with the extension of the road, its business left. Today there is not a thing to indicate that a town ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
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... an air of the gravest and most majestic deliberation, he began to turn round, as if he were revolving on a pivot. Little by little his ugly brown side was exposed to view. A white smoke sprang out, as it were from the ground; a sharp report came with it. The old bull gave a very undignified jump and galloped off. At this his comrade wheeled about with considerable expedition. The other Indian shot at him from the ravine, and then both the bulls were running away at full speed, while half the juvenile population of the village raised a yell and ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
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... another door. Craig's excitement, far from diminishing, grew wilder and wilder. The preacher thought him insane or drunk. Grant and Margaret tried in vain to calm him. Nothing would do but the ceremony instantly—and he had his way. Never was there a more undignified wedding. When the responses were all said and the marriage was a fact accomplished, so far as preacher could accomplish it, Craig ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
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... astonished to see my prim puritanical grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified language. If she had been born on the Mayflower, raised on Plymouth Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut, she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child. Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and suspicious when she ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
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... greatness was Intelligence; and in intelligence the Middle Class had shown itself signally deficient. In foreign affairs—in its dealings with Russia and Turkey, Germany and America—it had shown "rash engagement, intemperate threatenings, undignified retreat, ill-timed cordiality," in short, every quality best calculated to lower England in the esteem of the ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
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... be so difficult to understand. In each case the one is there to help out the other's deficiency. Two important expressions of art, in a state of insubordination. It is the opera over again, where music and drama keep up an undignified race for prominence. Supposing an illustration were decorative in character echoing in a minor manner the suggested theme, would that not be a fitting background for the story-telling art? The Greeks knew very well what they were about when they introduced ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
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... tribes by treating with ten of them in making the Greenville purchase. But instead he and his followers lost their temper and jumped to their feet in a rage, as if to attack the Governor. And the council ended in an undignified row. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
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... himself to the office, and to watch the lively, almost child-like interest with which, on returning in the evening, he listened to her long-winded report of the baby's wonderful doings during the day. On Sundays, when he always spent the whole afternoon at home, I often surprised him in the most undignified attitudes, creeping about on the floor with the little girl riding on his back, or stretched out full length with his head in her lap, while she was gracious enough to interest herself in his hair, and even laughed and cooed with much inarticulate contentment. At such times, when, perhaps, through ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
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... Esther with undignified haste scrambled up from the float, abandoning her position in the line of battle in favour of the doctor. The dog broke into a chorus of ear-splitting yelps of warning and welcome. The moving shadow loomed larger and a ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
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... swamp,—provided, however, they did the thing on the sly, were careful whose porker they dispatched, and said nothing to him about the eating. In fact, it was simply a matter of economy with Mr. M'Fadden; and as Romescos had a great number of the obstinate brutes, it saved the trouble of raising such undignified stock. Finding, however, that neighbour M'Fadden, or his predatory negroes-such they were called-were laying claim to more than a generous share of their porkships, Romescos thought it high time to put the thing down ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
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... objection being made, however, he again prepared for the journey, Iligliuk assisting him with the most attentive solicitude. Before the invalid was suffered to leave his apartment, some of the by-standers sent for Ewerat, now better known to our people by the undignified appellation of the "conjuror." Ewerat, on this occasion, maintained a degree of gravity and reserve calculated to inspire somewhat more respect than we had hitherto been disposed to entertain for him in that capacity. Placing himself at the door of the apartment opposite ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
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... heart honestly indicates as the one for which natural taste and native ability, quickened by educational training, fits him. The thing to be avoided, rather, is the inculcation of prejudice against useful vocations and desirable pursuits as being undignified and consequently beneath the notice or ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
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... sloppy outside, but Lefever was indifferent to the rain, and de Spain thought it would be undignified to complain of it. ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
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... lined with shelves filled with books. The laughing and chatting guests had gathered there after a delightful dinner. For the Prime Minister of England to go through all sorts of contortions in a game of charades might prove a trifle undignified; so the hostess suggested that ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
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... seen coming round the corner, familiar furniture piled undignified on top, Tom, her brother, and Theresa, marching on foot beside the mass, proud of having walked ten miles or more, from the tram terminus. Ursula poured out beer, and the men drank thirstily, by the door. A second cart was coming. Her father ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
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... to let go of any part of a thing from the beginning to end. On the one hand, their constant, almost too rhythmic resort to nature in their poetry, and on the other, their Ved[a]nta philosophy, or for that matter their Ars amatoria (K[a]mac[a]stra), the latter worked out with painstaking and undignified detail, illustrate the two points. Hence we find here a situation which is familiar enough in the Veda, but scarcely and rarely exhibited in other mythological fields. Dogs, the two dogs of Yama are, but yet, ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
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... at anything, Smith," I replied, "however undignified, when it has seemed that my presence could be of ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
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... room, dear," came the answer from an upper window. Falling all over herself in her undignified haste, Lloyd tore up the stairs. A final tangling of skirts sent her headlong into her mother's room, where she half-fell in a breathless, laughing heap, and sat at Mrs. Sherman's feet with her hair almost ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
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... his open hands on his knees. With his short figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter could never have imagined that there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests in Russia; and in Father Yakov's attitude, in the way he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very edge of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a shade ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
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... temple after its destruction by fire in 548. Their importance is shown by the fact that Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, gave his daughter Agariste in marriage to the Alcmaeonid Megacles in preference to all the assembled suitors after the undignified behaviour of Hippocleides. Under the statesman Cleisthenes (q.v.), the issue of this union, the Alcmaeonids became supreme in Athens about 510 B.C. To them was generally attributed (though Herodotus disbelieves ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
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... eight hours movement many years ago became law in Victoria. On the 21st of April in each year its anniversary is celebrated with a procession and flags and banners. This year the Governor took part in it, which was thought to be rather undignified on his part. It is a Socialistic measure, which reduces the good workman to the level of the ordinary one. All members of the Assembly receive L300 a year. Hence there are many professed politicians whose chief object ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
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... begin to read at the same moment, to their own amusement, and to the disgust of the two lads, who felt uncomfortable in their borrowed plumes, and keenly sensitive about their precious dignity. Antonio mumbled his last speech in undignified haste, and followed Bassanio out of the room, prepared to echo his statement that this sort of thing was "tomfoolery," and that he wasn't going to make an idiot of himself any longer to please Peggy Saville, or any other girl in the world. But the words died ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
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... emerged, rubbing himself lazily with a towel, he found the bar boy with the drinks and had a sudden desire to kid him. On reflection he decided that this would be undignified, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
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... succeeded in extricating him from the undignified position in which, to my horror, he had been placed, by telling him that Herr Eduard Devrient, who had seen the Vestalin in Berlin, and carried every detail of the performance in his mind, should personally drill our chorus and supers into a becoming solemnity during ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
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... consider this to be rather an undignified proceeding on my part. I can only say it came naturally to me. I am not a dignified man; and, when a person means kindly toward me, I don't ask myself whether that person is higher or lower, richer or poorer, than I ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
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... she added, wickedly, the moment she was free. And then to save herself from a second undignified surrender she had to capitulate quickly, and add, "At ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
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... grammatical gossip. Whenever I have risen from the splendid psychological perspective of old Job, the solemn introspective howls of Ecclesiasticus and the generous living philosophy of Shakespeare it has always been with the desire—of course it is undignified, but it is human—to go and get an English grammar for the pleasure of spitting upon it. Let us be honest. I understand everything about grammar except what it means; but if you will give me the living substance and the ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
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... to marry a quiet, studious, steady-going man; and here I find myself engaged to a romantic youth who flies about in the most undignified manner, embraces people behind doors, sings opera airs,—very much out of tune by the way,—and conducts himself more like an infatuated Claude Melnotte, than a respectable gentleman on the awful verge of matrimony. Nothing can surprise ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
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... came: he was given an order for analysing various specimens of soil from a friend's estate. "I conducted these experiments with proper earnestness, and he paid me for them with becoming gravity. I now thank him kindly for the same (it would have been undignified to do so then) and sincerely hope that he has found my scientific research beneficial to his land." Then the gold contagion suddenly broke out and committed great ravages. "I caught it one rainy afternoon near the Exchange; my mother and sister instantly became affected, but my father, ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
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... of undignified music for sacred purposes may perhaps be justified in exceptional cases, which must be left to the judgement of those who consider all things lawful that they may save some. But if from the mission service this ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
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... idioms of the modern newspaper are the idioms of all newspapers, that the grammar is the grammar of modern languages, that the opinions are expressed in barbarous translations of barbarous French and English journalistic cliches or commonplaces. This ugly and undignified mixture of the ancient Greek characters, and of ancient Greek words with modern grammar and idioms, and stereotyped phrases, is extremely distasteful to the scholar. Modern Greek, as it is at present printed, is not the natural ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
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... language of our prospective carriers, did his best in the way of argument, not only out of loyalty to the Expedition, but because Peruvian gentlemen always regard the carrying of a load as extremely undignified and improper. I have known one of the most energetic and efficient business men in Peru, a highly respected gentleman in a mountain city, so to dislike being obliged to carry a rolled and unmounted photograph, little larger ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
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... battalion was up to strength, we were given a day of preliminary drill before proceeding to our future training area in Essex. It was a disillusioning experience. Equally disappointing was the undignified display of our little skill, at Charing Cross Station, where we performed before a large and amused London audience. For my own part, I could scarcely wait until we were safely hidden within the train. During the journey to Colchester, a re-enlisted Boer War veteran, from the ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
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... Crawford stepped nearer, as little Martin gave a sudden squeak of alarm, blind panic took possession of her. She ran toward the stairs and, though the man put out his arm to intercept her, she dodged under it with undignified agility and plunged down the steps. They were of the broad, shallow kind that made her feel, for all her speed, that she would never reach the bottom, yet she came at last into the hall below and out upon the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
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... been new to this sort of thing she would have said she wasn't crying, had a cold in her head, or told any other feminine fib proper to the occasion. Instead of which, that undignified creature answered, with an irrepressible sob, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
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... head. Gerald's thick hair, disordered by the long, fine fingers that ran up into it; Gerald's attitude sitting there, miserable, yet not undignified, helpless, yet not humble; Gerald's whole personality, its unused strength, its secure sweetness, affected him strangely. He didn't feel near Gerald as he had, in a sense, felt near Helen. They were aliens, and would remain so; ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
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... not do her own washing, though she made her own waists and those of her sister and mother. But her story is given because in other ways—in casual employment, long hours, unfair and undignified treatment from her employers, and in the conditions of her peaceable effort to obtain juster and better terms of living—her experience has seemed characteristic of the trade fortunes of many of the forty thousand shirt-waist makers employed ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
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... you to come to me with my son the King of Rome. You ignored that, as you did other communications which I sent, and which I am assured you received. I make no public accusation against you. That would be undignified ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
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... His lordship took the undignified expedient of thrusting his fingers in his ears. Donal sat quiet until he removed them. But the moment he began to speak he thrust them in again. Donal rose, and seizing one of his hands ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
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... makes a solemn promise to his august grandmother, Queen Victoria, and to the "best beloved" of his Allies, the Emperor of Austria, that he will restore the Guelph Fund. Francis Joseph has obtained from the Duke of Cumberland the somewhat undignified letter of renunciation, which we have all read, and now it is either up to Rogue Scapin or Bre'r Fox, just as you please! William II says that he never meant to give back the capital, but only the interest! It is easy to imagine the effect produced on those concerned by the revelation of ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
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... marched off to the billiard-room. Killigrew touched Kitty's arm and motioned her to follow. She was rather glad to go. She was on the verge of most undignified tears. When she had gone in search of Mrs. Crawford, Killigrew walked over to Thomas and laid a hand on the young ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
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... never asked questions about them. It suggested a doubt, and doubt to Peg meant disloyalty in friendship and affection. Everyone had referred to this young gentleman as "Jerry." He even introduced himself by that unromantic and undignified name. No one seemed to treat him with any particular deference, nor did anything in his manner seem to demand it. She had imagined that anyone with a title should not only be proud of it, but would naturally hasten to let everyone they met become immediately ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
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... true; sometimes only a handful of dandelions, sometimes a huge bunch of lilac flowers, which could not be persuaded to stay in the glass without the help of the wall, against which it leaned in very undignified style; sometimes the bouquet was of really delicate and beautiful wild-flowers. All were charming in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
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... laughter died suddenly away from her lips as she encountered the absolute lack of response in his face. It remained quite grave and unsmiling, exactly as though its owner had not been engaged, only two minutes before, in a wild and undignified chase after half-a-dozen sheets of paper which persisted in pirouetting ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
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... But he was only half convinced. How on earth, he wondered, did she know he was thinking of Zip's kids? He felt that it would be best to nip that idea in the bud. It was undignified that he should appear to be interested in ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
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... remonstrances, and dancing about her in a ring at every effort towards escape. The girl was modestly attired as one of the humbler ranks, and her wimple in much concealed her countenance; but there was, despite her strange and undignified situation and evident alarm, a sort of quiet, earnest self-possession,—an effort to hide her terror, and to appeal to the better and more womanly feelings of her persecutors. In the intervals of silence from the clamour, her voice, though low, clear, well-tuned, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... opened my eyes and discovered that I was sitting in an undignified position on the deck of a vessel of ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
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... so thickly quilted as might withstand the stroke of a dagger, which added an ungainly stiffness to his whole appearance, contrasting oddly with the frivolous, ungraceful, and fidgeting motions with which he accompanied his conversation. And yet, though the king's deportment was very undignified, he had a manner so kind, familiar, and good-humoured, was so little apt to veil over or conceal his own foibles, and had so much indulgence and sympathy for those of others, that his address, joined to his learning, and a certain proportion of shrewd mother-wit, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
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... man, the tilted chair tipped uncertainly, he clutched wildly at the smooth wall, and landed in an undignified heap in the middle of the kitchen floor, rapping his head smartly against the ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
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... merrily, and die, perhaps, not till the day after, why should it not do so? Is parasitism, after all, not a somewhat clever ruse? Is it not an ingenious way of securing the benefits of life while evading its responsibilities? And although this mode of livelihood is selfish, and possibly undignified, can it be said that ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
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... terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But, unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
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... You only carried me as far as Red Bridge, in a position the most comfortable for yourself and the most undignified for me. You borrowed that sixpence from me and never paid me again; and we were both punished with dry bread for breakfast, because we were ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
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... undignified moment for a great boy, but the providence that watched over Tommy until it tired of him came to his aid in the nick of time. It took the form of the Painted Lady, who appeared suddenly out of the gloom of the Double Dykes. Two of the children ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
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... buckle. Finally, on his snowy and powdered hair, he still, in 1816, wore the municipal cocked hat which Monsieur Try, the President of the Law Courts, also used to wear. But Pere Canquoelle had recently substituted for this hat, so dear to old men, the undignified top-hat, which no one dares to rebel against. The good man thought he owed so much as this to the spirit of the age. A small pigtail tied with a ribbon had traced a semicircle on the back of his coat, the greasy mark ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
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... his beat, and he was delivered from the temptation of transferring it to the other by the appearance of X 101's bull's-eye not far off. What was he to do? The station was a mile away—the inspector would not arrive for an hour—and it would be awkward, if not undignified, to carry on his rounds a shouting baby wrapped in the largest daily paper. If he left it where it was, and it perished, he might be charged with murder. He was at his wits' end—but having got there, he resolved on the simplest ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
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... everywhere giving much the same result. Less than one-tenth of the electors used their franchise; and the extreme party won great successes. By the middle of September the new deputies were reaching Paris. The Legislative in its last moments was feeble and undignified. Marat threatened it with massacre, and declared that its members were as much the enemies of the country as were the imprisoned aristocrats. Under this menace the Legislative watched the massacres of September without raising a hand to protect its unfortunate victims. Danton did the same. As ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
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... about this time Johnson made his famous "swing around the circle," as it was termed. His speeches published in the opposition press were intemperate and extreme. He denounced Congress. He threatened to "kick people out of office," in violation of the Tenure of Office act. He was undignified in his actions and language, and many people thought he was intoxicated most of the time, although I do ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
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... satisfaction was short-lived, for the Priest Captain quickly ordered the officer to relieve us of them, and of our cartridge-belts as well; nor was it until we had been thus entirely disarmed that he arose from his undignified position and resumed his ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
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... much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh! you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing! —Rock a-by Baby in the Tree-top, for instance. What a spectacle far an Army of the Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbors, too; for it is not everybody within, a mile ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
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... This last episode upset me completely, but the old lady was irrepressible. From that time on she punctuated her progress through the camp with exaggerated salutes to all the officers she encountered on the way. This, of course, was quite a startling and undignified performance for one of her years, very embarrassing to me, as well as mystifying to the officers, who hardly knew whether to hurl me into the brig as vicarious atonement or to rebuke the flighty old creature, on the grounds of ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
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... defiant, air of triumph, said the rest. Uncle George, who was present at the interview, having previously heard both sides of the story from the D's separately, was much amused. In fact, he laughed aloud in quite an undignified manner, and ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
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... you." Accordingly, he takes delight in depicting the defects and moral failings of his characters; nay, he often makes them disclose them for themselves in the most naive confession. They are frequently not merely undignified, but they even boast of their imperfections as ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
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... to Mr. Wilson which the President did not deign to answer; so little did Mr. Lansing know what was being done that he sought information from the Chinese Delegates! It sounds incredible, it seems even more incredible that a Secretary of State should put himself in such an undignified position, and having done so should invite the world to share his ignominy. But he has set it down in his book as if he believed it was ample defense, instead of realizing ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
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... angrily. "I will never be seen in an undignified position again, nor in clothes that have not been freshly pressed," and he ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
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... reflected truly the spirit of the whole nation. The Speaker, who under ordinary circumstances would have suppressed the clapping of hands as unparliamentary and the demonstrations of the galleries as undignified, let the patriotic outburst ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
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... A very undignified method of travel, he thought. Yet for all that, the scuttlebugs were light and efficient, and reduced transit time between outlying projects and the big wheel to a very reasonable time, compared to that which it would take for a man to ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
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... should great results spring from such small causes? Christ was born in a manger, he was not born a King. When you tell me why he was born in a manger, I will tell you why these manifestations, so trivial, so undignified as they appear to you, have been appointed to convince the world of ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
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... quite happy in her company, she was permitted to play with him to her heart's content. Sometimes with a string around his neck she led him about the clearing and, though the big animal could easily have broken away, he made no effort to do so. He was fed with good things until his gait became an undignified waddle. Moreover he loved the petting which was lavished upon him by this ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
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... but with a mechanical mind like a piece of a musical snuff-box, that returned always to the same starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense) to her son, and showed here and there moments of genuine and not undignified emotion; but O! on the other side, what lapses—what a mechanical movement of the brain, what occasional trap-door devils of meanness, what a wooden front of pride! I came out damped and saddened and (to say truth) a trifle sick. My wife had better luck with the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... lawyer, decisively. "You are too young and impetuous to have any dignity; therefore, any performance not undignified would be impossible, a priori. The ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
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... the morning. Dyce had his ideal of manly independence; it annoyed him that circumstances made the noble line of conduct so difficult. He believed himself strong, virile, yet so often it happened that he was constrained to act in what seemed rather a feeble and undignified way. But, after all, it was temporary; the day of his emancipation from paltry necessities would surely come, and all the great qualities latent in him ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
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... All previous attempts had been far below the modern standard in these particulars, and Burton's history will always be memorable as marking an epoch. His chief defects as a historian are want of imagination and an undignified familiarity of style, which, however, at least preserves his history from the dulness by which lack of imagination is usually accompanied. His dryness is associated with a fund of dry humour exceedingly effective in its proper place, as in The Book ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
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... would be very undignified and unnecessary. And I am not at all sure that you would admire me in that attitude even if I did imitate the heroes of romance. A weeping lover is much more agreeable in a novel than in actual life. However if you insist that we must quarrel, in order to demonstrate the sincerity ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
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... as Bartley Northcope, unless you were familiar with the very undignified sobriquet with which your brother nicknamed me," said the young ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
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... had not been used to anything of the sort. Could Lady Verner have seen her then, at the very moment she was talking to Lionel, her fears might have been relieved. Lucy Tempest had found her way to Decima's room, and had taken up her position in a very undignified fashion at that young lady's feet, her soft, candid brown eyes fixed upwards on Decima's face, and her tongue busy with reminiscences of India. After some time spent in this manner, she was scared away by the entrance of a gentleman whom Decima called "Jan." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
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... than one occasion they proceeded to acts of personal violence to each other in her presence. Luckily no one else was by, and she was able to pacify and reconcile them; but she could hardly avoid feeling ashamed of having been called on to exert herself in such a cause, or contrasting the undignified boisterousness (to give it no worse name) of such scenes with the decorous self-respect which, with all their simplicity of character, had always governed the conduct ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
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... could elope for ever and be no more seen, with nothing on but pyjamas and a towel? I suppose he thinks 'You can't be too careful.' It makes one humble to live with a dog. I always blush when I see a dog dreaming, because I'm afraid they give us an undignified place in their dreams. Your Hound, Russ, dreams of you plunging into the Serpentine after a Canadian Goose, with your topper floating behind you, or Anonyma with her tongue hanging out, scratching at a little mousehole in Piccadilly. It is ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
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... and resolved. They resolved, among other things, that Mr. Asbury was an enemy to his race and a menace to civilisation. They decided that he should be abolished; but, as they couldn't get out an injunction against him, and as he had the whole undignified but still voting black belt behind him, he went ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
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... she was quite willing that he should find her with it in her hand. A literary man is always supposed to be flattered at finding a friend reading his last production, as if he did not know that the friend has probably grabbed the volume with undignified haste the instant he was on the horizon, with the intention of being discovered deep in it. Yet such little friendly frauds are sweet compared with the extremes of brutal frankness to which our dearest friends sometimes ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
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... looked bewildered. What had he done that was undignified? And Amanda Holmes saw well enough that it would not do to tell him that speaking to Huldah Manners was not consistent with dignity. She saw that her remark had been a mistake, and she got out of it as best she could by turning the conversation. Several times during the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
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... remember, he reminded himself, that Earthly parallels did not necessarily apply. It was undignified, certainly, to be revolving like a child on a merry-go-round, while these crowds glared with bright alien eyes; but the important thing was that they had not once offered him any violence. They had not ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
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... that you were there to 'enjoy yourself.' And all your time was taken up with the bother that ought to have been mine! You were too busy even to let me hear what happened that night, after——" Suddenly she was sorry that she had begun. It was silly and undignified to reproach him. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
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... descendants. We forget that the head of the Holy Roman Empire had been, ever since the extinction of the Swabian line, a mere mark for ambitious princes to shoot at, with everything expected from him, and no means to do anything. Maximilian's own father was an avaricious, undignified old man, not until near his death Archduke of even all Austria, and with anarchy prevailing everywhere under his nominal rule. It was in the time of Maximilian that the Empire became as compact and united a body as ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... and he felt quite unequal to the struggle. Like all young women who leave the appointed track of woman's life, Nais had her own opinions about marriage, and had no great inclination thereto. She shrank from submitting herself, body and soul, to the feeble, undignified specimens of mankind whom she had chanced to meet. She wished to rule, marriage meant obedience; and between obedience to coarse caprices and a mind without indulgence for her tastes, and flight with a lover who should please her, she would ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
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... rhetoric, and undignified petulance, furnishes a pitiful proof of the intellectual and moral decadence of a once great name;" i.e., The same oration seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
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... our little pet rhino on milk and then swung it in a comfortable hammock made of zebra skin. In this more or less undignified fashion it was carried by eight strong porters to Fort Hall, two marches away, where it lived only a week or ten days and then, to our sorrow and regret, succumbed from ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
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... of some unattended and undignified death which had beset the old gentleman during the last eight or ten years of his life vanished under Peter's presence. When he thought of it at all now, he always previsioned himself being lifted in Peter's athletic arms and laid properly on ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
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... all a bad amateur. His monstrous self-conceit did the rest. Besides singing to the harp, he was prepared to perform upon the flute and the bagpipes, and to give a dance afterwards. All this, of course, was undignified and ridiculous, but it was scarcely tyranny. Doubtless there was sufficient suffering among the audience, but that cruelty was hardly deliberate. In the Roman noble, whose ideal of behaviour included dignity and gravity, these public appearances perhaps often aroused ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
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... I paid some attention to the negro method of conducting praise meetings, which they very appropriately call "de shoutings." If I give some verbatim reports of the negro's curious and undignified clerical efforts, it is not done for the purpose of caricaturing him, nor with a desire to make him appear destitute of mental calibre; but rather with the hope that the picture given may draw some sympathy from the liberal churches of the ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
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... tidings from London,—unauthorised tidings, and, one may say, undignified tidings,—but still tidings which were received with interest. Mrs. Toff had connections with Scumberg's, and heard through these connections that things at Scumberg's were not going on in a happy ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
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... certainly "Charles Rogier," with a flourish extensive enough for any great man. From the letter he glanced at the fat professor, who, being always good-natured, was so now. He could not get rid of a lingering suspicion that his undignified associate was imposing upon him. It was a great misfortune that his own knowledge of French was so limited, and if it had not been so late, he would have gone on board of the ship to ask Professor Badois to translate the ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
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... the King her sincere sympathy at this melancholy event. The King of the Belgians' letter has, however, brought back to the Queen her first thought of writing to the King, and she wishes to know what Lord John thinks of it. The Queen thinks it as undignified as unfeeling to carry on political coolness at moments like these, when her own feelings of sympathy are so strong and so sincere. The Queen would certainly under other circumstances have instantly written to the King. On the other hand, her first letter to her cousin (the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
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... might claim these Sunday School fans are undignified and unspiritual and so on. Sure! Always some skunk to spring things like that! Knocking and sneering and tearing-down—so much easier than building up. But me, I certainly hand it to these magazines. They've brought ole George F. Babbitt into camp, and ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
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... rejoiced Emma Dean, using her bath towel as a scarf and performing a weird dance about the room. "I know I shall go chortling through my classes this morning in a highly undignified manner. To think that dear old Semper Fidelis will hold forth again in the same old haunts! And the most beautiful part is that there ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
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... the bitterest drop in his cup; it was bitterer to know that she was squandering her love on one who was unworthy of it. At first, from a feeling of exaggerated delicacy, he had gone out of his way to escape hearing Schilsky's name; but this mood passed, and gave place to an undignified hankering to learn everything he could, concerning the young man. What he heard amounted to this: a talented rascal, the best violinist the Conservatorium had turned out for years, one to whom all gates would open; but—this "but" always followed, with a meaning smile and a wink of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
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... the colony, who visited her and invited her to take part in their amusements. She was prepared to ride on her bicycle wherever the interest of the moment called her, and deplored the solemnity of the family carryall. When her aunts declared that a wheel was too undignified a vehicle on which to go out to luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at five-o'clock tea to read aloud the latest books; ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
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... Dawson, turning green, and losing power over his knees. He grabbed at Caspian for support, was haughtily pushed away, and tumbled into a chair, like a jelly out of its mould. As it chanced, the chair was a rocking-chair, and the conjunction was undignified. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
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... the light of lawful prey. She has, however, to maintain her dignity in the face of all this. She knows her ignorance will be detected and possibly laughed at, behind her back, but she {99} must not compromise the position in which her husband has placed her by undue familiarity, or undignified relations with those over whom she is to preside. By this it is not meant that a mistress should be afraid of being civil and even friendly with her maids; but she must discern nicely between that which breeds contempt and that which adds ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
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... tune, so an over-rhythmical passage does not affect the hearer by the meaning of its words, but merely by their cadence, so that sometimes, knowing where the pause must come, they beat time with the speaker, striking the expected close like dancers before the stop is reached. Equally undignified is the splitting up of a sentence into a number of little words and short syllables crowded too closely together and forced into cohesion,—hammered, as it were, successively together,—after the manner of ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
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... her nails into the arms of one and spat fiercely into the face of another of her corsair guards. Rosamund's weary eyes quickened to horror as she watched her—a horror prompted as much by the fate awaiting that poor child as by the undignified fury of the futile battle she waged against it. But it happened that her behaviour impressed a Levantine Turk quite differently. He rose, a short squat figure, from his seat on ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
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... pieces, militia uniforms that would hear their loudest heart-beats under a fair head; drum-majors' hats that would never get farther than the peaceful lawn of a military post; fireman's hats; the dark-blue coat of a lonely lighthouse guardian; the undignified short jacket of a "buttons." All that meant parade and glory, the uniforms that make men identical by making each proud of himself for his brass buttons and gold lace. Even in the heavy atmosphere of the shop's rear, though they appeared somewhat dingy and tarnished, they ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
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... does not seem to mind; once more, as of old, his gaze is fixed beyond the horizon and his mind is filled with one idea. They may not think much of him in Spain now, but they will when he comes back; and he can afford to wait. Completing his preparations without undignified haste he despatched Bartholomew with his four little vessels from Seville to Cadiz, where the Admiral was to join them. He took farewell of his son Diego and of his brother James; good friendly James, who had done his best in a difficult position, but had seen quite enough of the wild ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
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... between the two ruffians who had been sent to fetch her, and her eyes travelling round that room discovered Rabecque in his undignified and ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
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... Athel was not likely to allow his annoyance with Wilfrid to threaten the habitual excellence of his digestion. His disappointment was real enough. When of a sudden Wilfrid had announced that he could not accompany the family party to Switzerland, Mr. Athel was saved from undignified irresolution by a hearty outburst of temper, which saw him well over the Straits before it gave way to the natural reaction, under the influence of which he called himself a blockhead. He had, beyond a doubt, precipitated the marriage, when postponement ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
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... over. However, during its course— he drew in a long audible breath. It was no good thinking of that! He completed his preparations for the night; but he still lingered, some of the drink remained. Lee was glad that he had grown quieter, reflective, middle-aged; it was absurd, undignified, for him to imitate the transports of the young. It pleased him, though, to realize that he wasn't done, extinguished, yet; he might play court tennis—it wasn't as violent as racquets or squash—and get back a little of his lapsed agility; ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
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... pleased that his tastes led him another way from the more common and less safe indulgences of other young men. He had not escaped the temptations of opportunity and example. But gambling was not intellectual enough, jockeying was too undignified, and drinking too coarse a pleasure for him. Even hunting and coursing charmed him but for a few times; when he found he could out-ride and out leap all his companions, he hunted no more; telling his ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
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... plague us. Entirely aside from the cavalier and insulting manner with which we have dealt with China, and the inevitably injurious effect upon our relations and interests there, it must be said that our action has been undignified, unworthy of any great nation, a sad criticism upon our sense of power and ability to rule our affairs with wisdom and moderation, and unbecoming our high position among the leading governments of the world. . . . We have treated Chinese immigrants—never more than a handful when compared with our ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
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... Has not indeed the time come when we should revolutionize all our methods, when we should apply to Home Missions something of the methods which now we have fancied pertained solely to the Foreign Missions. Some we know will criticize this forward policy as bold, open to ridicule, an innovation, an undignified intrusion, a Billy-Sunday method, etc.—"On analysis what does all this opposition come to, but that we are afraid." "Afraid!" our critics will exclaim, "of what? I should like to know?" Is not the answer: "Yes, afraid of what the people ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
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... to New-York for your daughter in a pilot-boat that has been out privateering, but has come in here, and is refitting merely to get to New-York. My only fears are that Governor Alston may think the mode of conveyance too undignified, and object to it; but Mrs. Alston is fully bent on going. You must not be surprised to see her very low, feeble, and emaciated. Her complaint is an almost incessant nervous fever. We shall sail ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
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... quarters below the hill, that the coolies of certain factories had fled shrieking at the first shock, and that all the tea in the pans was burned to a crisp. That, certainly, was some consolation for undignified panic; and there remained the hope that a few tall chimneys up the line at Tokio would have collapsed. They stood firm, however, and the local papers, used to this kind of thing, merely spoke of the shock as 'severe.' Earthquakes are demoralising; ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
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... That's my job, anyhow!" and moved off in the direction of the house with an energy that had nothing of displeasure nor of temper in it. It was apparently crackling that she heard. Thompson went after her, a willing alacrity in his movements that yet showed no sign of undignified hurry. "I'll be at the door in no time," he was heard to say, "before it's stopped ringing, I should not wonder!" There was a solemn joy in him, he spoke as though he heard a bell. WEEDEN turned very quietly ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
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... abounds in, reflect an undisciplined race of men, one in which neither soul nor body has done anything well, because the two have done nothing together. The frame has remained gross or awkward, while the face has taken on a tense expression, betraying loose and undignified habits of mind. To carve such a creature is to perpetuate a caricature. The modern sculptor is stopped short at the first conception of a figure; if he gives it its costume, it is grotesque; if he strips it, it ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
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... dining-room in New York is anything but usual, and yet there is nothing undignified about it. The room was practically square, so that it had a certain orderly quality to begin with. The rooms of the house are all rather small, and so to gain the greatest possible space I have the door openings at the extreme end of the wall, leaving as large ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
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... I forgot to tell you the Duchess was taken ill, but performed it badly." In a subsequent letter, she says—"I have the great satisfaction of telling you that Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess-dowager of Kingston, was, this very afternoon, Undignified and unduchessed, and very narrowly escaped being burned in the hand. If you have been half as much interested against this unprincipled, artful, licentious woman as I have, you will be rejoiced at it as I am. Lord Camden breakfasted with us. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
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... is stately, yet sweet, free, graceful, and never undignified. We confidently believe that our readers will agree with us in regarding this as one of the finest and most suggestive poems recently published. We trust to have, ere long, more poetic work from his hand."—British ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
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... in a measured voice, without moving his eyes from his third daughter, "is, as usual, making a very strong and a most undignified claim for the Park. They wish it to be known as the Pittsville Casino. But Selwyn told me to-day that our people propose to take a leading share of the liability and to call ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
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... made by no other animal than a post-horse, and by him only at his arrival at the end of a stage. Then the steps were let down with a crash—she would not go to the window, or she might have seen him; she longed to do so, but it appeared so undignified. She sat quite still in her chair; but she heard his quick step at the hail door; she was sure—she could have sworn to his step—and then she heard the untying of cords, and pulling down of luggage. Lord Ballindine was again in the house, and the dearest wish of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
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