"Unmanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... characters remain unchanged to the end. The Sword, though stained in many places with impurities, still glistens with a lustre that bewilders and confuses the senses. The Gown—which seems introduced at all only for the purpose of mockery, its representative being invested with all contemptible and unmanly attributes—still lies covered with the reproach that has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... are they not content? That is a question worth asking. For there is a discontent (as I have told you ere now) which is noble, manful, heroic, and divine. Just as there is a discontent which is base, mean, unmanly, earthly—sometimes devilish. There is a discontent which is certain, sooner or later, to bring with it the peace of God. There is a discontent which drives the peace of God away, for ever and a day. And the noble and peace-bringing discontent is to be discontented ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... giving way to sin has brought upon them. Do not trust to them, whatever their rank or character in the world. I would urge you from the highest of motives, from love for the Saviour who died for you, not to give way to sin; and I would point out to you how utterly low, and degrading, and unmanly it is to yield to such a foe—a foe so base and cowardly, that if you make any real effort to withstand him, he will fly before you. Don't be ashamed to pray for help through Him, and you are not on equal terms unless you do. That's not unmanly. Sin has got countless allies ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... his Critical Observations upon the Cid; the other, a still more prolific author of novels, and alternately styled by her contemporaries the Sappho of her age, and "un boutique de verbiage;" but unquestionably a writer of merit, notwithstanding the many unmanly sneers of Boileau, whose bitter pen, like that of our own illustrious satirist, could not even consent to spare a female that had been so unfortunate as to provoke his resentment. She died in 1701, at the advanced age of ninety-four. The last upon my list is one ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... is the poor exempt, He thinks each eye surveys him with contempt; Unmanly poverty subdues the heart, Cankers each wound, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... the stubbornness, of his heart. She had been told that men were not usually like that. When first he had become sweet to her, she had not thought that he would have been like that. Was it not almost unmanly,—or rather was it not womanly? And yet he,—strong and masterful as he was,—could he have aught of a woman's weakness about him? Could she have dreamed that it would be so from the first, she thought that from the very ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Eliot, who surely was no more than one of those dull clever people, unlit by any ray of genius, I might say with Swinburne I have nothing to regret, nothing to withdraw. Maybe a few flippant remarks about my private friends; but to withdraw them would be unmanly, unintellectual, and no ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... all that was good in him, and there was so very much that was good-looking. She never even hinted to her husband, much less to Lilian, that she had heard the paragon most vehemently accused of most unmanly and unbecoming conduct (for what was Mr. Case, after all, but an irresponsible inebriate?), and she saw that her daughter's happiness was wrapped up in this brilliant and most presentable young soldier. Willett certainly gave many a promise of eminence ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... a nature but infected; A poor unmanly melancholy sprung From change of fortune. Why this spade, this place? This slave-like habit? and these looks of care? Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft, Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... inexhaustible subject of feminine artifice. The recent adventure which was credited to the Countess R. D. S. J. D. A——-, apropos of a necklace, was the subject first broached. A highly esteemed artist, a gifted friend of the emperor, was vigorously maintaining the opinion, which seemed somewhat unmanly, that it was forbidden to a man to resist successfully the webs ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... carelessly. Philips was furious, and hung up a birch in Button's Coffee-house, declaring that he would apply it to his tormentor should he ever show his nose in the room. As Philips was celebrated for skill with the sword, the mode of vengeance was certainly unmanly, and stung the soul of his adversary, always morbidly sensitive to all attacks, and especially to attacks upon his person. The hatred thus kindled was never quenched, and breathes in ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... of the skeleton, breadth of shoulder, small hips, straight legs, strength of muscle, courage, beard, and so on. And so it happens that a woman frequently loves an ugly man, albeit she never loves an unmanly man, because she ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... hard to bear the consequence of unmanly conduct like a man," said Burr, shortly; then he went out, as if the old comfort from his mother had failed him. As for her, she finished heeling her stocking, and then went out into the kitchen and made a pudding that her ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... affectionate. A woman's heart is peculiarly formed for tenderness; and every expression of endearment from the man she loves is flattering and pleasing to her. With pride and pleasure does she dwell on each assurance of his affection: and, surely, it is a cold, unmanly thing to deprive her virtuous heart of such a cheap and easy mode of gratifying it. But, really, a man should endeavour not only for an affectionate, but an agreeable manner of writing to his wife. I remember hearing a lady say, "When my husband writes to me, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... not to choose my own friends, though they be amongst the best and purest of God's creatures. Lucy, I cannot think that you have ceased to have a regard for me. That you had a regard for me, I am sure." She felt that it was almost unmanly of him thus to seek her out, and hunt her down, and then throw upon her the whole weight of the explanation that his coming thither made necessary. But, nevertheless, the truth must be told, and with ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... miscalculated the extent of her influence over the royal mind; as, instead of resenting an impertinence which was well fitted to arouse his indignation, Henry weakly condescended to justify himself, and by this unmanly concession laid the foundation of all his ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... is hard thus to set the skilful and tried champions of the law against men unused to this kind of combat; nay, give a man all the legal aid that he can purchase or procure, still, by this plan, you take him at a cruel, unmanly disadvantage; he has to fight against the law, clogged with the dreadful weight of his presupposed guilt. Thank God that, in England, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... different was the regard I wanted from that which I had previously hoped might be accorded me. It seemed too ridiculous to be true that I, who had for years had dozens of charming lady acquaintances, and yet had always maintained my common sense and self-control; I, who had always considered it unmanly for a man to specially interest himself in ANY lady until he had an income of five thousand a year; I who had skilfully, and many times, argued, that life-attachments, or attempts thereat, which were made without a careful preliminary study of the mental characteristics of the partner desired, ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... Captain Shunan was allowed to gather many more such detestable laurels, he would soon become even more bold and troublesome. As no other member of the company seemed disposed to put a check upon such unmanly behavior, he quietly determined to make the affair ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... and he thinks highly of the American workmen in these parts. They are kind and noble under their too independent and rough exterior, and that is my own impression; but still I detest the system which has taught them that respect and politeness are servile and unmanly, and that domestic service is a disgrace. I had the pleasure of receiving your letter of 15th October this morning, and am so glad you can use your hand more. I don't think any of your letters are missing, but, without conceit, mine are of more value, as those to you ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... not one word," cried Gideon. "Miss Hazeltine," he continued, addressing the young girl, "you cannot stay a moment longer in the same house with this unmanly fellow. Here is my arm; let me take you where you will be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a most depressing fear had been removed. Though Harcourt might not return her love, he had not proved himself unworthy of it, by actual cowardice, or even by unmanly regard for personal ease. It also appeared that more than general philanthropy must have spurred him on, or he could not have acted as if ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... wretch hateful to God and man, for some of the most harmless and amusing trifles that ever were written—and the very good- humour and pleasantry of which, we suspect, constituted their offence in the eyes of this Drawcansir.—His attacks on Mrs. Robinson were unmanly, and even those on Mr. Merry and the Della-Cruscan School were much more ferocious than the occasion warranted. A little affectation and quaintness of style did not merit such severity of castigation.[C] As a translator, Mr. Gifford's version ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... day, and you can keep the cow," wailed the Prophet, as he turned abruptly and fled behind the shed, where he flung himself into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave himself up to unmanly sobs. ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... now quite recovered from my unmanly condition, except that nothing could yet induce me to cross the North Bridge, I arranged for my ball dress at a shop in Leith Street, where I was not served ill, cut out Rowley from his seclusion, and was ready along with him at the trysting-place, the corner of Duke Street and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for although he was born under a lucky sign, the Hathors denied him all that makes youth happy. The enemy for whose destruction he prays is Mena, the king's charioteer, and, indeed, he must have been of superhuman magnanimity or of unmanly feebleness, if he could have wished well to the man who robbed him of the beautiful wife who was destined ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and now he looked back upon it as a fallen angel might have looked back upon Paradise. He sighed again, choked and hastily drew his gloved hand across his eyes. At the age of seventeen it is very unmanly to cry, but, at that age also, manhood and boyhood are closely intermingled. He choked again and then, squaring his shoulders, reached into his coat pocket for the silver cigarette case which, as a ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the approaches alike of indolence and despondency. His strength of character and force of will would have earned distinction for powers inferior to his. Nothing was given to self-indulgence; nothing to vague dreams; nothing to unmanly despair. He did not wait for the work that he would have, but labored cheerfully upon that which he could have. Success came gradually, but surely; and his powers as surely proved themselves to be more than equal to ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... of disputing and contradicting every thing said, is chilling and repulsive, the opposite habit of assenting to, and sympathizing with, every statement made, or emotion expressed, is almost equally disagreeable. It is unmanly, and is felt to be dishonest. "It may seem difficult," says Richard Sharp, "to steer always between bluntness and plain dealing, between merited praises and lavishing indiscriminate flattery; but it is very easy—good humor, kindheartedness, and perfect simplicity, being all that are requisite to ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... marshaling all the states, warned them "that the crisis had arrived at which the people of America are to decide the solemn question, whether they would, by wise and magnanimous efforts reap the fruits of independence and of union, or whether by giving way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to impartial and transitory interests, they would renounce the blessings prepared for them by the Revolution," and conjuring them "to concur in such further concessions and provisions ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... follow cruell Wrath; Abhorred bloodshed and tumultuous strife, Unmanly murder, and unthrifty scath,[*] Bitter despight, with rancours rusty knife, 310 And fretting griefe the enemy of life; All these, and many evils moe haunt ire, The swelling Splene,[*] and Frenzy raging rife, The shaking ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... this despondency!" exclaimed Victor, "it is unmanly. If we are to die, let it be in a struggle against death. We have now only to avoid being crushed between the fields of ice. Oh! that unfortunate lantern! if we had only retained it—but no matter, we will escape yet; aye, and have another ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... or abusive," wrote Acklen, closely followed by Fowler, "for it is absolutely mean and unmanly to whip a negro from mere passion and malice, and any man who can do so is utterly unfit to have control of negroes; and if ever any of my negroes are cruelly or inhumanly treated, bruised, maimed or otherwise injured, the overseer will be promptly discharged and his salary withheld." Weston recommended ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... representeth Gods Person; which none doth but Gods Lieutenant, who hath the Soveraignty under God. But this pretence of Covenant with God, is so evident a lye, even in the pretenders own consciences, that it is not onely an act of an unjust, but also of a vile, and unmanly disposition. ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... longer living; and they are to me constant stimulus. They speak to me by day, and in my dreams at night their eyes follow me, and seem to look into my soul; and in their presence I could not do a mean, an unmanly thing. I love, I reverence, I worship these lofty ideals. And the quality of these characters filters down through and permeates the thought and ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... next. He tends to resemble the Hindu station-master who telegraphed 'Tiger on platform; please wire instructions.' If their talking shop is worrying occasionally, yet be of good comfort, it is on the whole a good sign. It is better than talking golf or polo all day, and better far than loose and unmanly conversation. The more you are interested in the matters yourself, not simply because you want to be all things to all men, if by any means you may gain one or two, but because you are a man {140} and a Christian, and therefore all things ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... have said anything which all the world might not know; but that it is unmanly to complain. Indeed I do not complain, only I wish that things were lighter to her." Then he went off to other matters; but his heart was yearning to tell everything to ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... the truth in regard to anything that has a bearing upon my belief in God or religion. But in trying to find the truth, I have never regretted being true to myself. To slavishly follow others is, to say the least of it, unmanly. I do not believe in evolution because God has so made me that I can not. Wherever man came from, he sprang not from anything beneath him. When a man asks me to believe a thing that has not facts, but only theory to support it,—said theory contradicting fact, experience and reason,—he ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... reaction dizzied them a little. Each man blushed and frowned, remembering his late unmanly terrors. They were amazed, chagrined ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... of unmanly lamentations Roderic was with difficulty recovered by the assiduities of the attendants. At length incited by their expostulations to the collectedness of reflection and the fortitude of exertion, he determined, with that quickness of invention with which ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... religious spirit. Yet the source of love and humor in Jewish poetry had not run dry. It must be admitted that the sentimentalism of the minneservice, peculiar to the middle ages, never took root in Jewish soil. Pale resignation, morbid despair, longing for death, unmanly indulgence in regret, all the paraphernalia of chivalrous love, extolled in every key in the poetry of the middle ages, were foreign to the sane Jewish mind. Women, the object of unreasoning adulation, shared the fate of all sovereign ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... proposals, which a timid female will sometimes rather endure, than encounter that share of the shame, which may be reflected upon herself by their disclosure. To the threat of self-destruction, often tried with effect in these cases, he is said to have added the still more unmanly menace of ruining, at least, her reputation, if he could not undermine her virtue. Terrified by his perseverance, and dreading the consequences of her father's temper, if this violation of his confidence ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... cup of tea, generously salted instead of sugared by some agitated relative, shouldered my knapsack,—it was only a travelling-bag, but do let me preserve the unities,—hugged my family three times all round without a vestige of unmanly emotion, till a certain dear old lady broke down upon my neck, with a despairing sort of wail,—"O my dear, my dear! how can I ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... much patience with the unmanly craving for sympathy in others, and chiefly in our literary craft, which is somewhat ignobly given to it, though he was patient, after all. He used to say, and I believe he has said it in print,—[Holmes said it in print many times, in his three novels and scattered through the "Breakfast Table" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... more and more to those arts which are the weapons of crafty, ambitious, and unprincipled women. They were too apt to be cunning, false, intriguing. They were personally cowardly, as their own chronicles declare; querulous, passionate, prone to unmanly tears; prone, as their writings abundantly testify, to scold, to use the most virulent language against all who differed from them; they were, at times, fearfully cruel, as evil women will be; cruel with that ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... begging the King to listen to the charitable advice which the English law, 'knowing her own cruelty, doth give to her superior,' to be pitiful more than just. This letter has been thought obsequious and unmanly; but it abates no jot of the author's asseverations that he was innocent of all offence, and, surely, in the very face of death a man may be excused for writing humbly to a despot. Lady Raleigh, meanwhile, was clinging about ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... places at the table Tobey, who had been drinking hard, decided to make a speech. His face was badly swollen and he could only see through a slit in one eye, so severe had been the beating administered by Wampus earlier in the day; but the fellow had grit, in spite of his other unmanly qualities, and his imperturbable good humor had scarcely been disturbed by the punishment the Canadian ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... I, "from all I have seen, is a remarkably nice person, and I am certain you will meet with only the fair and legitimate opposition of an opposing candidate in him,—no mean or unmanly subterfuge." ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... this other question can certainly not be circumvented: what business had he actually with that manly (alas! so unmanly) "bucolic simplicity," that poor devil and son of nature—Parsifal, whom he ultimately makes a catholic by such insidious means—what?—was Wagner in earnest with Parsifal? For, that he was laughed at, I cannot deny, any more than Gottfried Keller can.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} We ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... the abhorrent negotiation—"you both forget that the very instrument, by which you claim to dispose of my hand, expressly leaves to me, and to me only, the right and privilege of deciding upon the time for that ceremony, by which you would now, it seems, so summarily consummate your unmanly scheme. And thank Heaven!" she continued, turning to the nonplused suitor with an air of decision and fearlessness which the excitement of insulted feeling could only have given her—"thank Heaven, I had the forethought ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... nothing interesting, nothing heroical, but themselves. To them the fall of gods or of great men is the same. They do not enter into the feeling. They cannot understand the terms. They are even debarred from the last poor, paltry consolation of an unmanly triumph over fallen greatness; for their minds reject, with a convulsive effort and intolerable loathing, the very idea that there ever was, or was thought to be, any thing superior to themselves. All that has ever excited the attention ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... hate that pipe! How he did want to get up and jump on it and smash it into a thousand pieces! But he could not get up or turn around or move at all without betraying his unmanly secret. ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... are smoother, neater, and more pointed; but he delights himself with teasing his adversary, as much as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allusion of Salmasius, whose doctrine he considers as servile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmacis, which, whoever entered, left half his virility behind him. Salmasius was a Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a scold: "Tu es Gallus," says Milton, "et, ut aiunt, minium gallinaceus." But his supreme pleasure is to tax his adversary, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... its American offspring, which exists so largely towards the Parent State in the Union; on the contrary, there is an earnest, a sincere desire for the well-being and advancement of its best interests; but it is useless to conceal, and it would be unmanly also to attempt to do so, that the British pulse does not beat in unison with Lynch law, or with mob-rule, any more than it would with the tyranny of a despotism; neither will the honest pride of the English, the Irish, or the Scotch, permit that mob dominion, the might of the mass, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... he believes there is more religion, and consequently less cant, than in any other church in the world; nor is he going to discuss many other cants; he shall content himself with saying something about two—the temperance cant and the unmanly cant. Temperance canters say that 'it is unlawful to drink a glass of ale.' Unmanly canters say that 'it is unlawful to use one's fists.' The writer begs leave to tell both these species of canters that they do not speak the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... characteristic. Culture and knowledge we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would suppress. It is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly—it is not English. We are too strong to thrill. And that one so near and dear to me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new standard thus typically English, while it came as sharpest pain, ought not, I suppose, to have caused me the surprise it ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... besieged, without the knowledge of the enemy, sent to Theodatus in Rome begging him to come to their help with all speed. But Theodatus was not making the least preparation for war, being by nature unmanly, as has been said before.[36] And they say that something else happened to him, which terrified him exceedingly and reduced him to still greater anxiety. I, for my part, do not credit this report, but ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... he had been accused of cowardice, and though he was not a man to make much of such a charge before the world, now in the full candour of his heart he explained to her that such an accusation was grievous to him; that he did think it would be unmanly to desert his post, merely to escape his present sufferings, and that, therefore, he must bear as best he might the misery which ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... lovingly, her look imploring some explanation,—the look of a tear-stained Samaritan,—that Emilio, enraged to find himself still in the toils of the passion that had wrought his fall, pushed away the singer with an unmanly kick. ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... satisfactorily performed; and a not unpleasing instance of Harry's humility and regard for his elder brother was, that he could even hold George's love of music in respect at a time when fiddling was voted effeminate and unmanly in England, and Britons were, every day, called upon by the patriotic prints to sneer at the frivolous accomplishments of your Squallinis, Monsieurs, and the like. Nobody in Britain is proud of his ignorance now. There ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boys in their better moods will listen (ay, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm, living voice of one who was ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... sage pacific, The serene and scientific, Who a wondrous reputation in a hero-patriot bore, Until "rescued" by brave STANLEY, Who declared him weak, unmanly. Oh! 'tis strange how heroes can lie ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... before the war, very French, that is to say, very unlike what an Englishman would write to his mother, or indeed to any one. Many Englishmen, if they could have read them before the war, would have thought them almost unmanly; yet the writer distinguished himself even in the French army. But perhaps unmanly is too strong a word to be put in the mouth even of an imaginary and stupid Englishman. No one, however stupid, could possibly ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... not wish to distress the poor inhabitants. My intention is only to demand your contribution toward the reimbursement which Britain owes to the much injured citizens of America. Savages would blush at the unmanly violation and rapacity that have marked the tracks of British tyranny in America, from which neither virgin innocence nor helpless age has been a plea of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... doth this mean," George Wharton said, "To strike in such unmanly sort? "But, that I take it at thy hands, "The tongue of man shall ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... rule which I have hitherto practised, and which I shall invariably keep with you, and that is honestly to tell you the plain truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that I am surprised they can be acted by any one in so noble, so generous a passion, as virtuous love. No, my dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. If you will be so good and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ever brought upon a holy place and holy institutions was really a blessing to all the world. Let us believe that it has been so often since; that it will be so often again. Let us look forward to the future with hope and faith, even while we look back on the past with love and regret. Let us leave unmanly and unchristian fears to those who fancy that Christ has deserted his kingdom, and has left them to govern it in his stead; and who naturally break out into peevishness and terrified lamentations, when they discover that the world ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... gentle disposition, and one that did not easily admit of calumnies against other men. This temper of his not disposing him to meddle with public affairs, and want of spirit, occasioned him to appear to spectators to be degenerous and unmanly; while. Aristo-bulus was of a contrary temper, an active man, and one of a great ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... QUERIES" to revive a tale of antiquated scandal, "P.C.S.S." will not place upon its pages the details of this painful affair—the cruel injury inflicted upon Miss Scrope (the lady to whom Mr. Cresswell was said to have been secretly married before his union with Miss Warneford)—and the base and unmanly contrivance by which, it was stated, that he endeavoured to keep possession of both wives at the same time. Miss Scrope appears to have retained, for a considerable time, a deep sense of her injuries; for in 1749 she published a pamphlet, in her own name, called Miss ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... mountains of Beulah. And by an odd and luminous accident, if there is any page of literature calculated to awake the envy of M. Zola, it must be that "Troilus and Cressida" which Shakespeare, in a spasm of unmanly anger with the world, grafted on the heroic story of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... people speak against it, but it is Christ's appointed way. If you feel that this will help you, go as often as you need, and do not be stopped by any foolish remarks of people who do not understand it, or by any thought of its being a weak and unmanly thing to do. It requires courage, perseverance, and a true estimate of oneself to do it, and these are not generally considered unmanly qualities. Some of the best men, some of the bravest soldiers, have not been ashamed of using this means of grace. Knights of old were accustomed ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... o' the sort," says Blew, springing to his feet. "Ye unmanly scoundrel!" he continues, approaching Padilla,—"Repeat your dastardly proposal, an' there'll be no need for drawin' lots. In a minnit more, eyther you or me'll make food, for anybody as likes ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... such a charge as that?" demanded the baronet, while fire literally flashed from his eyes in his anger. And when he was told that Mr. Mason did make such a charge he called him "a mean, unmanly dastard." "I do not believe that he would dare to make it against a ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... his life, what do you want him to become? Do you want him to grow up to manhood a poor, delicate, frail body with but little energy or vitality with which to meet the sterner duties of life? Do you want him to be indolent, shiftless, unmanly and addicted to such as will bring him to shame, ruin and death? What! would you picture such a life for my innocent boy? Such a thought is instantly banished from you. With all your heart you desire him ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking a mean, unmanly advantage. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... anything but hardship; and when the weather was warm and dry, they could congratulate themselves on sleeping in greater comfort than, their sheltered companions. Of this Forrester was well aware, and he took an early period to communicate his resolution of rejecting the unmanly luxury of a bed, and sleeping like a soldier, wrapped in his cloak, with his saddle for a pillow. In this way, the night proving unexpectedly sultry, he succeeded in enjoying more delightful and refreshing slumbers than blessed his kinswoman in her bed of down. The song of the katydid ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... extremely fond of this sister, and felt what he considered an unmanly tightness about his throat when she kissed him. The bridesmaids were decidedly tearful, and only the thought of the other wedding in prospect restored their cheerfulness. This last-mentioned affair took place two days later at the Cathedral. The ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... works and myself; or else he came nearer to the truth, and imagined that The Ancestress and my predilection for similar effusions, which were repugnant to him, were not entirely quenched within me; or perhaps he divined my entire mood, and concluded that an unmanly character was bound to ruin even a great talent. From that time on he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... nobleness; he had not either Sidney's affectations. He had not Lord Grey's single-minded hatred of wrong. He was a man to whom his own interests were much; he was unscrupulous; he was ostentatious; he was not above stooping to mean, unmanly compliances with the humours of the Queen. But he was a man with a higher ideal than he attempted to follow. He saw, not without cynical scorn, through the shows and hollowness of the world. His intellect was of that clear and unembarrassed power which takes ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... sincerity, directness and single-mindedness could always be depended upon. Your joyful relish of a tale of human interest, whether as a listener or a narrator, is always contagious. Your indignation and scorn for unmanly and dishonourable conduct, and your quick appreciation of whatever is generous and true; this, and my high regard for your own personal worth, have given me the wish to inscribe this volume of ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... taken her, being apprised of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the gratification of his passion has been accomplished, he is unjust and cruel and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want of that knowledge, which he well knew that she did ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... far from being, as silly boys and wicked old men fancy, the refuse of their sex, are the very elite thereof; those who have either sacrificed themselves for their kindred, or have refused to sacrifice themselves to that longing to marry at all risks of which women are so often and so unmanly accused. ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley
... deliberately knelt down and began his evening prayer. He was too ignorant to know that there were boys who thought it unmanly to pray. It never occurred to him to omit his kneeling. As for Jim he felt himself in a very strange position. He kicked his heels against the bedpost for awhile, but presently he grew ashamed of that, and contented himself with very noisily making ready for ...
— Three People • Pansy
... now it is a crime; there—" she held it towards him with a trembling hand. While her arm was thus extended, Burrell rushed from behind the covert of a wide-spreading laurel, and, with an action at once unmanly and insulting, snatched the trinket from her hand and flung it ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... which Euripides followed, in what might be called his tragedies of adultery, that they always make the woman the vehicle of the pernicious passion; it seems as if Greek feeling could not conceive of a man being seized by an unmanly soft desire and urged on by it to passionate disregard of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the House of Commons, a few days before, Mr. Pitt had condemned the whole series of North Britons, and called them illiberal, unmanly, and detestable: "he abhorred," he said, "all national reflections: the King's subjects were one people; whoever divided them was guilty of sedition: his Majesty's complaint was well-founded; it was just; it ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... you, and don't cuss. You did a cowardly thing, pardner—an unmanly thing—low down and or'nary. You don't deserve to live any longer; but my darter, back East at school, thinks I've killed enough men for one lifetime, and mebbe she's right—mebbe she's right. Anyhow, she don't like it, and that lets you out—though I won't ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! 5 What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... mean and unmanly of me to say what I have," I said, "but I was excited and almost beside myself; let us walk more rapidly ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... their ghastly foulness, and whose semblances, marked by counterfeit ghostliness, were wont for a moment to borrow materiality from the fluent air. Swanhwid therefore erred in trying, womanlike, to sap the firm strength of men, and to melt in unmanly panic that might ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... and vapours; he would fall into the blackest melancholies, and be filled with remorse for the past and terror for the future. He was still not perhaps devoted to religion, but haunted by it; and at a touch of sickness prostrated himself before God in what I can only call unmanly penitence. As he had aspirations beyond his place in the world, so he had tastes, thoughts, and weaknesses to match. He loved to walk under a wood to the sound of a winter tempest; he had a singular tenderness for animals; he carried a book with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... going to know, if you won't hear?" asked Marcia. "I wouldn't be so unmanly as to whine so even ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... Agrippina and the sentiment of duty, on the one hand, and the enticements of Poppaea on the other. In addition to the influence of her blandishments and smiles, she attempted to act upon Nero's boyish pride by taunting him with what she called his degrading and unmanly subjection to his mother. How long, she asked, was he to remain like a child under maternal tutelage? She wondered how he could endure so ignoble a bondage. He was in name and position, she said, a mighty monarch, reigning absolutely over half the world,—but in actual fact he was a mere nursery ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... floated in calm and sunny water; and, though rather punts or tubs than boats, have in them some elements of a slow, warm, square-sailed, sleepy grandeur—respectable always, when compared either with the flickering follies of Backhuysen, or the monstrous, unmanly, and a fortiori, unsailorly absurdities of metaphysical vessels, puffed on their way by corpulent genii, or pushed by protuberant dolphins, which Rubens and the other so-called historical painters of his time were accustomed to introduce in the mythology of their court-adulation; that marvelous ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... pretend that I do believe it, and go away with the respect of that man, hating myself for a cringing coward? Now which? For my part I would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks, and he will preserve his manhood. I had rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. I think I will stand higher at the judgment day, if there is one, and stand with as good a chance to get my case dismissed without costs as a man who sneaks through life pretending he believes what he does not. I tell you one thing; there is going to be one free fellow in this world. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "it seems to me it's the most cowardly and unmanly thing in the world for men, with every advantage in their hands, with all the strength that their kind of education gives them, with all their opportunities,—a thousand to our one,—to hunt down these poor little silly women, whom society keeps ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... say it—base and unmanly. What have I done that you should venture to so insult your charming wife, not to speak of the insult to myself? When you so far forgot yourself a fortnight ago as to hint at your outrageous ideas regarding me, I forced myself to remember that you were not an Englishman, ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... he burst into tears. It was a completely unmanly thing to do, but he couldn't help himself. The tears flowed down over his cheeks, washing away all his shattered illusions. He would never dream such dreams again. From now on, it would be useless. They ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... and angrily to the captain to cease beating the boy, and declared I would fetch out the gentlemen to interfere if he did not stop his unmanly behavior. He glared on me with the fiercest expression imaginable (for he was in a towering rage,) and told me I had better not meddle with him in the performance of his duty, for he would do as he ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... thoughts, the faint hopes, the new departures and outflanking movements! And even to-day there the thing defies her—a coal-box, with a broad smile that shows its black teeth, thick and squat, filling a snug corner and swaggering in unmanly triumph over the outrage upon her ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... have told it of a dear sister whose maidenly pride was precious to me; told how she had gone, at his request, to speak with him in the conservatory, and how, there, she had heard, herself unseen, those flippant, unmanly words, so unlike him, yet from the lips of someone addressed ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... mountains, which would enable McClellan to strike the enemy in flank or rear; and this was of course to be done if Lee made a stand. "It is all easy," his letter concluded, "if our troops march as well as the enemy; and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it." Yet he expressly disclaimed making his letter an order. [Footnote: Since writing this, I have had occasion to treat this subject more fully, as bearing upon Mr. Lincoln's military judgment and intelligence, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... two worlds were externally divided, the more completely they coincided in the like annihilation of family life—which is yet the germ and core of all nationality—in the like laziness and luxury, the like unsubstantial economy, the like unmanly dependence, the like corruption differing only in its tariff, the like criminal demoralization, the like longing to begin the war with property. Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy, and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly with ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and meek, One wan hand beneath her cheek, One on the holy texts that tell Of God's love ineffable;— Last dear gift her father gave When, before to-morrow's grave, By no unmanly grief unmann'd, To his little orphan band In that stress of anguish sore He bade ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... to war seemed to me an expression of the general need of the men, the land, and the times amidst which I lived, and I felt that it would be altogether unworthy and unmanly to stand by without fighting for this general need, and without taking my share in warding ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... horrible to transcribe, burst from the lips of Baltasar. A blow followed—a heavy, cruel, unmanly blow; there was a faint cry and the sound of a fall. Paco's blood grew cold in his veins, he ground his teeth, and his hand played convulsively with the knife in his pocket. He looked up at the window as though he would have sprung to the assistance of the helpless victim of Baltasar's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... painting the trees about the place before the necessity of being at his father's side called him from his voluntary exile. And then he did not go to see Mima. He was still bowed with shame at what he thought his unmanly presumption, and he did not blame her that ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... sirs," said Eric: "this is a cruel deed and most unmanly. We yielded to you in faith—will ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... home; And fast the white rocks faded from his view, And soon were lost in circumambient foam; And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he, but in his bosom slept The silent thought, nor from his lips did come One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept, And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... It seemed unmanly in my sight That he, whose spirit was so strong To lead the blind world to the light, Should look so like the mincing throng Who advertise the tailor's art. It angered me—I did him wrong— I grudged my groat ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... then, that, surrounded as we were by traitors at home, we manifested an almost unmanly regret on finding ourselves deserted by those whom we were wont to consider as friends abroad; and when we now reflect upon the bearing of those nations toward us, the inquiry naturally arises, whether there really exists no ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... a sneer, for of all pitiable objects he regarded an unmanly man as the most despicable. He consented, however, to sit down on a grassy bank and watch the proceedings of this Indian dandy, who had just seated himself in front of his wigwam for the purpose ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... which art the voice of my discontent, your spluttering is like this outburst of unmanly fretfulness and futile rage! O paper, whose flat surface typifies the dull level of my life, your greasy unwillingness to receive the ink is emblematic of the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... each honeyed hour Spent with this unmanly male! Sommerville became a bow'r, Alston an Arcadian Vale, Breathing concentrated otto!— An existence ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... from Cambridge. Not being such as, by their habits and professions, could have opposed you in the field, I hold it unmilitary and unmanly to put them under any restraint, and so lead them away from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... virtue and the one which is least natural. It was certainly far from being natural among Lincoln's own people. Americans of his time were generally of the opinion that it was dishonorable to overlook a personal injury. They considered it weak and unmanly not to quarrel with another man a little harder than he quarreled with you. The pioneer was good-natured and kindly; but he was aggressive, quick-tempered, unreasonable, and utterly devoid of personal discipline. A ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... simply impossible. No such absurdity and wrong can be permanent. Impartial suffrage will carry the day. No low prejudice will long be able to induce American citizens to deny to a weak people their best means of self-protection for the unmanly reason that they are weak. Chief Justice Chase expressed the true sentiment when he said "the American Nation can not afford to do the smallest injustice to the humblest ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... caves and the woods seemed without her! Tuck and the miller had employed themselves in cooking them all a royal dinner; and Stuteley tried his best to lighten the gloom. Robin laughed with them, and sought to hide his grief, feeling it to be unmanly. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... The reaction from this unmanly and morbid state of feeling came in time, and Clare's pride and native strength of mind got the better of his sickly yearning after lost pleasures. Nevertheless, one lasting source of unhappiness remained. He found ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... cunning, and smoothness, and cant, and pretence, quite as much as any Protestants hate them; and I pray to be kept from the snare of them. But all this is just now by the bye; my present subject is my Accuser; what I insist upon here is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut the ground from under my feet;—to poison by anticipation the public mind against me, John Henry Newman, and to infuse into the imaginations of my readers suspicion and mistrust of everything ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... sire, O prince! o'erturn'd the Trojan state, Whose perjured monarch well deserved his fate; Those heavenly steeds the hero sought so far, False he detain'd, the just reward of war. Nor so content, the generous chief defied, With base reproaches and unmanly pride. But you, unworthy the high race you boast, Shall raise my glory when thy own is lost: Now meet thy fate, and by Sarpedon slain, Add one more ghost to Pluto's ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... thought of what she had said. Could it be that he would think that she was speaking for her own sake;—because she looked forward to reigning some day as mistress of Newton Priory? Ah, no, Ralph would never misinterpret her thoughts in a manner so unmanly as that! ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... one of your blood-thirsty Rebels, you know; she has the good sense to shrink with horror from the bare mention of those heathen who, at Manassas and elsewhere, wreaked their unmanly spite on the bodies of dead heroes: still she is a bitter little Rebel, with blonde hair, superb eyelashes, and two brothers in the Confederate service,—if I may be allowed to club the statements. When I look across ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... part in that battle, a Revolutionary officer serving as a common backwoods soldier; eloquently of his perfect courage then and always, of his perfect manliness; and she ended by saying that the worst thing that could ever befall a woman was to marry an unmanly man. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... care a bit. He was so jolly and good-natured that everybody liked him, and he liked everybody, and so was happy. He had light hair, very light for fifteen years, and a peculiar teetering gait, which was not unmanly, however. It made people laugh at him, but he didn't care a bit. Jacob Isaac was a "cullud pusson," as he would have said, protesting against the word "negro." "Nigger," he used to say, "is de mos' untolerbulis word neber did year." It was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... was younger," said Roxholm, "it angered me to hear my looks praised so much; I was boy enough to feel I must be unmanly. But now—'tis but as it should be, that a man should have straight limbs and a great body, and a clean-cut countenance. It should be nature—not a thing to be remarked; it should be mere nature—and the other an ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that the spinal marrow was boiling. Presently my wrists became cramped, and I felt a strong inclination to pitch the oars overboard, lie down in the bottom of the boat, and howl! But feeling that this would be unmanly, I restrained myself. Just then my companion in sorrow began to snore, so I awoke him, and—giving ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... admired nor respected Catherine, for she wanted those very qualities he chiefly loved in her sister; yet, as she was a woman, and one nearly connected with him, he found it impossible to remain a quiet spectator of the unmanly treatment she often received from her husband; he therefore made preparations for his return to England by the first packet, abridging his intended residence in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... I did not!" he retorted. "How thoroughly unkind and uncharitable of you, Jane, to hope I would be guilty of such a cruel and unmanly action!" ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... upon his back,—an excellent recipe in such cases, but somewhat difficult in a heavy sea. Others said that there was a doomed man on board, and proposed to cast lots till they found him out, and cast him into the sea, as a sacrifice to Aegir the wave-god. But Hereward scouted that as unmanly and cowardly, and sang,— ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... disappointment experienced from the unmanly conduct of Dr. Hill had a happy effect on our little company. It bound us more firmly and nearer together, and, I may add with truth, almost fitted us for the field of battle. The hour of 9 o'clock had now arrived, the night uncommonly dark and cloudy. ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... how a man may make marriage a curse to him instead of a blessing, without being unfaithful to his wife (which we all know to be simply abominable and unmanly, and far below anything of which I am talking now). And how? Simply by bad temper, vanity, greediness, and selfish love of his own dignity, his own pleasure, his own this, that, and the other. So, too, he may make his children ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... not question that the sentiment is manly. Is there not then something that is unmanly in the opposite sentiment? Or, to be plain, my friend, is it not lack of courage which has driven you from us, lack of heroic temper, lack of that divine and primitive instinct which takes a "frolic welcome" ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... died at Abbotsford during Scott's absence in Edinburgh, when his work began in May. His successive references to her illness, and the final and justly-famous passage on her death, are excellent examples of the spirit which pervades this part of the Diary. This spirit is never unmanly, but displays throughout, and occasionally, as we see, to his own consciousness, that strange yet not uncommon phenomenon which is well expressed in a French phrase, il y a quelque chose de casse, and which frequently comes upon men after ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... of the nation will be shown in its readiness to meet without shrinking such sacrifice of life as may be demanded in gaining our end. We must all suffer and rejoice together,—but let there be no unmanly or unwomanly fear of bloodshed. The deaths of our men from sickness, from camp epidemics, are what we should fear and prevent; death on the battle-field we have no right to dread. The men who die in this cause die ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... still and reflected. It sounded almost as if he might be conceited or unmanly to be looking at his own face in the glass. No, that would not do. So he looked for another pink sheet and ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... impartially the qualities of appearance, the physical gifts of the poor aspirant, finding them in some cases reprehensibly inadequate Peter could never rid himself of a dislike to these pronouncements; in the case of the actresses especially they struck him as brutal and offensive—unmanly as launched by an ensconced, moustachioed critic over a cigar. At the same time he was aware of the dilemma (he hated it; it made him blush still more) in which his objection lodged him. If one was right in caring for the actor's art one ought to have been interested in every honest judgement ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... his shoulders were still shaken with sobs. He leaned upon his mother; she gently comforted him; and presently he recovered his composure and became self-conscious enough to wonder if he had not been making an unmanly display of himself. "I'm all right again, mother," he said awkwardly. "Don't worry about me: you'd better go lie down, or something; you ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... indifferent to what lies on the platter. Indeed, I have more than a tribal aversion to pork in general, while, on the other hand, I quicken joyfully when noodles are interspersed with bacon. I have a tooth for sweets, too, although I hold it unmanly and deny it as I can. I am told also—although I resent it—that my eye lights up on the appearance of a tray of French pastry. I admit gladly, however, my love of onions, whether they come hissing from the skillet, or lie in their first tender whiteness. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks |
