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More "Embarrassing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the "find" were interminable, a homicidal fancy just grazed the border of his agitated consciousness. But no, that would not do either; the scientific conscience forbade the destruction of any datum however embarrassing. Destroy the spearhead he could not, and with a flash of intuition it came over him that it must simply be lost as promptly and ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... people—"be seen" by the audience to be occupying a specially distinguished place. Fashionable playgoers of the male sex might, if they opened their purses wide enough, occupy stools on the wide platform-stage. Such a practice proved embarrassing, not only to the performers, but to those who had to content themselves with the penny pit. Standing in front and by the sides of the projecting stage, they could often only catch glimpses of the actors through chinks in serried ranks ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... breaking down and bursting into tears, she turned away, and recognizing Maurice, gave him a smile. Jean's presence was embarrassing to her. She felt as if she were choking somehow, and removed the foulard that she wore ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... bring these considerations to a close—they will suffice to show the wide sphere, the diversity and embarrassing nature of the subjects embraced in a critical examination carried to the fullest extent, that is, to those measures of a great and decisive class which must necessarily be included. It follows from them ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Buddha only, Gautama, Prince of Kapilavastu (six centuries before Christ) whereas the Jainas recognize a Buddha in each of their twenty-four divine teachers (Tirthankaras) the last of whom was the Guru (teacher) of Gautama. This disagreement is very embarrassing when people try to conjecture the antiquity of this or that vihara or chaitya. The origin of the Jaina sect is lost in the remotest, unfathomed antiquity, so the name of Buddha, mentioned in the inscriptions, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... to be a thing a man's chivalry never leaves to a woman's own judgment; the determination of what she may find embarrassing." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... certain items contraband of war, to the dark side of the transport as nightfall came; and they were easily smuggled aboard and into uniform, and then, during the few days' stay at Honolulu, were formally enlisted and no embarrassing questions asked. ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... didn't talk for about a year after he found the bodies, most people thought he was simple-minded. But Aunt Amy had always treated him just like a regular boy. That was embarrassing sometimes, but still it was better than what he got ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... piece of coral, and the hide of whales. The chiefs, and all who occupied a prominent fighting rank, were dressed in military style—that is to say, in a quantity of stuffs, turbans, helmets, and breastplates. The height of some of the helmets was most embarrassing to the wearers. The entire equipment appeared more appropriate for scenic effect than suitable for a battlefield. But, in any case, it added to the grandeur of the display, and the warriors did not fail to show themselves with a view ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of Mrs. Spragg's chair, seemed to his grandparents evidence of ill-health or undue repression, and he was subjected by Mrs. Spragg to searching enquiries as to how his food set, and whether he didn't think his Popper was too strict with him. A more embarrassing problem was raised by the "surprise" (in the shape of peanut candy or chocolate creams) which he was invited to hunt for in Gran'ma's pockets, and which Ralph had to confiscate on the way home lest the dietary rules of Washington Square should ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... calling with so devoted an affection?" demanded Gertrude, in a haste that she might have found embarrassing to explain. ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... his ideal, she must needs have been overborne by force or fraud, constrained by sheer violence, caught in snares spread about her steps on every side. He questioned her in guarded terms, but with a close, searching, embarrassing persistency. He asked her how the liaison began, if it was long or short, tranquil or troubled, under what circumstances it was broken off. And his enquiries came back again and again to the means the fellow had used to cajole her, as if these ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... invariably carried through to the last extremity, and Ah Moy's request, instead of embarrassing her, afforded a thrill of gratification. She felt sure that he yearned for a fuller knowledge of the great truths that had been unfolded in the afternoon's lesson, and she also felt, with some exaltation of spirit, that her influence over the man was being exerted for much good. So she nodded ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... encumbrance to maintain this perception amongst the simple elements of the human mind: we now think otherwise, and see reason to acquiesce in the sound judgment, which took up the only safe, though unostentatious position, which this embarrassing subject affords. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... that they were both very hungry and very thirsty: that, if not hungry, they should order something to drink that would give them an appetite: if not inclined to quaff, something to eat that would make them athirst. In the midst of these embarrassing attentions, he was pushed aside by his master with, "There, go; hands wanted at the upper end; two American gentlemen from Lowell singing out for Sherry Cobler; don't know what it is; give them our bar mixture; if they complain, say it's the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... abruptly, as if he considered he had told enough. The brief recital had interested his auditors, but the ensuing pause was rather embarrassing. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... power of the Commander-in-chief had been used to prevent it. Repeated representations of the actual famine with which the army was threatened, had been made to congress, and to the state governments; but no adequate relief was afforded; and such was the condition of the finances, so embarrassing the state of affairs, that it was perhaps attainable only by measures which the governments could not venture ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... sense of haste with which he was hurried away after that first straight shot; the agitation, nay, the fright of his seconds; their eagerness to be swiftly rid of him, their insistence that he should go away for a time, get out of the country, out of the embarrassing purview of the law, which was prone to regard the matter as he himself saw it now, and which had an ugly trick of calling things by their right names in the sincere phraseology of an indictment. And thus it was that he was here, remote from all ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of the tea-tray and the parlormaid absolved Mary from the embarrassing compulsion to reply. She addressed herself to ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... the situation was altogether too unexpected and embarrassing for Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene to ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... "My studio is in No. 17 McBurney Place." Here she stopped upon a somewhat embarrassing thought. But the legless man read what ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... came off slowly. There was a rather embarrassing two minutes under the lights of the lobby while the night clerk and a few belated guests stared at them curiously; the loudly dressed girl with bent head, the handsome young man with his chin several points aloft; the inference was ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... glowered at the boy and the letter, and then his shrewd mind, suggesting a way out of the embarrassing predicament in which the boy had placed him, ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... her during their walk together. Albert was troubled and taken aback. In one way he would have liked to meet Helen very much indeed. They had not met since before the war. But he did not, somehow, wish to meet her just then. He did not wish to meet anyone who would speak of Madeline, or ask embarrassing ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... intervened between the invaders and the capital. The American proposals for peace had been summarily rejected. A new President, General Santa Anna, had been raised to power, and under his vigorous administration the war threatened to assume a phase sufficiently embarrassing to the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... should he not? To me alone was Tressilian's visit embarrassing and painful, for he brought news of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... S. Let me see: I was saying that my dear girl was a little confused, and so forth. As a matter of course, I put before her all the advantages which such a connection as yours promised—and at the same time, mentioned some of the little embarrassing circumstances—the private marriage, you know, and all that—besides telling her of certain restrictions in reference to the marriage, if it came off, which I should feel it my duty as a father to impose; and which ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... yield in silence. The opening was now large enough to allow him to pass. But near the door there stood a little table, which formed an embarrassing angle with ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... embarrassing, especially when you call on a man and his wife for the sake of information—the one being a merchant of varied knowledge, the other a woman of the world. In five minutes your host has vanished. In another five his wife has followed him, and you are left alone with a very charming maiden, doubtless, ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... that he was asked to wear it. The eminent Dr. Ricord, who had been an eyewitness of the devotion of the Brothers, was charged with the office of fastening the cross on the cassock of Frere Philippe, in the great hall of the mother-house. This was the most embarrassing moment in the life of that man of God. He could not bear to wear the cross of honour, and in fact he never did wear it. When he returned after conducting the Doctor to the door at the end of the ceremony, he somehow managed that no one should perceive his decoration. ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... worth remembering, as a caution to reviewers, as well as philosophers:—"At Port Dalrymple, in Van Diemen's Land, there was every reason to believe, the natives were unacquainted with the use of canoes; a fact, extremely embarrassing to those who indulge themselves in speculating on the genealogy of natives: because it reduces them to the necessity of supposing, that this isolated people swam over from the main land, or that they were aboriginal."—Rev. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... and white that all the air of the downs and the sea failed to embrown, and that peculiar openness and candour of expression which seems so much an English birthright, that the only trace of his French origin was, that he betrayed no unbecoming awkwardness in the somewhat embarrassing position in which he was placed, literally standing, according to the respectful discipline of the time, as the subject of discussion, before the circle of his elders. His colour was indeed, deepened, but his attitude was easy and graceful, and he used no stiff rigidity nor restless movements ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saluting and bowing low, conducted the other dignitary to the cabin, with the officers trailing after them. For the moment, Major Starland found his situation a trifle embarrassing. General Yozarro scowled savagely at him, but the others paid scant attention. There was some crowding, for it will be remembered that the apartment was of slight size. The American waited till a lull came in the conversation and then, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Philadelphian until he has waited for a Pine Street car on a snowy night. Please have my seat, madam, there's plenty of room on the strap. Wonder why the pavement on Chestnut Street is the slipperiest in the world? Always fall down just in front of our bank; most embarrassing; hope the paying teller doesn't see us. Very annoying to lose our balance just there. Awfully nice little girl in there who balances the books. Has a kind heart. The countless gold of a merry heart, as William ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the best possible arrangements of tax-supported aids to the realization of that standard. That is surely one of the ways in which the parental burden of child-care can be socially shared without starting embarrassing questions of radical or conservative theories of logical ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... Cabinet; and on January 22, 1875, Lord Salisbury urged Lord Northbrook to take measures to procure the assent of the Ameer to the establishment of British officers at Candahar and Herat (not at Cabul)[297]. The request placed Lord Northbrook in an embarrassing position, seeing that he knew full well the great reluctance of the Ameer at all times to receive any British Mission. On examining the evidence as to the Ameer's objection to receive British Residents, the viceroy found it to be very strong, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the complimenting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watching them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she appeared, the mother bluebird set up that pitiful melodious plaint. One morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came with her beak loaded with building material, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... desired was simply good-fellowship and a high degree of harmonious clamor. Certainly all our doings, whether on Friday evening, or on the other forenoons, afternoons, and evenings of the week, were quite devoid of an embarrassing sex-consciousness. We "trained together," as the expression went—all the fellows and all the Gertrudes and Adeles—with no sense of malaise, and postponing, or setting aside, in the miraculous American fashion, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... exceedingly embarrassing counter-question, quite took him aback. At that very minute, too, there was the pause, and the slight movement, and the glance from Lady Caroline which reminded him that he was the only clergyman present, and had to return thanks. He bent ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Feuerbach's philosophy as well as of that of Marx and Engels. As the fight between the Young Hegelians and the conservatives grew hotter, the radicals were driven back upon the English-French materialism of the preceding century. This was embarrassing for followers of Hegel, who had been taught to regard the material as the mere expression of the Idea. Feuerbach relieved them from the contradiction. He grasped the question boldly and threw the Hegelian abstraction completely to one side. His book, "Wesen des Christenthums," ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... to be at all disturbed by the embarrassing stillness, but went on shaving down a ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... somewhat stiffly and there were also various twinges. But considering the trying experiences of yesterday it was surprising that they could wiggle at all. He lifted himself slowly—and sank back with a relieved sigh. It would have been embarrassing, he thought, had he not ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... have worked too hard, I have lived in brutal climates and associated with tiresome people. When a man has reached his fifty-second year without being, materially, the worse for wear—when he has fair health, a fair fortune, a tidy conscience and a complete exemption from embarrassing relatives—I suppose he is bound, in delicacy, to write himself happy. But I confess I shirk this obligation. I have not been miserable; I won't go so far as to say that—or at least as to write it. But happiness—positive happiness—would have been something different. I don't know that it ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet, whose dark-blue eyes were ever upon him without boldness, without shyness, but with a steady, grave, and growing light. Many times Venters found the clear gaze embarrassing to him, yet, like wine, it had an exhilarating effect. What did she think when she looked at him so? Almost he believed she had no thought at all. All about her and the present there in Surprise Valley, and the dim yet subtly impending ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... still in some degree the misfortune of being a responsible member of society. He wanted to be surrounded by individuals who were above or below the conventional interests of what is called 'the World.' He wanted to hear nothing of those painful and embarrassing influences which from our contracted experience and want of enlightenment we magnify into such undue importance. For this purpose he wished to have about him persons whose knowledge of the cares of life concerned only the means of existence, and whose sense of its objects referred only to the sources ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... it may be much doubted if the inhabitants consider these methods as tending to promote either their interests, or that of their sovereign, the king of Portugal. This much is certain, that his behaviour cannot but be extremely embarrassing to such British ships as touch here in their way to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... quite well. It was rather embarrassing to be called "dear." He attempted to hide his confusion by wiping his nose; but in producing his handkerchief, he pulled out with it a forked catapult stick and a broken metal pen-holder, which clattered to the ground and had to be picked ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... forsake him, and the want was supplied in a rather remarkable manner. Being one day in Paris he was invited to dine at the house of an intimate friend. During the conversation the subject of colonizing Montreal was discussed, as it was his absorbing idea, and he spoke of the embarrassing want that delayed him. After dinner one of the guests, until then a stranger to him, but who had listened very attentively to the colonization plan, of which he had not before heard, freely offered to accompany the ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... it," she urged. "It's very embarrassing. And I ought to be asleep this minute, getting ready for my early start. I'm not quite sure that I shall sleep if you say it"—her voice dropped to a whisper again—"but I'm ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... into a school to be feared by the larger college. It seemed that Pomeroy had scheduled Grinnell merely for the purpose of giving her a drubbing and taking it easy between big games and that Grinnell's increased opposition had been embarrassing to Pomeroy students and alumni who rated their eleven far better than the intended victim. Now matters had become so acute, a report was going the rounds that Coach Carl Carver's job at Pomeroy hung upon his winning the Grinnell game, about which there was some doubt ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... presented a strange and embarrassing dilemma, as we have remarked. In the war itself, moreover, began the stern cleavage between the North and the South. At the moment the rift was not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm. Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in the South the combination ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... former utterances, of which he had any knowledge; and he never heard from him afterward, anything that could compare with it. His auditors were mainly those of his own people. His flow of thought was not interrupted by the slow, and embarrassing process of interpretation. The full grief of his heart, in view of the transactions of the previous year, was poured forth, and came like the irresistible sweep of a whirlwind. [Footnote: Conversation of the author with Samuel J. Mills, Esq., formerly of Mt. Morris, N. Y., later of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... who had been on the train at that time had one by one left it and been replaced by others, for the route lay through several large cities where many alighted and others came aboard. Only the little man from Beverly remained, quiet and unobtrusive but somehow haunting the girl's presence in an embarrassing manner. ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... kind and frequent in your invitations. You puzzle me. I hardly know how to refuse, and it is still more embarrassing to accept. At any rate, I cannot come this week, for we are in the very thickest melee of the Repetitions. I was hearing the terrible fifth section when your note arrived. But Miss Wooler says I must ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... latest ingenuities from France and Belgium, was to be granted to the entire Ottoman Empire. That Midhat Pasha, who was the author of this scheme, may have had some serious end in view is not impossible; but with the mass of Palace-functionaries at Constantinople it was simply a device for embarrassing the West with its own inventions; and the action of men in power, both great and small, continued after the constitution had come into nominal existence to be exactly what it had been before. The very terms of the constitution must have been ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... comment on the cooking and appointments of the table, in which some husbands habitually allow themselves, is the most unpardonable form of domestic rudeness. If a wife has philosophy enough not to mind it, so much the worse for her husband, as it confirms him in an unseemly habit, embarrassing to guests and a bad example to children. If she has no feelings that he is bound to respect, he should at least respect decorum and good taste, and confine the discussion of such matters to private intercourse, and not initiate every guest and child into the grating and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... quantity is just what I emphasize. This lack makes definite beat impossible: or at least it makes it absurd to attempt to scan English verse by feet. The proportion of 'irregularities' and 'exceptions' becomes painful to the student and embarrassing to the professor. He is put to fearful straits to explain his prosody and make it fit the verse. And when he has done all this, the student, if he has a good ear, forthwith forgets it all, and reads the verse as it was meant to be read, as a succession of musical bars (without pitch, of course), ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... but it lost that sweet accent of heaven which once had characterized it. It was now difficult and embarrassing for her to pronounce the name ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... but my situation began to be sufficiently embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the fog, which wrapped every thing, soon rendered the whole face of the country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could judge even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... remember, we had so far had. A battalion drill is simply one where the various companies are handled as a regimental unit, and are put through regimental evolutions. Battalion drill at first was frequently very embarrassing to some commanding officers of companies. The regimental commander would give a command, indicating, in general terms, the movement desired, and it was then the duty of a company commander to see to the details of the movement that his company ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... by Miss Kresney's loan had evaporated with the realisation that she had only contracted a debt in another direction—a debt more embarrassing than all the rest put together; for she knew that she would never have the courage to speak of it to her husband. Miss Kresney had told her to take her time in the matter of repayment, and she had taken it in generous measure. Not a fraction ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... to bring her to reason. She would listen to nothing. "For what do you reproach me?" The question could not help embarrassing him; for he had nothing with which to reproach her, except that she had been the object of his love, a reproach which of all men on earth he should be the last to make; and that she was poor, which he was ashamed to utter; and that she was ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... she said, "has left without giving the usual notice. She has left me in a most embarrassing position but I suppose she felt her own ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... you of the embarrassing situation, in which I am personally placed by these circumstances. But I shall take the liberty of observing to you, that in the present juncture, the best remedy is to take, as soon as possible, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... an argument ad omnipotentem, was stupefied; but persons of obtuse mind have the terrible logic of children, which consists in turning from answer to question,—a logic that is frequently embarrassing. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... made her escape out of the room when Lady Davenant had pronounced the words, "Set my mind at rest, Granville," as she felt it must then be embarrassing to him to speak, and to herself to hear. Her retreat, had not, however, been effected with considerable loss, she had been compelled to leave a large piece of the crape-trimming of her gown under the foot ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... a name.' I bent over once more, and a third time asked the question. The answer was the same, and repeated louder and with an emphasis, as if the parents were determined to have that name or none. By this time my situation had become embarrassing, for there was I, in the presence of the whole waiting congregation, standing up with the baby in my arms, which, to add to my consternation, set up a squall as if to convince me that he was entitled to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... should do next. Food was of high importance, but how could he get it without attracting attention to himself? He did not know. But finally he reasoned that a hot dog wagon would probably take cash from a youngster without asking embarrassing questions, so long as the cash wasn't anything larger than a ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... that if the debate be continued speakers should refrain from all further mention of the personal questions that had been raised, since these were not proper matters for discussion in the House and were embarrassing to the French Emperor. But Palmerston's skill in management was unavailing in this case and the "muss" (as Mason called it) was continued when Lindsay entered upon a long account of the interview with Napoleon, renewed the accusations of Russell's "revelations" to Seward and advised ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... a curious study, as they sat there together, during the first embarrassing moments. The man had spent his life in schemes for absorbing the products of the labor of others. He was cunning, brutal, vain, showy, and essentially vulgar, from his head to his feet, in every fiber of body and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... hostilities between France and China continues to be an embarrassing feature of our Eastern relations. The Chinese Government has promptly adjusted and paid the claims of American citizens whose property was destroyed in the recent riots at Canton. I renew the recommendation of my last annual ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... imagine a precise effect being produced on her by any amount of explanation. There is a quality in events which is apprehended differently by different minds or even by the same mind at different times. Any man living at all consciously knows that embarrassing truth. Heyst was aware that this visit could bode nothing pleasant. In his present soured temper towards all mankind he looked upon it as a visitation ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to return to the radio boys as they stood facing the angry storekeeper amid a constantly growing throng of curious onlookers. They had been in many tighter fixes in their life but none that was more embarrassing. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... and ordered food to be brought him. Then, after looking at it with an expression of fixed animation for half an hour, he paid for it and went home. He let himself into the boarding-house quietly, having hazy impressions that he was not popular there, also that it might be embarrassing to encounter Miss Cornish in the hall; and, after reconnoitering the stairway, went ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... is a smart one," Horatio announced after the first interview. "He gave me some good pointers." For after the embarrassing formalities of sentiment had been disposed of, the two men had naturally dropped into business, and Parker had suggested a method of inserting the tea and coffee business into the Exposition by getting concessions for "Coffee Kiosks," which should advertise the ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... air, took long walks, was absurdly exact about his cold baths, and like Kant, served the neighbors as a chronometer, so they set their clocks at three when they saw him going forth for a walk. And in the interests of truth, we will have to make the embarrassing admission that the great Apostle of Pessimism was neither a dyspeptic nor an invalid—if he was ever aware that he had a stomach we do not hear ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... flooded up into the maiden's face and neck at the action, but still more embarrassing to her was the awkward pause which ensued, as they set out on their return. She could think of nothing to say, and the stranger would not help her. "Let her blush and falter and stammer," was his thought. "Every minute of embarrassment is putting me deeper ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... gold-bowed spectacles. Dignified in bearing, he looked every inch the statesman and scholar. His gracious manner won him friends during his stay in New York, and his indefatigable propensity for asking questions—some of them rather embarrassing to those questioned, as when he politely inquired the ages of the ladies whom he met and the salaries of the officials ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... This was highly embarrassing, he thought, though he felt thankful that his Godmother had not had time to make him recognisable. "My name, your Royal Highness," he replied, "is Girofle. I have the honour to be one of ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... is embarrassing from its fulness of material. We can but lightly touch points on which volumes might be, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... so unprepared to answer the question put thus abruptly, accompanied as it was with a look of the deepest earnestness, that there ensued an embarrassing silence in the shop for a moment ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... representative. "What have you to give us in exchange for this and that?" "What have you to give us as reciprocity for the benefit of going to our islands?" "What assurance can you give that the States will agree to a treaty?" These were the embarrassing questions which Adams had to encounter. Baffled by the cool indifference of the English Ministry, Adams wrote home in despair that there was not the slightest prospect of relief for American commerce unless the States would confer the power of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... even when she is talking with other people. It embarrasses her in school, in spite of her teaching only girls in a private institution. This thought keeps her away from company and the effect of its embarrassing occurrence depresses her, but she is sure that the thought itself does not include any emotion. It is a mere thinking of it with a full consciousness that it is absurd, and yet she cannot ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... this part of the article was headed. No, these were not Mr. Crewe's words—he was too modest for that. When urged to give the name of one of his townsmen who might deal with this and other embarrassing topics, Mr. Ball was mentioned. "Beloved of his townspeople" was Mr. Ball's phrase. "Although a multi-millionaire, no man is more considerate of the feelings and the rights of his more humble neighbours. Send him to the Legislature! We'd send him to the United States Senate if we could. He'll ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... returned. "Anyhow it was rather an embarrassing, not to say painful, position for us to be in. But that ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... when Red Hoss' funeral obsequies had been inopportunely interrupted by the sudden advent among the mourners of the supposedly deceased, returning drippingly from the river which presumably had engulfed him. His unexpected and embarrassing reappearance had practically spoiled the service for his chief relative. She never had forgiven Red Hoss for his failure to stay dead, and he long since had ceased to look for free pone bread and poke chops in ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... the thighs with their feet parallel to the horse, we see them making all sorts of angles. But that gallery! that gallery! how I used to wish it wasn't there! The very sight of a lady under such circumstances is most embarrassing. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... one of the town people they pleasantly nodded to each arrival and inquired after their health and the welfare of their families. The replies were monosyllables. Millville folks were diffident in the presence of these city visitors and while they favored the girls with rather embarrassing stares, their chief interest was centered on the little man in the telephone booth, who could plainly be seen through the glass door but might not be ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are permitted"; ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... speeches in Congress, two hours' argument in the Supreme Court, a jury shut in a room until they agree upon a verdict, a court required by statute to render its decision by a day fixed, are not so strange as to be remarkable, or found in practice so embarrassing as to cause ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... a working bath-tender at Berkeley Springs, launched upon it a boat that he had invented of novel principle and propulsive force. The force was steam, and Rumsey had shown his model to Washington in 1780. First discoverers of steam-locomotion are turning up every few months in embarrassing numbers, but we cannot feel that we have a right to suppress the claims of honest Rumsey, the protege of Washington. The dates are said to be as follows: Rumsey launched his steamboat here at Sir John's Run in 1784, before the general and a throng of visitors from the Springs; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... solicitor was warmth itself. It was painfully embarrassing to the sensitive girl to hear the labored speeches ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... England,' which he probably thought would give him the security of an official diplomatic position. Having got this document, Marsilly's captors took it to the French Ministers. Nothing could be more embarrassing, if this were true, to Charles's representative in France, Montague, and to Charles's secret negotiations, also to Arlington, who had dealt with Marsilly. On his part, the captive Marsilly constantly affirmed ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Tonio. The hum of music could be heard above the "clack-clack" of the carpet-slippers tapping on the floor. Then suddenly the senorita swore a white man's oath, and stopped. Her carpet-slipper had come off, and as she wore no hosiery, the situation was indeed embarrassing. Our hostess asked us twenty times if everything was satisfactory, and finally confessed that she had spent almost a year's income for the refreshments. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... had not Phil Evans been elected president of the club? The votes were exactly divided between Uncle Prudent and him. Twenty times there had been a scrutiny, and twenty times the majority had not declared for either one or the other. The position was embarrassing, and it might have lasted for the lifetime of ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... The bridge club girls said their invitations came yesterday afternoon. I can't understand it. We certainly were on Mrs. Sewall's list when she gave that buffet-luncheon three years ago. And now we're not! That's the bald truth of it. It was terribly embarrassing this afternoon—all of them telling about what they were going to wear—it's going to be a masquerade—and I sitting there like a dummy! Helene McClellan broke the news to me. She blurted right out, 'Oh, do tell us, ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... then summed up with an amused smile: "There was a most embarrassing contretemps: a broken desk and empty safe at home to be accounted for, whether or not they attempted to swindle the insurance company; and if they did make the attempt—and remember, they were desperate for money—a witness to be taken care of. They couldn't let Miss Manwaring ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... chicken. He had never looked at him in this way before, and it both annoyed and irritated him to a frightful degree, and he grew restless, and finally turned his head so that he could not see the steady, embarrassing ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... quite twittery when I first went to the garage after that, for I thought Morty might pop out at me from somewhere, and though I wasn't afraid to meet him and would have cut him if I had, it would inevitably be embarrassing and upsetting. But he had the good taste to stay away on my days, and I never saw as much as a pin-feather of him. But he was awfully artful, even if he didn't let himself be seen, and the things he did to the car went straighter ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... difficult for me in art, and not to find any one ready and willing to put me on the right path. I was very well able, already, to make studies in sepia that would have been valuable material for future reference, whereas my oil studies were perfectly worthless, and much more inconvenient and embarrassing. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... debate one night on the government of dependencies, which, although all reference to existing political circumstances was rigidly prohibited, no doubt had its origin in the critical state of one of our most important colonies, then much embarrassing the metropolis. The subject was one which Endymion had considered, and on which he had arrived at certain conclusions. The meeting was fully attended, and the debate had been conducted with a gravity becoming ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... allow him to demand explanations. And when a more demonstrative character shouts Hallo! when he comes into your parlor, and vents his surprise in a prolonged whistle, and looks at you curiously when your attention is engaged, it is slightly embarrassing. Then, again, I'm told that the villagers are making sarcastic remarks about my little menage: "Begor, Hannah won't be left a pinny"; or, "Begor, Kilronan is looking up"; or, "Begor, he'll be expecting an incrase of the jues"; and one old woman, who gets an occasional ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... prix fixe (2/6), although excellent, surprisingly well done for the money, did not much seduce the clientele of the Carlton and the Ritz. Now and again its remoteness, promising freedom from embarrassing encounters save through unlikely mischance, would bring it the custom of a clandestine couple from the West End, who would for a time make it an almost daily rendezvous, meeting nervously, sitting if possible in the most shadowy corner, the farthest from the door, and holding ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... are incomparable for hanging drapery. But I sent her to the country for to-day in order to get her off my hands this evening. It is not that she bores me, but she is too much lacking in the ways of good society. It would be embarrassing to my guests." ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... supposed, therefore, that this fractional emperor, this continent-shaper, finds his position awkward when he goes into service, and that his employer is apt to find it still more embarrassing. It is always under protest that the hired man does his duty. Every act of service is subject to the drawback, "I am as good as you are." This is so common, at least, as almost to be the rule, and partly accounts for the rapid disappearance of the ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... went, and with it Lady Touchstone and Valerie. The Bumbles were duly overwhelmed, treating their visitors with an embarrassing deference which nothing could induce them to discard: out of pure courtesy Lady Touchstone ate enough for a schoolboy; thereby doing much to atone for Valerie, who ate nothing at all: the Alisons respectfully observed the saturnalia and solemnly reduced ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... to it," she urged. "It's very embarrassing. And I ought to be asleep this minute, getting ready for my early start. I'm not quite sure that I shall sleep if you say it"—her voice dropped to a whisper again—"but I'm sure I shall ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... allowed to do so, he would have placed everything he owned at the disposal of the two who had so generously aided him to keep the home he loved so well; but George stopped the show of gratitude, which was really becoming embarrassing, by saying: ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... coughed again and sat down, finding little to say. It was evident, also, that Margaret shared his perplexity; and another silence became so embarrassing that Penrod broke it. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... shoulder petulantly, and unmistakably showed that she expected a tedious time of it. The sunburned colonel of the Grays beamed so with happiness too, as he drew rein to report to her. They met for the first time since Maximilian's embarrassing little scene for their express benefit. Driscoll noted her disdain, and it is likely that he only grinned. He did that because he knew how helpless he was, and how merciless she could be. For she was not only beautiful, she was pretty—a demure, sweet, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... only is there out of the difficulty, which is to show a specimen of the same insect in all three divisions; but this would, though more correct, be as embarrassing to understand, to say nothing of the loss of space involved, because the same thing would have to be repeated with nearly every invertebrate possessed by a ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Shaugh and myself, upon an accurate calculation of our conjoint finances, discovered that except some vague promises of discounting here and there through the town, and seven and fourpence in specie, we were innocent of any pecuniary treasures. This was embarrassing; we had both embarked in several small schemes of pleasurable amusement, had a couple of hunters each, a tandem, and a running account—I think it galloped—at ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... another!" whispered Tolly, scarcely able to contain himself with delight at such an effective yet comparatively bloodless way of embarrassing their foes. ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... shooting is a most barbarous amusement, only fit for majors in the army, and royal dukes, and that sort of people; the mere walking is bad enough, but embarrassing one's arms moreover, with a gun, and one's legs with turnip tops, exposing oneself to the mercy of bad shots and the atrocity of good, seems to me only a state of painful fatigue, enlivened by the probability ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have braved all the chances without a moment's hesitation; but, I confess, that I felt considerable doubts as to the propriety of standing there to be sacrificed, without the means of making a scramble for it. My mind, however, was happily relieved from such an embarrassing consideration, before my decision was required; for the next moment the cuirassiers were charged by our household brigade; and the infantry in our front giving way at the same time, under our terrific shower of musketry, the flying cuirassiers tumbled in among the routed infantry, followed ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... significance. In the midst of the thrust and ripost of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain, a strange and yet familiar voice was heard to shout out, "They put all the blame on Parnell because he is dead." It was a startling—even an embarrassing interruption. The memory of Parnell is still dear to the vast majority of the old comrades who were compelled to separate themselves from him in the Great Irish Disruption. At the time when Mr. Gladstone made the speech quoted, Mr. Parnell was the loved ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... theme. The next day he gave a dinner to which the general officers of the three armies were invited. Lafayette could not restrain his admiration for Cornwallis for his gallant and appropriate conduct upon all these rather embarrassing occasions. ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... It was rather embarrassing to be asked such a question in Mr. Porter's presence, but I managed to murmur a weak "Yes, indeed!" Inside, though, I felt just as Dad did, and I was fearfully interested in Mr. Porter's account of himself. I could see, too, that he belittled the real things, and magnified the unimportant. ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... syllabic quantity is just what I emphasize. This lack makes definite beat impossible: or at least it makes it absurd to attempt to scan English verse by feet. The proportion of 'irregularities' and 'exceptions' becomes painful to the student and embarrassing to the professor. He is put to fearful straits to explain his prosody and make it fit the verse. And when he has done all this, the student, if he has a good ear, forthwith forgets it all, and reads the verse as it was meant to be read, as a ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... may be easily trained to it. There can be no doubt that dogs at all events are sometimes sexually excited by the presence of women, perhaps especially during menstruation, and many women are able to bear testimony to the embarrassing attentions they have sometimes received from strange dogs. There can be no difficulty in believing that, so far as cunnilinctus is concerned dogs would require no training. In a case recorded by Moll (Kontraere Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 560) ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a mother to her," wrote Mrs. Nixey, and she rubbed both the sentences off the slate with her pocket-handkerchief, and sat pondering over the wording of her next communication. It was difficult and embarrassing, this mode of intercourse on a subject which even she felt to be delicate. How much easier it would have been if old Marlowe could hear and speak like other men! He watched her closely as she wrote word after word ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... philosopher means to insinuate. This is done, either in the way of inquiry, or in the way of controversy and dispute. In the way of controversy are carried on all such dialogues, as tend to eradicate false opinions; and that, either indirectly, by involving them in difficulties, and embarrassing the maintainers of them; or directly, by confuting them. In the way of inquiry proceed those whose tendency is to raise in the mind right opinions; and that either by exciting to the pursuit of some part of wisdom, ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... to go, although he saw his task might be embarrassing. He had been some time in Western Canada, where people are frank and do not shrink from dealing with delicate matters. Then Charnock ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... unchanged, and they lived on terms of intimacy with his brother-in-law Woodman and his family. As long as Hancock lived he wrote constantly to wife and child, and gave advice—occasionally, perhaps, of a rather embarrassing kind—about the education of the latter. He discouraged, however, an idea of his wife's that she should bring Betsy out to India at the age of twelve. At last Mrs. Hancock, who, though a really good woman, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... strictest leash of ladylike reserve, and governing all her emotions without trouble, patent or unconfessed. Hers was a character which would never floreate into irregular beauties to give her friends anxiety and crowd her life with embarrassing consequences. She despised sentiment and ridiculed enthusiasm, thought skepticism both wicked and disreputable, but at the same time fanaticism was silly, and not nearly so respectable as that quiet, easy-going religion which does nothing of which society ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... meantime, the Presidential election of 1848 had come and gone. It had been marked by the appearance of a new party, the Free Soilers, an event which was at first extremely embarrassing to the managers of both the Democratic and Whig parties. On the one hand, the northern and southern sections of the Whig party had always been very loosely joined together, and the slender tie was endangered by the least admission of the slavery issue. On the other ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... of the hand with which, ensconced in the vehicle beside her, St. George took leave of him. He even lingered to see the vehicle start away and lose itself in the confusion of Bond Street. He followed it with his eyes; it put to him embarrassing things. "She's not for me!" the great novelist had said emphatically at Summersoft; but his manner of conducting himself toward her appeared not quite in harmony with such a conviction. How could he have behaved differently ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... at last. 'Only Sister Ruth, I suppose!' It was manifest that the matter had never afforded her anything in the nature of a problem. There was an embarrassing silence. Stephen did not wish to seem, or even to be, prying; but her curiosity was aroused. What manner of woman was this who lived so manifestly alone, and who had but a Christian name! Stephen, however, had all her life been accustomed ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... at last proved to be almost embarrassing, for the general could not go to any part of the Garden without four or five of the braves silently dogging his footsteps and drinking ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... rather. I know you to be a gentleman, or I should never attempt to carry out the only means of escape which seems at all feasible. Discovery would place me in an extremely embarrassing position, and I must rely upon you to protect me from ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... which rendered a change in the headquarters of the force desirable have already been mentioned, and Major Gordon at once decided to remove them to Quinsan, a strong and advantageously-placed position embarrassing to the Taepings, and equally encouraging to the Imperialists. But if this removal was necessary on grounds of discipline and policy, it was very unpopular with the men themselves, who were attached to Sungkiang, where they could easily dispose of their plunder. They determined ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... believe he liked Ben—the great, rough, hind—better than anyone else; would lead Mrs. Rowe long dances after him, to see him milk the cows, and would hold forth to him at dinner, in a way as diverting to us as it was embarrassing to poor Ben, who used to blurt out at intervals, "Yoi, my lord," and "Noa, my lord," while the two maids tried to swallow their tittering. The farmers at market used to call Fulk, "my lord," by mistake, and then colour up to their eyes through ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these people is their serene dignity in circumstances that to us would be novel and embarrassing. Even the little children behave with natural dignity, come to the white men when called, and restrain their wonder at the strange prayers, hymn-singing, etc. This evening an old woman fell asleep in the meeting and began to snore; and though both old and young were shaken ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... with a tally-card showing a killing of thirteen dinosaurs, twenty-seven megatheriums, and about six tons of chlamy-dophori, not to mention a mammoth jack-rabbit that some idiot had told him was the only specimen in the world of the monodelphian mollycoddle. The situation became very embarrassing to us because we were on excellent terms with King Ptush and his subjects, and we did not wish to do anything to offend either of them, but here was a case where in the interests of our own fauna something had to be done. Going on at the rate in which he had begun it was easy to ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... peevishness; but on the receipt of alarming news from Holland, he exerted his authority. On 27th January 1795 he informed Richmond that his long absence from the Cabinet and his general aloofness would make his return unpleasant and "embarrassing to public business. This consideration," he added, "must decide my opinion ... and at this critical time it seems indispensable to make some such arrangement as shall substitute some other efficient military aid in so important ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing to both, but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor understood the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... to cook for a man like that," declared Mary, with a toss of her head, as she settled herself in the big arm chair in the sitting room, and poor Ricka, whose turn it was this week to prepare the meals, found herself in the embarrassing position of compulsory cook for at least two of the men she most heartily despised in the camp, and this too under the displeasure of both Alma ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... to say to Fanny? Good, generous girl! She had indeed done what few women in the world would have had the courage to do—shown her whole heart to a man who loved another. It would be an embarrassing interview; and I was not sorry when I started out that morning that it was too ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... proprietor, after a lengthened and painful examination of the dilapidations, and general nakedness of his estate—'this is embarrassing. Citizen Destouches was right. I must raise money upon the property, to replace what those brigands have carried off. I shall require three thousand francs ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... whole hour, nevertheless, the Duchess strove to establish her innocence by protestations or prayers. But the Queen's heart was irrevocably closed. Desirous of terminating an interview that grew more and more embarrassing, and remembering the scene in St. Paul's, when her Mistress of the Robes had told her to be silent and make no answer, and that lately, in writing to her, the Duchess had said that she required no answer, or that she would not trouble the Queen ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... one considerable objection to my marrying your sister," said he with great politeness. "The manners of some of her relatives might prove embarrassing." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... organ loft. John would play his setting of St Ambrose's hymn, "Veni redemptor gentium," if Mr Hare would go to the bellows, and feeling as if he were being turned into ridicule, Mr Hare took his place at the handle; and he found it even more embarrassing to give an opinion on the religiosity of the music, than on the archaeological colouration of the bishops in the window. But John did not court any very detailed criticism on his hymn, and alluding to the fact that even in the fourth ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... you know, that is—" gasped Quimby, hopelessly lost for a substantive. "I mean, it's a mistake, you know" then with a desperate rush away from the embarrassing subject, "Did you know we—that is, Mrs. Simonson, was going to have a ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... walks decorously, and with good discretion, bearing his torch under a lanthorn, instead of flourishing it around to set the house on fire. All these entanglements bring on only a train of mistakes and embarrassing situations, and dialogues at balls and parties of pleasure, in which the author displays her peculiar powers of humour and knowledge of human life. The plot is extricated with great simplicity. The aunt of Frank Churchill dies; his uncle, no longer under her baneful influence, consents to his ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... and daughter much pain. Certain portions of it, especially near the close, were calculated to force upon the memory of each, analogies that were as distressing to the warm-hearted girl, as they were embarrassing to her parent. The truth was, that her mother, then a year dead, had indeed become a victim to the moral profligacy of a man in whose character there existed nothing whatsoever to compensate her for the utter absence of domestic affection in ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... position at the unusual happening. As the man's voice grew louder, importunately seeking guidance in this unhappy church affair, the woman closed her lips and fell backward upon the seat crying weakly. The masculine voice rose higher and clearer and finished the petition with ringing clarity. Another embarrassing silence out of which came scarcely a breath. Augusta Hall caught a glimpse of the piercing blue eyes peering from under the shaggy brows of Bill Hopkins. The deacon was watching her, and Augusta knew that he exulted as ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... me very much to see Derrick turned into a lion—he was so essentially un-lion-like. People were for ever asking him how he worked, and I remember a very pretty girl setting upon him once at a dinner-party with the embarrassing request: ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... woman very sure of herself in most things. A situation that might have proved embarrassing to one less tactful she accepted quite as a matter of course, rather enjoying the exercise of her influence, and never doubting her power to keep the friendship on any footing she chose. Kirk's frank, boyish gratitude for the favors he had received made it easy for her to encourage the growth ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... aggressor and deserved all the scorn she had heaped upon him. But the rage was with him, nevertheless, perhaps the more poignant because he felt its impotency. He looked around at Dade. That young man was trying to appear unconscious of the embarrassing predicament of his fellow workman. He endeavored to lighten the ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I wish to say that whenever a policy is adopted we should carry out the complete scheme. If we should hesitate in the middle and become afraid to go ahead we will soon find ourselves in an embarrassing position. The Government and Parliament should therefore stir up courage and boldly make the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... horses' backs until we lifted him down. He came into "Mon Repos" to have bits of tree picked out of him. This was the sixth plunge overboard he had done in ten days, he told us. Sometimes he plunged into the most embarrassing situations. On one occasion he dropped clean through a bivouac roof into a hot bath containing a Lieutenant-Colonel, who punched him with a sponge and threw soap at him. On another he came fluttering down from the blue into the midst of a labour company of Chinese ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... called upon to display the somewhat more important accomplishment of bringing children into the world without an hour's educational preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw the line between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and Carlotta's knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarrassing problem. In fact, the problems connected with this young woman seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me as much as I had anticipated. I really believe I should miss my pretty Persian cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense to deny ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... The moment the new life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety to break with the old. For the former environment has now become embarrassing. It refuses its dismissal from consciousness. It competes doggedly with the new Environment for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred ways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... unobserved, however, by Lothair, who, absorbed by his own highly-excited curiosity, proceeded to explain why he presumed to press for the information. "I am under great obligations to that person; I am not sure I may not say I owe him my life, but certainly an extrication from great dander and very embarrassing danger too. I never saw him but once, and he would not give me his name, and scarcely would accept my thanks. I wanted to stop his cab to-day, but it was ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... suggestions which might rid the sovereign of ministers, who, after all, were the ministers not of his choice, but of his necessity. But William IV., after two failures in a similar attempt, after his respective embarrassing interviews with Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, on their return to office in 1832 and 1835, was resolved never to make another move unless it were a checkmate. The king, therefore, listened and smiled, and loved to talk to his ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Raleigh and Keymis could not fail to be an embarrassing one. Raleigh could not but feel that all his own mistakes and faults might have been condoned if Keymis had brought one basket of ore from the fabulous mine, and he could not refrain from reproaching him. He told him he 'should be forced ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... he answered. "We were a little mad. We did not mean to leave it in your father's charge, however. That is why this illness of his is so embarrassing to us. We can't help an idea that it is to keep out of our way for a few days, and to retain possession of that wretched document, that he is lying by. If, on the other hand, his illness is genuine, ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... May Mr. Edward Bright, the clerk of the Inland Revenue Office, wrote me about a tax which he said was due from me to the Government on books of mine published in London —that is to say, an income tax on the royalties. I do not know Mr. Bright, and it is embarrassing to me to correspond with strangers, for I was raised in the country and have always lived there, the early part in Marion County, Missouri, before the war, and this part in Hartford County, Connecticut, near Bloomfield and about ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... fear of embarrassing him she was hardly ever with him alone. She thought he was abrupt, more cool to her since their return, and guessed the reason; it was for fear of compromising her. How angelic of him; what a wonderful man—how fortunate his first wife must have been. And the ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... glad to hear this, for he would have been placed in an embarrassing position if, like some men, Mr. Barlow had forgotten an offer made on the impulse ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... compelled to tell you he was coming," she said angrily. "I felt I should. You have been good enough to take Mr. Carter's place here and save me from an embarrassing situation—" ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the most sanguine computation his fees would only cover his expenses by about five pounds. The difference between fifteen pounds and fifty would have to be refunded out of his own private pocket. When it came to settling accounts with Rickman's his position would be, to say the least of it, embarrassing. It was difficult to unravel the mental process that had led him into it; but it was not the first time that these luxurious subtleties of conscience had caused him to run short of ready money. It was only another ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... as one [Footnote: Herbert Croly, Lincoln as more than an American in his "Promise of American Life," pp. 89-99.] has observed, had no "embarrassing effects," because he shared so completely and genuinely the amusements and occupations of his neighborhood. No "taint of bookishness" disturbed the local fellowships which gave him opportunity to express in "familiar and dramatic form" of story and illustration his more substantial ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... pension of 100,000 livres. Henry ridiculed the idea of Conde's drawing money from him while occupying his time abroad with intrigues against his throne and his children's succession. He scoffed at the Envoy's pretences that Conde was not in receipt of money from Spain, as if a man so needy and in so embarrassing a position could live without money from some source; and as if he were not aware, from his correspondents in Spain, that funds were both promised ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... many a man on Earth feels when first left alone with the partner of his future life. But a single glance at the small drooping figure half-hidden in the cushions brought the reflection that a situation, embarrassing to the bridegroom, must be in the last degree alarming and distressing to the bride. But for her visit to the Astronaut we should have been almost strangers; I could hardly have recognised even her voice. I must, however, speak; and naturally my first sentence was a half-articulate request ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... unsuccessful in several ventures: as a journalist with the "Sentinelle," started or built up by him; as a musical composer with the "Peruviens," an opera-comique given in 1798 at the Feydau theatre.[*] His marriage and the family expenses attendant rendered his financial condition more and more embarrassing. Mongenod had lent money to Frederic Alain, so that he might be present at the opening performance of the "Marriage de Figaro." He borrowed, in turn, from Alain a sum of money which he was unable to return at the time agreed. He set out thereupon for America, made a fortune, returned January, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... its predecessor. To withhold unfavourable comments from Vyse was, therefore, to make it appear that correspondence about the book had died out; and its author, mindful of his unguarded predictions, found this even more embarrassing. The simplest solution would be to get rid of Vyse; and to this end Betton began to address ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... back to earth, I saw lots that made me certain it is all right. The vision is fading into common day now, and I am glad. The frame of mind was the reverse of gloomy, but it would not do for long. It is embarrassing, talking with God face to face, as a man speaketh to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... was warmly greeted by his brother officers. It was embarrassing, to put it mildly; Burke had no ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... she leaned forward to tuck the old coat, in which she had wrapped her feet, more closely about them while she took time to get herself ready to answer the paralyzing question. The longer she waited the harder it became to meet the kindly questioning eyes bent upon her, and the more embarrassing it became to answer at all. She fumbled and tucked and was almost at the point of tears when Jack, who was asleep on a bed made on two chairs, began to fret. Seizing the welcome means of escape, she got up and ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... a little farther away. His head aches and eyes smart. You will of course say that this is a very simple case. It must be old sight (presbyopia). Probably it is if he is old enough (45), but you must prove this for yourself, without asking his age, which is embarrassing in the case of a lady. If you direct him to the distance card twenty feet away, and find that he can see every one down to and including the one marked XX, his vision is up to the standard for distance, and you know that he can have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... followed was interrupted by a sudden barking of the dogs in the outer clearing. Zenobia rose lazily and strode to the window. It relieved Hale of certain embarrassing reflections ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... was ever to extricate himself from the numerous and embarrassing difficulties of his position, gave me, I confess, less uneasiness than the uncertainty of my own fortunes. Luck seemed ever to befriend him—me it had always accompanied far enough through life to make its subsequent desertion more painful. How ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... true, the motive is sufficiently embarrassing to find. Happily, lawyers are plenty. But a thought! ah! an excellent one: wishing to divide with your client the sum paid for the annuity, you have caused the ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... that our first Letter, conveyed by Titus, had produced a good effect in the Corinthian Church, but that this wore off, and that Titus returned to the Apostle in Ephesus with such disquieting news that a visit of Paul just then to Corinth would have been very embarrassing, alike for the Church and the Apostle. Hence, instead of going, he writes a "painful" letter and sends it by the same messenger, proceeding himself to Troas and thence to Macedonia, where, in great tension of spirit, he awaits the return of Titus. At last there comes a ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... riser among the ladies of the house, Miss Garth was alo ne in the breakfast-room when the letter was brought in. Her first glance at its contents convinced her of the necessity of reading it carefully through in retirement, before any embarrassing questions could be put to her. Leaving a message with the servant requesting Norah to make the tea that morning, she went upstairs at once to the solitude and security of ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... divided attention, Teacher replied—"Five cents, honey," and read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made embarrassing ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... conscious of the discomfort the presence of this little Mephistopheles of an Albacina caused her. The Minister's discourse did not prove to be what she had expected; more favourable perhaps, but more embarrassing. He told her he was not speaking as the Minister, but as a friend; that he did not wish to hide things from her; that certain shadows had had absolutely no substance; that neither ministers, nor magistrates, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... the embarrassing Situation, the Host gave a Sign and the Menials came running with the Third Course, a tempting array of ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... philosophically conjectured for a shadow; and it constantly happens, in Turner's distances, that such strange pieces of broken shade, accurately remembered, or accurately invented, as the case may be, cause a condition of unintelligibility, quaint and embarrassing almost in exact proportion to the ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... occasion, but who had no intention of enrolling himself in the fraternities of actual or political mendicants. The excellent magistrate, however, was near becoming a member of both. The emblem by which he had been conspicuously adorned proved very embarrassing to him upon his recovery from the effects of his orgies with the "great beggar," and he was subsequently punished for his imprudence by the confiscation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... speaking before the class. In addition, some attention to such topics as voice, tone, pronunciation, common errors, use of the dictionary, vocabulary, may instil habits of self-criticism and observation which may save from doubt and embarrassing ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... looked in again perplexed and uncertain. Nettie had quite established herself in the easy-chair. She sat there looking with her bright eyes into the vacant air before her, in a pretty attitude of determination and readiness, beating her little foot on the carpet. Something whimsical, odd, and embarrassing about her position made it all the more piquant to the troubled eyes which, in spite of all their worldly wisdom, were still the eyes of a young man. He could not tell in the world what to say to her. To order that creature ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... overwhelmingly romantic and sympathetic. Their talk waned, and was revived to an artificial activity and waned again. The historical interest had evaporated from the west of England and left only an urgent and embarrassing present. ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... famous athlete. By a series of contretemps, Anne is made out to be the wife (according to Scotch law) of her dearest friend's betrothed, who visits her as Delamayne's emissary. She is released from the embarrassing position, by the exhibition of a letter from Delamayne, promising to marry her, written before Arnold's visit. Infuriated by the expos['e], Delamayne tries to murder his wife, and is prevented by a crazy woman. Her sudden ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... life in a country where he was one of the head men, wouldn't you? But she hardly feels that any country except her own is worth serious inquiries. She has the impression that "heathen" are all alike, and mostly naked, but not as embarrassing to meet as ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... was the orderly regulation of all matters affecting its members' relations with their agents. Theoretically its primary purpose was to prevent the overcompensation of some agents at the expense of others. If it did not always succeed in doing this, it did at least succeed in making extremely embarrassing the lot of any company operating outside of its organization. It was everywhere an arbitrary body, and its New York State branch was perhaps the least disciplined of any of its constituent parts, and was moreover suspected of favoring some of its own ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... This poetical and flowing hymn seems to have been forgotten in the making up of most modern church hymnals. Hymns on heaven and heavenly joys abound in embarrassing numbers, but it is difficult to understand why this beautiful lyric should be universally neglected. It was written probably about 1760, by Rev. John Berridge, from the text, "Blessed are the dead ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... him of her former life, and after the small-pox, caught on a ministration of mercy, has harrowed all the beauty from her face. But rapid consumption supervenes, and relieves the author from the embarrassing position into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... for Basil's promise, she darted away in order to intercept Somerled before he could finish his errand in the drawing-room. Of course, it would be easy for him to buy more papers, but before he could get them, Aline was hoping to have maneuvered the embarrassing Miss MacDonald out of the house. She counted that Ian would be long in finding the forms, because men never could find the simplest things when told to look for them; but Somerled was an exception, and she only just caught him on ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... him). Now you mustn't talk about it any more; because you know, if you do, I shall have red eyes, and then father and mother will want to know why they are red, and I shall not be able to tell them, and it will be very embarrassing. ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... clear and excellent rules of organization, the strictest conformity was not always had to them, and it was sometimes difficult to strictly apply them. Companies sometimes overran the maximum in a way that rendered them as embarrassing to the regiments in which they were placed, as they were painfully unwieldy to the unlearned Captains and Lieutenants ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... been received with a larger measure both of the approbation of experienced men and of the applause of the public." The office itself was "at the present moment the most arduous and responsible in the administrative service of the country." Not only "embarrassing problems," but "formidable personalities" would confront the new High Commissioner ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... strengthening mountain air for a while longer. She herself had no other wish than to keep Leonore in her house as long as possible. The ladies' answer was full of warm thanks for her great help in their embarrassing situation. They were very glad to accept her great kindness for two more weeks, after which one of them would come ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... The cruelty of the hoax thus perpetrated is increased by the fact that for the past several days Miss Stowe has been confined to the bed of illness, suffering from a sudden and violent attack of fever, which illness has naturally been enhanced by the embarrassing position in which she has been placed through the act of an anonymous practical joker. Such jokes are entirely out of place and cannot be too strongly reprehended. In correcting this falsehood the Daily Republican ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the latest comer to Podunk. One day with a friend I called on a Chinese girl, and all the large family and their friends gathered around and discussed us and laughed among themselves and pointed at us. It was embarrassing but I was never once conscious of rudeness, simply a childlike ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... that Priestley should return to his old footing in his house. Probably enough, the politician, aspiring to the highest offices in the State, may have found the position of the protector of a man who was being denounced all over the country as an infidel and an atheist somewhat embarrassing. In fact, a passage in Priestley's "Autobiography" on the occasion of the publication of his "Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit," which took place in 1777, indicates pretty clearly the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... been the sensible thing to do. In some ways this had been rather a more exciting day than the others. Again she had risen early and come down to order his coffee; but he too must have risen early, for he had come upon her as she was giving her instructions. It had been an embarrassing moment for her, and she had tried to carry it off with a laugh. That she was not to do so surprised her and added a still deeper flush to ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... perhaps death. The reason I have done this need not be discussed; indeed I could not satisfactorily explain my action even to myself. But if the truth ever becomes known I shall be placed in a most embarrassing position. Surely you understand this, and you are a gentleman; I am sure of that. You are not going to carry that news to your camp. Before I should permit that to happen I would denounce you openly, and permit those men yonder to think evil of me. But I do not believe that ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... hold my husband back from the brink of social disaster," said one wife. "We sat opposite to one another at a dinner party where the conversation neared a topic that would be, I knew, extremely painful and embarrassing to our hostess. My John led the talk—all unaware of the peril—and when the next sentence would, I felt, be fatal, I pressed his foot under the table. What do you think that blessed innocent did? Winced visibly and sharply—stopped ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... should not be disappointed. Love of adventure invested the project with an irresistible charm, and Mr. Henley determined to undertake the journey and play the part for all he was worth. It is true that visions of embarrassing complications occasionally presented themselves, but were dismissed as ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... amusing to speculate what all the well-dressed pew-holders would have done had this unexpected answer to the appeal which Mr. Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world in general, been literally given. It would have been extremely embarrassing to the Managing Committee and all the office-bearers, and would have, I fear, deeply exasperated and offended the occupants of those family pews; but fortunately this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat of Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity, which you ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the Archbishop of Cosenza saw Cardinal Valentino come into his prison; with that frank air of affability which he knew well how to assume when it could serve his purpose, he explained to the prisoner the embarrassing situation in which the pope was placed, from which the archbishop alone, whom His Holiness looked upon as his best friend, could ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... To an embarrassing question put by the society editor of some paper Mr. Washington replied by merely telling a funny story the application of which to the impertinent inquiry was obvious. In another letter he summed up his opinion of the much-mooted question of the franchise ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... "Oh! Pretty embarrassing." Trigger was silent a moment. "Holati, could those things ever become as valuable as people keep saying? It's all sounded a ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... extremely slim rod, with an invisible line and an aerial fly. This instrument was soon put up; and Mr Russ, letting out six fathoms of line, stood erect, and making a splendid heave, caught the Indian boy by the hair! This was an embarrassing commencement; but being an easy, good-natured man, he only frowned the boy out of countenance, and shortened his line. The next cast was more successful; the line swept gracefully through the air, and fell in a series ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... consequence thereof, we cannot dismiss this subject without expressing our highest approbation of the ability, moderation, and command of temper with which our President at Madras has conducted himself in the management of a very delicate and embarrassing situation. His conduct, and that of the Select Committee of Fort St. George, in the execution of the trust delegated to Lord Macartney by the Nabob Mahomed Ali, has been vigorous and effectual, for the purpose ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... "Self-justification is so embarrassing and unsatisfactory, and some excuse must be made for our appearing here together, unless you take my advice. He has not seen you yet, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... experiment. Her life was closely associated with her mother's family. Her father's people had at no time entered into her scheme of living,—her uncle Elijah less than any member of it, and she found his post-obit intervention in her affairs embarrassing ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... as his London associates had done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food which she was certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also asked similar embarrassing questions. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... am so sorry," exclaimed the girl, a note of concern at once entering her voice. "Pray go at once, Mr Leslie, I beg, and do whatever you may deem necessary. I hope it will not prove that the captain is seriously injured; it will be so—so—very—embarrassing for you." ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... "out." But that was not much, for, to tell the truth, her heart did beat a little at the idea of entering strange drawing-rooms and introducing herself, and she would be sure to be at home when they returned her calls; and that would be less embarrassing, and suit her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... I'll see Pratt," said Martin, unable to rid himself of the idea that a bride should find such an errand embarrassing. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... consequent than she might have led in a station less exalted, but distant from the circles in which she could not appear at the same time with the man who had infamously wronged her without exciting whispers painful to herself and embarrassing to her husband. Indeed, there seems to be rather more of vicarious expiation in her fate than the interests of population and of "young women who have been betrayed" have any right ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at him with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... docility. He ate his way through the grant, the office stationery, and the central tin dump with the most disarming naivete. He was the spoilt darling of every mess. The reflected glory which Isinglass and myself enjoyed was positively embarrassing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... of which he had any knowledge; and he never heard from him afterward, anything that could compare with it. His auditors were mainly those of his own people. His flow of thought was not interrupted by the slow, and embarrassing process of interpretation. The full grief of his heart, in view of the transactions of the previous year, was poured forth, and came like the irresistible sweep of a whirlwind. [Footnote: Conversation of the author with Samuel J. Mills, Esq., formerly ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... productions with which Kwan Kiang-ti's name is chiefly associated—shells and pebbles of all kinds, lotus and other roots from the river banks, weeds from seas of greater depths, fish of interminable variety from both fresh and bitter waters, all falling in really embarrassing abundance, and mingled with an incessant rain of sand and water. In the midst of this the demon suddenly passed away, striking the table as he went, so that it was scarred with the brand of a five-clawed hand, shattering all the objects upon it (excepting the stone and the books, which ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... uncommon interest, "Knock at the winder, sir, knock at the winder! Lord bless you, don't lose no more time than you can help,—knock at the winder!" Mrs. Gamp herself, when roused, is under the same embarrassing misapprehension. Immediately, however, Mr. Pecksniff has explained the object of his mission, Mrs. Gamp, who has a face for all occasions, thereupon putting on her mourning countenance, the surrounding matrons, while rating her visitor ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... my rifle. Flourishing it in a sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the invaders. The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing. There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a distance of ten ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... he had made a mistake. Undeniably similar to the girl he had sent away on the Manchuria that morning was the young lady in the rickshaw. She had the same white, wistful face, the same alert, appealing eyes, the same rosebud mouth. Any one might have made such a mistake. It was very embarrassing. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... known species. But the dream of pleasure, and the hopes of much additional science, were not of very long duration. The necessary occupations of the different artificers, soon involved the people in very embarrassing intricacies and much bodily labour, occasioned by the prodigious variety and numbers of climbers, briars, shrubs, and ferns, interwoven through the forests, and almost totally precluding access to the interior of the country. From the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... 'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire—even an umbrella would be something—but you did quite right, dear Marchioness. I should have ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... away and went around the curve in the path. Well, maybe the Korental had been right, he thought. So long as they kept from bothering others, the clanless ones weren't molested. And they certainly didn't form any associations that might be embarrassing ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... What she did was more embarrassing for her than what I did for Kitty. At least it would have been mightily so if she hadn't used her good hawss sense and forgot that she was a lone young female and I was a man. That's what I did the other night. Just ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... be made for the embarrassing position in which the present Government of Portugal, from no fault of its own, is placed. The fact, however, remains that at this moment the criticisms of those who are interested in the cause of anti-slavery are not solely directed against the Portuguese Government. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... run no risk of interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased to be left to himself ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... will increase in proportion to the practice of it and your yielding. Virtue and vice cannot be allied, nor can idleness and industry; of course if you resolve to adhere to the former of these extremes, an intimacy with those who incline to the latter of them would be extremely embarrassing to you; it would be a stumbling block in your way, and act like a mill-stone hung to your neck; for it is the nature of idleness and vice to obtain as many votaries as ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... time was supposed to reflect the views of the Government, began a furious onslaught against Roman Catholicism in general and on the French Canadians in particular. This fatuous course could not fail to prove embarrassing to a Ministry which drew its main support from Lower Canada. {30} It was the time of the 'Papal Aggression' in England. Anti-Catholicism was in the air, and found a congenial exponent in George Brown, whose vehement and intolerant ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... mechanically pressed her forehead as she devoured me with her gaze. Marion was seated on a common chair, and sat with one elbow on the table, her hands clasped tight, her body thrown slightly forward, and her eyes fixed on mine with an intensity of gaze that was really embarrassing. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... the men at once shook hands with a tight and somewhat masonic squeeze of each other's fingers. Charvet, for his part, showed himself almost amiable; and whether he and the others knew anything of Florent's antecedents, they at all events indulged in no embarrassing allusions. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
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