"Distasteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Chevalier, picking up his hat and thrusting his sword into its scabbard; "I dare say this moment is distasteful to us all." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... province of the little stinging ants, which live in the thorns of the acacia, is, therefore, to protect the leaves of the shrub from being used by the leaf-cutters to make mushroom beds. Certain varieties of the orange tree have leaves which are distasteful to the leaf-cutters, this property of the leaves thus forming a means of defense. Other plants are unaccountably spared by them—grass, for example, which, if brought to the nest, is at once thrown out by some ant in authority. The bull's-horn acacia, in return for the ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... generosity; it set more store on liberality than on benevolence; it allowed men to enrich themselves by gambling or by war, but not by labor; it preferred great crimes to small earnings; cupidity was less distasteful to it than avarice; violence it often sanctioned, but cunning and treachery it invariably reprobated as contemptible. These fantastical notions did not proceed exclusively from the caprices of those who entertained ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to pillage the Church had failed to win for the Duke and his party the good will of the lesser gentry or the wealthier burgesses who together formed the Commons. Projects of wide constitutional and social change, of the humiliation and impoverishment of an estate of the realm, were profoundly distasteful to men already struggling with a social revolution on their own estates and in their own workshops. But it was not merely its opposition to the projects of Lancaster and his party among the baronage which won for this assembly the name of the ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... "Congress and the State legislature are after us," he once said. "You may be subpoenaed. If you know nothing, you can tell nothing. If you know about the business, you might tell something which would ruin us." The mere presence of a stranger has always been distasteful to him. The custom of espionage has made him suspect that others are as watchful as himself. He has been described erroneously as a master of complicated villainy. He is, for evil or for good, the most single-minded man alive. He looks for ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... there for his doubts, no friendly feeling, no inward comfort. Dr Grantly would be ready enough to take up his cudgel against all comers on behalf of the church militant, but he would do so on the distasteful ground of the church's infallibility. Such a contest would give no comfort to Mr Harding's doubts. He was not so anxious to prove himself ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... "shalt nots," disagreeable to the natural man or woman, soon found her a tiring and trying companion. She asked him for what he could not give; she coquetted with questions he thought it impious to raise; the persons she made friends with were distasteful to him; and, without complaining, he soon grew to think it intolerable that a woman married to a soldier should care so little for his professional interests and ambitions. Though when she pretended to care for them she annoyed ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... modern Americans, to whom every material manifestation of wealth has become distasteful, Laurence Vanderlyn had chosen to pitch his Paris tent on the top floor of one of those eighteenth-century houses which, if lacking such conveniences as electric light and lifts, can command in their place the stately charm and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... but clever "London Spy," gives us a most distasteful picture of the Compter in 1698-1700. "When we first entered," says Ward, "this apartment, under the title of the King's Ward, the mixture of scents that arose from mundungus, tobacco, foul feet, dirty ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... dwell amid the crowds of London with such a thought oppressing her. This heart-sickness and loneliness made the busy streets utterly distasteful to her. To be here, with millions around her, all strangers to her, was intolerable. There was her own little homestead, surrounded by familiar scenes, where she would seek rest and quiet before laying any plans for herself. She put her affairs into the hands ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... quite aware of it, sir. The real truth is that I can't get up. The work here is distasteful to me—but I do ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... was again ordered upon convoy duty, this time to Quebec. This destination also was distasteful on account of the climate. "I want much to get off from this d——d voyage," he wrote. "Mr. Adair," an eminent London surgeon, who the year before had treated him for the paralysis of his limbs, "has told ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the moral that most people will draw will be: 'Follow in the path of Mrs. Gordon, however distasteful it may seem to you, and whatever temptations you feel towards a more independent life. If you don't, you will ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the common sense, and is divided into two powers, or inclinations, concupiscible or irascible: or (as one [991] translates it) coveting, anger invading, or impugning. Concupiscible covets always pleasant and delightsome things, and abhors that which is distasteful, harsh, and unpleasant. Irascible, quasi [992] aversans per iram et odium, as avoiding it with anger and indignation. All affections and perturbations arise out of these two fountains, which, although the stoics make light of, we hold ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... is man lifted above earthly things, even by simplicity and purity. Simplicity ought to be in the intention, purity in the affection. Simplicity reacheth towards God, purity apprehendeth Him and tasteth Him. No good action will be distasteful to thee if thou be free within from inordinate affection. If thou reachest after and seekest, nothing but the will of God and the benefit of thy neighbour, thou wilt entirely enjoy inward liberty. If thine heart were right, then should every creature be a mirror of ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... a student who had already selected his profession and was anxious to be about it confided to me, as many others have done, how distasteful he was finding the task of "working off his culture." Does any one really suppose that the sophomore who is "working off his culture" under faculty compulsion, in order to get his college degree, is really absorbing from his study anything ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... the Reformed Church. These are weighty arguments, and to them may be added others worthy of consideration. To a daughter of Sir William Petre her husband's design, if he ever entertained it, would have been more than distasteful, for its fulfilment would have meant a confession of sacrilege committed by her father and acquiesced in by herself: it would have meant also the establishment of a college beyond the sea, removed from the Founder's supervision ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... reason to doubt, that the natives of India frequently have recourse to jhar phoonk, or mesmerism, for the cure of rheumatism; but many interesting things arc carefully concealed from the English, because we invariably ridicule or sneer at native customs—a mode of treatment peculiarly distasteful to the inhabitants ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... drove over to Vassilyevskoe. The first thing that struck him on entering was the scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him. There were some travelling trunks in the hall. He crossed the threshold of the drawing-room—a lady arose from the sofa, made a step forward, and fell at his feet. He caught his breath... he leaned against the wall for support.... ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... distasteful to you, Violet?" he gravely asked, when he could command himself to speak. "I was led to believe—I hoped that it would meet with ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... on being solemnly turned upon: 'you have taken the precaution of making some addition to our frugal supper on your way home, it will prove but a distasteful one to Bella. Cold neck of mutton and a lettuce can ill compete with the luxuries ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... dangerous (as it was at one time apprehended, fatal) illness of her youngest daughter, she would leave her child's bedside to go to the theater, and discharge duties never very attractive to her, and rendered distasteful then by cruel anxiety, but her neglect of which would have injured the interests of her brother, her fellow-actors, and all the poor people employed in the theater, and been a direct infringement of her obligations ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the morning had been. Most of the boys returned earlier than usual from their respective dinners, and either hung about the school-room, staring at their new companion, or waited at the foot of the stairs for him to come down. The attentions of the first-named division soon became so distasteful to the new-comer that he left the room abruptly, and went down the stairway two steps at a time. At the door he found little Benny Mallow looking up admiringly, and determining to practice that particular ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... however, especial reasons why this alliance should be distasteful, both to Philip of Spain upon one side, and to the Landgrave Philip of Hesse on the other. The bride was the daughter of the elector Maurice. In that one name were concentrated nearly all the disasters, disgrace, and disappointment of the Emperor's reign. It was Maurice ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... private wishes and opinions, it soon became evident that the gathering of the white men upon their borders, and in a country which they claimed by right of conquest if they did not occupy it, was most distasteful to the more warlike sections ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... this disease was never seemingly severe. The very day before this (to me) distasteful letter, he had written to Miss Bell of Manchester in a sweeter strain; I do not quote the one, I quote the other; fair things are the best. "I keep my own little lodgings," he writes, "but come up every night to see mamma" (who was then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than myself. Would you have me wait till the mob shall sack the province-house as they did my private mansion? Trust me, sir, the time may come when you will be glad to flee for protection to the king's banner, the raising of which is now so distasteful to you." ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... children understand what is taught; and indefinite ideas on the doctrines and precepts of the gospel are the consequences; and because there is an inclination, too often indicated, to pass over some doctrines and precepts, under the notion that they are distasteful, and will repel the young mind from religion. We set down as a principle of sound common sense, as well as religion, that every truth of the Bible which is concerned in making men wise unto salvation, is to be taught to every soul ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... go to him, but I did so in order to restore peace to my people, and prevent all Austria from sinking into ruin. It is true, it was a dreadful walk for me, and when I saw the Emperor of the French at his camp-fire, he became utterly distasteful to me. [Footnote: The emperor's own words.—See "Lebensbilder aus dem Befreiungekriege," vol. i.] Nevertheless, the truth cannot be gainsaid, and the truth is that the Emperor Napoleon is more than a were-wolf killing only lambs; he is a lion whose ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... practice at St. Joseph's, she used to go there and meet her father, but lately, for some reason which she could not explain to herself, she had refrained. The thought of this church had become distasteful to her, and she returned home indifferent to everything, to music and religion alike. Her eyes turned from the pile of volumes—part of Bach's interminable works—and all the old furniture, and she stood at the window and watched the rain dripping into the ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... will hold up before him no bugbear of future punishment, for doubtless there is no such thing; and if there be, it will not be meted out to such a child. He will love and obey his parents because they have devoted themselves to his happiness, and because they have never imposed distasteful obligations upon him, and when he grows to manhood he will be a model of ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... envelope he drew a sheet of thin paper; and Anstice, watching him closely, felt still more mystified by his distasteful expression. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... but you must allow that in the first place I was not to suppose that you were going to see my breeches, and in the second place that I could not be aware that the colour would be distasteful ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and all the other parts of beauty, which require no investigation to be perceived! In the former case, whilst we look up to the Maker with admiration and praise, the object which causes it may be odious and distasteful; the latter very often so touches us by its power on the imagination, that we examine but little into the artifice of its contrivance; and we have need of a strong effort of our reason to disentangle our minds ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to a boy accustomed to plain but good country fare. The burgoo or oatmeal gruel served at breakfast made him sick; he knew how it had been made in the cook's dirty pans. The "Irish horse" and salt pork for dinner soon became distasteful; it was not in the best condition when brought aboard, and before long it became putrid. The strong cheese for supper was even more horrible. He lived for the most part on the tough sea biscuit of mixed wheat and pea flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled with fat, which did duty ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the cloak of moderation he had worn, and began a career of oppression of the plebeians, aided by his subservient associates. The first step taken was to add two new laws to the code, which became known, therefore, as the "Twelve Tables." These new laws proved so distasteful to the people that they almost broke into open rebellion. It was evident that the haughty decemvirs were seeking to increase the power ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... not allow him to make his living on a farm, he tried teaching school, but, like Thoreau, found that occupation distasteful. Through Garrison's influence, Whittier at the age of twenty-one procured an editorial position in Boston. At various times he served as editor on more than half a dozen different papers, until his own health or his father's brought him back to the farm. Such occupation taught ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... crimson-dyed crimes; or, finally, to be so pricked in conscience as to be lashed and stung with the whips and snakes of grief and remorse. But there is another sort of madness that proceeds from Folly, so far from being any way injurious or distasteful that it is thoroughly good and desirable; and this happens when by a harmless mistake in the judgment of things the mind is freed from those cares which would otherwise gratingly afflict it, and smoothed over ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... with her many weeks before I felt conscious that it was her presence that charmed the whole house, and made the otherwise perplexing and distasteful details of my situation agreeable. I had a dim perception that this growing passion was a dangerous thing for myself; but was it a reason, I asked, why I should relinquish a position in which I felt that I was useful, and when I could ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... longer young, and early work before breakfast had grown distasteful; still, he had come to see the ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... from Napoleon himself, full of the most humble pleading. It was not wholly distasteful thus to have the conqueror of the world seek her out and offer her his adoration any more than it was distasteful to think that the revival of her own nation depended on her single will. M. Frederic Masson, whose ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... an unpleasant errand, but Joe went through with it. He had to call at many places that were distasteful to him, but in none of them did he get a trace of Ham Logan. Joe saw in the more brilliant parts of the city a number of the circus men, including some of the chief performers. They were taking advantage of the two-days' stay, ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... dark, glowing eyes were lowered upon the white face of the dead man, yet Hampton noted how clear, in spite of sun-tan, were those tints of health upon the rounded cheek, and how soft and glossy shone her wealth of rumpled hair. Even the tinge of color, so distasteful in the full glare of the sun, appeared to have darkened under the shadow, its shade framing the downcast face into a pensive fairness. Then he observed how dry and parched her ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... to use a form of presentation instead of, or in addition to, the Preface is likely to be widely welcomed. The other addenda to this office, being apparently distasteful (for unlike reasons) to all the "schools of thoughts" in the Church, are likely to fail of acceptance; and on the ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... in the treasury if invited to do so, nor can I ask gentlemen to commit themselves until they know definitely what I wish. I cannot afford to be a candidate unless I expect to succeed. I believe, from information already received, that I can succeed, but only after a struggle that is distasteful to me, and which I cannot well afford. I can only act upon the assumption that General Garfield will desire to make an entire change in his cabinet, and upon that basis I would gladly return to the Senate as the only position I could hold, or, if there was any doubt about election, I would ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... was always vainly striving to give. An assertion of this kind was contradicted in my first volume; but it has since been repeated so explicitly, that to prevent any possible misconstruction from a silence I would fain have persisted in, the distasteful ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... queenly fripperies, what can be said of the low estate of a factory which must give out a portrait of Marat or Lepelletier, even though the great David painted the design to be copied. The hundred men at the Gobelins must have worked but sadly and desultorily over such scant and distasteful commissioning. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... I had been unnecessarily considerate of her feelings. Miss Cooper was a gentlewoman, to be sure; but it did not inevitably follow that she was too sensitive to harken to a distasteful topic. I know that my features must have reflected my feelings at this moment, for the color began to grow deeper and deeper in her pretty face, and at last she sprang ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... the day; or they started subjects of interest that were not interesting to me. Bits of gossip—discussions of fashionable amusements with which I could have nothing to do; frivolous badinage, which was of all things most distasteful to me. Yet, amid it, I believe there was a subtle incense of admiration which by degrees and insensibly found its way to my senses. But I had two dances with Thorold, and at those times I was myself and enjoyed unalloyed pleasure. And so I ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... considerable pains," said McAllen, "to establish myself as a lunatic. It was distasteful, but it seemed necessary to discourage anyone from making too close an investigation of some of my more recent lines of research. If it became known now that I was again in charge of ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... was interesting, but extremely distasteful to a business man intent upon business. Mr. Stobell took his pipe out of his mouth and cleared his throat. "Why, you might build a hospital with it," he burst ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... no! your questions are so easily answered. I never encouraged the doctor to speak of my brother and his wife. The subject was too distasteful to me—and I don't doubt that Doctor Benjulia felt about ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... become distasteful to me I was young and poor when I graduated. So after nursing school I buckled down and worked just long enough to save enough money to obtain a masters degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Then I started working at Riverview ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... said. 'The King was hounding—-yes, hounding out the Marquis to lead the forlorn hope. Heaven forgive me for my disloyalty in thinking he wished to be quit of one so distasteful to the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she did not speak, "that my proposition seems at first distasteful, but there is much to be ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... of the beautiful, thus acquired, far from making the common occupations of life distasteful, threw over them a sort of poetic interest, as a richly painted window casts its own glowing colours on mere boards and stones. The higher regions of her mind were never obscured by the clouds ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... sight, Vandeloup knocked at the door in a peculiar manner, and it was immediately opened in a stealthy kind of way. Gaston gave his name, whereupon they were allowed to enter, and the door was closed after them in the same quiet manner, all of which was very distasteful to Mr Meddlechip, who, being a public man and a prominent citizen, felt that he was breaking the laws he had assisted to make. He looked round in some disgust at the crowds of waiters, and at the glimpses he caught every now and then of gentlemen in evening dress, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... friendship greatly, Dr. Christobal," she said, speaking with a calm deliberateness that rang hollow in her own ears, "so greatly that I am compelled to utter this protest. Now, to end a distasteful controversy, let me tell you what I know to be true. When the ship was stranded, and we all thought our only chance of safety was to take to the boats, by a fluke, the accident of the moment, I was left alone in the captain's cabin. The sea was breaking in through the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... his Minister, Guizot, had been plotting to marry the child-queen, Isabella of Spain, to her worthless cousin, Don Francisco, and her sister, the Infanta, to the Duc de Montpensier, Louis Philippe's brother, with results most promising to the King and to France, but most distasteful to England, as Palmerston was prompt to declare, "Such an objection on our part may seem uncourteous and may be displeasing, but the friendships of states and governments must be founded on natural interests and not ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... on the resignation of Mr. Waugh, Carlyle obtained, by competitive examination at Dumfries, the post of mathematical master at Annan Academy. Although he had, at his parents' desire, commenced his studies with a view to entering the Scottish Church, the idea of becoming a minister was growingly distasteful to him. A fellow-student describes his habits at this time as lonely and contemplative; and we know from another source that his vacations were principally spent among the hills and by the rivers of his native ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... other I could see that folk-lore was distasteful to him, and he mentioned causally that he had put a stop to the telling of fairy-tales round the fire in the evening, and the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... delighted in his pen. From the time of his return from the Continent, it was seldom out of his hand. Idleness was distasteful to him. He petitions his critics if they be ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... and stole another glance at him. The expression of his face was ingenuous, not to say simple. She resolved to risk it. So far he had always won in their brief encounters, and monotony was always distasteful to her, especially ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... kept pace with the increase in population. The number of freeholders qualified to vote for senator and governor, was, relatively, no larger; the power of the Council of Appointment had become odious; the veto of the Council of Revision distasteful; and the sittings of the Supreme Court infrequent. It was said that the members of the Council of Revision, secure from removal, had resisted the creation of additional judges, until the speedy administration of justice was a ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... pursue, it seems to me, is to call for such as are willing to come with the consent of their owners. Impressment or draft would not be likely to bring out the best class, and the use of coercion would make the measure distasteful to them and to their owners. I have no doubt if Congress would authorize their reception into service, and empower the President to call upon individuals or States for such as they are willing to contribute with the condition of emancipation to all enrolled, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... angel," she answered, "or something equally distasteful. How I hate those mild eyes and that sweet, slow smile. I saw him thrash a poor beater once in the Saxe ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... parlour, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... the few who rushed to the spot found that Uncle Ben had already disappeared. Whether the appearance of the children was too inconsistent with his ghostly mission, or whether his heart failed him at the last moment, the master could not determine. Yet, distasteful as the impending interview promised to be, the master was vaguely and ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... more than medicine? The fact is where ordinary men are concerned any scientific profession renders Art distasteful. At least this is so in England. After all, most depends on the man himself, and, one who is born with a keen sensibility to the charms of art will carry it through life, whatever his ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... her very courage seemed to forsake her. She called for a sword to lie constantly beside her and thrust it from time to time through the arras, as if she heard murderers stirring there. Food and rest became alike distasteful. She sate day and night propped up with pillows on a stool, her finger on her lip, her eyes fixed on the floor, without a word. If she once broke the silence, it was with a flash of her old queenliness. When Robert Cecil declared that she "must" go to ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... the tools of court-bigotry, and often owed their highest promotions to base subservience. After the Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and general view) might be described as a body of supine persons, known to the public only as a dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the Government. In the last century and a half, the nation was often afflicted with sensual royalty, bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies, bribery and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading all ranks, and ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... Democratic party go into the contest with a New York candidate, President Cleveland, who was presented to the Convention at St. Louis for nomination, not by an Irishman from New York, but by an Irishman from the hopelessly Republican State of Pennsylvania, and whose renomination, distasteful to the Democratic Governor of the State, was also openly opposed by the Democratic Mayor of the city of New York, Mr. Hewitt, Mr. George's successful competitor in the Municipal election of 1886. Leaving Dr. M'Glynn to uphold the Confiscation of Land ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... practice among your patients stop here; and the present unfortunate state of the public mind of Deerbrook regarding yourself, makes it too probable that his most sanguine expectations will be realised. I write this with extreme pain; but I owe it to you not to disguise the truth, however distasteful may be ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... his task now accomplished, Howe decided to return to England, in virtue of a permission granted some time before at his own request. The duty against the Americans, lately his fellow-countrymen, had been always distasteful to him, although he did not absolutely refuse to undertake it, as did Admiral Keppel. The entrance of France into the quarrel, and the coming of d'Estaing, refreshed the spirits of the veteran, who moreover scorned ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... attentions by his initial profane and irreverent comment on his transferral by the tug-captain, he was assaulted on the slightest provocation by the mates—no bigger than he or more skillful of fist, but justified by the law—and, though easily the best sailorman of the mixed crew, was put at distasteful tasks while inferior men worked at sailorly work on ropes ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... which the environment has been explored. For in a world falsely conceived, our own characters are falsely conceived, and we misbehave. So the moralist must choose: either he must offer a pattern of conduct for every phase of life, however distasteful some of its phases may be, or he must guarantee that his pupils will never be confronted by the situations he disapproves. Either he must abolish war, or teach people how to wage it with the greatest psychic economy; either he must abolish the economic life of man and feed him with ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... them? Could you comprehend how the Romans stuffed their pheasants with assafoetida, and the Chinese eat swallows' nests? Eh? no! Well, it is the same with hashish; only eat for a week, and nothing in the world will seem to you to equal the delicacy of its flavor, which now appears to you flat and distasteful. Let us now go into the adjoining chamber, which is your apartment, and Ali will bring us coffee and pipes." They both arose, and while he who called himself Sinbad—and whom we have occasionally named so, that we might, like his guest, have some title by which to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... removed to my mournful dwelling-place. Abbot's House, in the centre of that tattling coterie, had become distasteful to her, and to me it was associated with thoughts of anguish and of terror. I could not, without a shudder, have entered its grounds,—could not, without a stab at the heart, have seen again the old fairy-land round ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at a loss to understand what had enraged him. The act of tossing the distasteful food into the fire had been purely involuntary; her conscious mind had hardly taken cognizance of the fact. When it dawned upon her what he meant, her own anger was still greater than her sense of her act's folly. But she found no ready answer to ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... above refers to good men. There are many such who find the conventionalities of English life distasteful to them, who want to breathe a freer atmosphere, and yet have no unsteadiness of character or purpose to prevent them from doing well—men whose health and strength and good sense are more fully developed than delicately organised—who ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... at the same time. He considered the better strategy would be to wait where he was, where the three roads met, and allow the enemy himself to disclose his position. To the scout this course was most distasteful. He assured himself that this was so because, while it were the safer course, it wasted time and lacked initiative. But in his heart he knew that was not the reason, and to his heart his head answered ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... boyhood, go with meek docility through its disciplined routine—how hard had I found that return, amidst the cloistered monotony of college! My love for my father, and my submission to his wish, had indeed given some animation to objects otherwise distasteful; but now that my return to the University must be attended with positive privation to those at home, the idea became utterly hateful and repugnant. Under pretence that I found myself, on trial, not yet sufficiently prepared to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... memorial, accusing him of "making money out of Henry Ward Beecher's dead body" and of "seriously offending the family of Mr. Beecher, who had had no say in the memorial, which was therefore without authority, and hence extremely distasteful to all." ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... "Unfortunately for me, Lady Dawn, a good deal of what you've said is true. But I don't see how it makes it natural that I should have come to you. I've been wanting to come for a very long time, but was given to understand that what I had to say might be distasteful." ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... of his being unable to identify her was the persistent sense connecting her with something uncomfortable and distasteful. So pleasant a vision as that gleaming up at him between wet brown hair and wet brown boa should have evoked only associations as pleasing; but each effort to fit her image into his past resulted in the same memories of boredom and a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... marital authority? And if not,—have I no conscience? Can I reconcile it to myself to make his life utterly desolate and wretched simply because duties which I took upon myself at my marriage have become distasteful to me? ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... has become proud and self-reliant. The "manhood" of paganism is glorified, and the "childhood" of the gospel is vilified. The graces of humility, self-abasement before God, and especially of penitence for sin, are distasteful and loathed. Persons of this order prefer to have their religious teacher silent upon these themes, and urge them to courage, honor, magnanimity, and all that class of qualities which imply self-consciousness and self-reliance. To them apply the solemn words of ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... under five years of age, quite the pet nursling of the school."[3] But though at first, no doubt, these two babies were pleased by the change of scene and the companionship of children, trouble was to befall them. Not the mere distasteful scantiness of their food, the mere cold of their bodies; they saw their elder sister grow thinner, paler day by day, no care taken of her, no indulgence made for her weakness. The poor ill-used, ill-nourished child grew very ill without ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... initial account of the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as more remarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree at outset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may have of merit, whereas what you find distasteful in them you must impute to my delinquencies in ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... life, full of distasteful and repugnant duties. We can readily imagine, with the aid of the striking picture which Fabre has drawn for us, what life was in these surroundings, and what the teaching was: "Between four high walls I see the court, a sort of bear-pit where the ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... of her own language was neglected, and the time spent less profitably, she considered in acquiring a smattering of Latin with Deschartres. She took to some studies with avidity, while others remained wholly distasteful to her. For mere head-work she cared little. Arithmetic she detested; versification, no less. Her imagination rebelled against the restrictions of form. Nowhere, perhaps, except in the free-fantasia style of the novel, could this great prose-poet have found the right field in which to ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... two was, that Walford could not be made to see that his presence was distasteful to Lucy; whilst Leicester was provokingly blind to the fact that the fair girl loved him with all her pure, simple little heart. She had not given her love to him unsought, it must be understood—far from it; George Leicester had been one ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... increasing the circulation depended largely in appealing to the vanities of the subscribers in parading their name in print, calling attention to many things of no consequence to the public, less to themselves; but to-day in a very large degree that is changed; it has become distasteful, which is a very healthful sign along the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... been proud, so far as personal happiness went, to spend my life. Last autumn I left it and resigned my orders because I could no longer accept the creed of the English Church.' Unconsciously the thin dignified figure drew itself up, the voice took a certain dryness. All this was distasteful, but the orator's ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... solution there is, unfortunately, but one alternative and that a singularly distasteful one to entertain; namely, to attribute the unpopularity of this splendid gift of Nature to unprofessional considerations on the part of an ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... remember that by Moslem law and usage murder and homicide are offences to be punished by the family, not by society or its delegates. This system reappears in civilisation under the denomination of "Lynch Law," a process infinitely distasteful to lawyers (whom it abolishes) and most valuable ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... that, I, for one, am never over-eager to visit him, and if it were not for the grouse and the partridges, I should probably have dropped his acquaintance altogether. One is possessed by a strange sort of uneasiness in his house; the very comfort is distasteful to one, and every evening when a befrizzed valet makes his appearance in a blue livery with heraldic buttons, and begins, with cringing servility, drawing off one's boots, one feels that if his pale, lean figure could suddenly be ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... It did me an immense deal of good to make Rattler mix my drinks for me,—Rattler! the gay, brilliant, and unconquerable Rattler, who had tried to snub me two years ago! I talked to him about Old Fagg and Nellie, particularly as I thought the subject was distasteful. He never liked Fagg, and he was sure, he said, that Nellie did n't. Did Nellie like anybody else? He turned round to the mirror behind the bar and brushed up his hair. I understood the conceited wretch. I thought l'd put Fagg on his guard, and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... abroad? She wished much to go to Bayreuth for the Wagner operas in the summer, and the aunt with whom she had hoped to travel was not willing to go. Besides, she really could not afford the trip, and at least Stanford had plenty of money. The idea of marrying with a thought to his wealth was distasteful, and she at once said to herself that she could not do that; but if she were to marry him—As the train rolled on she had filled in the talk with Wynne with speculations whether it might not be as well to let Stanford propose once more, and have ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... them. As to Spain, the King was simply waiting for overtures from Madrid. Raleigh, who was never a politician, saw nothing of all this, and merely used every opportunity he had of gaining the King's ear to urge his distasteful projects of a war. On the last occasion when, so far as we know, Raleigh had an interview with James, they were both the guests of Raleigh's uncle, Sir Nicholas Carew, at Bedingfield Park. It would ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... the somewhat distasteful scrutiny to which he had been subjected the night before. All three of them, knowing him to be Viola's blood relation, were studying his features with interest, seeking for a trace of family resemblance, not alone to his father ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... their waking hours in repeatedly talking of thy heroic deeds! If, however, O son of Pritha, thou stayest away for any length of time, we shall derive no pleasure from our enjoyments or from wealth. Nay, life itself will be distasteful to us. O son of Pritha, our weal, and woe, life and death, our kingdom and prosperity, are all dependent on thee. O Bharata, I bless thee, let success be thine. O sinless one, thy (present) task thou wilt be able to achieve even against powerful enemies. O thou of ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... creed-builders may have been never so anxious to give exact equivalents of the original authorities; yet their fine distinctions and subtle logic would have, in all probability, been ranked by Paul and Peter among the latter-day perversions of the faith. The very composition of a creed would have been as distasteful to the first century, as it is incongruous to ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain |
