"Indelicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London—I don't always live in trees—for weeks; and I gave it them ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... to be married, you say," pursued the Alderman. "Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you're married, you'll quarrel with your husband, and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... Muskerry; to confuse and expose a stupid court beauty, a Miss Blaque; and at the same time to produce on the Count de Grammont a still more powerful effect than even her charms had done. Her success in hoaxing—which we should now think both perilous and indelicate—seems to have only riveted the chain, which was drawn around ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... tenderness which swept over him at the anticipation of this was hurled back by an uncomfortable thought. What if Matilda were to refer to the ring? But no; his Matilda would do nothing so indelicate. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... tenderly upon Mr. Belcher's arm! And he felt that no woman who was not either shabbily perverse, or a fool, could misinterpret her. He knew that his wife had been annoyed at finding Mrs. Dillingham in the house. He dimly comprehended, too, that her presence was an indelicate intrusion, but her intentions ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... before the time for such decision arrived the boy had begun to understand he must see to all that unaided. For his mother was ill, how deeply and in what manner he could not tell. He shrank, indeed, from all clear thought, let alone speech, on the subject, as from something indelicate, in a way irreverent. Her beauty remained to her, notwithstanding a gradual wasting as of fever. A peculiar, very individual grace of dress and of bearing remained to her likewise. But she was uncertain in mood, the victim of strange fancies, a being almost alarmingly far removed ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Kate has been indelicate enough to tell you about our family affairs. Of course you have sufficient discretion to disbelieve ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... up as a mighty passion from the substratum of sexual life, has, under the repressing influence of centuries of habits and customs, taken on an entirely new, supersensual, ethereal character, so that to a lover every thought of naturalia seems indelicate and improper." "I feel it deeply that love must ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... her head, blushing as she untied her "fascinator." She was fond of apple toddy, but she regarded the taste as an indelicate one, and would as soon have admitted, before gentlemen, a ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Celeste. "Too high a regard! Truly, she behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate in a woman, you know!" with sublime unconsciousness of ever having indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! "Such an old creature, too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and stockings! Poor pa actually has to lock himself ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... seemed startled by my sudden outburst of mirth—the next, he laughed heartily himself, and as the waiter appeared with the coffee and cognac, inspired by the occasion, he made an equivocal, slightly indelicate joke concerning the personal charms of a certain Antoinetta whom the garcon was supposed to favor with an eye to matrimony. The fellow grinned, in nowise offended—and pocketing fresh gratuities from both Ferrari and myself, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Mumbles, "it is astonishing, the quantity of victuals these boarders consume. It is so unfeminine and indelicate for young ladies to have appetites. I declare it quite shocks me to see the large slices of bread and butter disappearing down Jenny Andrews' little throat, and, as for that Charles Seaton, I believe he would eat ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... sarcastic touch about it all that people crowded to the window, alarmed by the fierce flare of the shop-front. When my aunt Lisa came back from the kitchen she was quite frightened, and thought I'd set the fat in the shop on fire; and she considered the appearance of the turkey so indelicate that she turned me out of the place while Auguste re-arranged the window after his own idiotic fashion. Such brutes will never understand the language of a red splotch by the side of a grey one. Ah, well! that was my masterpiece. I have never ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... conversation into the mouths of his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the unconsciously indelicate all things are delicate." ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... seasoned pleasantly with Mr. Lincoln's stories, anecdotes, etc. And here I feel called upon to vindicate Mr. Lincoln, as far as my opportunities and observation go, from the frequent imputation of telling indelicate and ribald stories. I saw much of him during his whole Presidential term, with familiar friends and alone, when he talked without restraint; but I never heard him use a profane or indecent word, or tell a story that might not be repeated in the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... intensity, a half-hidden smile which I was unable to interpret, according to the instruction I had received in the ways of good breeding, save as a mark of infinite disgust; and her hand, at the same time, sketched in the air an indelicate gesture, for which, when it was addressed in public to a person whom one did not know, the little dictionary of manners which I carried in my mind supplied only one meaning, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the mercenary loves in whose midst she lived; and on the very second day I had destroyed this hope, and paid by impertinent irony for the love which I had accepted during two nights. What I had done was therefore not merely ridiculous, it was indelicate. I had not even paid the woman, that I might have some right to find fault with her; withdrawing after two days, was I not like a parasite of love, afraid of having to pay the bill of the banquet? What! I had only ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... Swinkerton was strongly of opinion that bygones should be allowed to be bygones, and was author of a theory which found much acceptance among the villas—namely, that Lady Tristram would consider any reference to her immediate predecessor as inconsiderate, indeed indelicate, and not such as might be expected ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... Fathom, betray symptoms of being a mere translation. Sir Launcelot Greaves was first printed piecemeal in the British Magazine, or Monthly Repository, a miscellany to which Goldsmith was also a contributor. It has the recommendation of being much less gross and indelicate than ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... offspring only of their intellectual culture, it is not surprising that a wholly uninstructed people should be insensible to such a feeling, and in its unconsciousness should even have established public solemnities which would strike us as excessively indelicate. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... in newspapers. Indeed, a caricaturist ventured to publish a sketch showing Pitt as Adam conducting Eve to the nuptial bower in the garden of Eden, while behind it squatted Satan as a toad, leering hatred through the features of Fox. It is to be hoped that Auckland did not know of this indelicate cartoon when he replied to Pitt. That letter has very properly been destroyed. But we have Pitt's second letter to Auckland, in which he again assures him how deeply he is affected by hearing of "the sentiments ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... uncomfortable. She had a guilty feeling that the whole situation, with Natalie pouring out her woes beside her, was indelicate, unbearable. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... collected by Mostowski, together with those of Kochanowski, Simonides, and other classical poets; and Wenceslaus Potocki, the author of novels, poetry, and more especially epigrams, not without merit, but frequently licentious and indelicate. Among the poets of this age, who are in some measure distinguished by Polish critics, we find also a lady. Elizabeth Druzbacka, a poetess of high rank, but without a literary education or a knowledge of foreign languages, though not without natural gifts. Satires were written ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... hot weather, lie mother-nude under a sheet here represented by the hair. The Greeks and Romans also slept stripped and in medival England the most modest women saw nothing indelicate in sleeping naked by their naked husbands. The "night-cap" and the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... modest women of her time, has often told me that once, having unfortunately crossed her knees in the parlour after supper, she suffered untold tortures from "budges" for three mortal hours rather than be seen to do anything so indelicate as to uncross them. Well, well, ladies were ladies in those days, and now Lila tells me it is quite customary for them to sit like men. My blindness has spared me many painful sights, I ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... want to seem thoughtless or indelicate, but I want you to know that I can lick the whole bunch of you with one hand tied behind my back and the other in a sling. Not that I have any intention of doing it, and I apologize to the ladies for mention of the subject, but it may help us to an understanding. If you have not ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... would quit the room if these were to be her company. This occasioned some little embarrassment. An Indian lady, sister of the Chief Joseph Brant, who was present with her daughters, observing the bustle, inquired what was the matter, and being informed, she cried out, 'This must be a very indelicate lady to think of such a thing; she shows her own arms and elbows to all the men, and she pretends she cannot look at these officers' bare legs, although she will look at my husband's bare thighs for hours together; she must think of other things, or she ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... young person's shameless forgetfulness of the claims of modesty, duty and gratitude had been first communicated to her. To say that this was the act of an inconsiderate woman, culpably indiscreet and, I had almost added, culpably indelicate, is only to say what she has deserved. On the next occasion to which I feel bound to advert, her conduct was even more deserving of censure. She herself appears to have placed the temptation under which he fell in her husband's way, and so (in some degree ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... sociable together, nevertheless. Dolby was large and ruddy, full of life and strength and spirits, a tireless and energetic talker, and always overflowing with good-nature and bursting with jollity. It was a choice and satisfactory menagerie, this pensive poet and this gladsome gorilla. An indelicate story was a sharp distress to Stoddard; Dolby told him twenty-five a day. Dolby always came home with us after the lecture, and entertained Stoddard till midnight. Me too. After he left, I walked the floor and talked, and Stoddard went to sleep on the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... improprieties are very seldom to be seen among them. Many Frenchmen, as was already observed, are rough and even ferocious in their manners; and the language and behaviour of most of them, particularly in the presence of women, appears to us very frequently indelicate and rude; yet there are limits to this freedom of manner which they never allow themselves to pass. Go where you will in Paris, you will very seldom see any disgusting instances of intoxication, or any material difference of manner, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... of Grant's character," said George W. Childs, "was his purity. I never heard him express an impure thought, or make an indelicate allusion in any way or shape. There is nothing I ever heard him say that could not be repeated in the presence of women. If a man was brought up for an appointment, and it was shown that he was an immoral ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... of his character was his purity in every way. I never heard him express or make an indelicate allusion in any way or shape. There is nothing I ever heard that man say that could not be repeated ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... by the invitation, and less clear-headed than usual, was sufficiently trusting to accept. She soon, however, discovered that his Excellency's intentions were strictly dishonourable, for he made her, she afterwards said, "a most indelicate proposition." Her response was to laugh in his face, and to tell him that "she had no wish to become his toy." Thereupon, Paskievich, furious at such a repulse (and unaccustomed to being thwarted by anyone, must less by a ballet-dancer), dismissed her with threats of reprisals. The ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... for the same work. But, it is said, woman's sphere is at home. Would giving her the right to vote interfere with her home duties any more than it does with a man's business? Again it is said, that for her to vote would be unfeminine. Is it at all more indelicate for a woman to go to the polls, than it is for her to go to the court-house and pay her taxes? The truth is, woman occupies just the position that man has placed her in, and it ill becomes him to urge such objections. Give her a chance—give ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... to her or to himself that his hopes ran with hers; love is not business with a man as it is with a woman; he feels it indecorous and indelicate to count upon it openly, where she thinks it simply a chance of life, to be considered like another. All that Kenton would say was, "I see no reason for telling her just yet. She will have to know in due time. But let her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... public for the good of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to 'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"—and sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... almost as real as that of Olympus. The introductory chapters are of that elephantine facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, but which is exceedingly tedious to modern taste; and the humor of the book occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate to our apprehension, though it perhaps did not shock our great-grandmothers. But, notwithstanding these blemishes, I think the work has more enduring qualities than even the generation which it first delighted gave it credit for. The world, however, it must be owned, has scarcely ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in a hurried tone, "it would be an idle compliment to say that you are not likely to love in vain; perhaps it is indelicate in me to apply a general remark; and yet—yet I cannot but fancy that I have discovered your secret, and that you are not insensible to the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... There isn't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that wasn't thought very indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of commercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often as this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over it.—No, Sir,—show me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... essay on Byron. In an essay on Byron, Byron is (or ought to be) mentioned many times. I expect, nay exact, that Bryon shall be mentioned again and again. But my undergraduate has a blushing sense that to call Byron Byron twice on one page is indelicate. So Byron, after starting bravely as Byron, in the second sentence turns into 'that great but unequal poet' and thenceforward I have as much trouble with Byron as ever Telemachus with Proteus to hold and pin him back to his proper self. Half-way down the page he ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... in the half-ironical, half-mischievous merriment of these patrician revellers; their witticisms were brilliant and pointed, but never indelicate; and if their darker passions were roused, and ready to run riot, they showed as yet no sign of it. They ENJOYED—yes! with that selfish animal enjoyment and love of personal indulgence which all men, old and young without ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... had quite "come over"—she was ready to pass with all the world else, even with the Prince himself, the object, inconsequently, as well, of her continued, her explicitly shameless appreciation, for a vulgar, indelicate, pestilential woman, showing her true character in an abandoned old age. The Colonel's confessed attention had been enlisted, we have seen, as never yet, under pressure from his wife, by any guaranteed imbroglio; but this, she could ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... which are personal and essential. Not a few there are in our country, who, while they have no scruples against robbing the laborer of the hard earned results of his patient industry, will be shocked by the extremely indelicate manner of bringing your name before the public. Believing this to be the case, and wishing to meet every reasonable or plausible objection to my conduct, I will frankly state the ground upon which I justfy(sic) myself in this instance, as ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... Baron, "can you mean to say that you have permitted our ward to do such an indelicate thing? She has never been permitted to go out alone in the evening with any young man, and the idea that she should begin ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... ginger-snap, but not "plain cake,"—absurd viand! It is of the essence of cake not to be plain. As well say, acid sweetness. Nor did I like the hereditary election-cake of my ancient State and city. Fat pork I could not swallow; nor onions nor cabbage,—gross, indelicate vegetables! And even now, as well present upon my table that other diabolic cabbage of the New England swamps,—in old legend said to have been conjured up out of the ground by the Indian pow-wows, to beautify and perfume the dank ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... ritual duties and her music she kept up her interest in horse-racing; in fact, she became more and more devoted to this pastime, which Lutorius countenanced, but which her detractors characterized as indelicate. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Crochard commanded, his grasp tightening on Pigot's arm. "Forgive my recalling that meeting to your memory. It was indelicate of me. Nevertheless you would do well to listen to what I ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... to be still more indelicate in her manner, so that Chia Lien could not refrain himself from making a full exhibition of his warm sentiments. When their tete-a-tete had come to a close, they both went on again to vow by the mountains and swear by the seas, and though they found it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the reason for a gentleman's prying. Montaiglon caught that smile once: his chagrin at its irony was blended with a pleasing delusion that the frank and genial domestic might proffer a solution without indelicate questioning. But he was soon undeceived: the discreet retainer knew but three things in this world—the grandeur of war, the ancient splendour of the house of Doom, and the excellent art of absent-mindedness. When it came to the contents of Doom, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... was told you had no ... how would that—?" Then she stopped as sharply as if a hand had compressed her throat. A vivid mantle of colour rose in her face; she made a motion of rising, of flight, but sank back weakly. "It is criminally indelicate to speak to you of this," he said, "but it was absolutely necessary. I want to marry you; in that circumstance a lie would be ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Carewe, this conversation strikes me as being indelicate, to say the least of it. I've only been married two and a half years, and my family is naturally ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... Governments are accustomed to publish in their various white, gray, or orange papers "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." This is nowhere done, for there are many bits of information which come to a Government through its diplomatic connections which it would be indelicate, discourteous, or unwise to give to the public. The official documents on American foreign relations and all white, gray, or orange papers are "edited." They are understood to be so by Congress, Parliament, the Reichstag, the Duma, &c., ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... knighted on the field, a stretch of authority which was much resented by the Queen. While there he wrote A Short View of the State of Ireland, first pub. 1880. He was in repute for his epigrams, of which some have wit, but others are only indelicate. His translation of the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, in the metre of the original, is a somewhat free paraphrase, and is now superseded. It first appeared in the form of extracts, which were handed in MS. about the Court until they ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... lady! vastly fine and independent! You chasser Mr. Wylder without one moment's notice, and without deigning to consult me, or any other person capable of advising you. You are about to commit as gross and indelicate a breach of faith as I recollect anywhere to have heard of. What will be thought?—what will the world say?—what will your friends say? Will you be good enough to explain yourself? I'll not undertake your excuses, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... am going to tell you something which you may perhaps think indelicate, but yet I know that I am right ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... passions for boys, the first of which possessed me when between the ages of 16 and 18, and involved, when I was 17, the most intense mental emotion, of a romantic kind, tinged with poignant jealousy and vexation at comparative coldness toward myself. These love passages never led me into indelicate behavior (I was once threatened with such treatment myself by a stranger whose acquaintance I made one day at the British Museum, when a lad of 15. He took me to his bedroom at an inn, locked the door, and showed me a collection of coins, giving me some, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... indelicate, sir. Your revered an' lovely relative—God bless her jolly old heart!—expressed her doubt in re leopards an' buffaloes. I'm goin' out, sir, into the wilds—amidst dangers, Ham, old feller, that only seasoned veterans like you an' me can imagine—to bring ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... compound confounded the Captain, who sorrowed to see a creature so charming, at once deformed by a crooked back and an excrescent shoulder.' Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents. 'The bitterest consciousness of his deformity was derived from their indelicate, though, perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct.... Of his person he continued to speak as of an abhorrent enemy.... "Were a blessing submitted to my choice, I would say, [said Arnaud] be it my immediate dissolution." "I think," said his mother, ... "that you could wish ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... little indelicate for me to be here on this occasion before an assemblage of voters, for the reason that the ablest newspaper in Colorado—the ablest newspaper in the world—has recently nominated me for President. It ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... easily impressed upon the memory. But I care little for his journey to Brundusium, and his account of a bad dinner, or of his low quarrel between one Rupilius whose words he says were full of poisonous filth, and another whose language was imbued with vinegar. I have read with much distaste his indelicate verses against old women and witches; nor do I see any merit in telling his friend Maecenas that if he will but rank him in the choir of lyric poets, his lofty head shall touch the stars. Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself. ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... friend, do you not see that it might really vex dearest Mr. Kenyon? Observe, we have no more right of intruding than you would have if you forced your way upstairs. It's a wretched world, where we can't express an honest affection honestly without half appearing indelicate to ourselves; nothing proves more how the dirt of the world is up to our chins, and I think I had my headache yesterday really and absolutely ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... MEN MORE POLITE TO WOMEN.—So far from being in the least gross or indelicate, its proper exercise is pure, chaste, virtuous, and even an ingredient in good manners. It is this which renders men always more polite towards women than to one another, and more refined in their society, and which ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... distillation that would do its poisonous work gradually,—but she had supposed that Mathilde would be too sensitive to expose Pete to further criticism. Indeed, there seemed something obtuse, if not actually indelicate, in being willing to create a situation in which every one was bound to suffer. Obtuseness was not a defect with which ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... existence and overshadowing importance on the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed throughout England that that country might again become the theatre of a civil conflict as extensive, as bloody, and as destructive of material prosperity and moral excellence as had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... assistance. It was so with the Misses Brooke, and especially with Miss Martha. Fully aware of the end which she in her own mind proposed to our acquaintance, my long conversation with the merchant struck her as an indelicate readiness to accept attentions which had matrimony in her perspective, and which she had designed to be the gradual result of sundry well-chaperoned and studiously incidental interviews at the Cottage. And when, so ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... never get a man's right name from himself; but they will tell each other's names without hesitation." In the whole of the East Indian Archipelago the etiquette is the same. As a general rule no one will utter his own name. To enquire, "What is your name?" is a very indelicate question in native society. When in the course of administrative or judicial business a native is asked his name, instead of replying he will look at his comrade to indicate that he is to answer for him, or he will say straight out, "Ask him." The superstition ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... This was indelicate. Phoebe picked a last oyster out of its shell, and kept her eyes modestly fixed on her plate. Observing that the second glass of gin-and-water was fast becoming empty, Jervy risked the first advances, on his way ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... crisis. Its gravity made her careful; she said nothing, and he went on. "You say I've no reason? I have the very best. I dislike, from the bottom of my soul, what you intend to do. It's dishonourable; it's indelicate; it's indecent. Your cousin is nothing whatever to me, and I'm under no obligation to make concessions to him. I've already made the very handsomest. Your relations with him, while he was here, kept me on pins and needles; but I let that pass, because from week to week ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... feared in his forebodings came from Mrs. J. Harry Stott, who majestically descended the broad staircase carrying before her a small reddish-brown insect impaled on a darning-needle. She walked to the desk and presented it for Mr. Cone's consideration. It was a most indelicate action, but the knowledge that it was such did not lessen the horror with which the guests ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... said, the cunts of my aunt and cousins, young ladies and others bathing, etc. (and as I shall tell of, have since seen a noble lady frig herself.) I have seen in fact modest ladies at their most decent, as well as the most indelicate of their toilet performances, and think I prefer looking at them under such circumstances, rather than at the beautiful voluptuous creatures who undress willingly in my presence, for those are so intent on displaying their charms to the best advantage, to get a male erection and its crisis, as ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Fox and Burke called for papers by the aid of which they proposed to demonstrate the iniquity of the scheme by which the ministry proposed to settle the debts of the Nabob of Arcot, pretended that the production of such papers would be indelicate,—"that this inquiry is of a delicate nature, and that the state will suffer detriment by the exposure of this transaction." As Dundas had previously brought out six volumes of Reports, generally confirming Burke's own ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John particularly favoured me,—the latter prophesying a tenth ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... designed to fill in the home and in society. The office and duty which nature has devolved upon woman during all the active and vigorous portion of her life would often render it impossible, and still more often indelicate, for her to appear and act in caucuses, conventions or elections, or to act as a member of the Legislature or as a juror ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... He was disgusted enough over the action of the first class cadets, but, being in the service himself, he felt it indelicate in him to criticise the action of the cadets of ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... profuse to see for pendant light, A tea-pot dangle in a lady's ear; And 'twere indelicate, although she might Swallow two whales and yet the ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... in this last matrimonial observation has not been to advise all men of superiority to seek for women of superiority and we do not wish each one to expound our principles after the manner of Madame de Stael, who attempted in the most indelicate manner to effect a union between herself and Napoleon. These two beings would have been very unhappy in their domestic life; and Josephine was a wife accomplished in a very different sense from this virago ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... mine. I know it was intended so. The law gives it you instead. Your technical claim has overridden my rights—you have a gift for making successful technical claims. But these old personal relics, of no monetary value—you should waive your avaricious and indelicate claim to them." He added the last words with a malicious smile, for the hardening look in Racine's face told him his request was hopeless, and he could not resist the temptation to put the matter with cutting force. Racine rose to the bait with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Lionel's proud heart, in which ungrateful anger could not long find room, had smitten him for so ill a return to well-meant and not indelicate kindness. And, his wounded egotism appeased by its very outburst, he had called to mind Fairthorn's allusions to Darrell's secret griefs,—griefs that must have been indeed stormy so to have revulsed the currents of a life. And, despite those ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she has been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition, and to glory in her own degradation... Such was the prejudice against a liberal education for woman, that the first public examination ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... acknowledged, that in what remains of his compositing, he is clumsy without strength, and violent without spirit. He was the first that deviated from the great masters of his art. He despised all method and regular arrangement; indelicate in his choice of words, he paid no regard to decency; eager to attack, he left himself unguarded; he brandished his weapons without skill or address; and, to speak plainly, he wrangled, but did not argue. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... me be candid, and confess that I was never pleasantly impressed by being presented with a tract in a railroad car. This fact cannot be attributed to any lack of disposition to contemplate religious subjects; but there is something which tells me that it is improper and indelicate for any man to come into a public vehicle, and thrust upon me and upon my fellow-passengers a set of motives and opinions on religion which may or may not accord with my own and theirs—just as it happens. I think ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... our ancestors eating as the Turkish noblesse at present do, with only the free use of their fingers, steadying their meat and conveying it to their mouths by their mere manual dexterity. They were, indeed, most indelicate in their habits, scattering on the table-cloth all their bones and parings. To purify their tables, the servant bore a long wooden "voiding-knife," by which he scraped the fragments from the table into a basket, called "a voider." Beaumont ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... bundle of letters found after years of happy union creates no sense of insecurity in the present; and yet it will pain a man sharply. The two people entertain no vulgar doubt of each other: but this pre-existence of both occurs to the mind as something indelicate. To be altogether right, they should have had twin birth together, at the same moment with the feeling that unites them. Then indeed it would be simple and perfect and without reserve or afterthought. Then they would understand ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Wood, in whose shade the Lady Archibald Campbell suffered more than one of Shakespeares plays to be enacted. Hither, from the garish, indelicate theatre that held her languishing, Thalia was bidden, if haply, under the open sky, she might resume her old charm. All Fashion came to marvel and so did all the Aesthetes, in the heart of one of whose leaders, Godwin, that superb architect, the idea was first ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... ingenuously, so frankly, that it seemed not in the least indelicate or forward, while it ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... whole party. A vague feeling of resentment against Denis prevailed among the womankind, who, having all preserved their own healths intact for the occasion (and each by her own account was a chronic invalid), felt it was extremely inconsiderate, not to say indelicate, of "a great man like him" to spoil everything by being laid ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... nothing indelicate about riding on both sides of a horse, if they once get used to it. But they have got to get over this superstition that to ride on horseback a woman must put her limbs up ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... to this town [Williamstown, Mass.], being quartered at a small log hut, I was convinced in how innocent a view the Americans look upon that indelicate custom they call bundling. Though they have remarkable good feather beds, and are extremely neat and clean, still I preferred my hard mattress, as being accustomed to it; this evening, however, owing to the badness of the roads, and the weakness of ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... Little Gentleman,—I 'm past that! There is n't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that was n't thought very indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of commercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often as this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... 2. Compare the singular anecdote in VI. 22 where the Buddha quite unjustifiably suspects a Doctor of making an indelicate joke. The story seems to admit that the Buddha might be wrong and also that he was sometimes treated ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... every ward, and the sending out of what were really confessors, appointed for every block, to inquire of all—young and old—concerning the most intimate details of their lives. The printed catechism given to these confessors was so indelicate that it was suppressed in later years. These prying inquisitors found opportunity to gain information for their superiors about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one use they made of their visitations was to urge the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... questioning him upon any point, however trivial, as to any matter of a peculiar nature concerning Isabella. Sometimes he longed to ask the boy about the subject, but he could not bring himself to do so; he felt that it would be indelicate and unpleasant to Isabella, and therefore he limited himself to careful inquiries concerning her health and such simple matters as he might touch upon, without risk ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... Christian," and will declare, "By G—d, you are beautiful, more handsome than our men." They admire the most trifling thing I have, and add, "God alone brought you amongst us." Their language, though indelicate to us, is not so to them. It is the undisguised speech ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... bald eagle, though habituated to long fasting, is of the most voracious and often the most indelicate kind. Fish, when he can obtain them, are preferred to all other fare. Young lambs and pigs are dainty morsels, and made free with on all favourable occasions. Ducks, geese, gulls, and other sea fowl, are also seized with avidity. The most putrid carrion, when nothing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... half-dozen groomsmen to the long glass between the front windows, and made to stand up there, with their faces toward the company, and to receive the congratulations of a mighty procession of friends, who all used the same formulas, except the very old ones, who were delicately indelicate. ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... to admit that she had been personally wrong,—some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could be called unfeminine, indelicate, or undutiful. But she had high ideas of what was due to herself, and conceived that she would be wronged by her father, should her father take advantage of her sense of duty to crush her heart. She had her own rights and her own privileges, with ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... he gasped. "Don't be indelicate, Ham! Why, she might never forgive me, dear old thing! Suppose she walked out of the office in a huff? Great Scotland! Great Jehoshaphat! It's too terrible ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... guests that they must be down in their respective motors within ten minutes on pain of not finding any conveyances to take them home. The mutineers were nearly all private chauffeurs in the employ of the personages to whom they sent this indelicate ultimatum. The resourceful host, however, warded off the danger and placated the rebellious drivers by inviting them to an improvised little banquet of pates de foie gras, dry champagne, and other delicacies. The general temper of the proletariat remained unchanged. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... him in such a manner as may be least offensive to his feelings, and so as not to have the appearance of officiousness nor obtrusion on my part. I hope you will be able to do this, as I should be very sorry to do any thing by him that may be deemed indelicate. The sum Murray offered and offers was and is one thousand and fifty pounds:—this I refused before, because I thought it more than the two things were worth to Murray, and from other objections, which are of no consequence. I have, however, closed with M., in consequence of Sir ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... very much as if they had been the irresponsible friskings of a lamb in a meadow. Waitstill had more than the usual reserve in these matters, for in New England at that time, though the soul was a subject of daily conversation, the heart was felt to be rather an indelicate topic, to be alluded to as seldom as possible. Waitstill certainly would never have examined Patty closely as to the state of her affections, intimate as she was with her sister's thoughts and opinions about life; she simply bided her time until Patty ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... can leave no lasting impression on his great mind," said I; "while this statue will for ever remain, a memorial of his great deeds; and yet the complaint is general that the statue is indelicate—as if, forsooth, this was the first statue exhibited in 'puris naturalibus' in England. I really regard it as the ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... over-scrupulous prudence perhaps, will for a short time longer endure the importunate, disastrous presence of the males. These comport themselves in the hive as did Penelope's suitors in the house of Ulysses. Indelicate and wasteful, sleek and corpulent, fully content with their idle existence as honorary lovers, they feast and carouse, throng the alleys, obstruct the passages, and hinder the work; jostling and jostled, fatuously pompous, swelled with foolish, good-natured ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... short handle. This should be quickly performed, with as little working of the butter as possible; for if it be too much beaten and turned, it will become tough and gluey, which greatly debases its quality. To beat it up with the hand is an indelicate practice, as the butter cannot fail to imbibe the animal effluvia: a warm hand especially will soften it, and make it appear greasy. If the heat of the weather should render it too soft to receive the impression of the mould, it may be put into ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... is definite, Miss Blake, and of course your wishes must be obeyed. But as regards this will, do not think me indelicate for mentioning it, but there might ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... forbid jesting in the abstract; but jesting on immodest subjects—which are often designated in the New Testament by the phraseology there employed. I should give the sense of it—neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor indelicate jests. The kind of sprightly and amusing conversation to which I referred, I should not denominate foolish, by any means, at proper times ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... expectantly, the pen poised in her hand. There was rather an awkward pause. The question seemed at first blush a little indelicate. Sinclair ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... isn't himself to-night. He hasn't the spirit to swear. Did you hear the good thing he said Monday night about Miss MOORE? It was devilish good. Says he—" (Repeats an indelicate joke.) ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... the theatre was too contemptible for mention, and in the pantomime, or rather spectacle, became latterly so indelicate, that I found it necessary to withdraw. I should hope that the performances are not always of the same character: perhaps something must be allowed for the occasion. The French, however, have no idea of humour as separated from indecencies. In this respect they ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... the town inviting every one to make complaints.[5] In this business-like way they collected thirty women at the town hall, stripped them, and put them to the pricking test. This cruel, not to say indelicate, process was carried on with additions that must have proved highly diverting to the base-minded prickers and onlookers.[6] Fourteen women and one man were tried (Gardiner says by the assizes) and ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... Providence as the companion and preservative of youthful virtue; and to produce, if the expression may be permitted, a morbid sensibility in the perception of indecency. An imagination exercised in this discipline is never clean, but seeks for and discovers something indelicate in the most common phrases and actions of ordinary life. If the general style of writing and conversation were to be formed on that model, to which Sterne used his utmost endeavours to conciliate the minds ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the sort," denied Mrs. Meredith. "Was not thy conduct last evening indelicate enough, but thou must ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... "Oh, Ma, how indelicate!" giggled Anna Maria, evidently not displeased. "If you don't mind he will hear you, and I should never be able to look him in the face again." And therewith she looked round ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... me because you think she doesn't, it isn't a bit true: she does like me awfully!"—that would have been the particular word; which there were at the same time but too palpably such difficulties about his uttering. Wouldn't it be virtually as indelicate to challenge her as to leave her deluded?—and this quite apart from the exposure, so to speak, of Kate, as to whom it would constitute a kind of betrayal. Kate's design was something so extraordinarily special to Kate that he felt himself shrink ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... likest it. If dost, thee'll have enow to do, I can tell thee." This was one of the little incidents of his life upon which he was accustomed to advert with pleasure; and often has he, with much good humour, contrasted it with the rude and indelicate conduct of persons of great pride and importance. No man that ever lived required less entreaty to oblige his convivial friends with his charming singing. Of the families where he was treated with friendship and free hospitality he delighted to promote the happiness, and to them his song ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... talked. If they asked him about a play or a book and he said it was "no good," they at once demanded why. The Erlichs thought him a clam, but Claude sometimes thought himself amazing. Could it really be he, who was airing his opinions in this indelicate manner? He caught himself using words that had never crossed his lips before, that in his mind were associated only with the printed page. When he suddenly realized that he was using a word for the first time, and probably mispronouncing it, he ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... slowly away. She was considering something, debating something within herself. Should she go in and dine alone in the restaurant? By doing so she would certainly make those two who had treated her badly uncomfortable; she would probably spoil the rest of their evening. Should she do that? Some indelicate devil prompted her, urged her, to do it. It would "serve them right," she thought. Adela Sellingworth especially deserved a touch of the whip. But it would be an undignified thing to do. They would never know of course why she had come alone to the Bella Napoli! They would ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... should never think of anything so indelicate as asking him to play. My own piano will be tightly closed and I dare say ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... me!—tried to run away. "Miss Wheedle": I said. "If you please, I 'd rather not," says she. To cut it short, the sacrifice I made to her was the cause. It's all over the house. She gave the most excruciating hint. Those low-born females are so horribly indelicate. I stood confounded. Commending his new humour, Evan persuaded him to breakfast immediately, and hunger being one of Jack's solitary incitements to a sensible course of conduct, the disconsolate gentleman followed its dictates. 'Go with him, Andrew,' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to leave us. And, if you will allow me to make a suggestion, I would charge you not to let him suspect, when you meet, that you for a moment imagine he was in Madeleine's confidence. It would be highly indelicate,—the very supposition would be derogatory to her dignity. I have said all that was necessary to him, and, as he had nothing to do with the affair, it is a topic which cannot with propriety ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Parson's language became grossly indelicate, after the fashion of those days. He closed his peroration by slamming the front door on his visitors; and they went down the hill "blushing" (as they said) "all over, ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dozen for my breakfast. As for Sir Hercules, he didn't know what to do; he did nothing but storm at everybody, for my lady, with her head under the clothes, was serving him out at no small rate. She wouldn't, she declared, allow any man to come into the cabin to hoist her up again. So indecent, so indelicate, so shocking—she was ashamed of Sir Hercules—to send for the men; if they didn't leave the cabin immediately, she'd scream and she'd faint—that she would—there was no saying what she wouldn't do! Well, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... in the seclusion of her chamber it would be indelicate to disclose. Moreover, I am not minutely aware of all the intricacies of the employment of those mysterious means by which she accomplished the charming effect that she did in some intuitive way presently accomplish; and at any rate I decline the task of description. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... not reproach you. No, not one bit. Positively you are not aware of anything reprehensible or even indelicate in what you are about. Thinking of the matter, as you carefully scan the books of record, you regard it precisely as you would any other investigation. To you it is essential that the girl you are to marry should have money. If she has, you will love her (for it is your duty to love ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in a store winda' becomes kind of wicked and interestin' the minute they get what they call the human note. There it lays, that virgin lawnjerie, for all the county to look at, with pink ribbons run through everything, and the poor Krieger girl never dreamin' she's doin' somethin' indelicate. She says yesterday if she wins the prize she's going to put it toward one of these ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... and converse more like an equal than an inferior; and if he has a petition he talks in a loud and boisterous tone and fearlessly sets forth his claims. Both the peasantry and the better classes are often coarse and indelicate in their language, and many of the proverbs, which they are fond of introducing into conversation, are extremely gross. In general the Marathas, and particularly the cultivators, are not possessed of much activity or energy of character, but they have quick perception ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... slightingly of the British colonial, and one of them even went so far as to call it rotgut. I cannot say whether it was the spirit of the uncompromising opinion thus pronounced, or the coarsely indelicate way in which the judgment of our French friend was expressed, that riled our phantom guest—enough, it brought him down in full force upon the offender and his countrymen, with most fluent French vituperation and an unconscionable amount ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and turned immediately back to the fire. The silence of that smile brought their comradeship sharply home to him. It was as if she understood his weariness and knew that the fire was infinitely comforting. Anthony frowned; he did not wish to be understood. It was irritating—indelicate. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... me, 'This is only a temple; I am trying to find a house.' And then he told me with indelicate haste that the lamp outside his house was green, and that there was a red post ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... General, turning very crimson in the face. "I call it indelicate to discuss such subjects. As for Nelly's marrying, why, she's only a child. I should feel very little obliged to the man who would want to take her from me at ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... kinds of shocks: to the vertebrae; to the nerves; to moral sensibility; and, more potent and permanent, to personal dignity. This last was the shock Jon received, coming thus on his mother. He became suddenly conscious that he was doing an indelicate thing. To have brought Fleur down openly—yes! But to sneak her in like this! Consumed with shame, he put on a front as brazen as his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and more delicate—however indelicate—argument of the fabliaux not only invited but almost necessitated a different kind of handling. The story had to draw to point in (on an average) two or three hundred lines at most—there are fabliaux ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... the United States I had abundant opportunity of testing both of these. In all I must have slept in over two hundred different beds, ranging from one in a hotel-chamber so gorgeous that it seemed almost as indelicate to go to bed in it as to undress in the drawing-room, down through the berths of Pullman cars and river steamboats, to an open-air couch of balsam boughs in the Adirondack forests. My means of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an Adirondack canoe, the back of a horse, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead |
