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Embarrass   Listen
noun
Embarrass  n.  Embarrassment. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Embarrass" Quotes from Famous Books



... still more strongly manifested in the city; whether under these circumstances he would prefer some other office—for instance, the Colonies? Lord Palmerston declared that he was not at all anxious for office, and should much regret that his accession should in any way embarrass Lord John; that he was quite prepared to support him out of office, but that his taking another department than his former one would be a public recognition of the most unjust accusations that had been brought ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... hurriedly-written article, evidently designed to purge itself of all suspicion of complicity in my work. This was entirely unnecessary. I myself am responsible for what I write, I and no one else. I cannot possibly embarrass any party, for to no party do I belong. I stand like a solitary franc-tireur at the outposts, and fight for my own hand. The only man in Norway who has stood up freely, frankly, and courageously for me is Bjoernson. It is just like him. He has in truth a great, kingly soul, and I shall never forget ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen

... what troubles you is that, probably, when a good number of those women have confessed to you what they had done with their confessor, you have not asked them how long it was since they had sinned with him, and in spite of yourselves you think that I am the guilty man. This does, naturally, embarrass you when you are in my presence and at my table. But please ask them, when they come again to confess, how many months or years have passed away since their last love affair with a confessor, and you will see that you may suppose that ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... to confirm his story. I, also, of course, refused to give the woman's name, explaining to Goldberger that I had learned it professionally, that I was certain she had been guilty of no crime, and that to reveal it would seriously embarrass an entirely innocent woman. With that statement, the coroner ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... that could almost be counted on one's fingers, was a waste of gaping windows and blackened chimneys. The Russians' purpose was not altogether clear, for the town was their town, and its destruction at this time of the year could not seriously embarrass a well-provisioned, confident enemy, but they had, at any rate, wiped it off the map. Not a woman, a child, a glimmer of peaceful life; only smouldering ruins, the occasional abandoned rifles and cartridge-boxes ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... past services, Dan. If we didn't we wouldn't be trying so hard to place you," said the governor. "We're taking care of all the old boys. You mustn't embarrass us. In these days it's for the good of the party to put in each office the man who is especially fitted for it. We mustn't invite criticism. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... fire to the gates, and, by a sudden assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the siege; and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle round Mursa was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their right; while their left, either from the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... only wondering if her high, unworldly standpoint, absorbed from wise teachers, and the halo that she has constructed from imagination and desire about her parents during the years of her separation from them, will not embarrass them a little, now that she is ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... his slave or treat her as a servant. He was proud of Onnie. She did not embarrass him by her all-embracing attentions, although he weaned her of some of them as he grew into a wood-ranging, silent boy, studious, and somewhat shy outside the feudal valley. The Varian boys were sent, as each reached thirteen, to Lawrenceville, and testified ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... she lingered, struggling with that embarrassment which feared to embarrass me. For she is a lady just as certainly as I am a gentleman, and fine natures understand each other. I could see her make up her mind, and I resolved therefore not ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... the arms in the State arsenal. This request has been denied; and the reason assigned by his Excellency is, that he has doubts whether by law he can loan out the arms of the State to be used by the people of the State for their own defence. Without commenting on the technicalities which so much embarrass his Excellency, or inquiring into the wisdom of that construction of the law which infers, that because the State arms are to be kept fit for use, therefore they are not to be used, the committee would beg leave respectfully to suggest ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... resumed Gossip Tourangeau, after a silence, "You embarrass me greatly. I had two things to consult you upon, one touching my health and ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... endless. They praise my beauty, my figure, etc., until I am overwhelmed with confusion; such praises are very agreeable, but then one should hear them accidentally; when they are thrown in one's face they lose their value, they annoy and embarrass one; I am consequently better pleased to remember them to-day than I was to hear them yesterday. The prince palatine said very seriously, that if I were to show myself at the court of Warsaw, the young starostine Wessel, Madame Potocka, and the princess ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... it," I said. "You mean that Fred started with my nickname, and has been on this campaign of looking for telepaths among gypsies just in hopes he could embarrass me?" ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker

... it had been a savage and formidable monster, he extracted assent, that is to say, vague opinion and rashness, from our minds,—yet, supposing that part of the defence is wholly omitted, what will hinder the action of that man who follows probability, without any obstacle arising to embarrass him? This thing of itself, says he, will embarrass him,—that he will lay it down, that even the thing he approves of cannot be perceived. And that will hinder you, also, in sailing, in planting, in marrying a wife, in becoming the parent of children, and in many things in which you ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... Armitage had in any way sought to embarrass Miss Wellington. He had spoken simply upon impulse, being of that nature, and he could not but admire the way in which she had diagnosed his motive, or rather lack of motive save a chivalrous desire to serve. Evidently she ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... art and address to keep the children from further peril. He made them promise to remain in his cabin, to never attempt to reach Logan. He told them that their presence with him would only greatly embarrass him in his flight; that they might be followed if they attempted to reach him, and that he and they would then be taken and sent to the Reservation together. But he told them further—and their black ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... institutions and works. Government then is not so necessary for real Christians. It is necessary principally, as the apostle says, for evil-doers. But if it be chiefly necessary for evil-doers, then governors ought to be careful how they make laws, which may vex, harrass, and embarrass Christians, whom they will always find to be the best part of their communities, or, in other words, how they make laws, which Christians, on account of their religious scruples, cannot ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... military picture fully outlined, and worthy to compete in the Academy of Fine Arts of Dresden. But one passage of the text is somewhat obscure and might embarrass the artist—"Women and children, holding their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle." What spectacle?—the shooting, or the counting of the corpses? To get some certainty on this historic point, the artist should question that noble ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... certain fixed difficulties in the documents which I have studied; but a number of them, even where the printed text is quite clear, remain unsolved. I venture to trouble you with the only words which embarrass me in a rather long and complete narrative of the burial of Abd el Mejied and the ceremonial of installing his brother as his successor. If you can translate the line or half-line ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... the Tokay being scarcely inferior to that made in Hungary. There was a large brewery besides, which supplied all the near-by cities and towns. The German noble, be he king, duke, or baron, has always been more or less a merchant; and it did not embarrass the grand duke of Ehrenstein in the least to see his coat of arms ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... expressly state that the Angel appeared unto Zacharias on the right of the altar burning with incense; whereupon the Venerable Bede observes: "he appeared on the right as a sign that he was the bringer of divine mercy."[2232] But such things never occurred to the examiner. Thinking to embarrass Jeanne, he asked how she came to see the light if it appeared at her side.[2233] Jeanne made no reply, and as ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... instead of putting the conversation into the mouths of his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the unconsciously indelicate all things ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger

... stands the argument from the fluctuations of the exchanges? If that argument be valid further than to prove that all monetary fluctuations are apt to embarrass industry, why is it not founded on for the protection of all industries affected by German competition? The Prime Minister in his highly characteristic speech to the Lancashire deputation, admitted that ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... better advantage; he was, as always, moderate and reasonable; but above all the wonderful element was the quick wit and ready skill with which he turned to his own service every query which was designed to embarrass him; and this he did not in the vulgar way of flippant retort or disingenuous twistings of words or facts, but with the same straightforward and tranquil simplicity of language with which he delivered evidence for the friendly examiners. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... Revolutionaire, and at noon came in sight of the enemy. At a quarter before five, when they had all got underway, he sent off Captain Cole to the Admiral, and remained with his own ship to observe and embarrass their movements. With a boldness which must have astonished them, accustomed though they had been to the daring manner in which he had watched their port; under easy sail, but with studding-sails ready for a start, if necessary, he ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... replied Choulette, "that they embarrass me a great deal in my project of reform. The violence with which one loves them is harsh and injurious. The pleasure they give is not peaceful, and does not lead to joy. I have committed for them, in my life, two or three abominable crimes of which no one knows. I doubt whether ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... went to see. In the firing he hadn't even raised his own gun to his shoulder. There is a certain code among hunters in regard to shooting another's game: an unwritten law that, except in a case of life and death, one hunter does not interfere with another's shooting. It was through no desire to embarrass Harold that he didn't assist him in putting down his trophy. He was simply giving the man full play. Bill stared at the caribou tracks in the snow, followed them a hundred feet, and ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... errands had consulted him. He had been presented with many tracts in his day; but rarely had a clear-voiced, earnest-eyed woman quietly confronted him with that name, as if it contained an unanswerable argument. However, he was not embarrassed; it took a great deal to embarrass him. ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... the three little pearls smiled at her. As he breathed she breathed too, and it seemed to her that their bodies rose and fell as one body. Without looking directly at him, which would, she knew, embarrass him before all those hungry people behind her, she could out of the corner of her eye see the ruddy brown of his cheek and the hard thick curve of his shoulder. She was his, she belonged to no one else in the world, she was his utterly. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... at her pretty confusion. Arethusa's nervous fingers crumbled up a perfectly good slice of bread until it could be of no use of any kind to anybody, her head still bent. If the Situation had such charm, it had not lost altogether the power to embarrass, when Words that could cause such Thoughts were softly spoken by a rich ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... secrets that Blennerhassett, had he been a man of ordinary forethought, would not have trusted out of his own hands. Among the letters was one from Burr, giving a brief account of his troubles in Frankfort. "You perceive, my dear sir," so ran the lines, "that this step will embarrass me in my project of the Wachita settlement, and will deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you at your own house." Graham smiled gravely at the guileless simplicity of the man who had not hesitated to take a stranger into his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... laughed, and mother said, "Wait a little longer, and I shall build a fire." She meant to make some real coffee. But neither she nor the warrior, whom the law of our custom had compelled to partake of my insipid hospitality, said anything to embarrass me. They treated my best judgment, poor as it was, with the utmost respect. It was not till long years afterward that I learned how ridiculous ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... a navy. The Greek navy was sufficient not only to terrorize the Turkish navy, which it reduced to complete impotence, but also to paralyze Turkish trade and commerce with the outside world, to embarrass railway transportation within the Empire, to prevent the sending of reinforcements to Macedonia or the Aegean coast of Thrace, and to detach from Turkey those Aegean Islands over which ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman

... member of this body, he has much to learn and much to endure. Little does he know of what he will have to encounter. He may be well read in public affairs, but he is unaware of the difficulties which must attend and embarrass every effort to render what he may know available and useful. He may be upright in purpose and strong in the belief of his own integrity, but he cannot even dream of the ordeal to which he cannot ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... rapidly issued. We filled upon the schooner, and reached away to the northward and eastward on an easy bowline, keeping just beyond reach of the frigate's guns, and making play diligently all the time with our own long eighteen, aiming for the stump of the foremast, so as to embarrass the Frenchmen as much as possible in any attempt that they might make to rig up a jury spar. But the French captain was game to the backbone, and, helpless as he was to retaliate upon us, omitted no effort to extricate himself ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... peace—in the depth of some unknown darkness; and she longed only for simple-mindedness, for a quiet humdrum life devoted to prayer and petty daily occupations. Her departure was therefore a relief both to her and to the Grotto, which she was beginning to embarrass with her ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... commoner tricks of the trade—and yet when I am practising that trade, when I am writing of those tender-hearted, brave and gracious men and women, and of those dear old darkies, I very often write with tears in my eyes. I tell you this with careful airiness because it is true and because it would embarrass me so horribly if you ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... critical moment when all was at stake. He realized, further, that now was the time to put Haines out of the way—if that were possible. "A mistake, Mr. Haines," he continued, "because, you see, you don't know as much as you think. I wouldn't talk to Langdon if I were you. It will only embarrass him and do no good, because Langdon's money is in this scheme, too, and Langdon's in the same boat with the ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... success, provided a determined resistance were made; but I cannot conceal from your excellency, that unless a strong regular force be present to animate the loyal and to control the disaffected, nothing effectual can be expected. A protracted resistance upon this frontier will be sure to embarrass the enemy's plans materially. They will not come prepared to meet it, and their troops, or volunteer corps, without scarcely any discipline, so far at least as control is in question, will soon tire under disappointment. The difficulty which they will experience in providing ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... necessary information, returned to the ship to report the result of his visit. He did not tarry long, and when he came back relieved the apprehensions of the passengers by assuring them that the commander of the sloop of war, far from seeking to injure or embarrass them, felt for their misfortunes and would gladly render them any assistance in his power. He then went among the passengers, conversed with them, asked each one his name and country, and took other means to prevent deception. When he came to Strictland, and asked his name, the reply ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... and Mariamne hung on the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while; at length she resumed—"We must not return to our own country, at least until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those words, few as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... told you—I can't see that any of this could affect the final result—but for the fact that something might have come up to embarrass you," Withers explained, still with the unpleasant, rattling whisper. "It might have led you to think I hadn't ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... appeared at Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side, and either they or their friends gave out that they were there to treat for peace. In reference to them Mr. Lincoln said to me: "This effort was to inflame the peace sentiment of the North, to embarrass the administration, and to demoralize the army, and in a way it was successful. Mr. Greeley was hammering at me to take action for peace and said that unless I met these men every drop of blood that was shed and every ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... was bellowing at his horse. The hind wheel of a smart barouche was caught in the fore wheel of a delivery wagon, and the driver of the delivery wagon was expressing his opinion of the situation in terms which seemed to embarrass the elderly gentleman who sat in the barouche. Orme's eye traveled through the outer edge of the ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... legislature for a short term, and ineligible a second time. Whether the executive power should be invested in a single person or in several was not specified. As will be seen hereafter, this was regarded as an extremely delicate point, with which it was thought best not to embarrass the Virginia plan at the outset. Passing lightly over this, it was urged that, in order to complete the action of the government upon individuals, there must be a national judiciary to determine cases arising under the Constitution, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... made to them. Hence we derive many Chasms and Incoherences in the Sense and Matter. Scenes were frequently transposed, and shuffled out of their true Place, to humour the Caprice, or suppos'd Convenience, of some particular Actor. Hence much Confusion and Impropriety has attended and embarrass'd the Business and Fable. To these obvious Causes of Corruption it must be added, That our Author has lain under the Disadvantage of having his Errors propagated and multiplied by Time: because, for near a Century, his Works were ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... of fact, the editor, with fear and trembling, held the news for a day, so that he might not embarrass his fair representative, but so anxious was he, that he sat up all night until the other papers were out, and he heaved a sigh of relief when, on glancing over them, he found that not one of them contained ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... our Lord does not avail Himself of the distinction between God's commandment and men's exposition of it. He does not embarrass himself with two controversies at once. At fit times He disputed Rabbinical authority, and branded their casuistry as binding grievous burdens on men; but here He allows their assumption of the equal ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... do with the development of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct has anything to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the House of Commons. What should we think of one who said that the action of these gentlemen had nothing to do with a desire to embarrass the Government, but was simply the necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanical forces at work, which being such and such, the action which we see is inevitable, and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction? We should answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... eager to get on the stand and to tell his story; nor did the introduction of the knife in evidence or the exhibition of the woman's wounds embarrass him in the slightest degree. His manner was that of a man who had only to explain to be entirely exonerated from blame. He nodded at the jury and the judge, and scowled at the complainant, who was speedily conducted to a place where no harm could possibly ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... nature of the measures he intended to present, or which he contemplated making, in the intervening months of the recess of Parliament so near at hand. He wanted time for the arrangement of his plans and the construction of his political programme. An effort was made to embarrass the administration by refusing to vote the necessary supplies, until inquiry should be made into the existing distress, but it was defeated. Three weeks later Parliament was dissolved by Royal commission. In the following ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... pains to make a strict inquiry concerning the First Principles of Human Knowledge, to sift and examine them on all sides, especially since there may be some grounds to suspect that those lets and difficulties, which stay and embarrass the mind in its search after truth, do not spring from any darkness and intricacy in the objects, or natural defect in the understanding, so much as from false Principles which have been insisted on, and ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... had income enough to meet his wants, but not enough to embarrass him with the responsibility of taking care of it. Each quarterly stipend was spent before it arrived, and the family lived on credit until another three months rolled around. They had roast beef as often ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... they have broken down the barriers and violated the Charter, by prostrating the rights with which it expressly invests the presidential office; that, to subserve their purposes, they have adopted improper methods in their appointments of executive officers, naturally tending to embarrass and obstruct the harmonious government and instruction of the seminary; that they have extended their powers, which the Charter confines to the college, to form connection with an academy[33] in exclusion of the other academies in the State, cementing an alliance with its ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... represent in each instance the best that can be done and the wisest settlement that can be secured. One very important result is the stabilization of foreign currency, making exchange assist rather than embarrass our trade. Wherever sacrifices have been made of money, it will be more than amply returned in better understanding and friendship, while in so far as these adjustments will contribute to the financial stability of the debtor countries, to their ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge

... of plans and manoeuvres to advance his power, so it was, above all things, necessary that he should be completely master of the various limbs of his mighty empire in order to move them effectually and suddenly. It was impossible, therefore, for him to embarrass himself with the tiresome mechanism of their interior political organization, or to extend to their peculiar privileges the conscientious respect which their republican jealousy demanded. It was expedient for him to facilitate the exercise of their powers by concentration ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... could scarcely have been marked by constructive legislation. His party had lost control of the House of Representatives in the election of 1874. The Forty-fifth Congress, chosen with Hayes in 1876, and the Forty-sixth, in 1878, were Democratic, and delighted to embarrass the Administration. Dissatisfied Republicans saw the deadlock and laid it upon the shoulders of the President. The Democratic Congress checked Administration measures, and managed to advance opposition measures of ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... whether one stands on one s head or one's heels; float in a sea of doubt,hesitate, flounder; lose oneself, lose one's head; muddle one's brains. render uncertain &c. adj.; put out, pose, puzzle, perplex, embarrass; confuse, confound; bewilder, bother, molder, addle the wits, throw off the scent, ambiguas in vulgus spargere voces[Lat]; keep in suspense. doubt &c. (disbelieve) 485; hang in the balance, tremble in the balance; depend. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... to harass and embarrass the government by continual contradictions, interruptions, and objections. That's why your mother understood it at once. Much obliged, my gear Hotham. My kindest greetings ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... sensible. Why should we let this embarrass us, this being together here? Can't we just pretend that we're two old friends who parted through a misunderstanding, and have come together again, with all the misunderstanding cleared away—friends again? ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... ceased to be persecuted by the children, she became beautiful in the unadorned manner of that early time. Her friendship with Why-Why began to embarrass the girl, and our hero himself felt a quite unusual shyness when he encountered the captive girl among the pines on the hillside. Both these untutored hearts were strangely stirred, and neither Why-Why nor Verva could imagine wherefore they turned pale or blushed when they met, ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... another question, too, which she had debated that night. Why did his reference to the American detective, Beale, so greatly embarrass her? ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... harbor-master, land commissioner, gold warden, etc., was chairman, and introduced me, for what reason I never knew, except to embarrass me with a sense of vain ostentation and embitter my life, for Heaven knows I had met every person in town the first hour ashore. I knew them all by name now, and they all knew me. However, Mr. Myles was a good talker. Indeed, I tried to induce him to go ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... royal family, it is hardly possible that they would have been so troublesome as they were. They were able, however, to secure considerable popular support in France. A small group in the Assembly shared their views and proposed the most extravagant measures in order to embarrass the work of that body. Conservative clubs existed among the upper and well-to-do classes in the larger cities. And in certain districts of western France, especially in Brittany, Poitou (La Vendee), and Anjou, the peasants developed ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... not accept. I was not present at the debate, and it is hard to judge of such matters from the printed record, but the impression on my mind is that the suggestion was made without any desire to embarrass. A few days later, in the Committee stage, an Ulster member moved an amendment which would have included Ireland. Mr. Bonar Law, speaking for the Government, advised against it—on the ground of expediency; it would not be ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... should of course report such defects as meet his eye in reading, whether missing pages, plates, or maps, or serious internal soiling, torn leaves, etc. But in the case of drawing out books for home reading, the rule might embarrass any reader, however well disposed, if too strictly construed. A reader finding any serious defect in a library volume used at home, should simply place a mark or slip in the proper place with the word "damaged," or "defective" written on it. Then, on returning the book to ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... work we will cite only one. Dr. Sprenger edited in Calcutta the first volume of the Icaba, which contains the names and biographies of eight thousand persons who were personally acquainted with Mohammed.[386] But, as if to embarrass us with riches, comes also Mr. Muir[387] and presents us with another life of the prophet, likewise drawn from original sources, and written with learning and candor. This work, in four volumes, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... very profound theories contradict an immense number of facts observed by wiser men than himself, but so much the worse for the facts,—they must not embarrass a Smithsonian philosopher when he solves to his own satisfaction the vast problem of the universe. This Mr. Ward thinks he has done. It is quite an ingenious and laboriously constructed hypothesis, but like all other attempts to construct a grand philosophy ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... troops in the field. The general replied to this, that he thought he had better be relieved entirely. He said that General Halleck seemed so much to distrust his fitness for the position he was in that he thought somebody else ought to be there. He did not want, in any way, to embarrass the cause; thus showing a patriotism that was none too common in the army. There were not many major-generals who would voluntarily have asked to have the command of a department taken from them on the supposition that for some particular reason, or for any reason, the service would be ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... him reported in cypher to Mary;[562] but the fear or treachery of one of the party had already placed the government in possession of information, as the first step was about to be taken. Fifty thousand pounds were in the treasury: to embarrass the court, and to provide the insurrection with funds, a party of four or five—Rosey, keeper of the Star Chamber, Heneage, an officer of the Chapel Royal, a man named Derick, and one or two others—were chosen to carry ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... with which the will has to work is the emotions of love and of malice; but in the case of man this malice tends to destroy the poetry of common life, while in the case of woman it tends to obstruct and embarrass her soul when the magic of the apex-thought stirs within her and an opportunity arises for that creative act which puts the complex vision in touch with the vision of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... the sarcasm, she replied that a woman can do nothing unless she be a member of a congregation. He shrank from Eliza's mind as from the touch of something coarse, and his suggestion that the object of the religious life is meditation did not embarrass her in the very least, and he remembered well how she ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... "I have seen you in meeting," he said, with a kind of defiance, more of himself than of her. After all, was he not the minister, and had he not the right to speak to everybody in the congregation? Why should he embarrass himself? ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... poser, but it did not embarrass me in the least. I was committed, and without a moment's thought I proceeded with an imaginary explanation which he afterward declared had been altogether satisfying. The story was too good to keep—maybe ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... much more extraordinary. It was brought to the table in the pan, because it never could have got out of it. I invited Jeanne to help us all to a piece thinking that I was going to embarrass her; but she broke the pan and gave each of us a fragment. To think that anybody at my age could eat such things was an idea possible only to the very artless mind. Mademoiselle Prefere, suddenly awakened from her dream, indignantly pushed ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... occurred, which tended to embarrass our plans, and at first seemed to menace their overthrow. Our assembling at the mansion was irregular, as occasion and circumstances required; often not more than once a week, but sometimes more ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... learned of her infidelity is almost painful to read of; and even afterward, when he had been disillusioned, and when she was paying Fouche a thousand francs a day to spy upon Napoleon's every action, he still treated her with friendliness and allowed her extravagance to embarrass him. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... the true longitude of the ascending node of the moon on the ecliptic. From this we may calculate the true place of the node, the true obliquity, and the true inclination to the lunar orbit. Having indicated the necessity for this correction, and its numerical coefficient, we shall no longer embarrass the computation by such minutiae, but consider the mean inclination as the true inclination, and the mean place of the node as the true place of the node, and coincident with the ascending node of the moon's ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... designated by the lad, but the soldiers soon found themselves in deep water, and drawn by a rapid current down the stream. Cornwallis, believing that the boy had purposely led him into deep water in order to embarrass his march, drew his sword, and swore he would cut off his head for his treachery. Zaccheus replied that he had the power to do so, as he had no arms, and was his prisoner; "but, sir," said this resolute boy, "don't you think it would be ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... that your Chesterfieldian manners embarrass me," Elsa said impatiently as Millar bowed again before her. "I have selected you to deliver a most impudent message to that crowd in there, because ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... Wilhelm, reflected on the eagerness men feel to wander and make new discoveries, and upon that secret impulse which afterward inclines them to return to their narrow circle, conform to the laws of custom, and embarrass themselves no longer with what ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... nursery, and that you have no other room for him in your house, how can you decline to allow him to lodge with his elder brethren over the way, when the attempt to keep up an establishment for himself would seriously embarrass him? ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... almost crazed him, and drew forth a series of high-flown and most injudicious speeches. By the time he reached Philadelphia, and before he had presented his credentials, he had induced enough violations of neutrality, and sown the seeds of enough trouble, to embarrass our government for ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... just in time, and stopped short. But mother didn't embarrass her by asking her to explain something that couldn't be explained in words. She only laid her hand, for a second, on the sleek brown head. The marvellous feeling endured through the afternoon, and through supper, and through the evening—clear up to the time Missy undressed ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... Van Swieten to the emperor. "Will your majesty now request the archduchesses to retire? The empress does not like to be seen in tears; and this paroxysm once over, the presence of her daughters will embarrass her." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... mention these as possible considerations, without pretending to know the sentiments of that honorable body, or any one of its members on the subject; and to show that no expectations should be raised which might embarrass them or embroil ourselves. The proposed change of government seems to be the proper topic to urge as the reason why Congress may not at this moment choose to be forming new treaties. Should they choose it, on the other hand, the reserve of those ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... mind, then. Let it go at Madame, since it would embarrass you to change. But I look upon you as my son, none the less. I claim you from this hour," said she firmly, as one ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... was uncomfortable and kept glancing under his brows at Malcolm, with whom, under the circumstances, he could not help sympathizing to an extent. But his sympathy was wasted. The young man did not appear in the slightest degree nervous. The memory of his recent interview with Captain Elisha did not embarrass him, outwardly at least, half as much as it did the captain. He declared that old Pat's death was beastly hard luck, but accidents were bound to happen. It was a shame, and all that. "If there's anything the mater and I can do, Caroline, call on ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... commoner—in preference to the daughter of some foreign princeling, let me do it! It breaks with a foolish tradition—largely our own importation when, as foreigners, we were seeking to keep up our prestige—it may annoy or even embarrass the Government. Well! have they not ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... not even converse in Bengali or Hindostani, and when Charles Grant went to him for information as to the way of a sinner's salvation this happened—"My anxious inquiries as to what I should do to be saved appeared to embarrass and confuse him exceedingly. He could not answer my questions, but he gave me some good instructive books." On Kiernander's bankruptcy, caused by his son when the father was blind, the "Mission Church" was bought by Grant, who wrote ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... horsemanship," and I touched his holster significantly with my hand. I had not read Terence myself, but with the skillful audacity of my race I calculated that a vague allusion, coupled with a threat, would embarrass him. It did. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... well help us just now without hurting your husband's chances and embarrassing him in the bargain. You see, we're trying to embarrass him. We want him to kick over the traces and tell what he's going to do as district ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... the romances of Victor Hugo, we have high examples of modern art dealing thus with modern life, regarding that life as the modern mind must regard it, yet reflecting upon it blitheness and repose. Natural laws we shall never modify, embarrass us as they may; but there is still something in the nobler or less noble attitude with which we watch their fatal combinations. In those romances of Goethe and Victor Hugo, in some excellent work done after them, this [232] entanglement, this network of law, becomes ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... father, who never read newspapers, who knew little of what was going on, that if the Allies were to win the war it was wheat that would be the greatest factor. Instead of that he said if the I.W.W. inaugurated strikes and disorder in the Northwest it would embarrass the government. ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... pers. friends "to keep pot boiling," 741; opening of Columbian Expo., compli. Mrs. Palmer's ad., A.'s part in World's Fair, 742; determined women shd. participate, stands behind wom. coms., prepares petit. to Cong., Board of Lady Manag., 743; her prompt action secured board, careful not to embarrass Mrs. Palmer, latter's courtesy, 744; in full sympathy, 745; central fig. at Woman's Cong., audiences insist on her speaking, post of honor assigned her, Mrs. Sewall's testimony, 746; no woman so ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... blanched with the reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives. It was like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mourning. The young girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of impeccability does not embarrass innocence. Thanks to these children, there was, among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones skipped about; the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled with heaven. Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh, expanding young souls. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... will find, when you are paid at Liverpool, a package addressed to you at the company's office containing one hundred pounds in banknotes. This, you will receive for your silence in regard to this collision—the reporting of which would embarrass the company and ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... consented. But when the time for sending in drew near, the artist received a letter from Mr. Lewes absolutely withholding this consent, and a certain strain, of which this was the first symptom, began to embarrass the relations of the two gentlemen, until Mr. Lewes finally refused to take the drawing at all. But before the summer was out, Mr. Langford, the reader of Messrs. Blackwood of Edinburgh, who published ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... he possessed to make Gilbert speak; his insidious questions were inexhaustible: Gilbert was impenetrable. From time to time they looked steadily at each other, each seeking to embarrass his adversary, and to surprise his secret, but in vain; they fenced with glances, but they were both so sure in the parries, that not a thrust succeeded. At last Vladimir ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... with a pile of hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the fire leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now was the time for Mara to make her inquiries; her heart beat, she knew not why, for she was full of those little timidities and shames that so often embarrass children in their attempts to get at the meanings of things in this great world, where they are ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... on the highway; cavaliers or carriages traveling like ourselves might pass, and seeing us stopping, deem us in some difficulty. Let us avoid offers of assistance, which would embarrass us." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... animals on guard). The girl baby bearer, having tied the child so that it appears to be a bag, slings it over her shoulder, and it interferes but slightly with the movements of the nurse; does not discernibly embarrass her movements. The men colliers, it must be admitted, are a shade reckless in the scarcity of their drapery when they are handling baskets in the presence of ladies. They do usually wear shirts with short tails behind, and very economical breechcloths, but their shirts are sleeveless, and ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... and colours, she being then within gun shot of the enemy; and the Commodore, observing the Spaniards to have neglected clearing their ship till that time, as he then saw them throwing over board cattle and lumber, he gave orders to fire upon them with the chase guns to embarrass them in their work, and prevent them from completing it, though his general directions had been not to engage till they were within pistol-shot. The galleon returned the fire with two of her stern-chasers, and ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... at Adrien Duport's, the friend of Barnave and the oracle of the party, only served to embarrass the mind of the king with another element of hesitation. La Fayette and his friends also added their imperious counsel. La Fayette could not believe that he was supplanted. The national guard, which yet remained attached to him, still credited his omnipotence,—all these men and all ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Rougon's triumph was beginning to embarrass him. Alone in Monsieur Garconnet's office, hearing the buzzing of the crowd, he became conscious of a strange feeling, which prevented him from showing himself on the balcony. That blood, in which he had stepped, seemed to have numbed his legs. He wondered ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... that over a year ago the Chancellor, when he read the Kaiser's address from the throne room in the residence palace in Berlin to the deputies, promised election reforms in Prussia—after the war. But during last summer the Socialists began to demand immediate election reforms. To further embarrass the Chancellor and the Government, the National Liberals made the same demands, knowing all the time that if the Government ever attempted it, they could swing the Reichstag majority against the ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... by superintending, in conjunction with Simonds and White the various operations that were being carried on there, his partner Leonard Jarvis removed to a place called Dartmouth, one hundred miles from Newburyport, leaving his investment in the business untouched so as not to embarrass the company at a critical time. The supplies required at St. John were now furnished by his brother, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... continue their system of obstacles, and I can now point out a certain country where you may see road-workers and Obstructors working with the best possible understanding, by the decree of the same legislative assembly, paid by the same citizens; the first to improve the road, the last to embarrass it. ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... occasion Grant resigned his office. The matter was made up and he stayed. But when upon the East Retford affair Huskisson resigned, and in such an extraordinary manner, the Duke felt that there was a disposition to embarrass him by these perpetual tenders of resignation, which he believed they thought he would not venture to accept. Upon receiving Huskisson's letter he went to Lord Bathurst and consulted him, and Lord Bathurst advised him to take him at his word. Everybody ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... know, of course. I would not have mentioned it, but I feared an unexpected meeting might embarrass you, here in this seclusion where ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... of England in the gloom of the aforesaid evening, the isle, as he looked across at it with his approach, being just discernible as a moping countenance, a creature sullen with a sense that he was about to withdraw from its keeping the rarest object it had ever owned. He had come alone, not to embarrass them, and had intended to halt a couple of hours in the neighbouring seaport to give some orders relating to the wedding, but the little railway train being in waiting to take him on, he proceeded with a natural ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... the deed of gift would embarrass me even more than the will. Professionally, it occurs to me you are not of age; hence the transfer would be invalid at present. Pardon me, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Senor Juan Luis and to Sefora Catalina. The letter accompanies this one. I am ready to start in the name of the Holy Trinity as soon as the weather is good. I am well provided with everything. If Jeronimo de Santi Esteban is coming, he must await me and not embarrass himself with anything, for they will take away from him all they can and silently leave him. Let him come here and the King and the Queen will receive him until I come. May our Lord have you ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... done about the public amusements? If it was represented to Pitt, it might embarrass them either way; particularly as it might call for a public account every day. I think the Chancellor might take a good opportunity to break with his colleagues, if they propose restriction, the Law authority would have great weight with us, as well as preventing even a design of moving ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... received the full concurrence of the undersigned; to others they were opposed, and those who shared in the deliberations of the Convention do not doubt, and will not deny, that propositions were presented whose only object and effect could be to embarrass ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... oldest on record (being attributed by Aristotle to Zeus Eleates, B.C. 500), is one of the most perplexing, upon first presentation to the mind, that can be selected {186} from the most ample list. Its professed object was to disprove the phenomenon of motion; but its real one, to embarrass an opponent. It has always attracted the attention of logicians; and even to them it has often proved embarrassing enough. The difficulty does not lie in proving that the conclusion is absurd, but in showing where the fallacy lies. From not knowing the precise kind of information required by [Greek: ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various

... until the horse began acting badly again. Her slightly disdainful and perfect control of the reins interested the young man. He might have said something civil and conventional about that, but did not make the effort to invade a reserve which appeared to embarrass nobody. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... powers were left him. Of the facts of that period he remembers with confusion and remorse the trouble to which he put the owner of the pony-horse Pansy, whom he visited repeatedly in a neighboring town, at a loss of time and money to himself, and with no result but to embarrass Pansy's owner in his relations with people who had hired him and did not wish him sold. Something of the old baffling mystery hung over Pansy's whereabouts; he was with difficulty produced, and when en evidence he was not the Pansy my friend had expected. He paltered with his ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells

... a poet found his true self in the little pieces of the Emaux et Camees. He is not without sensibility, but he will not embarrass himself with either feelings or ideas. He has emancipated himself from the egoism of the romantic tendency. He sees as a painter or a gem-engraver sees, and will transpose his perceptions into coloured and carven words. That is all, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... The point which is now being emphasised must not be misapprehended; differences of sentiment in regard to slavery, in regard to State rights, in regard to the authority of Government, did, as the war went on and the price was paid, gravely embarrass the North; but it was a solid and unhesitating North which said that the South had no right ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... that beautiful ideas embarrass most people as much as the company of great men. They are regarded generally as far more appropriate in books and in public discourses than in the parlor or at the table. Of course I do not refer to beautiful sentiments, but to the higher truths relating to everyday life. Few people that ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... the Fourteenth Amendment was first proposed ... we rushed to you with petitions praying you not to insert the word 'male' in the second clause. Our best friends ... said to us: 'The insertion of that word puts no new barrier against women; therefore do not embarrass us but wait until we get the Negro question settled.' So the Fourteenth Amendment with the word 'male' ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... claim upon Welbeck which can embarrass you. On that score, you are free from any molestation from me or my friends. I have suspected you of being an accomplice in some vile plot, and am now inclined to acquit you; but that is all that you must expect from me, till your character ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... to stand between Catholics and Calvinists, just as the woman had stood for ten years between Madame d'Etampes and Madame de Poitiers. She studied the contradictions of French politics; she saw Francois I. sustaining Calvin and the Lutherans in order to embarrass Charles V., and then, after secretly and patiently protecting the Reformation in Germany, and tolerating the residence of Calvin at the court of Navarre, he suddenly turned against it with excessive rigor. Catherine ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... to impressions. But she is a shrewd child and, living a lonely life, has had ample time to consider the problems that confront her. Whether she is right or wrong in her conjectures, time will determine. But don't question me further, please, or you will embarrass me. To-morrow I want to go to the city, which is the county seat. Will you go with me? And can we get Uncle Eben to drive ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... argued with some degree of plausibility that there exists a controlling power beyond which answers to God. That might afford a plausible case for "directivity." But to insist upon the prevalence of "natural order" will not help the case for theism. It will rather embarrass it. It may, of course, impress all those whose conception of scientific method is poor—and sometimes one thinks that this is all that is deliberately aimed at—but it will not affect anyone else. To the informed mind it will appear that the Goddite is weakening ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... others now, chords shot with every hue in the prism, and made them sing. Swann dared not move, and would have liked to compel all the other people in the room to remain still also, as if the slightest movement might embarrass the magic presence, supernatural, delicious, frail, that would so easily vanish. But no one, as it happened, dreamed of speaking. The ineffable utterance of one solitary man, absent, perhaps dead (Swann did not know whether Vinteuil were still alive), ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... office in the public service, induced Mr. Chase to resign his portfolio, and Mr. Lincoln to acquiesce in his desire. No doubt, it is not wholly fortunate in our Government that the distribution of patronage, a mixed question of party organization and public service, should so often harass and embarrass administration, even in difficult and dangerous times. Mr. Lincoln's ludicrous simile is an incomparable description of the system as he found it. He said, at the outset of his administration, that "he was like a man letting rooms at one end of his house, ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts

... of their Confederate records though now legally "loyal" to the United States; they considered the Negro as free but inferior, and expected to be permitted to fix his status in the social organization and to solve the problem of free labor in their own way. To embarrass the easy and permanent realization of these views there was a society disrupted, economically prostrate, deprived of its natural leaders, subjected to a control not always wisely conceived nor effectively exercised, and, finally, containing ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... them from me myself! That every look, every word of hers, may embarrass me; that I may feel in every glance the ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... for me, Mrs. Rice, I assure you," he answered, gallantly. "A formal dinner would embarrass me. I've been so long in the hills I feel like a Long Island hermit. It's a far halloo ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... embarrass eminent encouraging enemy equipped especially etc. everybody exaggerate exceed excellent except exceptional exhaust exhilarate existence ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... efface from my mind wrongs ten thousand times more terrible than any injury which I have sustained at your hands. But," continued Flora, in a slow and gentle tone, "if you wish to explain the nature of these instructions which you received from the lips of your dying parent, let not my presence embarrass you." ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... chaperon. Whether this was true or not, he had certainly married a woman who suited him admirably; Lady Pynsent sympathized in all his tastes and ambitions, gave excellent dinner parties, and periodically brought a handsome boy into the world to inherit the family name and embarrass the family resources. At present there were five of these boys, but as the family resources were exceedingly large, and Sir John was a most affectionate parent, the advent of each had been hailed with ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scatter'd like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrass'd look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... if the mine quits then it is all up with us. There is no reason for anxiety at present as far as the mine is concerned, however. It is doing splendidly and promises better every day. But Switzer's going will embarrass them terribly. He was a perfect marvel for work and he could handle the miners as no one else could. Most of them, you know, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... the police; you may think I should have stood with my hands behind my back till my face was the size of a football, and about the same colour; or you may think I was right in standing up to hit my man, and doing all I knew to demolish him. Do not let me embarrass your judgment; my duty just now is merely to ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... symptoms of mutiny. Fippany and one or two others declaimed so violently against the outrage, that the more enthusiastic of us felt bound to use our influence to prevent the spread of a disaffection that seemed to us highly calculated to embarrass the action of the Government in this crisis. The end of it was that we marched up to our new quarters, and, in the excitement of moving in and receiving our clothing and camp and garrison equipage, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... separated from it by a sharp and seemingly inaccessible ridge. Even Agassiz, who was not easily discouraged, said, as he looked up at this highest point of the fortress they had scaled "We can never reach it." For all answer, Jacob Leuthold, their intrepid guide, flinging down everything which could embarrass his movements, stretched his alpenstock over the ridge as a grappling pole, and, trampling the snow as he went, so as to flatten his giddy path for those who were to follow, was in a moment on the top. To so steep an apex does this ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... to have set his mind on a union with the eldest daughter of the king of Denmark, she contrived to interpose so many delays and obstacles that this sovereign, conceiving himself trifled with, ended the affair by giving the princess in marriage to another. To embarrass matters still more, she next proposed to James a match with the sister of the king of Navarre, a princess much older than himself, destitute of fortune, and whose brother might be influenced to protract ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... of the city with barricades and pitfalls excepting two streets which led to the place of embarkation. The object of these obstructions was to embarrass Csar's progress through the city in case he should force an entrance while his men were getting on board the ships. He then, in order to divert Csar's attention from his design, doubled the guards stationed upon the walls on the evening ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... embarrass the action of the government and perplex its statesmen, an alarming and dangerous insurrection broke out ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... well." Here is seen, transpiring vividly enough, the uncertainty and indecision arising from the conflict between the orders of the Department and his own sounder judgment. He would fain obey; yet no orders could override, though they might cruelly embarrass, the responsibility of the officer in command on the spot. "Fighting is nothing," he adds, "to the evils of the river—getting on shore, running foul of one another, losing anchors, etc." "The army," he resumes in his dispatch to the Department, "had been ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... another point of good-breeding, which cannot, in all cases, be understood and applied by children, in its widest extent. It is that, which requires us to avoid all remarks which tend to embarrass, vex, mortify, or in any way wound the feelings, of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person belongs; ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... man. Of course he was not to blame, but the world is so merciless. He would have to bear the censure, even when he was perfectly innocent. How she regretted that he had ever undertaken so heavy a responsibility. Timidly, not wishing to embarrass ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... natural means. But wait, I think I hear him. I will make him tell you his simple story. It will touch you more from his lips. It will embarrass me less, and his cordial and ardent face ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous



Words linked to "Embarrass" :   block, stymie, obstruct, discomfit, put off, flurry, check, discompose, embarrassment, preclude, stymy, abash, hang, bottleneck, upset, stonewall, hinder, filibuster, forbid, foreclose, confuse, blockade, prevent, forestall, disconcert, untune



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