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More "Tactless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... son's wife is educated, arranges Sunday schools and libraries, but she is tactless, cruel, capricious, and physically revolting. At dinner she will suddenly go off into sham hysterics because of some article in the newspaper. An affected thing." Another daughter-in-law: "In society she behaves passably, but at home she is a dolt, smokes, is miserly, ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... American continents and the Western Hemisphere. Great Britain might discharge her financial obligations by transferring to the United States the whole of British America! And Sumner seems actually to have believed that he was promoting the cause of international good will by this tactless proposal. ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... prospects were so dark, When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm, In that Indian paper—made his seniors squirm, Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth— Was there ever known a more misguided youth? When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame; When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore, Boanerges Blitzen ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... These expositions made Karen uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante embarrassed her. She became, even, a little grateful to Mr. Drew. But ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... she thought of it, the more she shuddered at the tactless way in which the detective would perform the act of "charity" by discovering the ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... peasants in Holland break into English and German. Why shouldn't a Jonkheer spout Burns? But let me get to my point. I haven't found out what the trouble is, but I know you must have sinned against the girl in some way, or done something tactless, which is worse, and made her angry. Or else she felt it was her duty to be angry, and has been living up to it ever since. Talk of the 'way of a man with a maid!' The way of a maid with a man is funnier and more subtle. Nell Van Buren is ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Treasurer several times that the letters' (letters forged by Oates) 'might be produced and read, and the business examined into at the Committee of Foreign Affairs.'** Mr. Pollock calls the Duke's conduct tactless. Like Charles I., in the mystery of 'the Incident,' he knew himself guiltless, and ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... had prompted this warning, and she saw that she had made a tactless blunder, but she ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... blasphemy, ... so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a King may do in the height of his power,"[23] he was but giving expression to a conception of the royal prerogative which had been lodged in the mind of every Tudor, but which no Tudor had been so tactless as publicly to avow. The first two Stuarts confidently expected to maintain the same measure of absolutism which their Tudor predecessors had maintained—nothing more, nothing less. There were, however, several reasons why, for them, this was an impossibility. The first arose from their ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... that she had been tactless and David had been unnecessarily rude—David who had never been rude to her since they were children, and had told each other home-truths without heat and without ill-feeling on either side. If this was to be the ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... trembled, but the more uneasy she became, the greater were the hopes of Dardanelov. It must be noted that Kolya understood and divined what was in Dardanelov's heart and, of course, despised him profoundly for his "feelings"; he had in the past been so tactless as to show this contempt before his mother, hinting vaguely that he knew what Dardanelov was after. But from the time of the railway incident his behavior in this respect also was changed; he did not allow himself the remotest allusion to the subject and ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... well as "War," in four languages (Russian, French, English and German) with much the same sang-froid as the juggler who tosses knives and, when the meal was done, thanked Heaven that nobody had launched a tactless bomb which might have plunged us into a boiling sea. There was nothing particularly boastful in their conversation, though at times a certain assured reference to "Paris in a fortnight" crept in, which we found difficult to digest—in fact I was furious. Paris, ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... red lips. Miss Jones was so provoking. She was utterly without tact. But now that she was to be one of the party it would be wrong to say a single impolite thing to their chaperon the whole six weeks of their holiday, no matter how provoking or tactless she might he. Madge sighed impatiently, then turned ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... truth," said Dr. MacBride, "from the severe troubles and distresses to which infants are liable, and from death passing upon them before they are capable of sinning." Yet I knew he was a good man; and I also knew that if a missionary is to be tactless, he might almost as well ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... had never been interrupted or had lately been renewed. The difficulties of his position were aggravated by faults of manner. He possessed immense courage and was an excellent fighter; but, like many men of combative disposition, he was tactless and turbulent. His reckless utterances increased the distrust with which he was regarded, and Gracchus's popularity necessarily waned ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... him as to the whites in the other end of the train. Surely, if a classification of passengers on trains was at all desirable, it might be made upon some more logical and considerate basis than a mere arbitrary, tactless, and, by the very nature of things, brutal drawing of a color line. It was a veritable bed of Procrustes, this standard which the whites had set for the negroes. Those who grew above it must have their heads cut off, figuratively speaking,—must ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... again turned her face to look at the soldier beside her. She had been tactless as usual in thus expressing her feelings about peace to a man who was a great warrior. But General Alexis did not appear angry. Indeed, there was no disagreement in the expression of his eyes, it was almost as if he too felt as Mildred did. Besides, ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... hated him, longed to pour out denunciations, to tell him just what she thought of him. She felt a contempt for herself deeper than her revulsion against him. In silence she let him hurry her along to a car; she scarcely heard what he was saying—his tactless, angry outburst against himself and her for his tardiness at that important appointment. She dropped into the seat with a gasp of relief. She felt she must—for form's sake—merely for form's sake—glance ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... he said reproachfully, "was mighty tactless. I don't know how. But I know I'm not going to stick my head over the ramparts for 'em to shoot at. I'm no African Dodger—I'm an impresario. Maybe they'll hit me in the eye, all right, but I'm not going to give 'em a good cigar ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... over and changed colour. Of course it was horribly tactless of me, but it's odd he should be so sensitive. I wonder if he has ever suffered from any cruel jokes of ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... meanest type—were sent there to compete with the American Protestant missionaries in the salvation of natives' souls. A collision naturally took place, and the Governor—well known to all of us in Manila as crack-brained and tactless—sent the chief Protestant missionary, Mr. E. T. Doane, a prisoner to Manila on June 16, 1887. [20] He was sent back free to Ponape by the Gov.-General, but, during his absence, the eccentric Posadillo exercised a most arbitrary authority ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... you be so extraordinarily tactless, Peter?' she cried. 'You're a perfect fool. Have ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... a good fellow—so kind, and brave, and upright, and generous, so fine a mind, and so high a soul—is tactless and imprudent; he even condescends to the thought of intrigue; and though he rejects his plots at last, his nature has once harbored deceit. Don Inocencio, the priest, whose control of Dona Perfecta's conscience has vitiated the very ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... from the reflection that all these pleasant things would one day be his own. His mind was occupied at the moment, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, by the recollection of that painful scene in Bow Street Police Court. The magistrate's remarks, which had been tactless and unsympathetic, still echoed in his ears. And that infernal night in Vine Street police station . . . The darkness . . . The hard bed. . . The discordant vocalising of the drunk and disorderly in the next cell. . . . Time ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... change, though she was perfectly well aware that Gouache had intended to correct her manner of addressing the young man. The latter was slightly annoyed. What difference could it make? It was tactless of Gouache, he thought, for the lady might ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the King was still more exasperated to find that the King's servant proposed to be the King's master. Grenville was a good lawyer and a good man of business, but he was extremely dull and extremely tactless, and he was at as much pains to offend the King as if he intended offence. He was overbearing in manner to a monarch who was himself overbearing; he badgered him with long rambling discourses upon his royal duty; he deliberately wounded him in his ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the influence of women, socially, morally, and politically, yet his manner was the least interested or deferential in talking that I have ever met with in a man of his class. He certainly thought this particular woman of singularly small account, or else the brusque and tactless allusion to his books may perhaps have annoyed him as it did me; but whatever the cause, when he promptly left me at the first approach of a mutual acquaintance, I felt distinctly snubbed. Of the two men, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... unbearable mortification; Balzac, crippled and handicapped, with his teeth set hard, his powers concentrated on one point, that of winning Madame Hanska, was at times hardly master of himself. There was indeed some excuse for his irritation, when his family wrote something tactless, or involved themselves in fresh misfortunes, just as matters perhaps seemed progressing a little less unfavourably than usual. Their letters were always read aloud at the lunch table at Wierzchownia, and often, alas! their perusal served to prove anew to Madame Hanska, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the Leader was taking. When, after standing there an instant, the dog came over and threw himself down at the stranger's feet as if publicly adopting him, the white story-teller dared not meet Peetka's eye. He was privately most uneasy at the Nigger dog's tactless move, and he hurried on about how Brother Paul caught the Shaman, and about the Penitential Journey—told how, long before that, early in the Fall, Nicholas had got lost, making the portage from St. Michael's, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... black side, but, tactfully managed, a neuropath will merge in the kindest of husbands, the most constant of lovers. The wife need not be unhappy. Tactless, masterful women will fail, but no one is more easily led, particularly in the way he should not go, ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... "A.P.M." emerged from the shop, banged the door and pinned thereon a notice: "Out of Bounds." I pointed dramatically to my tangled mop of hair. "Eight weeks," I murmured brokenly. Whether or no that young man thought I was repeating the name of an erotic novel I cannot say, but he made a very tactless answer. I retired discomfited to find that my camel, having succeeded in breaking his head-rope, had returned to home and friends, leaving me to trudge back to camp and the tender mercies of the horse-clippers. I never heard ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... the newspapers say, but Rigby the tactless and the petty had shown that there was rumour concerning the relations of Byng and his wife, which Jasmine, at least, imagined ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Adjutants and Company Commanders, Private Wamphray, whose acquaintance we made a few pages back, was ultimately relieved of his position as a Company Signaller, and returned ignominiously to duty, for tactless if justifiable interposition in one of these ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... houses with progressive methods not only guard against inexcusable blunders and tactless letters but they are studying the classes and the individuals with whom they are dealing. A mail may bring in two letters—one, from a farmer, laboriously scrawled on a bit of wrapping paper; the other, from a lady in town, written on the finest stationery. Both may request ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued: "Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... will be very pleased,' was her reply, which made Stella almost repent of her acceptance, and she was surprised at Mrs. Jones's continual and tactless references to her son and heir, as Stella bitterly felt. She understood, or thought she understood, that in a way Mrs. Jones and this son felt that they had ousted her from her inheritance, and wanted to make amends to ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... say whether she considered him an answer to her prayer, or a denial of it. Anyhow, there he was; better, perhaps, than nobody, until she learned from his own lips—tactless though ardent lips—that he had come from Cairo to Assuan, from Assuan to Philae, to see her. Then she took alarm, and remarked in the old, conventional way of women, that they'd "better go look for the others." But Sir Marcus hadn't spent his money, time, and gray matter in hurrying ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Romanism, and rebellion." Unfortunately Blaine did not hear him distinctly enough to repudiate this slur upon the religious belief of millions of American citizens, and alienation of sentiment caused by the tactless and intolerant remark could easily account for Blaine's defeat by a small margin. He was only 1149 votes behind Cleveland in New York in a poll of over 1,125,000 votes, and only 23,005 votes behind in a national poll of ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... which prevailed in his day regarding the heathen. But the very fact that he notes so frankly how he captured the natives shows that neither he, nor those who were to read his journal, had any scruples on the subject. All moral considerations aside, it was tactless indeed to treat the natives thus in islands where he hoped to have ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... say that you love the Count?" inquired Schmidt, surprised beyond measure by the girl's words and rendered thereby even more tactless ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... being poor and alone to that. Now what I want you to do is to marry someone else. I have an idea who I should like it to be, but I won't talk about it now. It's the most charming girl in the world. I shan't tell you her name, that would be tactless. It's that lovely Miss Verney, of course. She's much too good for you—an heiress, a beauty, and an orphan! But she's wonderful; and she ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... one's head. Only in the book-lined study were trifling transactions occasionally carried out and these very rarely, constituting something of an event (and an event greatly deprecated by the Reverend Sebastian Fortune), the tactless misadventure of some pedagogue or student on excursion ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... "mad, intemperate," as he called them, summer showers. Once there was a hailstorm. We were "out home," and after supper Mother brought forth a telegram, saying, "I did not give you this until after you had eaten." Even I was conscious of the tactless way she did it, the household looking on. With drawn face Father slowly opened and read: "Hailstorm, grapes all destroyed." How limp Father felt! He said: "I had complimented myself when I looked at those grapes. I had seen several ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... success, and, it would seem, with general approval: mainly because he applied the principles impartially instead of as a partisan. The agent of conciliation was judicious, clear-headed, and tactful, instead of being injudicious, hot-headed, and tactless. The new Deputy distributed titles and monastic lands with a shrewd perception of the value of the services to be purchased thereby; legal commissioners were appointed who were allowed a due latitude in applying native customs and relaxing the rigour of English law; a number ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... a temperature-chart for Barbara's patient when a tactless messenger came to say that my car was at the door. Barbara hung on my arm. "Will you come again, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... opinion, Clara. And if you come to me for frankness, you can always have all you want; it's a drug in the market with me." She meagrely returned Clara's embrace, and left her in a reverie of tactless scheming for the restoration of peace with ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... our campaign, the POLITICAL REVIEW which had hitherto been loyally Baileyite. Quite her best writing up to the present, at any rate, is in those papers, and no doubt Altiora had had not only to read her in those invaded columns, but listen to her praises in the mouths of the tactless influential. Altiora, like so many people who rely on gesture and vocal insistence in conversation, writes a poor and slovenly prose and handles an argument badly; Isabel has her University training behind her and wrote from ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... seldom more. It is not often that she is spoken of, unless it is to praise her cooking. If she made incomparable biscuits and her coffee was fit to be the nectar of the gods, there are apt to be frequent and tactless comparisons, until painful experience teaches the sinner that ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... 1820, settling on the Eastern borders of the colony, and from that time onwards there was a slow but steady influx of English-speaking colonists. The Government had the historical faults and the historical virtues of British rule. It was mild, clean, honest, tactless, and inconsistent. On the whole, it might have done very well had it been content to leave things as it found them. But to change the habits of the most conservative of Teutonic races was a dangerous venture, and one which has led to a long series of complications, making ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... has come from you! It is warmly and eloquently written, and every thought in it is true. To talk now of laziness and drunkenness, and so on, is as strange and tactless as to lecture a man on the conduct of life at a moment when he is being sick or lying ill of typhus. There is always a certain element of insolence in being well-fed, as in every kind of force, and that element finds expression chiefly in the well-fed man preaching ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... by this, had disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and fled—all save ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... detain her." When I caught Dora up and asked her: "Why did you run away?" she tossed her head and said: "That sort of company does not suit me." "What on earth do you mean, you were so awfully fond of Mad., and besides she is really lovely." That's true enough, she said; but it was awfully tactless of her to tell me of all that—you know what. Such an intimacy behind her parents' backs cannot possibly lead to happiness. Then I got in such a fearful temper and said: "Oh do shut up. Father and Mother did not know anything about Viktor either, and you were happy enough then. It is just the secrecy ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... Tactless, blunt, and direct, Annixter was quite capable of calling even Magnus a fool to his face. But before he could proceed, S. Behrman in his single buggy turned into the gate, and driving leisurely up to the porch halted on the other side of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... our play-boxes: by a tacit law, no master entered it. One evening, just at dusk, a great number of us were here when the bell for night-school rang, and many of us dawdled at the summons. Mr. B., tactless in his anger, bustled in among us, scolding in a shrill voice, and proceeded to drive us forth. I was the latest to emerge, and as he turned away to see if any other truant might not be hiding, I determined ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... she was hurt that her only daughter would evidently miss her so little. Young folks often say cruel things from mere thoughtlessness, and unintentionally grieve those who love them. In after years Honor would keenly regret her tactless speech, and blame herself that she had not spent more hours in trying to be a comfort, instead of a care; but for the present, though she noticed the look of disappointment that passed over the sensitive face, she did not ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... him delightedly round the pictures, expounding their merits and their little histories. He found that Oliver, although unlearned, had a true sense of light and colour and tone. He was just beginning to like him, when the tactless fellow, stopping before the collection of little ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... middle of her sentence; she knew Michael's old sensitiveness about these physical disabilities, and she had a moment's cold horror at the thought of Falbe having said so miserably tactless a thing to him. But the horror was of infinitesimal duration, for she heard Michael's laugh as they leaned over the top of the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... swings he had made before—in an excess of caution—he had struck the ground back of the immune ball and raked it a pitiful five feet to one side. He heard, too, the pleased laughter in the background, high, musical peals of tactless women and the full-throated roars of brutal men. He felt again the hot flush on his cheeks as he had slunk from the dreadful scene with a shamed effort to brazen it out, followed by the amused stare ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... said indulgently, "you needn't look so worried. I won't be tactless with Morgan again. After this I'll just keep ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... Brian and George always discuss me in front of the pigs. So tactless of them. I say, are you going to London, too, darling? (Coming down to ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... to toe at the question. A piece of ice dropped down her back could not have startled her more. It was apparently tactless, and yet it was anything but tactless. She looked up quickly, directly, but his strong eyes were too ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Secretary of State, but the man who directed the national policy in shipping matters was Robert Lansing, then counsellor of the Department. It is somewhat difficult to appraise Mr. Lansing justly, for in his conduct of his office there was not the slightest taint of malice. His methods were tactless, the phrasing of his notes lacked deftness and courtesy, his literary style was crude and irritating; but Mr. Lansing was not anti-British, he was not pro-German; he was nothing more nor less than a lawyer. The protection of American rights ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Dexter is a rather important person in Appleboro. She is fifty-six years old, stout, brown-eyed, suffers from a congenital incapacity to refrain from telling the unwelcome truth when people are madly trying to save their faces,—she calls this being frank,—is tactless, independent, generous, and the possessor of what she herself complacently refers to as ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... clinical observations as to the effect of emotional excitation on the temperature of patients. A rise of a degree or more is a common result of a visit from a tactless friend. There is a traditional Sunday increase of temperature in hospital wards. Now the visitor does not bring and administer more infection to the patient to cause this rise, and the rise of temperature occurs ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... first greeted him he began to get better. His first act, as soon as he was strong enough to sign a paper, was to appoint Bartholomew to the office of Adelantado, or Lieutenant-Governor—an indiscreet and rather tactless proceeding which, although it was not outside his power as a bearer of the royal seal, was afterwards resented by King Ferdinand as a piece of impudent encroachment upon the royal prerogative. But Columbus was unable to transact business himself, and James was manifestly of ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... picnic tea you invited me to the other day. If I'd known how the land lay, I shouldn't have sent a substitute. I'm afraid, perhaps, that was rather—tactless of me." ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... in accordance with the instructions given to him on the supposition that the French would be found in occupation of territory in Tasmania, was, in the circumstances, tactless to the point of rudeness, though it caused less indignation than amusement among them. It is to be noticed that the flag of the Republic had not been erected over the tents of the visitors, nor anywhere on the island. Otherwise, we may suppose, Acting-Lieutenant Robbins would have ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... and pursue his suit. So he had no business to get his heart entangled with the line, and his legitimate affections disengaged with the string he was clearing, under Circe's azure eyes; and why need he, in that tactless manner, talk of her at tea as "The Lady of the Lake"? which, if such a senseless sobriquet was worth having at all, Miss Janet Cameron considered she had an indisputable right to, for could she not row, swim, dive, and ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... upon taste," returns Molly, who, though angry, finds a grim amusement in watching the flounderings of this tactless old person. "If we are to believe that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, I may certainly flatter myself I shall be the best dressed woman in the room. But there may be some who will not ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... And while the tactless Gammire went on, "walking" a circle round him, Mr. Atwater's eye furiously searched the borders of the path, the lawn, and otherwheres, for anything that might serve as missile. He had never kicked a dog, or struck one with his hand, in his life; he had a theory that ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... precipitates itself with the same lack of sense and reason that marks the loafer's gravitation toward a lighted groggery. Moreover, in the beetle phase, it is sure to appear at the most inopportune times and unsuitable places, creating the inevitable commotion which the blunder and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan himself could scarcely produce a more complete absence of devotion ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... or in front of his companions, and his bride would often say, "See how gracefully he skims along without having to flop heavy wings as we do," and she gave her brothers a side glance which made them feel that she was contrasting their clumsiness with his ease. After that tactless remark, the four brothers-in-law began ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... stranger asked. She felt embarrassed, suddenly, and tactless, for she had taken it for granted that they were both of the class to which the modest cottage ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... much as possible during this anxious period; and he privately thought it rather tactless of the latter when, meeting him one day outside Donaldson's, he insisted on his coming in and ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... to his mother was enlarged upon. Various virtues were discovered in him. People talked with approbation of the learning he had acquired in the four years he had spent in German universities. Gaganov's conduct was declared utterly tactless: "not knowing friend from foe." Yulia Mihailovna's keen insight was ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The little she said showed that she was cultured and intelligent; she seemed to have a precocious knowledge of life; she seemed to be at once naive and undeceived, pious and disillusioned. She had not been happy in the town in a tactless and unkind family. She used not to complain, but it was easy to see that she used to suffer—Frau Reinhart did not exactly know why she had gone. It had been said that she had behaved badly. Angelica did not believe it; she was ready to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... intelligibly entertains. Naturally, the South was sore; no community likes having to admit defeat. Also, no doubt, the majority of Southerners would have refused to admit that they were in the wrong in the contest which was now closed; indeed, it was by pressing this peculiarly tactless question that Sumner and his friends procured most of their evidence of the persistence of "disloyalty" in the South. On the other hand, two facts already enforced in these pages have to be remembered. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... fashion of the age of Chesterfield they portray the perfect gentleman. He is always to remember the presence of others and not to move, read, or speak without considering what may be due to them. In the true spirit of the time he is to learn to defer to persons of superior quality. Tactless laughter at his own wit, jests that have a sting of idle gossip, are to be avoided. Reproof is to be given not in anger but in a sweet and mild temper. The rules descend even to manners at table and ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Pennsylvania there was a bitter quarrel between the people and the proprietary government that hampered action. Many of the contractors who were to furnish equipment thought much more of profit than of patriotism. Braddock, brave and honest, but tactless and wholly ignorant of the conditions predominant in any new country, raged and stormed. He denounced the Virginia troops that came to his standard, calling shameful their lack of uniforms and what he considered ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... see Martin again had been unconsciously set blazing by this tactless and provoked man. It was so passionate and irresistible that she could hardly remain at the table until the replete Cornucopia rose, rattling with beads. And when, after what seemed to be an interminable time, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... was pluckily doing up his bootlace several yards away; a tactless grin seemed to desolate his features. The grin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... charm or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he never attained during ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Both were aware that when shaved and washed of their round-up grime they could look very engaging. The two cow-punchers rode out, not angry, but grieved that a man come here to dwell among them should be so tactless. ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... are, and how you came to the Astons, and who was your mother, and when and where Aymer met her. You see," he added confidentially, "I used to be about with Aymer a good bit and I thought I knew all——" He stopped abruptly. If he were being purposely tactless he realised ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... was due to pride. After Miss Willoughby's tactless remark he may have thought there was no use saying anything when his sweetheart believed him guilty." Colwyn spoke without conviction; the memory of Penreath's demeanour to him after his arrest was too fresh in ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... that he, in his turn, might feed others. Still, being but human, it was with slight irritation that he heard himself hailed with a loud 'halloo!' from behind. Looking round, he beheld a long-legged figure ambling after them along the dusty road, and recognised a certain tactless youth, John Story by name, famous throughout the district for his knack of thrusting himself in where he was least wanted. Without so much as a 'by your leave' John Story caught up the other two men and began a lively conversation as they ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... that intention, but as soon as they had introduced the subject such a terrified expression had come into the woman's eyes, something so shy and reserved into her manner, that it would have been more than tactless to continue the conversation. They were compelled to desist from questioning her—but it ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the Members of the Inter-parliamentary Conference assembled in the Palace of Westminster on July 23rd, 1906, just after the dissolution of Russia's first elected Parliament, he said, "La Duma est morte; vive la Duma!" For a Prime Minister this outburst was regarded as a little tactless; its essential wisdom has been ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... thus falteringly was a little fellow in white gaiters, with an albino's face and scanty hair that stood erect in bunches. But that tactless friend's interruption simply furnished Le Merquier with a pretext for an immediate and natural transition. A hideous smile parted his flabby lips. "The honorable Monsieur Sarigue refers to the Caisse Territoriale; we proceed to answer him." The ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the book from the reader's hand and tossed it into a corner. "Sears-Roebuck are very tactless," she declared. "Everything they have to offer reminds one of home. What do you think of home, Ban? Home, as an abstract proposition. Home as the what-d'you-call-'em of the nation; the palladium—no, the bulwark? Home as ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the camp, a spirit of deviltry had entered once more into Long Jim and his mates. A tactless remark on the part of one of the deputies had set alight once more the smouldering fire of resentment which the cowboys had all the time felt against them. At a word from Long Jim they were taken by surprise and again ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... circus dog, and not a trained camel, and not the first pupil of a young ladies' genteel institute. Only it was useless for me to let loose yesterday before these bearers of enlightenment. It all turned out to be silly, tactless, and, in any case, premature. But everything in life is reparable. A person will sustain the heaviest, most disgraceful things; but, time passes, and they are recalled ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... play," he went on, scarcely heeding Mrs. King's tactless remark that she affected the game because she had a horror of getting fat. "Corking, she is, and as quick as a cat. Got a medal at Lakewood last spring. I'll fix up a match soon, Mrs. King, between you and Maud. Ought to be worth going ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... several river towns, and it was important to find out whether the Egyptians or the foreigners had been more to blame; whether there were real symptoms of sedition, as reported, or whether the young men of the suspected places had merely resented with roughness some discourtesy of tactless tourists. Fenton had seized upon the idea that, as Egyptian lecturer and conductor—a sort of super-dragoman—on board Lark's Nile boat, he might find a plausible pretext for his secret errand. "Why do you ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Mr. Chrystal Croftangry, is a thing which I should be disposed to put on a level with his very greatest work. Much is admittedly personal reminiscence of himself and his friends, handled not with the clumsy and tactless directness of reporting, which has ruined so many novels, but in the great transforming way of Fielding and Thackeray. Chrystal's early thoughtless life, the sketch of his ancestry (said to represent the Scotts of Raeburn), the agony of Mr. Somerville, suggested partly by ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... she was tactless, answered, coldly, "Madame, I never play my scales in the afternoon," and turned his back on her ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... the Dipo Negoro rebellion of 1825, which was caused by the insulting behavior of an incompetent and tactless resident toward a native prince, to suppress which cost Holland five years of warfare and the lives of fifteen thousand soldiers, the Dutch Government has come more and more to realize that most of the disaffection and revolts in their Eastern possessions have been directly traceable ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... all over and changed colour. Of course it was horribly tactless of me, but it's odd he should be so sensitive. I wonder if he has ever suffered from any cruel ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some endeavor was made to live up to the promises so loudly made that henceforth the rights of the weak were to receive as much attention as those of the strong. Commissions were formed to study various aspects of the questions involved in the peace and ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and fled—all ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... impotently furious to find himself discarded and despised by his intended tool, the King was still more exasperated to find that the King's servant proposed to be the King's master. Grenville was a good lawyer and a good man of business, but he was extremely dull and extremely tactless, and he was at as much pains to offend the King as if he intended offence. He was overbearing in manner to a monarch who was himself overbearing; he badgered him with long rambling discourses upon his royal ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was devoted to us and to our play-boxes: by a tacit law, no master entered it. One evening, just at dusk, a great number of us were here when the bell for night-school rang, and many of us dawdled at the summons. Mr. B., tactless in his anger, bustled in among us, scolding in a shrill voice, and proceeded to drive us forth. I was the latest to emerge, and as he turned away to see if any other truant might not be hiding, I determined upon action. With a quick movement, I drew the door behind me ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... directed the national policy in shipping matters was Robert Lansing, then counsellor of the Department. It is somewhat difficult to appraise Mr. Lansing justly, for in his conduct of his office there was not the slightest taint of malice. His methods were tactless, the phrasing of his notes lacked deftness and courtesy, his literary style was crude and irritating; but Mr. Lansing was not anti-British, he was not pro-German; he was nothing more nor less than a lawyer. The protection of American rights at sea was to him simply a "case" in which he ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... in the middle of her sentence; she knew Michael's old sensitiveness about these physical disabilities, and she had a moment's cold horror at the thought of Falbe having said so miserably tactless a thing to him. But the horror was of infinitesimal duration, for she heard Michael's laugh as they leaned over the top of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... by Harrow boys. Briefly it means that six hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore, when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance and visibly annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure by derisive cheers. Rutford, ever tactless where boys were concerned, was unwise enough to make a speech from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style, a demonstration which he ought to have known he was quite powerless to punish or to prevent. When he had finished, the School cheered more derisively than ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... that it was a very nice engagement, and a great match; there were not wanting those who said also that it was wonderful promotion for that Tishy Mangan. A tactless ex-charwoman had even referred to young Mr. Coppinger as being Miss Mangan's "up-raiser," and having enquired, with incredulity, of Mrs. Mangan ("and this before a crowd in Egan's shop, if you please!" as Mrs. Mangan reported) "Ma'am! are they in bonds?" she had so fervently ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... back to Daddy and Mummy again?" crooned Mrs. Momeby; the preference which the child was showing for its dust and buttercup distractions was so marked that the question struck Clovis as being unnecessarily tactless. ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... best possible character. Wegstetten had had a violent altercation with Brettschneider, not only from personal feeling for the bombardier, but also from annoyance that his best candidate for a non-commissioned officer's post was lost to him through a piece of such tactless mismanagement. Brettschneider had complained about this reprimand, but no notice had been taken of his complaint, and that in itself spoke volumes for the accused. Guentz and Reimers were very warm in their praise ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... I was tactless enough to say that I thought there was a good deal in Lord Mulross's view. "Oh, how can you?" she cried. "Is there a close season for the wants of the people? It sounds to me perfectly horrible ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... seldom, and after 1764 not at all. Reforms were introduced, especially in connection with education, but through the medium of royal decrees alone. Joseph II. continued nominally the policy of enlightened despotism, but in so tactless a manner that most of his projects were brought to nought. Approaching the problem of Hungarian administration with his accustomed idealism, he undertook deliberately to sweep away not only the constitution of the kingdom but the whole body of Hungarian institutions and traditions. ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Waller is now. Only, apparently, as he began to get on a bit in the world, he altered his views to some extent as regards the iniquity of freezing on to a decent share of the doubloons. And that, you see, is where the dim and rusty past begins to get mixed up with the live, vivid present. If any tactless person were to publish those very able speeches made by Comrade Bickersdyke when a bulwark of the Tulse Hill Parliament, our revered chief would be more or less caught bending, if I may employ the ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... observing the anxiety of her relatives on her behalf, and, like a true actress, warmed to her part under the consciousness of an audience. The more intently did her mother's eyes regard her, the more meek and downcast became her air; she figuratively turned the other cheek to Maud's tactless sallies, and played humble handmaid to Rowena's lightest wish. For one whole day—and then of a sudden weariness fell upon her. She reflected with horror that only two more days of the exeat remained, and determined to waste not another moment in repining. Within five minutes' time ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... alms, and it was interesting to watch the struggle going on in the simple fellow's mind between native prudence and good form. How much he ought to give? Whether it was quite the thing to bring the box so often and at such a season? Whether shaking it so noisily was not peculiarly tactless? What the spectators and church officials would think if he refused? Could he refuse? and, However much were these obsequies going to cost?—these questions one could discern revolving almost visibly beneath his ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... how you came to the Astons, and who was your mother, and when and where Aymer met her. You see," he added confidentially, "I used to be about with Aymer a good bit and I thought I knew all——" He stopped abruptly. If he were being purposely tactless he realised he had gone ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Civilian's prospects were so dark, When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm, In that Indian paper—made his seniors squirm, Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth— Was there ever known a more misguided youth? When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame; When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore, Boanerges Blitzen ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... Baileyite. Quite her best writing up to the present, at any rate, is in those papers, and no doubt Altiora had had not only to read her in those invaded columns, but listen to her praises in the mouths of the tactless influential. Altiora, like so many people who rely on gesture and vocal insistence in conversation, writes a poor and slovenly prose and handles an argument badly; Isabel has her University training behind her and wrote from ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... for the leading parts. She may even have flattered herself that she was showing tact—keeping an unconscious Gerry out of the way, who might else interfere with the stars in their courses, in the manner of the tactless. Rosalind suspected this of Sally, that whatever she might think she thought, and whatever parade she made of an even mind no sentiments whatever prevailed in, there was in her inmost heart another Sally, locked in and unconfessed, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... This rather tactless speech made the girl suddenly look grave; but it did not quench her vivacity. She was staring about the dock, interested in everything she saw, when Uncle ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... incident closed," as the newspapers say, but Rigby the tactless and the petty had shown that there was rumour concerning the relations of Byng and his wife, which Jasmine, at least, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her financial obligations by transferring to the United States the whole of British America! And Sumner seems actually to have believed that he was promoting the cause of international good will by this tactless proposal. ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... with slight irritation that he heard himself hailed with a loud 'halloo!' from behind. Looking round, he beheld a long-legged figure ambling after them along the dusty road, and recognised a certain tactless youth, John Story by name, famous throughout the district for his knack of thrusting himself in where he was least wanted. Without so much as a 'by your leave' John Story caught up the other two men and began a lively conversation ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... for Barbara's patient when a tactless messenger came to say that my car was at the door. Barbara hung on my arm. "Will you come again, and take ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... burst forth the blunt and tactless Tom Holtum, "I'd be ashamed of being valued at such a trumpery price. If you had priced him against a bit of lichen torn from the Head of Calloster, which might have cost us our lives to procure, that would have been more like the thing. But ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... very pleased,' was her reply, which made Stella almost repent of her acceptance, and she was surprised at Mrs. Jones's continual and tactless references to her son and heir, as Stella bitterly felt. She understood, or thought she understood, that in a way Mrs. Jones and this son felt that they had ousted her from her inheritance, and ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... this for business! No, no, Master Mark, it won't do; I've got you, and I mean to stick to you; you know what a tactless beggar I can be when I like. Seriously, do you think I can't see there's something wrong? I'm hanged if I think it's safe to let you go about alone while you're looking like this; it isn't any—any hitch at Kensington Park Gardens, is it?' and there was a real anxiety ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... but tactless Snavely saw a happy solution of the problem. "Never mind, Mrs. Pipkin," he said, "there shall be no lawsuit. You pay me the six dollars, and I will write Cadge a receipt for the seven dollars he owes me. I lose a dollar that ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... has it all on the best of authority—his own—in My Three Years in America (SKEFFINGTON). Of course awkward incidents did occur, which have to be explained away or placidly ignored, but really, if the warlords at home had not been so invincibly tactless in the matter of drowning citizens of the United States, this simple and ingenuous diplomat might very well have succeeded, he would have us believe, in persuading President WILSON to declare in favour of a peace-loving All-Highest. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... troubles and distresses to which infants are liable, and from death passing upon them before they are capable of sinning." Yet I knew he was a good man; and I also knew that if a missionary is to be tactless, he might almost ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... him, and yet she felt irresistibly impelled to do so. He was a strange compound of wisdom and levity, in her opinion, and his light-hearted moods were those which she most resented. She was never sure whether he was in reality tactless, or frankly brutal. She inclined to the latter view of his character, because he always showed such masterly skill in excusing himself when he had gone too far. Neither his wisdom nor his love of jesting explained ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... after standing there an instant, the dog came over and threw himself down at the stranger's feet as if publicly adopting him, the white story-teller dared not meet Peetka's eye. He was privately most uneasy at the Nigger dog's tactless move, and he hurried on about how Brother Paul caught the Shaman, and about the Penitential Journey—told how, long before that, early in the Fall, Nicholas had got lost, making the portage from St. Michael's, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... marks the loafer's gravitation toward a lighted groggery. Moreover, in the beetle phase, it is sure to appear at the most inopportune times and unsuitable places, creating the inevitable commotion which the blunder and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan himself could scarcely produce a more complete absence of devotion ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... sorry," she said, after a moment's startled silence. "I am afraid that I asked a tactless question, but how ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and used to draw into herself at the first question. The little she said showed that she was cultured and intelligent; she seemed to have a precocious knowledge of life; she seemed to be at once naive and undeceived, pious and disillusioned. She had not been happy in the town in a tactless and unkind family. She used not to complain, but it was easy to see that she used to suffer—Frau Reinhart did not exactly know why she had gone. It had been said that she had behaved badly. Angelica did not believe it; she was ready to swear that it ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... This tactless prelate made matters worse by an arrogant attitude, and afterward spoke of the King, who received him in sombre silence, as "that debaser of coinage, that proud and dumb image that knows nothing but to stare ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... daughter play," he went on, scarcely heeding Mrs. King's tactless remark that she affected the game because she had a horror of getting fat. "Corking, she is, and as quick as a cat. Got a medal at Lakewood last spring. I'll fix up a match soon, Mrs. King, between you and Maud. Ought to be worth going miles to see, ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... King James II. himself writes, he (being then Duke of York) 'press'd the King and Lord Treasurer several times that the letters' (letters forged by Oates) 'might be produced and read, and the business examined into at the Committee of Foreign Affairs.'** Mr. Pollock calls the Duke's conduct tactless. Like Charles I., in the mystery of 'the Incident,' he knew himself guiltless, and ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... in a new and agreeable light. Doggie took him delightedly round the pictures, expounding their merits and their little histories. He found that Oliver, although unlearned, had a true sense of light and colour and tone. He was just beginning to like him, when the tactless fellow, stopping before the collection of little ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... down the brook," said Neale, hastily, fearful that he had been tactless. "There are ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... always to remember the presence of others and not to move, read, or speak without considering what may be due to them. In the true spirit of the time he is to learn to defer to persons of superior quality. Tactless laughter at his own wit, jests that have a sting of idle gossip, are to be avoided. Reproof is to be given not in anger but in a sweet and mild temper. The rules descend even to manners at table and ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... College—was reclining among vast blue and pink cushions in the bows, pensively twirling a Japanese parasol, one arm flung round the shoulders of her companion—a fellow-student; fair and stolid and good-humoured. Broome summed her up mentally: "Tactless but trustworthy. Anglo-Saxon to the last button on her ready-made Shantung coat and the blunted toe ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... kept on, above or in front of his companions, and his bride would often say, "See how gracefully he skims along without having to flop heavy wings as we do," and she gave her brothers a side glance which made them feel that she was contrasting their clumsiness with his ease. After that tactless remark, the four brothers-in-law began to feel envious ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... regularly ascribes to him. Readers of Arthurian romance are all familiar with Sir Kay; they will find that in Chretien, the seneschal, in addition to his undeniable qualities of bravery and frankness, has less pleasing traits; he is foolhardy, tactless, mean, and a disparager of others' merit. He figures prominently in "Yvain" and "Lancelot". His poetic history has not yet been written. His role in the German romances has been touched upon by Dr. Friedrich Sachse, "Ueber ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... and out of sheer ennui he begins to flirt with Olga. The thoughtless girl willingly yields to the young man's attentions and promises to dance the cotillion with him, in order to punish her lover for his jealousy.—This tactless behaviour enrages Lenski to such a degree, that he challenges Onegin to a duel. The whole assembly is terrified, Tatiana is most indignant and mortified, while Olga vainly tries to pacify her lover. Onegin ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... this we see the growing distrust and hatred of Constantinople, which the taxation had first aroused on the part of the Italian people and their champion the papacy. These feelings were to be crystallised by the extraordinary and tactless council that the emperor convened in 691, in which the empire attempted to avenge the defeat it had sustained at the hands of the papacy in regard to the Monothelete heresy. The council, which was mainly concerned with discipline, ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... evince sympathy for Mr. Farron, but was afraid that, if she did, it would be like intimating that he was as good as dead. She was caught between the negative danger of seeming indifferent and the positive one of being tactless. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... emigrants were landed in 1820, settling on the Eastern borders of the colony, and from that time onwards there was a slow but steady influx of English speaking colonists. The Government had the historical faults and the historical virtues of British rule. It was mild, clean, honest, tactless, and inconsistent. On the whole, it might have done very well had it been content to leave things as it found them. But to change the habits of the most conservative of Teutonic races was a dangerous venture, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... She felt in her inmost soul, though she would have been loath to admit the fact to herself, that a woman whom she had invited to make calls with her at her expense had really no right to wear a finer bonnet—that it was, to say the least, indelicate and tactless. Therefore she remarked, rather dryly, upon the beauty of a new pansy-bed beside the drive into which they now turned. The bed looked like a bit of fairy carpet ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... luncheon at the "Thistle" club. And when Thyrsis went, Comings explained that Mrs. Parmley Fatten had read his book, and was anxious to meet him, and requested that he be brought round to tea. The other was tactless enough to let it transpire that he knew nothing about Mrs. Patton; but Comings was too tactful to show his surprise. Mrs. Patton, he explained, was socially prominent—was looked upon as the leader of a set that went in ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... as a rule by the proprietor's own family, gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is the best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the parents a little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, to prove that you are a man of the world and worthy, a priori, of some respect. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... wife were as awkward and threadbare as usual, and the other guests were two dreadful families whose names Babbitt never caught and never desired to catch. But he was touched, and disconcerted, by the tactless way in which Overbrook praised him: "We're mighty proud to have old George here to-night! Of course you've all read about his speeches and oratory in the papers—and the boy's good-looking, too, eh?—but what I always think of is back in college, and what a great old mixer he was, and ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... back. Smithers was pluckily doing up his bootlace several yards away; a tactless grin seemed to desolate his features. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... 11. 515 and 529, "Oh how sweet to see thee here!" and "Oh, give me this hour full. Thou wilt soon die."—Iphigenia is more than tactless. She is so starving for home or anything that brings her into touch with home, that neither this Stranger's death nor anything else matters to her in ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... not meant to speak, and the blood rushed to his sunburnt face. Clare's eyes flashed upon him in a glance of surprise, and the colour rose in her cheeks also. She was evidently not pleased, and he felt that he had been guilty of a breach of English propriety. When an Englishman does a tactless thing he generally hastens to make it worse, becomes suddenly shy, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... general approval: mainly because he applied the principles impartially instead of as a partisan. The agent of conciliation was judicious, clear-headed, and tactful, instead of being injudicious, hot-headed, and tactless. The new Deputy distributed titles and monastic lands with a shrewd perception of the value of the services to be purchased thereby; legal commissioners were appointed who were allowed a due latitude in applying native customs ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... showed the temper of the Argentine people, who have certainly never been unsympathetic to the Entente Allies' cause although they have shown some restiveness under rather tactless attempts on the part of a section of the United States press to tutor them into line. The best thought of Argentina has all along been with the Allies and this is exemplified by an article, "Neutrality Impossible," widely published and applauded ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... the Egyptians or the foreigners had been more to blame; whether there were real symptoms of sedition, as reported, or whether the young men of the suspected places had merely resented with roughness some discourtesy of tactless tourists. Fenton had seized upon the idea that, as Egyptian lecturer and conductor—a sort of super-dragoman—on board Lark's Nile boat, he might find a plausible pretext for his secret errand. "Why do you travel?" ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... healthy colour,' said Franklin, still meditating on Thomas's impenetrability. 'It's not that I don't perfectly understand his being uncommunicative when he's engaged in his work—it was rather tactless of me to talk to him just now, only the subject came up. I'd been talking to Baines about the Old Age Pensions yesterday. That's one of my objections to domestic service; it creates an artificial barrier ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... once, feeling that she had been tactless and David had been unnecessarily rude—David who had never been rude to her since they were children, and had told each other home-truths without heat and without ill-feeling on either side. If this was to be the effect of owning ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... success at St. Quentin and in Flanders to British incompetence or cowardice, and British troops had even been hissed in the streets of Paris. The attack on the Chemin des Dames was to modify this opinion, although some tactless Frenchmen announced that reserves sent up to the British sector, which alone stood its ground, were going ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... without any remark. Madame d'Aragona's expression did not change, though she was perfectly well aware that Gouache had intended to correct her manner of addressing the young man. The latter was slightly annoyed. What difference could it make? It was tactless of Gouache, he thought, for the lady might ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... interview was that Borrow, after what appears to be a tactless, not to say impertinent, rejoinder, {50a} relapsed into silence and finally left the house, ordered back to his compilation by Sir Richard, as soon as he became sufficiently calm to appear coherent, and Borrow walked away musing on the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Mildred again turned her face to look at the soldier beside her. She had been tactless as usual in thus expressing her feelings about peace to a man who was a great warrior. But General Alexis did not appear angry. Indeed, there was no disagreement in the expression of his eyes, it was almost ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... all orderly and calm. The police had taken extensive precautionary measures. The speakers were mostly members of the Reichstag or the Berlin Town Council. Throughout they were guilty of the most fiery and tactless attacks on Austria, to whom alone they ascribed the guilt for the warlike developments. Each meeting adopted a resolution against war. The chief of police had forbidden all processions or demonstrations to take place after the day ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... so, too, apparently, for she found no words in which to tell him that it was his affair. Her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes downcast, she seemed shrunken together, overcome by his tactless intrusion. ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... launching of a last-wicket man, when there are ten to make to win, or five minutes left to make a draw of a losing game, is fully as impressive a ceremony as the launching of the latest battleship. An interested crowd harasses the poor victim as he is putting on his pads. 'Feel in a funk?' asks some tactless friend. 'N-n-no, norrabit.' 'That's right,' says the captain encouragingly, 'bowling's ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... his rapscallion attire, blushed, and blamed herself for the tactless question. "This is a ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... end of the canvass Sir Lionel Sackville-West, the British Minister, fell into a Republican trap and wrote to a pretended naturalized Englishman, who called himself Murchison, that a vote for Cleveland would best serve Great Britain. His tactless blunder caused his summary dismissal from Washington and aided the Republican cause much as the Burchard affair had injured ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... gorgeous Japanese dressing-gown, purple brocade embroidered with gold, that he had surreptitiously bought in the harbor of Nagasaki. To Rezanov it was like a red rag to a bull; but the professor was oblivious at the moment of the tactless garment. His eyes were glaring and the extended tip of his nose worked like a knife trying to leap from its sheath. But although he occasionally ventured upon a retort when goaded too far in conversation, he was able to curb his just indignation when the Chamberlain was in ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... At the railway station and the post office they removed the old Italian inscriptions and put up Croatian ones, they wrote to the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons who made this demand ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... teeth set hard, his powers concentrated on one point, that of winning Madame Hanska, was at times hardly master of himself. There was indeed some excuse for his irritation, when his family wrote something tactless, or involved themselves in fresh misfortunes, just as matters perhaps seemed progressing a little less unfavourably than usual. Their letters were always read aloud at the lunch table at Wierzchownia, and often, alas! ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... to helping the people round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only playground and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... him, and suddenly felt the fire blaze up again. He saw his questioner's frown, saw him even bite his lip as though conscious of having said a tactless thing. The actor probably understood the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at him; he wished to convey to his Highness his desire to speak with him alone; but Friedrich Graevenitz also, unfortunately, had this impression, and being at once the most suspicious and the most tactless of mortals, he had evidently made up his mind to remain in attendance, as was indeed officially correct, though it was usual for the subordinate official to retire courteously when a person holding a superior court charge ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... if your cousin does not wish to tell you himself, I ought not to," he said, "though I should like you to know. But there are two things that you can do. One is not to be impatient with your cousin when he makes tactless mistakes about—about how you are to be entertained. He depends on you and Janet for a little ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... momentarily, then: "Yes, Jack," he said briefly. "He had some reason, but he's such a tactless ass. He blames Robin of course. Everyone ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... exact opposite of Brent, in that he looked to be exactly what he was; a figure rigidly type-cast to the role of a blustering, tactless servant of the people. Which, in Crane's case, meant that he was a servant of Crane's career and any faction of his supporters that could further it. Still, the Senator could not be called dishonest. He was merely a flexible rationalizer. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... pointed dramatically to my tangled mop of hair. "Eight weeks," I murmured brokenly. Whether or no that young man thought I was repeating the name of an erotic novel I cannot say, but he made a very tactless answer. I retired discomfited to find that my camel, having succeeded in breaking his head-rope, had returned to home and friends, leaving me to trudge back to camp and the tender mercies of the horse-clippers. I never heard for what crime the barber had been arraigned, though it would ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... you know the fellow I mean—the one that was always making tactless remarks about ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... well have stayed at home. A curious diffidence beset me from the first. I shrank from recognising that there was any question as to the good feeling between the two countries, and still more from seeming to appeal to a non-existent or a grudging sense of kinship. It seemed to me tactless and absurd for an Englishman to lay any stress on the war as affecting the relations between the two peoples. What had England done? Nothing that had cost her a cent or a drop of blood. The British people had sympathised ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... extremely gruesome. I murmured something about communicating with the young lady's relatives. It seemed to me a very natural suggestion; but Fyne and his wife exchanged such a significant glance that I felt as though I had made a tactless remark. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... tactless expression of awe—and she rarely missed anything so obvious—it probably did nothing to raise the young man in her esteem. She ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... been drinking freely, as usual; but he was bent on indulging a loquacity which his discipline on shipboard had hitherto precluded, and which had, perhaps, strengthened his solitary habit. His speech was voluble and incoherent, complimentary and tactless, kindly and aggressive, courteous and dogmatic. It was left to Senor Perkins to translate it to the eye and ear of his host without incongruity or offense. This he did so admirably as to elicit not only the applause of the foreigners who ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... the frankness which had prompted this warning and saw that she had made a tactless blunder, but she looked at ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Chinese felt a revulsion against non-Chinese, such as the Salars, who were of Turkish race. Here there were always possibilities of friction, which might have been removed with a little consideration but which swelled to importance through the tactless behaviour of Chinese officials. Finally there came divisions among the Mohammedans of China which ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... sitting on the door-step of the house, two little children, holding something tightly grasped in their little hands, and gazing with much expectancy towards the top of the street. She longed to know what they were doing, but not being one of those unimaginative and tactless folk who rush headlong into the mysteries of children's doings, she passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still in the same silent and expectant posture half an hour later that she said tentatively: "I wonder whether you would tell me what you are ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... insult. She hated him, longed to pour out denunciations, to tell him just what she thought of him. She felt a contempt for herself deeper than her revulsion against him. In silence she let him hurry her along to a car; she scarcely heard what he was saying—his tactless, angry outburst against himself and her for his tardiness at that important appointment. She dropped into the seat with a gasp of relief. She felt she must—for form's sake—merely for form's sake—glance ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... quickly enough, and he had sent Bones post-haste to await the advent of any unfortunate youngster who was tactless enough to put in an appearance at such an inauspicious moment as would fulfil the prediction ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... the abyss following her as she went down the hall. Her comforting words meant nothing pleasant to her son, who felt that her optimism was out of place and tactless. He had no intention to be "all right," and he desired nobody to interfere with ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... her red lips. Miss Jones was so provoking. She was utterly without tact. But now that she was to be one of the party it would be wrong to say a single impolite thing to their chaperon the whole six weeks of their holiday, no matter how provoking or tactless she might he. Madge sighed impatiently, then ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... rings of shadow deepen under his gay eyes. At the same moment his uncle turned to him with a renewed intensity of attention. There was such solicitude in Mr. Lavington's gaze that it seemed almost to fling a tangible shield between his nephew and Mr. Grisben's tactless scrutiny. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Since SHE had said nothing, He said nothing, and Clara's words in the hall seemed to him singularly tactless: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... You knew yourself that we were not rich. Do me the favor, therefore, to spare me your hints and complaints. I find them tactless and inappropriate ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... fear. You're all descended from the ancient kings: I know that. [Complacently] I'm not so tactless as you think, my boy. [Earnest again] I expect to find Miss Reilly a perfect lady; and I strongly advise you to come and have another look at her before you make up your mind about her. By the way, have you ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... school desk out of a purse and bear it away on one's head. Only in the book-lined study were trifling transactions occasionally carried out and these very rarely, constituting something of an event (and an event greatly deprecated by the Reverend Sebastian Fortune), the tactless misadventure of some pedagogue or student on excursion to the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... indulgently, "you needn't look so worried. I won't be tactless with Morgan again. After this I'll just ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... the evening. Margaret was glad of this for various reasons, some definable and others vague. She felt that she must have misjudged Claudius a little, and she was glad to see that her exhibition of displeasure on the previous night had been sufficient to keep him away. Had he been as tactless as she had at first thought, he would surely have sought an early opportunity of speaking to her alone, and the rest of the party were so much used to seeing them spend their mornings together that such an opportunity ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... he foresaw, the shrinkage of the great empire into the realm of old France filled many patriotic Frenchmen with disgust, a feeling fed every day by stories of the presumption of returning emigres and of the tactless way in which the Bourbon princes treated veterans of the Grande Armee. Napoleon in time felt certain that he could count once more upon the loyalty of the French nation. That he would not be obliged to encounter again the combined ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... peculiar way of liking their foreign colleagues. Most of them, without affectation and in perfect good faith, are convinced that there never was, is not, and never can be any literature equal to the French except that of Edgar Poe; but they feel that it would be rude and tactless of them to let us know that they think so. They are the most agreeable men in the world, as a whole, and considering what they really think of us—rightly or wrongly, but honestly—the courtesy and consideration they show us are worthy of true ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... favoured Ostend, though a sergeant hazarded that we were going to be shipped swiftly across to England to defend the East Coast. This suggestion was voted impossible and tactless—at least, we didn't put it quite like that. Ostend it was going to be—train to Abbeville, and then boat to Ostend, and a rapid march ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... individuality of taste in dress. These expositions made Karen uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante embarrassed her. She became, even, a little grateful to Mr. Drew. But now, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... subjects to dispute what a King may do in the height of his power,"[23] he was but giving expression to a conception of the royal prerogative which had been lodged in the mind of every Tudor, but which no Tudor had been so tactless as publicly to avow. The first two Stuarts confidently expected to maintain the same measure of absolutism which their Tudor predecessors had maintained—nothing more, nothing less. There were, however, several reasons why, for them, this was an impossibility. The first arose from ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... one of the numerous smaller rooms that were consecrated to the less gregarious uses; what she had wished had been effected—her convenience had been assured. This made him, however, wonder the more where Charlotte was—since he didn't at all suppose her to be making a tactless third, which would be to have accepted mere spectatorship, in the duet of their companions. The upshot of everything for him, alike of the less and of the more, was that the exquisite day bloomed there like a large fragrant ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... guest on either the quantity of soup consumed or the method of consumption adopted. These things should be left for the privacy of the boudoir or smoking den where they will afford much innocent amusement. Nor is the host mending matters by his kindly meant but perhaps tactless offer ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... off). Brian and George always discuss me in front of the pigs. So tactless of them. I say, are you going to London, too, darling? (Coming down to ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... agreeable. We talked of generalities, as well as "War," in four languages (Russian, French, English and German) with much the same sang-froid as the juggler who tosses knives and, when the meal was done, thanked Heaven that nobody had launched a tactless bomb which might have plunged us into a boiling sea. There was nothing particularly boastful in their conversation, though at times a certain assured reference to "Paris in a fortnight" crept in, which ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... depends upon taste," returns Molly, who, though angry, finds a grim amusement in watching the flounderings of this tactless old person. "If we are to believe that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, I may certainly flatter myself I shall be the best dressed woman in the room. But there may be some who will not call white ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... they are in the habit of complaining that a first performance does justice neither to the piece nor to the players. Lastly, in the group of first-night deadheads come the members of the unrecognised, ill-organised, generally tactless claque. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
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