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More "Unbecoming" Quotes from Famous Books



... more habitual. Dean Zachary Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, in vain remonstrated. At last, on his parishioners taking the matter up, and raising an outcry as to his neglect of duty, and the unbecoming character of his dress, he resigned his curacy and lectureship, and became for the rest of his life a literary ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... badness, roughness; wicked mode of life. {ungeb[ae]re}, sf. despairing lamentation. {ungebant}, aj. unbeaten, untrodden. {ungebatten}, aj. useless, worthless. {ungeborn}, part. aj. unborn. {ungeburt}, sf. low birth. {ungef[u:]ege}, aj. very great, powerful; bad, unbecoming, coarse, uncouth, rude; av. {ungefuoge}. {ungehabe}, sf. sorrow, grief. {ungel[i]che}, av. immeasurably, incomparably. {ungel[o]net}, aj. unrewarded. {ungelouplich}, aj. incredible. {ungel[u:]cke}, ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright

... the deck in a flowing cotton-velvet dressing-gown with huge sleeves, and in bottines of sky-blue cloth. Even an Aku Moslem, who read his Koran, printed in Leipzig, and who should have known better, had mimicked Europeans in this most unbecoming fashion. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... gracious, generous, tender-hearted in victory and cheerful in defeat (as we had soon to learn, alas!), even his enemies confessed this young Stuart a worthy leader of men. Usually suffused with a gentle pensiveness not unbecoming, the ardour of his welcome had given him on this occasion the martial bearing of a heroic young Achilles. With flushed cheek and sparkling eye he ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... Mrs. Chilton's eyes were lusterless, her cheeks pallid and shrunken, and her forehead crossed and recrossed by fretful lines. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and her hair was combed tightly back in the unbecoming fashion that had been hers when Pollyanna first had seen her, years before. All the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... guilty of conduct grossly unbecoming a soldier. But you've served your guard house period, and you'll be busy, for many weeks yet to come, in working out the fines imposed against you. For breaches of discipline it is the intent of the authorities to provide sufficient punishment. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... turban of dark cloth spotted with white, folded to stand up straight from the forehead, and looking somewhat as if it was made of pasteboard. This is very unbecoming, and younger men often abandon it and simply wear the now common felt cap. They usually have long coats, white or dark, and white cotton trousers. Well-to-do Parsi women dress very prettily in silks of various colours. The men formerly shaved the head, either entirely, or leaving a scalp-lock ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... had been overtaken in a similar manner. He also narrated how a certain field-chaplain Grant, of Desborough's regiment, having after a hot and dusty day drunk sundry flagons of mum, had thereafter sung certain ungodly songs, and danced in a manner unbecoming to his sacred profession. Also, how he had afterwards explained that such backslidings were not to be regarded us faults of the individual, but rather as actual obsessions of the evil one, who contrived in this manner to give scandal ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... unbecoming," said Father Francis, gravely, though a twinkle in his eye showed that he was not so profoundly shocked as his penitent appeared to be. "But go to graver matters. Immodesty, said you? I shall be very sorry, if this is so. You did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... conscience has refused to have the questions peaceably decided, I hope by this act of his to attach to my cause all the allies and the entire people. But now, if we also shall take up a course similar to his, I shall not have any decent excuse to offer nor be able to charge my opponents with any unbecoming conduct. You must also look ahead very carefully to the justice of your cause. If you have this, the strength that arms afford is full of hope, but without it nothing remains sure, though for the moment a man may ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... whom the school was closed by the "Snow Riot." This was an attempt on the part of the white people to get rid of the progressive Negroes of the District of Columbia. Their excuse for such drastic action was that Benjamin Snow, a colored man running a restaurant in the city, had made unbecoming remarks about the wives of the white mechanics.[3] John F. Cook, one of the most influential educators produced in the District of Columbia, was driven out of the city by this mob. He then ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... believe that her experience would be endorsed by the great majority of her class. If a "Clergyman's Wife" would take the pains to inquire into the facts of the case, she would not be long in ascertaining from what quarter the signal for unbecoming finery among "females of the lower orders" ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... complaint Major de Barner requested of the Governor satisfaction and punishment upon the accuser, and a notary, one Robin, who prepared notarial acts, in an unbecoming affrontive manner. This request was made under three heads: first, that Despin might be exemplarily punished, not merely for a false dishonoring accusation of Major de Barner, a commanding officer and injurious ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... his captain, "hush! thou beast, man!—If thou dost not respect my gray hairs, because I have been e'en too much of a routier myself, respect the boy's youth and innocence, and let us have no more of such unbecoming daffing." ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... keen sensibilities and uncloyed pleasures can. I could not help observing that John was very much struck by the attractions of Miss Constance Temple, and that she for her part, while exhibiting no unbecoming forwardness, certainly betrayed no aversion to him. I was greatly pleased both with my own powers of observation which had enabled me to discover so important a fact, and also with the circumstance itself. To a romantic girl of nineteen ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... responsible for the lack of organized power in the nation; but as the representative of the Government, which by a dozen years of inefficiency and neglect had laid open this and other frontiers, the fling was unbecoming. On December 10, the garrison of Fort George was reduced to "sixty effective regulars and probably forty volunteers. The militia have recrossed the river almost to a man."[125] M'Clure also learned "that the enemy were advancing ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... that they are unbecoming, but the Ministers' wives dislike being dictated to. They say that they represent their sovereigns, and object to be told what they shall wear and what they shall ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... averse to sharp reproof of the highest officials when he thought them in the wrong. He once wrote to Joseph E. Johnston that a letter of his contained "arguments and statements utterly unfounded" and "insinuations as unfounded as they were unbecoming." ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... don't see anything remarkable. That is a neat, plain suit; the materials are good, and it's not unbecoming, if you want her to look like a little school-girl; but it has not a particle of style, and no one would ever give it a second glance," said Mrs. Clara, feeling that her last remark condemned ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... society would seem to be to resist the aggression of foreign influence and its insidious and dangerous assaults upon all that Americans hold dear, politically and religiously. It appears to be to prevent injury to the Republic from the ill-timed and, I may say, unbecoming tamperings with the laws, and habits, and deeply sacred sentiments of Americans by those whose position, alike dictated by modesty and safety, to them as well as to us, is that of minors in training for American, not ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... in few words spoken what is seasonable. But it is unbecoming for me to converse with ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... Martial duly sat, and in a most formal manner Kaiser Bill was tried and convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and of traitorously destroying the American flag, and was sentenced to be shot at sunrise the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... dexterous on water as on land. I chimed in with my friend, in order to avoid giving him further irritation, and declared I should be disposed, from my own experience, to give up Benjie as one of Satan's imps. Joshua Geddes began to censure the phrase as too much exaggerated, and otherwise unbecoming the mouth of a reflecting person; and, just as I was apologizing for it, as being a term of common parlance, we heard certain sounds on the opposite side of the brook, which seemed to indicate that Solomon and Benjie were at issue together. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... of her own accession at Hatfield. We are not told that she affected any great concern for the loss of her sister, much less did any unbecoming sign of exultation escape her; but, "falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration she uttered this verse of the Psalms; A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile oculis nostris[33]: which to this day we find on the stamp ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... perform such abominable deeds—killing his father, marrying his mother. Where lies the blame! Where the poetic justice! Suddenly it occurs to him: OEdipus was a passionate fellow, lacking all Christian gentleness—he even fell into an unbecoming rage when Tiresias called him a monster and the curse of the whole country. Be humble and meek! was what Sophocles tried to teach, otherwise you will have to marry your mothers and kill your fathers! Others, again, pass their ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... and sister were still hesitating in what manner they could best attempt to bring their mother over to their party, she, suspecting our meetings, taxed her children with them; taxed her fair daughter with deceit, and an unbecoming attachment for one whose only merit was being the son of the profligate favourite of her imprudent father; and who was doubtless as worthless as he from whom he boasted his descent. The eyes of Idris flashed at this ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... President's house was perfectly well understood, dwelt upon the possibility that the President might be guided by some other criterion than discharge of duty as the law directs. "Perhaps the officer is not good natured enough; he makes an ungraceful bow, or does it left leg foremost; this is unbecoming in a great officer at the President's levee. Now, because he is so unfortunate as not to be so good a dancer as he is a worthy officer, he must be removed." These rhetorical flourishes, which are ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... Chapter II) often improves a badly proportioned room by optical illusion. The ideal lightings for dining rooms are side lights. Dining-room drop lights or domes are very trying to the eyes of those who dine, and are unbecoming. Side lights (adding candles for grace and charm) are far pleasanter to the ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown

... of the parish church has possessed from immemorial time the prerogative of refusing to allow in the churchyard under his control any monument, gravestone, design, or epitaph which is, in his opinion, irreverent, indecorous, or in any way unbecoming the solemnity and sanctity of the place. This authority, wherever exercised, has been subject to the higher jurisdiction of the Diocesan Bishop, and presumably to the rule of the Ecclesiastical Courts; ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... that this great man was accused of a crime very unbecoming a philosopher: I mean bribery and extortion. You know that he was sentenced by the House of Lords to pay a fine of about four hundred thousand French livres, to lose his peerage and his dignity of Chancellor; ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... General Prescott commanded at Rhode Island, in the revolutionary war, (the same whom our Major Barton stole, and carried off in the night, from his head quarters, in a whale boat) he was very much disliked for his silly haughtiness, and unbecoming pride. One day a Baptist preacher waited upon him to complain of an oppression exercised on some of his followers, by the military, and taking his bible out of his pocket, he began to read a passage which he deemed applicable to the case; on sight of which the General flew into a rage, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... not to trouble me again." Thus after having passed through much danger with a spirit not unbecoming—as I hope—an English gentleman, I acted, when the worst was passed, like a peevish schoolboy. I am ashamed of my conduct in this small matter, and trust it will pass without much notice in the narrative of events ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... added may make a competence. Monsieur and Madame Joliet were good and willing. The man began to wear a strange not unbecoming air of solidity and good morals. The girls now saluted him respectfully when he passed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... instructresses, which had been arranged without the necessary permit, and that you sang there with them songs of a worldly and reprehensible character. Therefore, dear sir, I beg you in the future not to permit yourself similar actions unbecoming to your schoolmaster's vocation, and I herewith warn you that at a repetition of such behaviour you will be immediately discharged from ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... you. There is nothing so alluring to the citizen as that. If there be a softness which you have not by nature, so affect it that it shall seem to be your own naturally. You have indeed a way with you which is not unbecoming to a good-natured man; but you must caress men—which is in truth vile and sordid at other times, but is absolutely necessary at elections. It is no doubt a mean thing to flatter some low fellow, but when it is necessary to make a friend it can be pardoned. ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... took his fancy. Her hair was built up in a loose Frenchy way, after the fashion of the empire, and her cheeks were slightly mottled with red veins. Her color was too high, and yet it was not utterly unbecoming. She had friendly gray-blue eyes, which went well with her light-brown hair; along with a pink flowered house-gown, which became her fulling figure, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... the bonnet, but he barred her off with an arm like a fence-rail, removed a lid from the stove, put the unbecoming article in on the red-hot coals, and replaced the lid. "There!" he said, "that helps the scenery, don't it? Now let's ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... flippantly, as Ada Snow, prayer-book in hand, came into view at the crossing against a dust-cloud in the background, on her way to a friend's house from service at the little mission chapel on the hill. Ada's cheeks took on a not unbecoming flush, her eyes drooped modestly beneath Mr. Sutton's glance,—a maidenly tribute to masculine superiority,—before she ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... protection, and submit to his will with patience and resignation of soul. It gives the law, not only to his words and actions, but to his very thoughts and purposes; so that he dares not entertain any which are unbecoming the presence of that God by whom all our thoughts are legible. It crushes all pride and haughtiness, both in a man's heart and carriage, and gives him an humble state of mind before God and men. It regulates the passions, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... home life,—when Trevannion came up with his usual air of cool, easy confidence. Trevannion was the most gentlemanly young man in the school; he never was in a hurry; was particularly alive to any thing "vulgar," or "snobbish," and would have thought it especially unbecoming in him to exhibit the smallest degree of annoyance at any untoward event. It took a good deal to put him out of countenance, and he esteemed it rather plebeian to go his own errands, or, indeed, to ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... all right. She'll rouge a bit, and powder a bit, and dress like anything. You needn't be unhappy about Dora. I can tell you Dora isn't going to be unhappy about you. Unhappiness would be extremely unbecoming to her, and she knows it. It isn't particularly becoming to any woman. You would be less damaged ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... loved hardships and rough fare. "It in no way befits religion," he writes, "to seek remedies for the body, nor is it good for health either. You may now and then take some cheap herb,—such as poor men may,—and this is done sometimes. But to buy drugs, to hunt up doctors, to take doses, is unbecoming to religion and hostile to purity." His success in winning men to the monastic life was almost phenomenal. It was said that "mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, and companions their friends, lest they be persuaded by his eloquent message to enter the cloister." ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... that she had already lost her maidenhead, informed one of his friends that his wife was no virgin. When this reached the ears of Theodora, she ordered the servants to hoist him up, like a boy at school, upbraiding him with having behaved too saucily and having taken an unbecoming oath. She then had him severely flogged on the bare back, and advised him to restrain his ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... the jugglers and preachers, his competitors, on informations laid against the Green Box, on that delinquent the wolf, on his own affair with the three Bishopsgate commissioners, and who knows?—perhaps—but that would be too fearful—Gwynplaine's unbecoming and factious ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... seems willing this season to add a few inches to the length of skirts, and six to eight inches is becoming the accepted length for street wear. This is an excellent length, not so long as to endanger the chic of the costume, nor so short as to be unbecoming in either sense ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... believed to have been offered him on the field of battle. Washington had taken no measures in consequence of the events of that day, and would probably have come to no resolution concerning them without an amicable explanation, when he received from Lee a letter expressed in very unbecoming terms, in which he, in the tone of a superior, required reparation for the injury sustained "from the very singular expressions" said to have been used on the day of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... Earth,' takes occasion to observe that every thought is attended with a consciousness and representativeness; the mind has nothing presented to it but what is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, which tells you whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This act of the mind discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour in those whose consciousness goes no farther than to direct them in the just progress of their present state or action; but betrays an interruption in every second thought, when the consciousness is employed ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... the token with a profound obeisance, and a discomposure which his station rendered not unbecoming. It was obvious to most persons present, that the gratitude of the beautiful Princess was expressed in a manner more acceptable to the youthful life- guardsman, than that of Alexius Comnenus. He took the ring with great demonstration of thankfulness:—"Precious relic!" he said, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... as possible, for she strongly dissented from the old-fashioned idea that a good cry was consoling. On the contrary, she thought that the headache and unbecoming traces of emotion that followed tears had a particularly depressing effect, and left one with nerves. She resolved to dismiss the subject for the moment, anyhow, and to go to Vera's in the afternoon to meet Madame Zero and two or three of Vera's ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... estrangement that doesn't last more than a few years, then a joyful reconciliation, perhaps all the more joyful on account of the former separation. Then,' said the Lion, 'I see something—ahem!—a series of most painful incidents, most unbecoming to myself ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... wear precisely the same mask-veils as those jealous rascals the Turks and Arabs do at the present day, we do not know, and we are not now going to enquire: we only wish to protest, en passant, against these same modern Eastern veils; they are the most frightful, unclassical, unbecoming things ever invented as face-cases. Our present purpose is with the head-dress of modern British ladies—let ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... Cases used this argument; but it was less unbecoming in him than it is in a philanthropist of the present day. The speaker does indeed say that "the 'infinite of agonies' and the infinite of crime, since suffered and committed, proves that mercy cannot exist in opposition ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... living; down I fell again upon my knees, parted the hair from her forehead, and, with the dearest respect, laid my lips for a moment on that cold brow. It was such a caress as a father might have given; it was such a one as was not unbecoming from a man soon to die ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hair. Maria Theresa looked sternly at the reflection of her little maid of honor's face in the glass. She saw how Charlotte's hands trembled and this increased her ill-humor. Again she raised her eyes to her own image, and saw plainly that anger was unbecoming to her. The flush on her face was not rosy, but purple; and the scowl upon her brow was fast deepening into a wrinkle. Her bosom heaved with a ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... his purpose and not telling him of what he had heard, simply told AEthelwold that on a certain day he intended to visit the lady himself. AEthelwold, in alarm, hurried to his wife and begged her to conceal her beauty and clothe herself in unbecoming attire, so that she might not win the king's admiration; but she did just the reverse, and enhanced her natural beauty by donning handsome raiment and jewellery. Her plan succeeded, the king fell in love ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... tormented by an ardent curiosity, which was turning to positive suffering. She must indeed have been pretty, with her gentle, calm eyes, so large that it looked as though she never closed them like other mortals. Her gown was a little ridiculous, a real old maid's gown, which was unbecoming without appearing clumsy. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... don't want to use unbecoming expressions," said Mole. "You wouldn't like to hear what I was ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... should have turned out as she did and rather perplexed at the apparent want of reason. And Auriole with the disposition to like him better than any man of her acquaintance suffered an entire reversal of feeling and went headlong to the other extreme in a spirit of unbecoming revengefulness. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... other by one or two days, assumed much authority over him. One day the Major with the help of an accomplice, who was supposed to be able to imitate my handwriting, addressed an official letter to the senior in my name, informing him that both of them had been reported to me for unofficer-like and unbecoming conduct, and requiring them to repair immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... heeding the interruption, "on the duties which will now devolve upon you, and the line of conduct which I should advise you to pursue in your new sphere. These hoydenish manners, these ridiculous expeditions, these scampers all over the country, must be renounced forthwith. Unbecoming as they are in a young unmarried female, a much stricter sense of decorum, a vastly different repose and reserve of manner, are absolutely essential in a wife; and it is as a wife, Kate, that ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... lady the king's mistress and not his wife, was a dignified ecclesiastic justified in following him into her apartments? and had the amour been ever so unbecoming, was this a species of conduct likely to detach him from it? But the story of the wife and daughter together speculating upon his affections is surely improbable in the highest degree: we know that the monkish writers, who furnish the ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... State Constitutions, the judges of the highest courts are now often expressly forbidden to accept other office,[Footnote: See Chap XXII.] but in the absence of such a prohibition it would be considered as unbecoming. Formerly and during the first third of the nineteenth century this was in many States not so. Some were then judges because they held legislative office and as an incident of it. Others did not hesitate to accept political positions. Of the six Federalist electors chosen in New Hampshire ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... the time Diane and Steele rode on top of the stage. When they did ride inside their conduct was not unbecoming; indeed, it was sweet to watch; yet it loosed the fires of jealous rage and longing in me; and certainly had some remarkable effect upon Sally. Gradually she had been losing that strange and somber mood ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... so, I suppose, it is nothing "unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman" to hold such midnight irrigation in ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... expressions of disappointment to her mother. But since we may not disguise her occasional acts of imprudence, it must be confessed that at times her mortification led her to speak of her husband to strangers in a tone of disparagement which was highly unbecoming. Maximilian had been accompanied by the Count de Rosenburg, who had in consequence been admitted to the intimate society of the court during the archduke's visit, and who had inspired Marie Antoinette with so favorable an opinion of his character and judgment that after his return to Vienna she ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... lick a wound he had received from a dog. He entertained me with the like witticisms three or four months together, of which this was one of the most favourable, whereupon I made these reflections that it was more unbecoming a Minister of State to say silly things than to do them, and that any advice given ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... Greville sternly, "if thou canst find no better subject for thy prate, than these unbecoming fooleries, be silent—Helen! why should you encourage his forwardness, and girlish love of babbling? Go hence, sirrah! take thyself to rest; and you, Margaret," added he, turning angrily to the woman, "remember that from this hour I hear no more insolent remarks, on any dwelling it may suit ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... here," said Harry, and I saw Lee standing beside a slender figure in unbecoming dress among a group of men in blue shirts and quaintly mended jackets; also that some planks had been laid across ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... that when this promenade was laid out a few years ago, the householders along the water's edge absolutely refused to turn their front windows away from Beacon Street. Furthermore, they ignored the fact that their back yards and back windows presented an unbecoming face to such an incomparably lovely promenade, and the inevitable household rearrangement—by which the drawing-rooms were placed in the rear—was literally years in process of achievement. But such conservatism is one of Boston's idiosyncrasies, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... Covenant of Works appears. It was not unworthy of God to enter into covenant with man in innocence. He was the workmanship of his own hands. The constitution given to him admitted of intercourse on his part with his Creator. It was not unbecoming the dignity of God's character to give to man a law. It was becoming his character to give him a moral constitution that would lead him to obey it. It was equally becoming the glory of his nature to accept of obedience to it. His entering into covenant with ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... Q. 73, A. 3) a sin which is against God is, in its genus, graver than other sins. Hence presumption whereby a man relies on God inordinately, is a more grievous sin than the presumption of trusting in one's own power, since to rely on the Divine power for obtaining what is unbecoming to God, is to depreciate the Divine power, and it is evident that it is a graver sin to detract from the Divine power ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... supply; and, after all, they would have told me something of the joy they were in at the sight of a boat and pilots, to carry them away to the person and place from whence all these new comforts came. But it was impossible to express it by words, for their excessive joy naturally driving them to unbecoming extravagances, they had no way to describe them but by telling me they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to give vent to their passions suitable to the sense that was upon them; that in some it worked one way and in some another; and that some of them, through a surprise of joy, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... neglect of these arts, or conduct unbecoming a samurai, was mercilessly punished. When Hayama Muneyori retired to his province without accompanying the army sent to attack O-U, he was severely censured and deprived of his estates. Cognate instances might be multiplied. In the year 1193, the first case of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... a winter's wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon—the mother of L'Aiglon at twenty—married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon's death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of kings who had made a mesalliance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... was carried on with unstudied rudeness. They were women of high and noble quality; and as I was an interloper, I could take no exception to a conversation in a language I had stated I did not understand. If they were rude, I had acted in a manner unbecoming a gentleman. Still, I was somewhat on the defensive. I took out my ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... became extremely severe, she could stand it no longer. Mrs. Harmon had just been indulging in one of her long dissertations, and finished by asking the rector's wife if she did not consider it very unbecoming for a small boy, and a waif at that, with no doubt bad blood in his veins, to be so much in the company of a rough creature like Captain Josh. He should be at home, studying his lessons and learning ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... instead of exciting the woman's eroticism. The manner in which alcoholic flirtation manifests itself in cynical, dull, obtrusive and stupid conversation, corresponds to its other forms of expression. Woman desires flirtation; but does not wish it to assume an unbecoming form. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... confounded Birkendelly a good deal. He retired by himself and examined the ring, and could see nothing in it unbecoming a Christian to wear. It was a chased gold ring, with a bright emerald, which last had a red foil, in some lights giving it a purple gleam, and inside was engraven "Elegit," much defaced, but that his sister could not see; therefore ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... grasp, and I saw Leila, who turned away laughing. She wore a short grey dress and a jacket of the same colour and a small round hat. I must confess that this costume of a Parisian dressed for walking was most unbecoming to her fairy-like beauty and seemed a kind of disguise. And yet, seeing her so, I felt that I loved her with an undying love. I tried to rejoin her, but I lost her among the ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France

... while Nan lounged in an easy chair, near by. Patty's golden hair was drawn smoothly down from a central part, and tightly confined at the back of her neck, where it was rolled and twisted into an immense knot, hard and round, that was exceedingly unbecoming. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... in the last act of it, as I dare not vindicate, so neither can I wholly condemn, till I find more reason for their censures. The procedure of Indamora and Melesinda seems yet, in my judgment, natural, and not unbecoming of their characters. If they, who arraign them, fail not more, the world will never blame their conduct; and I shall be glad, for the honour of my country, to find better images of virtue drawn to the life in their behaviour, than any I could feign to adorn the theatre. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... give up business. If it be unscriptural to be engaged in our calling, merely, even for the sake of earning the means for procuring the necessaries of life for ourselves and family, how much more unbecoming that a child of God should be engaged in his calling for the sake of any of the last mentioned reasons.—This second point, then, Why do I carry on this business? Why am I engaged in this trade or ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... of modern times. That translation was unfortunately made from corrupt manuscripts (the best that could then be procured), in which the bold phraseology of Kalidasa has been occasionally weakened, his delicate expressions of refined love clothed in an unbecoming dress, and his ideas, grand in their simplicity, diluted by repetition or amplification. It is, moreover, altogether unfurnished with explanatory annotations. The present translation, on the contrary, while ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... before the reign of the American Czar, Gladstone, Premier of England, said, "I would rather be right and believe in the Bible, than excite a body of curious, infidelic, so-called scientists to unbecoming wonder by tracing their ancestry to a troglodyte." And Huxley replied, "I, too, would rather be right—I would rather be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... on myself Penwether. I have been a fool and I own it. But I have done nothing unbecoming a gentleman." He was almost tempted to quarrel with his brother-in-law, but at last he allowed the letter to be sent just as Sir George had written it, and then tried to banish the affair from his mind for the present so that he might enjoy his life till the next hostile step ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... birds and squirrels sporting among the tree-tops; or sitting idly with their hands in their pockets, opening and shutting their jack-knives, or counting their marbles, or munching apples and corn-dodgers in a sneaking and unbecoming manner behind their books; or, more naughty still, shooting paper bullets at old Hobby's wooden leg as he eat dozing behind his high desk of a drowsy summer afternoon,—our George, with his hands to his ears to keep out the schoolroom ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... she could, she looked like a fright. Bending over hot stoves and boiling gravies is not very beneficial to one's complexion, and 'Lena's cheeks, neck, forehead, and nose were of a purplish red—her hair was tucked back in a manner exceedingly unbecoming, while the broad check-apron, which came nearly to her feet, tended in nowise to improve her appearance. She felt it keenly, and after returning Durward's salutation, she broke away before Anna or John, Jr., who were both surprised at her looks, had ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... confidence. Old Battle, who had a deep fellow feeling for his master, must needs imitate the affection he displayed for the fishmonger, and to that end began to make free with his horse, which, after sundry friendly bites of the mane, and otherwise exhibiting himself in a manner very much unbecoming a horse of such good morals, reared and had done serious damage with the bones of the other, but for the interposition of his master, who separated them with the stock of his big whip. Peace being restored, the animals were removed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... did not see one rise a hundred feet into the air, nor fly straight away for a hundred yards. They would get up just above the grass, and flutter and drop—a puttering, short-winded, apoplectic struggle, very unbecoming and unworthy. ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and countenance, swarthy, lean, long, with a quick, alert, black look, as of one who was a fighter, and accustomed to command; upon one cheek he had a mole, not unbecoming; a large diamond sparkled on his hand; his clothes, although of the one hue, were of a French and foppish design; his ruffles, which he wore longer than common, of exquisite lace; and I wondered the more to see him in such a guise when he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Worse began to take part in the conversation, the attache felt that the reins were slipping out of his hands. Worse went at it hammer and tongs; not that he raised his voice, or used unbecoming expressions, but his views were so subversive and so original, that the others were forthwith reduced to silence. At the first onset he brushed aside all the nonsense about Norwegian women, and that sort of thing, and went on boldly to consider the position ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... cadets in the courtroom roared their approval, the cadet judge consulted quickly with the members of the Council. A decision was reached quickly. A verdict of conduct unbecoming cadets was brought against both units, with orders for a strong reprimand to be placed on their individual official records. In addition, each unit was denied leaves and week-end passes from the Academy until the end of the term, ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell

... doctrine is appropriate and necessary. It is a warning that our eyes are not closed to the schemes on foot for the suppression of republican government on this continent. While our present necessity compels us, as of course, to act with great circumspection, yet it would be unbecoming our dignity to quietly ignore the spoliation of Mexico. It is often said that President Lincoln, in his letter accepting the Baltimore nomination, has repudiated this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... son, in speaking of her to Lord Harvey, at a time when any exaggeration was open to an easy refutation, and writing in a spirit most likely to provoke it, does not scruple to say, with a tone of dignified haughtiness not unbecoming the situation of a filial champion on behalf of an insulted mother, that by birth and descent she was not below that young lady, (one of the two beautiful Miss Lepels,) whom his lordship had selected from all the choir of court beauties as ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... these great truths ten years ago, and placed ourselves upon them boldly, as it was our duty to have done, we would have no trouble in this country to-day; but instead of declaring the great truths enunciated in these resolutions, we went off upon issues unbecoming the Democratic party. A portion of our leaders wandered and went astray, and asserted that the people of a Territory had the right to prohibit slavery whenever, in their judgment, it ought to be prohibited; ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... exceptional &c. 83; intrusive, incongruous; disproportionate, disproportionated[obs3]; inharmonious, unharmonious[obs3]; inconsonant, unconsonant[obs3]; divergent, repugnant to. inapt, unapt, inappropriate, improper; unsuited, unsuitable; inapplicable, not to the point; unfit, unfitting, unbefitting; unbecoming; illtimed, unseasonable, mal a propos[Fr], inadmissible; inapposite &c. (irrelevant) 10. uncongenial; ill-assorted, ill-sorted; mismatched, misjoined[obs3], misplaced, misclassified; unaccommodating, irreducible, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and the Captain were already there: Quin, flaming in red regimentals, as big a monster as ever led a grenadier company. The party were laughing together at some joke of one or the other: and I must say I thought this laughter very unbecoming in my cousins, who were met, perhaps, to see the death of one ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Leopold's best friends talk about him was strong in Helen, but her heart misgave her: was it not unbecoming? She would be in terror of discovery all the time. In the middle of the stair, she drew ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... put up with avarice," I think his lordship meant what he wrote, and if he practised what he preached, shall not quarrel with him. As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing, and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. The fare to my house, say, is ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... formalities of his century there shines a certain quickness and sensibility; he even condescends to be lively after a stately fashion, and to indulge in a little 'raillying,' only guarding himself rather too carefully against unbecoming levity. Indeed, though a man of the world at the present day would be as much astonished at his elaborate manners as at his laced coat and sword, he would admit that Sir Charles was by no means wanting in tact; his talk is weighted with more ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... it was not clear to respectable Florentine brains, unless they held the Frate's extravagant belief in a possible purity and loftiness to be striven for on this earth, how life was to be carried on in any department without human instruments whom it would not be unbecoming to kick or to spit upon in the act of handing them their wages. Some of these very men who passed a tacit judgment on Tito were shortly to be engaged in a memorable transaction that could by no means have been carried through ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... said Helen, "but the neck of my suit never was right. It's awfully unbecoming. How would ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... occasion, when I candidly remarked that von Papen and Boy-Ed came back to the Fatherland for certain unbecoming acts, some of which I enumerated, a Frau Hauptmann jumped to her feet and, after the customary brilliant manner of German argument, shrieked that I was a liar. She declared that their Zeitung had said nothing about the charges I mentioned, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... himself be removed as soon as the term for which he had been elected had expired. But entreaties and threats were alike of no avail. Even Clay could not get the removal of a naval officer guilty of unbecoming conduct. In his zeal for nonpartizanship Adams fairly leaned backwards, with the result that incompetents were shielded and the offices were left in the hands of men who, in a very large number of cases, were openly hostile to the President ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... black. She was statuesque, picturesque, of good family, and had a wondrous poise. Rossetti straightway sent for William Morris to come and admire her. William Morris came, and married her in what Rossetti resentfully called "an unbecoming and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... It would be unbecoming the representatives of this nation to assemble for the first time in this solemn temple without looking up to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... the honour of all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a matter of political arrangement. If it is, we can only say that it will be most indecent, we might almost venture to say unbecoming; but our dislike to the use of strong language is well known, or at least it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... distant part of the field, was also suffering, and in great pain. The symptoms were such as a medical man would pronounce 'choleraic.' I say WOULD have pronounced; for, on examination, the surgeon was also found to be—er—in pain, and, I regret to say, expressing himself in language unbecoming the occasion. His impression was, that some powerful drug had been administered. On referring the question to Mr. Hawkins, he remembered that the bottle of whiskey partaken by them contained a medicine which ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... don't misapprehend me; I don't say so, for I often smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh; 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion; everybody can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jest of an inferior person, or when anybody else of the same quality does not laugh with one—ridiculous! To be pleased with what pleases ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... unperliteness, seeing as how a many of us has never had a chance of larnin' how to behave ourselves in delicate sitivations. Your honour doesn't need to be told—at least, we hopes not—that we didn't mean nothing in any way unbecoming or disrespectable to you or the rest of the hofficers—no, not by no manner of means whatsomever. All we want to say is just this here: that all hands on us, down to the powder-monkeys, begs most respectably ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... against him was that he had asserted Palestine to be a poor land. This was held to contradict the Scriptural statement that it was a land flowing with milk and honey. The minutes of the trial are painful reading. It was conducted on both sides with unbecoming violence. Among other expressions used by Calvin, the public prosecutor, were these: that he regarded Servetus's defence as no better than the braying of an ass, and that the prisoner was like a villainous cur wiping his muzzle. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... seemly in the world, than to see a Christian walk as becomes the Gospel; nor any thing more unbecoming a reasonable creature, than to hear a man say, I believe in Christ, and yet see in his life debauchery and profaneness. Might I, such men should be counted the basest of men; such men should be counted by all unworthy of the ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... ambitious to meet the requirements of their elevated position and realized in any degree the legitimate claims which their country had upon them, their natural efforts to take part in the administration were promptly checked, and they were reminded that it was unbecoming and unfitting for the descendants of the gods to mingle in ordinary earthly affairs. In this way it often fell out that the ablest of the emperors retired from the actual position of reigning emperor in order ...
— Japan • David Murray

... about that. Mr. Dusautoy once called to ask for my support for a vestry meeting, but I make it a rule never to meddle with parish skirmishes. I believe there was a very unbecoming scene, and that Mr. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... has been stated, a beautiful head-dress from a sister in New York, who had obtained it from a friend in Paris. The style was quite attractive, though neither unbecoming nor showy. Mrs. Bates had her own share of vanity, and wished to appear at a large party soon to take place, in this head-dress, where she knew it must attract attention. Although a little vain, a ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... methinks thou mightest take away a portion, without injury to the goodly fabric.—Behold!" and the Reverend Jonas lifted, with the cook's long knife (which he snatched in unbecoming haste from the girdle), the paste of the edge of the gigantic pie, and stole a weighty slice of the venison ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... be no impropriety in your alliance with either of them but I told them, at the same time, that I could by no means think of pressing their suit, as that was an office which, however well it might do for Mr Harrel, would be totally improper and unbecoming for me." ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... words conduct, and conversation; for these are grievous and provoking evils, which will justly offend all the observers of them. 2. Sullen, sour, and churlish language and behavior, which is offensive unto all sorts of persons; for this is an evil altogether unbecoming the followers of Jesus Christ. 3. A cross, captious, and contradictive spirit and conduct, delighting in opposition to the judgment of the church and her rulers. This is very scandalous to the brethren, and very reproachful unto themselves. 4. Speaking evil of one another behind their backs; ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... is this?" Randall impatiently asked. "I know now that it was my daughter you had on board your boat. What you think about my actions doesn't worry me in the least. Your quibbling is childish and unbecoming to a man of your age. You will change your tune, though, let me tell you that, when you are called upon to face the charge of being involved in ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody

... to a mansion, the most elegant seat in Pennsylvania, where he entertained in a style and after a manner far in excess of his means. A coach and four he maintained with the greatest ostentation. His livery and appointments were extravagant and wholly unbecoming an officer of a country so poor and struggling. He drove to town in the company of his wife and paid every attention to the aristocratic leaders of the city. He disdained the lot of the common citizen. Even his head aide-de-camp had submitted a free man ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... Salvation Army is a body of people dressed up in a semi-military uniform, or those of them who are women, in unbecoming poke bonnets, who go about the streets making a noise in the name of God and frightening horses with brass bands. It is under the rule of an arbitrary old gentleman named Booth, who calls himself a ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... after, by the Mosaic Constitution, there were Distinctions and Prohibitions about the legal Uncleanness of Animals; Plants, of what kind soever, were left free and indifferent for every one to choose what best he lik'd. And what if it was held undecent and unbecoming the Excellency of Man's Nature, before Sin entred, and grew enormously wicked, that any Creature should be put to Death and Pain for him who had such infinite store of the most delicious and nourishing Fruit to delight, and ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... Birkendelly a good deal. He retired by himself and examined the ring, and could see nothing in it unbecoming a Christian to wear. It was a chased gold ring, with a bright emerald, which last had a red foil, in some lights giving it a purple gleam, and inside was engraven "Elegit," much defaced, but that his sister could not see; therefore he could not comprehend her vehement ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... little credit was given to the statement of father Fray Pedro de Herrera and to the mandate of father Fray Antonio Gonsalez; for both of them are accomplices. Moreover, it was not well for them that the people should see them meddling in a matter that is so unrighteous and one so unbecoming to their profession. [I told those who were assembled] that, accordingly, they should protect these papers, so that neither the mandate of father Fray Antonio should bind father Fray Diego Collado or any other of his religious, or the statement ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... the last lines, which is so unbecoming to my balanced and calm nature. But it is hard to restrain myself when I recall the road I have travelled. I hope, however, that in the future I shall not darken the mood of my reader with any outbursts of agitated feelings. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... meat,' replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. 'You've over-fed him, ma'am. You've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have paupers to do with soul or spirit? It's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies. If you ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... Wycherley with favor. His figure was commanding, his countenance strikingly handsome, his look and deportment full of grace and dignity. He had, as Pope said long after, "the true nobleman look," the look which seems to indicate superiority, and a not unbecoming consciousness of superiority. His hair indeed, as he says in one of his poems, was prematurely gray. But in that age of periwigs this misfortune was of little importance. The Duchess admired him, and proceeded to make love to him, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... a just conception of the holy character of God it will give him an understanding of the true nature of Christianity and the manner of life of a Christian. A gentleman once asked me if it was wrong or unbecoming to a Christian to attend the present day street carnivals. We replied in about these words: "If you gain a true conception of the holiness of the Almighty you will not need to ask ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs. Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of, I hear she is, as ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... put up my instrument, but scarcely had the screw-driver touched the new screw than out it flew from its socket, rolled along the floor of the 'walk,' dropped quietly through a crack into the gutter of the house-roof. I heard it click, and felt very much like using language unbecoming to ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... been treated as a bugbear. This levity is, at least, unseasonable, and, most of all, unbecoming some who resort to it. Who has forgotten the philippics of 1794? The cry then was, reparation—no envoy—no treaty—no tedious delays. Now, it seems, the passion subsides, or, at least, the hurry to satisfy it. Great Britain, they say, will ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... the right. I see an estrangement that doesn't last more than a few years, then a joyful reconciliation, perhaps all the more joyful on account of the former separation. Then,' said the Lion, 'I see something—ahem!—a series of most painful incidents, most unbecoming to ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... old man, on the contrary, burst forth violently. He severely reproved Undine's disobedience and unbecoming behavior to the stranger, and his good old wife joined with him heartily. Undine quickly retorted: "If you want to chide me, and won't do what I wish, then sleep alone in your old smoky hut!" and swift as an arrow she flew from the room, and fled ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... was undertaken by Desdemona Balistrieri, Turiddu's sister, a girl of fifteen years and ten months, two years older than himself; I had never expected to see so young a Margherita Gautier. She gave a remarkable performance with nothing childish about it and nothing—but it would be unbecoming in me to praise the sister of my compare. Her grandmother, the old lady referred to in Chapter XVII (ante) who slept in the piazza after the earthquake, was Prudenza, and her mother, Signora Balistrieri, was Olimpia and appeared between the old generation ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... do with her conquest, never alluded to her lack of dowry till it was too late. Then both manly shame and manly passion (for the actor loved her in his way, which was by no means her way, or the way of any large, loyal nature) restrained all unbecoming expression of chagrin and disappointment,— which yet sunk into his heart, and prepared the not uncongenial coil for a goodly crop of suspicion, jealousy, alienation, aversion, and all manner of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... foremost one of Kuru's race was saying go unto Yudhishthira, a loud sound of wailing arose from all the warriors there present. Beholding his royal father of great splendour, emaciated and pale, reduced to a state unbecoming of him, worn out with fasts, and looking like a skeleton covered with skin, Dharma's son Yudhishthira shed tears of grief and once more said these words. 'O foremost of men, I do not desire life and the Earth. O scorcher of foes, I shall employ myself in doing what is agreeable to thee. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... discovered that she had already lost her maidenhead, informed one of his friends that his wife was no virgin. When this reached the ears of Theodora, she ordered the servants to hoist him up, like a boy at school, upbraiding him with having behaved too saucily and having taken an unbecoming oath. She then had him severely flogged on the bare back, and advised him to restrain his talkative tongue ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... is in embracing. A furious and unmerciful female bigot wanders as far beyond the limits prescribed to her sex, as a Thalestris or a Joan d'Arc. Violent debate has made as few converts as the sword, and both these instruments are particularly unbecoming when wielded by ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... double attempt, since your return from Hinchinbroke, of doing it personally, in both of which your Lordship's occasions, no doubtfulnesse of mine, prevented me, and that being now fearful of a sudden summons to Portsmouth, for the discharge of some ships there, I judge it very unbecoming the duty which every bit of bread I eat tells me I owe to your Lordship to expose the safety of your honour to the uncertainty of my return. For the matter, my Lord, it is such as could I in any measure think safe to conceal from, or likely to be discovered to you by any other hand, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... tell you, my dear father, of the affair, it is so shocking. The chill of the first hearing has not left me. I am excited body and mind, and you know how faithfully I have tried to school myself against excitement—it is unbecoming—only the weak suffer it. Rather than trust myself to the narrative—though as yet there are no details—I plucked a notice from a wall while coming, and as it was the first I had of the news, and contains all I know, I brought it along; ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... for there'll blow a whistling "Norther" there soon, we apprehend, and that would tangle our hair worse than it is tangled now, and we have not had time to comb it since this story commenced. So, imagine "Effie," dear reader, with her brown locks wisped up in the most unbecoming manner possible, a calico morning-gown wrapped loosely about her, and not over clean, her fingers grimmed with pencil-dust, and her nose too, perhaps—for she has a fashion of rubbing that useful organ, for ideas, or something ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... secret; and I must do her the justice to say, that she never directly or indirectly betrayed her trust. And whenever she reproved the girls for what she called rompish tricks, which, she insisted, were very unbecoming in young ladies, she constantly endeavoured to look at Constantia as expressively as she did at the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... be married, you say,' pursued the Alderman. 'Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you are 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 you fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... Books at hotels and places of public resort may have fostered this. Our guest makes a stay of a few weeks in some spot to which he has been attracted by its natural beauty: he idles and watches the inhabitants as they go about their daily business; and at the end he deems it not unbecoming to record his opinion that they are intelligent, civil, honest, and sober—or the reverse. He mistakes. It is he who has been on probation during these weeks—his intelligence, his civility, his honesty, his sobriety. For my part, I look forward ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... it is. In Don Urbano's day, though a priest might not marry, he might have a wife—a faithful, diligent companion, that is—to seethe his polenta, air his linen, and rear his children. The Church winked at her, and so continued until the Jesuits came to teach that winking was unbecoming. But when Can Grande II. lorded in Verona the Jesuits did not, and Don Urbano, good, easy man, cared not who winked at his wife. She gave him six children before she died of the seventh, of whom the eldest was Giovanna, and the others, in an orderly chain diminishing punctually ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... her hair wavy and black. She was statuesque, picturesque, of good family, and had a wondrous poise. Rossetti straightway sent for William Morris to come and admire her. William Morris came, and married her in what Rossetti resentfully called "an unbecoming and insufficiently short ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... its keen sensibilities and uncloyed pleasures can. I could not help observing that John was very much struck by the attractions of Miss Constance Temple, and that she for her part, while exhibiting no unbecoming forwardness, certainly betrayed no aversion to him. I was greatly pleased both with my own powers of observation which had enabled me to discover so important a fact, and also with the circumstance itself. To a romantic girl of nineteen it appeared high time that a brother of twenty-two should ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain—which taste cannot tolerate—which ridicule ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... messages he sent out to the besiegers, and now and then even in his garrison orders. The little garrison was permeated by the exosmose action of his cheery optimism and humour during seven weary months of waiting; and while it might seem to some that he was treating the serious situation with unbecoming levity, he wisely kept the tragedy of it, of which he was ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... enter into details which would be unbecoming to the modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other more important groupings were during the course of these months, and which were the columns that took part in them. Of French's drive in the south-east, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... have it now, or wait till you get it?" I asked, betrayed by the annoyance of the moment into a species of vulgarity unbecoming an officer and gentleman. "I don't mind paying you the money, provided it clears the bullocks for the future—not otherwise. In the meantime I'm going to take them back-pay or ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... got to the ground, Ulick, Mick, and the Captain were already there: Quin, flaming in red regimentals, as big a monster as ever led a grenadier company. The party were laughing together at some joke of one or the other: and I must say I thought this laughter very unbecoming in my cousins, who were met, perhaps, to see the death of one of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... can remedy it. Even the French, whose military virtues when well led have never been questioned, have often performed some quick movements of this kind which were highly ridiculous. We may refer to the unbecoming panic which pervaded the infantry of Marshal Villars after having gained the battle of Friedlingen, in 1704. The same occurred to Napoleon's infantry after the victory of Wagram and when the enemy was in full retreat. A still more extraordinary case was the flight of the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... case, and strive to be suitably affected with it; not forward to speak peace to ourselves, but patiently carrying about with us a deep conviction of our backwardness and inaptitude to religious duties, and a just sense of our great weakness and numerous infirmities. This cannot be an unbecoming temper, in those who are commanded to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling." It prompts to constant and earnest prayer. It produces that sobriety, and lowliness and tenderness of mind, that meekness of demeanor and circumspection in conduct, ...
— 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

... difficulty about an individual, and so he gave the monk his freedom. Mochuda thereupon set out alone, which, Molua's monks observing, they remark:—"It were time for that aged man to remain in some monastery, for it is unbecoming such a (senior) monk to wander about alone." They did not know that he, of whom they spoke, was Mochuda, for it was not the custom of the latter to make himself known to many. "Say not so," said Molua (to the censorious brethren), "for the day will come when our community ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... with my friend, in order to avoid giving him further irritation, and declared I should be disposed, from my own experience, to give up Benjie as one of Satan's imps. Joshua Geddes began to censure the phrase as too much exaggerated, and otherwise unbecoming the mouth of a reflecting person; and, just as I was apologizing for it, as being a term of common parlance, we heard certain sounds on the opposite side of the brook, which seemed to indicate that Solomon and Benjie were at issue together. The sandhills behind which Benjie ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... lightened her daily toil with the voice of song, and discharged the humblest duties as a sacrifice well-pleasing to God. Her conscientiousness in little things was remarkable. She was a determined enemy of all trifling and tittle-tattle, as not only unbecoming the Christian character, but destructive of religious feeling; and the consciousness of having uttered a useless word, or engaged in unprofitable conversation, always occasioned her pain. Among other peculiarities she displayed a singular aversion ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... bonnet, but he barred her off with an arm like a fence-rail, removed a lid from the stove, put the unbecoming article in on the red-hot coals, and replaced the lid. "There!" he said, "that helps the scenery, don't it? Now let's ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... forest, the lords of the lake and of the river, some of them absolutely handsome, their costume being in the highest degree chivalric; many, unluckily, are clad in a mixed fashion, half Indian, half American,—grotesque, but unbecoming when compared with the gaudily turbaned and kilted Creek, or the plumed and painted Winnebago, who, leaning on his rifle beneath a forest tree, and listening with a keen, unwearying aspect for the coming tread of his foe or his prey, looks like a being never born ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... an unbecoming and shameful thing when all men's ears are filled with our exploits, so as to have shut even the mouth of envy; when after the destruction of tyrants the whole Roman world obeys us, to give up those territories which even when limited to the narrow boundaries of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... are conditions, or rather stipulations. You must not do anything unbecoming a quiet, refined girl,—but I know you wouldn't do that, anyway. You must not engage in any pursuit that keeps you away from your home after five o'clock ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells

... proceeded my aunt, without heeding the interruption, "on the duties which will now devolve upon you, and the line of conduct which I should advise you to pursue in your new sphere. These hoydenish manners, these ridiculous expeditions, these scampers all over the country, must be renounced forthwith. Unbecoming as they are in a young unmarried female, a much stricter sense of decorum, a vastly different repose and reserve of manner, are absolutely essential in a wife; and it is as a wife, Kate, that I ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... tells you that your gown does not fit, that you dress your hair in such an unbecoming manner, that your management of your household is not what it should be, she takes an unwarrantable liberty. If traced back, the source of these remarks would be found in a large percentage of instances, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... whole, I am disposed to regard this order of Gentlemen Commoners as a standing temptation held out by authority to expensive habits, and a very unbecoming proclamation of honor paid to the aristocracy of wealth. And I know that many thoughtful men regard it in the same light with myself, and regret deeply that any such distribution of ranks should be authorized, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... of the second Rector allows doctors and masters to give them money. No students, except boys under fourteen, are to be allowed to play at ball in the city on St Nicholas' day or St Katherine's day, and none are to indulge in unbecoming amusements, or to walk about dressed up as Jews or Saracens—a rule which is also found in the statutes of the University of Perpignan. If scholars are found bearing arms by day in the students' quarter of the town, they are to forfeit ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... words, not so much to, as at me. He informed me that Paul was expected to speak to-night,—as if I did not know it!— and availed himself of the opening to load him with the abuse which, in his case, he thinks is not unbecoming to a gentleman. I don't know—or, rather, I do know what he would think, if he heard another man use, in the presence of a woman, the kind of language which he habitually employs. However, I said nothing. I had a motive for allowing the chaff ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... from the little I saw of him, there is something very prepossessing in his appearance."—"A very young man, say you? . . . Oh, then I will see him. . . . Rustan, tell him to come in." M. de Stael presented himself to Napoleon with modesty, but without any unbecoming timidity. When he had respectfully saluted the Emperor a conversation ensued between them, which Duroc described to me in ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... their presence) answered that the Convention had more important matters to think of, that the city could not be left defenceless to Gordon and his rebellious garrison, and, it is said, twitted Dundee with imaginary fears unbecoming a brave man. ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... told of an early settler who was elected to the territorial legislature of Illinois. Till then he had always worn buckskin clothes, but thinking them unbecoming a lawmaker, he and his sons gathered hazel nuts and bartered them at the crossroads store for a few yards of blue strouding, out of which the women of the settlement made him ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... the entertaining at Haggart, which might be tolerated in the case of financiers and nouveaux riches, while, as connected with her William and his wife, who had no need whatever to bribe society, it was unbecoming and undignified. Moreover, the winter had been marked by a financial crisis caused entirely by Kitty's extravagance. A large sum of money had had to be raised from the Tranmore estates; times were not good for the landed interest, ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Jimmy protested. "That's no way to look at things. It's unbecoming of a man of your importance to cherish animosity for an insignificant chap like I am. If we can't be friends, you might at least be big ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... It is not known—it is forgotten, as she was in her lifetime. Who was she? The cloistered sister Elizabeth, daughter of the Holstein Count, and once the bride of King Hakon of Norway. Sweet creature! she proudly—but not with unbecoming pride—advanced in her bridal dress, and with her court ladies, up to her royal consort. Then came King Valdemar, who by force and fraud stopped the voyage, and induced Hakon to marry Margaret, then eleven ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... to sing the praises of the Creator to the best of my powers, and felt the more bound to do it, because I held that such great and almost inexcusable neglect and ingratitude was a wrong to the Creator, and unbecoming in Christendom. I therefore composed different pieces, chiefly in Spring, and tried my best to describe the beauties of Nature, in order, through my own pleasure, to rekindle the praise of the wise Creator in myself and others, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... speaking. You may say something about what directly pertains to the case. Speak, but without buffoonery, without unbecoming sallies." ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... loss. If at any time a Silladar is disgusted with the service he can go away without meeting any molestation even though in the face of an enemy. In fact the pay is in general so shamefully irregular that a man is justified in resorting to any measure, however apparently unbecoming, to attain it. It is also another very curious circumstance attending this service that many great Silladars have troops in the pay of two or three chiefs at the same time, who are frequently at open war ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... was sick, Laohwan said, and a veterinary surgeon had to be sent for. He came with unbecoming expedition. Then in the same way that I have seen the Chinese doctors in Australia diagnose the ailments of their human patients of the same great family, he examined the poor mule with the inscrutable air of one to whom are unveiled the mysteries ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... enervated by a career of prosperity. A man should be as Siegfried, armed cap-a-pie, towards the small troubles of every day—those little differences we have with our fellow-men, insignificant disputes, unbecoming conduct in other people, petty gossip, and many other similar annoyances of life; he should not feel them at all, much less take them to heart and brood over them, but hold them at arm's length and push them out of his way, like stones that lie in the ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... I can hear nothing. Yea, my deafness But grows apace with all your talking. Go! Go home, I say: think how you may retrench. I know your house, 'tis overrun with vermin, I mean the servants. Curtail the expenses Your wife has caused: they are most unbecoming For your position. What? I am not here To give you counsel. Home ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... courage here necessary shall not go unrewarded in those that first begin the attempt. And let my first argument to move you to it be taken from what probably some would think reasonable to dissuade you, I mean the constancy and patience of these Jews, even under their ill successes; for it is unbecoming you, who are Romans and my soldiers, who have in peace been taught how to make wars, and who have also been used to conquer in those wars, to be inferior to Jews, either in action of the hand, or in courage of the soul, and this especially when you are at the conclusion of your victory, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... him. He answered Moses, saying, "Thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh," words conveying to Moses, that although he would be witness to the chastisement of Pharaoh, he would not be present at that of the thirty-one kings of Canaan. Thus he was rebuked for the unbecoming language he had used in addressing God.[164] At the same time God's words were a rejoinder to another speech by Moses. He had said: "O Lord of the world, I know well that Thou wilt bring Thy children forth ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... succeeded Joseph Smith, and he set up a kind of kingly rulership, not unbecoming to a man of his vast empire-building power. The Mormons have been taught to revere Joseph Smith as a direct prophet from God. He saw the face of the All Father. He held communion with the Son. The Holy Ghost was his constant companion. He settled every question, however ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns

... philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries ...
— The Republic • Plato

... Egyptian authorities once refused to pay the travelling expenses of an official travelling on duty from Alexandria to Cairo in connection with Colonel Gordon, yet they insisted on this occasion that it would be unbecoming to the dignity of a governor to travel by an ordinary steamer, so a special one was set apart for this purpose. Gordon afterwards calculated that had he been allowed his own way, he would at the outset have saved at least L400! ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... showing the table men, as she had to do afresh every day, how to lay the cloth and serve the dishes in the American fashion. When the duty was completed, she went into the garden to listen for the Angelus. The young ladies of to-day would doubtless consider her toilet frightfully unbecoming; but Antonia looked lovely in it, though but a white muslin frock, with a straight skirt and low waist and short, full sleeves. It was confined by a blue belt with a gold buckle, and her feet were in sandalled slippers ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... that—not being in a very amiable frame of mind—I ere long got mad, and was on the point of pitching into the sufferer, when it occurred to me that for a doctor to be caught thrashing his patient would be a very unbecoming spectacle! So I contented myself with giving him a "setting-up;" calling him, according to the best of my recollections, supported by the subsequent testimony of the patient, an "ungrateful dog," "peep," "nincompoop," et als.: after listening to which for a space, Wade got up and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... nor alertness of Rinaldo. Lord Effingham and the Duke of Bedford were but untoward knights errant; and Lord Talbot had not much more dignity than the figure of General Monk in the Abbey. The habit of the peers is unbecoming to the last degree; but the peeresses made amends for all defects. Your daughter Richmond, Lady Kildare, and Lady Pembroke were as handsome as the Graces. Lady Rochford, Lady Holdernesse, and Lady Lyttelton looked exceedingly well in that their day; and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... present author, that he should have come to the same conclusion several years ago, regarding the habits and history of salmon-fry, as that so successfully demonstrated by Mr Shaw. Mr Scrope dwells with no unbecoming pertinacity on this point; but he shows historically, while fully admitting the importance and originality of that ingenious observer's experimental proceedings, that he had, in the course of his own private correspondence and conversation, called the attention of Mr Kennedy of Dunure as a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... occasions you have chosen to make observations which I could, if I had chosen, have resented as insulting. I did not choose, for I hate brawling, and consider that for me, who have but lately joined the regiment, to be engaged in a quarrel with an officer senior to myself would be in the highest degree unbecoming; but I am sure that my fellow officers will bear me out in saying that I have shown fully as much patience as is becoming. I, therefore, have to tell you that I will no longer be your butt, and that I shall ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... was suggested to Lessing by Boccaccio's story of "The Three Rings," which is supposed to have had a Jewish origin. Saladin, pretending to be inspired by a sudden, imperious whim, such as is "not unbecoming in a Sultan," demands that Nathan shall answer him on the spur of the moment which of the three great religions then known—Judaism, Mohammedanism, Christianity—is adjudged by reason to be the true one. For a moment the philosopher is in a quandary. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... make a respectable appearance in polite society. At length there arrived the season of its final change, when, transferred from the dusk of the peasant's hut into the full light of the outer day, and freed from the unbecoming garments by which it had been disfigured, it was recognized as the scion of a family so truly royal that some of its members deduce their origin from ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... unsullied honor in all communications with foreign states. It was among the high duties devolved upon him, to introduce our new government into the circle of civilized states and powerful nations. Not arrogant or assuming, with no unbecoming or supercilious bearing, he yet exacted for it from all others entire and punctilious respect. He demanded, and he obtained at once, a standing of perfect equality for his country in the society of nations; nor was there a prince or potentate of his day, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... Princess Alexandra, because at the former court the Knights of the Cross are not frequent visitors, and Zbyszko is more appreciated there." Upon that Macko truly observed that reason does not belong to women, and that it is unbecoming for a girl "to command" as though she possessed reason. Nevertheless he did not persist in his opposition, and relented entirely when Jagienka had taken him aside and, with tears ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... and there must be 'excitement;' but this, as I said, is not the end in view, or the means we use. It is not long since I could reason a against 'excitement,' and thought as many do now, that in connection With religion it is irreverent, and unbecoming. ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... more seemly in the world, than to see a Christian walk as becomes the Gospel; nor any thing more unbecoming a reasonable creature, than to hear a man say, I believe in Christ, and yet see in his life debauchery and profaneness. Might I, such men should be counted the basest of men; such men should be counted by all unworthy of the name of a Christian, and should ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... was fine, they were neatly fitting and prettily trimmed, but rather dark in color and with high necks and long sleeves; altogether suitable for the occasion, and far from unbecoming; indeed, as the captain glanced at the two neat little figures, seated one on each side of him, he felt the risings of fatherly pride in their attractiveness ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... to Rankine, written towards the close of the year, and his poem, A Poet's Welcome. They must at least be all read together, if we are to have any clear conception of the nature of Burns. It is not enough to select his Epistle to Rankine, and speak of its unbecoming levity. This was the time when Burns was first subjected to ecclesiastical discipline; and some of his biographers have tried to trace the origin of that wonderful series of satires, written shortly ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... itself be studied, but quality of color in textiles as well. A shade of red, for example, in dull silk or lusterless material may be most unbecoming for a woman of a certain type, while it may be worn successfully if made in rich velvet or ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... invitation to take a drive with you and Caroline, it was natural that, as Bigot, the day before, was opposed to your going out alone with me, I was forced to conclude that you both probably found it unbecoming or objectionable—and when I wrote to you, I only wished to make you understand that I saw no harm in it. And so, when I further declared that I attached great value to your not declining, this was only that I might induce you to enjoy the splendid, beautiful day; I was thinking more of your ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... that night at Whitehall, coupled with his mistrust of her promises and experience of her fickleness, had rendered him uneasy. Either she was trifling with him, or else she was behaving in a manner utterly unbecoming the future wife of the Archduke. In either case some explanation was necessary. De Quadra must know where he stood. Having failed to obtain an audience before the court left London, he had ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... country, they will read with interest the strange story of this sick and suffering representative of sick and suffering Virginia. To the last, old Virginia wore her ragged robes with a kind of grandeur which was not altogether unbecoming, and which to the very last imposed upon tory minds. Scarcely any one could live among the better Southern people without liking them; and few will ever read Hugh Garland's Life of John Randolph, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... Miss Ottway who recommended me," she said, glancing at her sister, who during this conversation had sat in silence. Lise's expression, normally suggestive of a discontent not unbecoming to her type, had grown almost sullen. Hannah's brisk gathering up of the dishes was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... something for old age; or, to obtain a certain amount of property, without intending to give up business. If it be unscriptural to be engaged in our calling, merely, even for the sake of earning the means for procuring the necessaries of life for ourselves and family, how much more unbecoming that a child of God should be engaged in his calling for the sake of any of the last mentioned reasons.—This second point, then, Why do I carry on this business? Why am I engaged in this trade or profession? ought first ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... the rule. Strings of coral and other beads encircled his neck, and a pretty little crucifix of seed beads hung on his bosom. This latter ornament, which has probably been given him by a slave captain, had by no means an unbecoming appearance. King Boy introduced himself to me with the air of a person who bestows a favour, rather than soliciting acquaintance, and indeed his vanity in other respects was highly amusing. He would not suffer ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... signs of a not unbecoming baldness added to the lofty aspect of Colonel D'Hubert's forehead. This feature was no longer white and smooth as in the days of his youth; the kindly open glance of his blue eyes had grown a little hard as if from much peering through the smoke ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... always good," said Mrs. Randolph. "That is a very silly practice of yours, Daisy, and very unbecoming. There is a proper way ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the cumbrous formalities of his century there shines a certain quickness and sensibility; he even condescends to be lively after a stately fashion, and to indulge in a little 'raillying,' only guarding himself rather too carefully against unbecoming levity. Indeed, though a man of the world at the present day would be as much astonished at his elaborate manners as at his laced coat and sword, he would admit that Sir Charles was by no means wanting in tact; his talk is weighted with more elaborate ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... in regard to the issue upon which he had sustained so conclusive a defeat. He was known to be in a state of great indignation, and as he had broken forth during the campaign in expressions altogether unbecoming his place, there was some apprehension that he might be guilty of the same indiscretion in his official communication to Congress. But he was saved from such humiliation by the evident interposition of a judicious adviser. The ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... her huge bed, Thea looked it over and told herself candidly that it was "a horror." However, her money was gone, and there was nothing to do but make the best of the dress. She never wore it except, as she said, "to sing in," as if it were an unbecoming uniform. When Mrs. Lorch and Irene told her that she "looked like a little bird-of-Paradise in it," Thea shut her teeth and repeated to herself words she had learned from Joe Giddy ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... whose eyes were attracting attention. She was watching her husband in a manner unbecoming a hostess. A middle-aged youth toying politely with the blue sash of a girl in a white dress—he had recently concluded a tense examination of the two antique rings on her fingers—saw an occasion for laughter and embraced it. The girl glanced somewhat timidly ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... with widowed mother. Fair record on the whole. Reprimanded once, not for negligence, but for some foolish act unbecoming his position. Thorough acquaintance with the museum and its exhibits. A valuable man, well liked, notwithstanding the one lapse alluded to. At home and among his friends regarded as the best fellow going. A little free, perhaps, when unduly excited, but not given to drink ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... upon it. His measures rarely had to be altered or modified in their passage through the House. In manners he was always decorous—never over-bearing or insulting, and if ever led by the heat of contest into any harsh or unbecoming expression, was always prompt to apologize or retract. By his unblemished private character, by his unrivaled administrative ability, by his vast public services, his unvarying moderation, he had impressed not only England but the world at large with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... touch and study paganism almost (fere) without danger. Boccaccio, however, did not hold this liberal view consistently. The ground of his apostasy lay partly in the mobility of his character, partly in the still powerful and widespread prejudice that classical pursuits were unbecoming in a theologian. To these reasons must be added the warning given him in the name of the dead Pietro Petroni by the monk Gioacchino Ciani to give up his pagan studies under pain of early death. He accordingly determined to abandon them, and was only brought ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and to be more grieved for them than solicitous for himself. It derogates little from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honor of his humanity. I am very sorry to say it, very sorry indeed, that such personages are in a situation in which it is not unbecoming in us to praise the virtues ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... looking if you sit in front of me. It's a heathenish custom, this shrouding of one's self in black, and so unbecoming. Lily, get Lizzie Bettie a glass of iced tea, or would you rather have lemonade?" And Mrs. Deford stopped fanning long enough to put her lorgnette to her eyes and look at her latest visitor critically. She had on a new dress and looked better in it then anything she had ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... savage nature, and taught to become the peaceful denizens of a menagerie—but ye are altogether untractable and untameable. Gratitude and sense of shame, the better parts of instinct, have never yet interposed their sacred influence to prevent the commission of one treacherous or unbecoming action of yours. The holy rites of hospitality are by you abused and set at naught; and the very roof which shelters you is desecrated with the marks of your irreverential contempt for all things human and divine. Would that—(and the wish is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various

... out to the woman that work and competition with men is unbecoming to her. She must work, and she must compete, and seeing this, it is surely time the British Government accepted the fact magnanimously, and took more definite ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... her own room, turned on an unbecoming but searchingly clear toplight, and frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out her hairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and pulled at it with unsteady hands. In spite of them, the pale ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... glass in one eye. Tessie had worked at the watch factory for three years, and the pressure of the glass on the eye socket had given her the slightly hollow-eyed appearance peculiar to experienced watchmakers. It was not unbecoming, though, and lent her, somehow, a spiritual look which made her impudence all ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... Benefactor. It makes a man entirely depend on him, seek him for guidance, direction, and protection, and submit to his will with patience and resignation of soul. It gives the law, not only to his words and actions, but to his very thoughts and purposes; so that he dares not entertain any which are unbecoming the presence of that God by whom all our thoughts are legible. It crushes all pride and haughtiness, both in a man's heart and carriage, and gives him an humble state of mind before God and men. It regulates the passions, and brings them into due moderation. It gives a man a right estimate ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... proceeded without attending to her, 'As I came down the hill from the club-dinner, old Mrs. Gage came out of Naylor's house, and her daughter with her, in great anger, calling me to account for having spoken of her in a most unbecoming way, calling her the sour Gage, and trying to set the Squire ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... their case for them well enough to trust me to carry it up to the next term, I am sure I shall be glad to take it." He evidently dreaded the rebuke that would be implied in a failure to be renominated; yet it seemed unbecoming to him, in the critical condition of the country, to make any personal effort to that end. To these considerations were added his extreme weariness and longing for release from his oppressive burdens. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... excellent Dr. Hartley, who of all men least needed it. "I can truly say, that my free and unreserved manner of speaking has flowed from the sincerity and earnestness of my heart." But I will not undertake to justify all that I have said. Some things may be too hasty and censorious; or however, be unbecoming my age and station. I heartily wish that I could have observed the true medium. For want of candour is not less an offence against the Gospel of Christ, than false shame and want of ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... that if I was not convinced of my ability to reach the National Capitol as a representative within three years from my graduation, I would leave college this very day." While there are some things in this speech that were possibly unbecoming; yet the principle of self-reliance, this faith in himself, this high aim in life, was undoubtedly the marked characteristic which brought to Calhoun his ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... our best. He's such a dear, and very fond of England. He has been most useful to Harry, I'm sure; and——I think the new fashions are simply frightful. The new way they're going to do the hair will be revoltingly unbecoming, and the whole thing will make every one look hopelessly dowdy. The smarter you are, the more of ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... brought no enthusiasm. Perhaps the curious imagination of the mob found her disappointing. She did not look like an Archduchess. She looked, indeed, like an unnamiable spinster of the middle class. Hilda, too, was shy and shrinking, and wore an unbecoming hat. Of the three, only the Crown Prince looked royal and as he ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... actors, writers, geniuses in all things, were sure of welcome and protection from Marie Antoinette; but she permitted her passion for the theatre to carry her to extremes unbecoming her position, for she consorted with comedians, played their parts, and associated with them as though they were her equals. Such conduct as this, and her exclusiveness in court circles, encouraged calumny. Versailles was deserted by the best families, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... advice. Your cause is mine. You will soon perceive the interest I take in your situation, almost unexampled in judicial records. For the moment I will give you a letter to my notary, who will pay to your order fifty francs every ten days. It would be unbecoming for you to come here to receive alms. If you are Colonel Chabert, you ought to be at no man's mercy. I shall record these advances as a loan; you have estates to ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... no longer to be hurrying on With unbecoming haste; but softly trod, As one who reads in emerald leaf, or lawn, Or crimson rose a message straight from God. . . . . . On Avon's breast I ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... his rue—whether for lady fair or for towering prospects stricken down—with a tinge of wan melancholy not unbecoming to a gentle aquilinity of profile, softened by the grace of adolescence. His instinctive aristocracy of manners and taste would have availed him little with his new associates had he been a whit less manly. But as ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... side, but if he considered himself too old a man for this, he would do better to retire into Greece, and stay quietly there, out of the way of either party, Cicero, wondering that Caesar had not written himself, replied angrily that he should do nothing unbecoming ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... dreaming, madam—I cannot tell; but this knee of mine forbids me the grateful illusion.—Ha! I too, I perceive, have nothing to walk in but bones!—Not so unbecoming to a man, however! I trust to goodness they are not MY bones! every one aches worse than another, and this loose knee worst of all! The bed must have been damp—and I too ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... "Eikonoclastes," Milton's reply to Eikon Basilike, Mr. Pattison says, and I do not care to attempt any improvement on the words, "Milton is worse than tedious: his reply is in a tone of rude railing and insolent swagger which would have been always unbecoming, but which at this moment was grossly indecent." Elsewhere (and again I have nothing to add) Mr. Pattison describes Milton's prose pamphlets as "a plunge into the depths of vulgar scurrility and libel below the level of average gentility and education." But the Rector of Lincoln ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... genius or from place of power, he can never, whatever his casual professions to the contrary, be indifferent to the reception accorded by his fellow-men to the work of his hand and head. I picture Shakespeare as the soul of modesty and gentleness in the social relations of life, avoiding unbecoming self-advertisement, and rating at its just value empty flattery, the mere adulation of the lips. Gushing laudation is as little to the taste of wise men as treacle. They cannot escape condiments of the kind, but the smaller and less frequent the doses the more they are content. Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... band together, the elect of every nation, in god-favoured regions round the Inland Sea, thee to lead serener lives. To those how have hitherto preached indecorous maxims of conduct they will say: 'What is all this ferocious nonsense about strenuousness? An unbecoming fluster. And who are you, to dictate how we shall order our day? Go! Shiver and struggle in your hyperborean dens. Trample about those misty rain-sodden fields, and hack each other's eyes out with antideluvian bayonets. Or career ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... a gentleman not too far gone in maturity, of dignified exterior, with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable character, should happen to set his heart upon her, and the only way to make him happy was to give up her weeds and go into those unbecoming colors again for his sake,—why, she felt that it was in her nature to make the sacrifice. By a singular coincidence it happened that a gentleman was now living in Rockland who united in himself all these advantages. Who he was, the sagacious ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... acted unbecoming, both as an officer and a gentleman; and if we two live through an engagement which I fear is near at hand, and which your rashness will have brought about, I will have you put under arrest ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... major and tall Miss Magnolia, with all her roses and lilies, and bold broad talk, and her wicked eyes, went down the stairs; and O'Flaherty, looking with lively emotion in the glass, at the unbecoming coup-d'oeil, heard that agreeable young lady laughing most riotously under the windows as she and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... to me—I bethought me that perchance a Friend is at times a trifle too circumspect in his words, a trifle too circumscribed in his actions. He must be seemly in his carriage and speech, must not allow unbecoming emotion to prey upon him, must build the body from the spirit, and not the spirit from the body. I had tried to do all these, and yet there were times when sensation overpowered calculation, and it would have afforded me peace to have held friend Barbara within my arms and said many foolish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... by frequently being in his company and talking to him she had got rather smitten with him herself. And hearing much in his favour, and often talking about him, and seeing that many noble young men were in love with him, she fell violently in love with him, and, being resolved to do nothing unbecoming to her fair fame, determined to marry and live openly with him. And the matter seeming in itself rather odd, Baccho's mother looked rather askance at the proposed matrimonial alliance as being too high and splendid for her son, while some of his companions who used to ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... Pride is unbecoming in women. There were two proud women, and their names were contemptible; the name of the one, Deborah, meaning wasp, and of the other, Huldah, weasel. Respecting the wasp it is written (Judges iv. 6), "And she sent and called Barak," whereas she ought to have gone to ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... me great honour, learned sir," said Dridrano. "Surely it would be very unbecoming, in one of my age and standing, to set up a theory in opposition to yours, but it would be yet more discreditable to be a plagiarist; and, with all due respect for your superior wisdom, it does seem to my feeble intellect, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... which Giovanni della Casa, a Florentine by birth, published under the title 'Il Galateo.' Not only cleanliness in the strict sense of the word, but the dropping of all the habits which we consider unbecoming, is here prescribed with the same unfailing tact with which the moralist discerns the highest ethical truths. In the literature of other countries the same lessons are taught, though less systematically, by the indirect ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... the Romans. Yet, if so, the error amounts only to a misnomer. On the other hand, there are Epistles on which has been charged the same error in relation to the name of the author, and the more important error of thoughts unbecoming to a Christian in authority: for instance, the Epistle of St. James. This charge was chiefly urged by a very intemperate man, and in a very intemperate style. I notice it as being a case which Phil. has noticed. But Phil. merits a gentle rap on his knuckles for the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... much eloquence on the part of Yarchenko in order to quiet the actor and Little White Manka, who always after Benedictine ached for a row. The actor in the end burst into copious and unbecoming tears and blew his nose, like an old man; he grew weak, and Henrietta led him away ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... they have a right to do so." The debate waxed hotter and hotter, until some of the other members of the mess joined in with the doctor against the pilot, and the caterer, thinking that the noise the disputants made was unbecoming the members of a well-regulated ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon

... circumstances, as he had ever done in the most dissolute part of his foregoing life. In consequence of which foolish notion he smiled on a person's telling him his name was included in the death-warrant, and at chapel behaved in a manner very unbecoming one who was so soon to answer at the Bar of the Almighty for a life led in open defiance both of the laws of God and man. Yet that surprise which people naturally express at behaviour of such a kind on such an occasion seemed in the eyes of this poor wretch so high a testimony in favour of his gallantry, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... inclination must be fought and in some measure won in himself ere he could hope to stir up any smallest skirmish of sacred warfare in the soul of his mother. What added to the acerbities of this preliminary war was, that the very nature of the contest required actions which showed not only unbecoming in a son, but mean and disgraceful in themselves. There was no pride, pomp, or circumstance of glorious war in this poor, domestic strife, this seemingly sordid and unheroic, miserably unheroic, yet high, eternal contest! ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald









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