"Inoffensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... going to dinner a servant brought word that a reporter wished to speak to John. Usually Lane refused to see reporters outside his office, and there turned them over to his secretary, who was skilled in the gentle art of saying inoffensive nothings in many words. But to her surprise John after slight hesitation went into the library to see the man, and it was a long half hour before he returned to his dinner. The evening was another one of those ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Missourians. Their system of equal rights with their marked disapproval of every species of aristocratic separation and self-aggrandizement was declared to be a species of communism, dangerous to the state. An inoffensive journalistic organ, The Star, published for the purpose of properly presenting the religious tenets of the people, was made the particular object of the mob's rage; the house of its publisher ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... very rarely happened with her—as a general thing she seemed always somewhat affected, assumed an artificial tone and lisped) said: "Okh! whom hast thou mentioned! And at nightfall, into the bargain!—Don't utter that name!" I was amazed; what significance could that name possess for such an inoffensive and innocent being, who would not have known how to devise, much less to execute, anything reprehensible?—This alarm, which revealed itself after a lapse of nearly half a century, induced in me reflections ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... captain over them, that you might lead them in this service of mine in the ways of duty, submission, and loyalty. Instead of that, you were the instigator of that outrage this morning, when murder was almost done upon an inoffensive man who was my guest. What have you ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... and his face looked grey and small. Something in him had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. He could only draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a legitimate and inoffensive proceeding. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... wavering fortunes of the state. Third in the list, the happy lover's prize Is won by honeyed words from women's eyes. If some would have it first instead of third, So let it be,—I answer not a word. The fourth,—sweet readers, let the thoughtless half Have its small shrug and inoffensive laugh; Let the grave quarter wear its virtuous frown, The stern half-quarter try to scowl us down; But the last eighth, the choice and sifted few, Will hear my words, and, pleased, confess ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the Logical text-books which run in the ordinary grooves——to whom I shall hereafter refer by the (I hope inoffensive) title "The Logicians"——take, on this subject, what seems to me to be a more humble position than is at all necessary. They speak of the Copula of a Proposition "with bated breath", almost as if it were a living, conscious Entity, capable of declaring for itself what it ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... 20 ed. 1684]), 'Since God has prescribed an inoffensive life, as that which only can give acceptance with him; and on the contrary hath determined never to justify the wicked, &c.—Will not the abomination appear greatest of all, where God shall be found ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Mr. Macauley, who published a history of Claybrook, may be amusing to many readers.—The people here are much attached to wakes; and among the farmers and cottagers these annual festivals are celebrated with music, dancing, feasting, and much inoffensive sport; but in the neighbouring villages the return of the wake never fails to produce at least a week of idleness, intoxication, and riot. These and other abuses by which those festivals are grossly perverted, render it highly desirable to all the friends of order ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... said it before me. And if one is to read and understand St. Paul, the same thing must be said and not anything else. His words, as well, are blunt—"no works"—none at all! If it is not works, it must be faith alone. Oh what a marvelous, constructive and inoffensive teaching that would be, to be taught that one can be saved by works as well as by faith. That would be like saying that it is not Christ's death alone that takes away our sin but that our works have something ...
— An Open Letter on Translating • Gary Mann
... terror. He drew a step away from her. "Oh!" he exclaimed, in a long-drawn whisper; and he looked at Joan with incredulity and hatred. "You——" he used some Spanish word which Joan did not catch. It would have told her little if she had caught it. It was "Cabron," a harmless, inoffensive word which has become in Spain the ultimate low word of abuse. "You have laid ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... looked so natural that I wondered if Jenks and the Bishop would come climbing down too. But no more old friends turned up that day. Some went to the ambulance swift and silent, while others most needlessly stood guard. Nothing was in sight but my seated inoffensive form, and the only sound was, somewhere among the rocks, the voice of the incessant negress speeding through her prayers. I saw them at the ambulance, surrounding, passing, lifting, stepping in and out, ferreting, then moving slowly up with their ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... of Nuncomar, named Goordas. Nuncomar's services were wanted, yet he could not safely be trusted with power; and Hastings thought it a master stroke of policy to reward the able and unprincipled parent by promoting the inoffensive child. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said Berry. "Only last week we bound one over for discussing the housing question with a wart-hog. The animal, which, till then, had been laying steadily, became unsettled and suspicious and finally attacked an inoffensive Stilton with ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... I omit myself), Mr. Lawrence was gentlemanly and inoffensive to all, and polite to the vicar and the ladies, especially his hostess and her daughter, and Miss Wilson—misguided man; he had not the taste to prefer Eliza Millward. Mr. Lawrence and I were on tolerably intimate ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... nothing fly," the other lady rejoined gaily. "I am as inoffensive as a stained-glass saint in a chapel ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Romans, unmindful of both countries. That the Fundanians were at peace, that they had Roman feelings and a grateful recollection of the political rights received. They entreated the consul to withhold war from an inoffensive people; their lands, city, their own bodies and those of their wives and children, were, and ever should be, at the disposal of the Roman people." The consul, having commended the Fundanians, and despatched letters to Rome that the Fundanians had preserved their allegiance, turned his march to ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... table with in her life before, but she had a thorough respect for him, and she felt that the time might come when she could enjoy him—as a reminiscence. Mrs. Dyer was kindly, and not more of a gossip than her neighbors; and there were no children,—only one grandchild, the inoffensive Nicky. The ways of the house were somewhat uncouth, but everything was clean and in a certain sense homelike. To Miss Newell's homesick sensitiveness it seemed better than being stared at across the boarding-house table by Boker and Pratt, and pitied by the ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... is a branch of society, it follows that it can be proper to none who is not in his nature social. Now, society is agreeable to no creatures who are not inoffensive to each other; and we therefore observe in animals who are entirely guided by nature that it is cultivated by such only, while those of more noxious disposition addict themselves to solitude, and, unless when prompted by lust, or that necessary instinct implanted ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... And added to that, would you credit the statement that they offer to lend their works to inoffensive people who may not be interested in them and who have not the courage to refuse? Why do you look so confused, Mr. Buel? I am speaking of Mr. Hodden. He kindly offered me his books to read on the way over. He has a prettily bound set with him. He gave ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... John affirmed. "Indirect ones, of course, and I hope inoffensive, but fiery as live coals. In the third person, you know. I've given her two and two; she has, you may be sure, enough skill in mathematics to put ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... other, and take his hat off one table to put it upon the other—which strikes one quite as ludicrously as a good farce.[199]. . . There seems to be a good piece at the Vaudeville, on the idea of the Town and Country Mouse. It is too respectable and inoffensive for me to-night, but I hope to see it before I leave . . . I have a horrible idea of making friends with Franconi, and sauntering when I am at ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... after, when the invariable siesta was over, the main street began to fill with idlers. The natives wore white, with wide soft straw hats, and lounged along with considerable grace. They were a weak, unenergetic, inoffensive race, always ready to get off the sidewalk for other nations provided the other nations swaggered sufficiently. The women, I remember, had wonderful piles of glossy black hair, arranged in bands and puffs, in which they stuck cigars. The streets were very narrow. When a vehicle came along, we ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the Roman emperors must at first sight seem strange, when one considers their inoffensive mode of faith and worship. When one remembers the scepticism that prevailed among the pagans, and the tolerant view of all religions which was characteristic of the Roman citizen in the early years of the empire, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... present, great order and decency was wont to be observed, for he would not endure to hear or see any thing that was rude or unhandsome, but made it the habit of all who kept his company, to entertain themselves with quiet and inoffensive amusements. But in the middle of this entertainment, those who sought occasion to quarrel, fell into dissolute discourse openly, and making as if they were very drunk, committed many insolences on purpose to provoke him. Sertorius, being offended with their ill ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. James's had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... uncle to risk flight with Lilla and my aunt upon the little raft, while I and Tom covered their escape with our guns; but the distance being lessened each moment, we could make out that these men belonged to one of the inoffensive fishing tribes who lived upon the rivers and their banks; and a new thought struck me—one which I directly communicated to ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... patriotism's sake I will not record my sensations as I took my way through the shrubbery towards the stable. Men are ever so prone to revenge their faults and their follies upon such inoffensive agencies as time and place, wind or weather, that I was quite convinced that to any other but Galway ears my expose would have been perfectly clear and intelligible; and that in no other country under heaven would a man be expected to marry a young lady from a blunder ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... his voice like a beaten schoolboy. He was a stout advocate for the Bourbons and the National Debt, and was duly disliked by Hazlitt, we may feel assured. The Bourbons he affirmed to be the choice of the French people, the Debt necessary to the salvation of these kingdoms. To a little inoffensive man, 'of a saturnine aspect but simple conceptions,' Hazlitt once heard him say grandly, 'I will tell you, sir. I will make my proposition so clear that you will be convinced of the truth of my observation in a moment. Consider, sir, the number of trades that would be ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... convinced the Professor that he had been right in bringing his manuscript to Ned Harviss. He and Harviss had been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one of the wildest spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly turns out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands and fathers. The Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was aware that many of his most reckless comrades had been transformed into prudent capitalists or cowed wage-earners; ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... hiding, or, by the more charitable, a maniac as yet not dangerous. North Aston held him in deeper horror than it had held even Pepita, and his true personality exercised its wits more keenly than had even the true personality of madame. In point of fact, he was a quiet, inoffensive, amiable man, who gave his mind to Sanskrit for work and to entomology for play, and did not trouble himself about his own portrait as drawn in the local vernacular. Nevertheless, for all his reserved habits and quiet ways, he had learnt the whole history of the place ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... It was now late, and the old clerk came down the stairs with inoffensive imprecations upon the head of his untimely caller, but his mutterings soon gave way ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... which are found among the weeds. This kind of food is always to be had in great abundance, so that the turtles have no occasion to quarrel among themselves, for that which is afforded in such plenty for all; indeed they seem to be a very quiet and inoffensive race, herding peaceably together on their extensive feeding-grounds, and when satisfied retiring to the fresh water at the mouth of the rivers, where they remain holding their heads above water, as if to breathe the fresh air, till the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... they came from, they were doubtless driven southward by the invading tribes of the north. They nobly fought their way, contesting every foot, until superior numbers took them by force. Thus these quiet and inoffensive creatures were finally expelled from their home which doubtless their fathers had occupied through centuries. If any escaped they, no doubt, found an asylum southward, where there were other tribes equally ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth
... young man, who was murdered by the mob on the corner of Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, was a quiet, inoffensive man, of unexceptionable character. He was a cripple, but supported himself and his mother, being employed as a coachman. A short time previous to the assault, he called upon his mother to see if anything could be done by him for her safety. The old lady said she considered herself ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... years ago. Five times since then the Allegheny River, from being a mild and inoffensive stream, carrying a few boats and a great deal of sewage, has become, a raging destroyer, and has filled our hearts with fear and our cellars with mud. Five times since then Molly Maguire has appropriated all that the flood carried from ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... yards behind his friend, watched with somewhat languid interest. He gave one, indeed, the impression that his thoughts were far removed from this simple country party, the main object of whose existence for the present seemed to be the slaying of a certain number of inoffensive birds. He watched the indifferent performance of his friend and the remarkably fine shooting of his neighbor on the left, with the same lack-luster eye and want of enthusiasm. The beat was scarcely over before Peter, resigning ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... all. Three or four more had tried to get up near the stern; but Weymouth and Don, who were on duty there, rapped their knuckles gently, as a reminder to let go and drop back into their kayaks, which they did without grumbling. Indeed, they seemed singularly inoffensive; and, come to get them on deck, they were "little fellows,"—not so tall as we boys even by a whole head. They were pretty thick and stout, however, and had remarkably large heads and faces. I do not think the tallest of them was much, if any, over ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Geary's term of office. When he had disbanded the three thousand "Law and Order" militia that were to attack Lawrence, that part of them known as the Kickapoo Rangers were returning home by way of Lecompton. One of this number went into a field where "a poor, inoffensive, lame young man" named David C. Buffum was plowing, and demanded his horses. Buffum protested against this robbery, but the wretch shot Buffum and took the horses. The unhappy man gave the following ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... from the Square I came across an excited crowd. It appears that an inoffensive, rather buxom-looking woman had been walking round the Square when one of her breasts cooed and flew away. We ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... on rare occasions. It took something genuinely out of the ordinary to turn an inoffensive pink celluloid doll with one of its legs off into an angry Choolie. But when they were mad the family had discovered by painful experience that the only thing to do was to leave ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... the most unrelenting foe of this inoffensive animal. It is a native of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, and was first discovered by the celebrated navigator Captain Cook, in 1770, while stationed on the coast of New South Wales. In Van Diemen's Land the great kangaroo is regularly hunted with ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Pope's edition of Shakspere, prepared with his usual hard work but with inadequate knowledge and appreciation, and published in 1725. His next production, 'The Dunciad,' can be understood only in the light of his personal character. Somewhat like Swift, Pope was loyal and kind to his friends and inoffensive to persons against whom he did not conceive a prejudice. He was an unusually faithful son, and, in a brutal age, a hater of physical brutality. But, as we have said, his infirmities and hardships had sadly warped ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... which he loaded with a ball, and fired at only a few paces distant from the negro's breast; but the negro, instead of being injured by the shot, stooped to the ground and picked up the ball, which had fallen inoffensive ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the town, who was present, then called out with a loud voice, and ordered Androcles to explain to them this unintelligible mystery, and how a savage of the fiercest and most unpitying nature should thus in a moment have forgotten his innate disposition, and be converted into a harmless and inoffensive animal. ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... reight an left, all all shoo had to protect hersen wi wor th' rollin' pin. Thinks aw to misen, this sooart o' thing has gooan far enuff, an as awd just been readin' abaat th' "atrocities," aw fancied misen England an him Turkey an her a poor Bulgarian, an aw determined awr wodn't see a poor inoffensive young woman ill-treated bi a brute like that, soa just as he wor gettin' ready to strike her daan into th' eearth, aw stept behund him an planted mi naive at th' back ov his ear, an he rolled ovver like a skittle pin. Just ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... other made a shift to live, he would have answered with great truth, "Really, that is more than I know." Notwithstanding this phlegmatic indifference, which is of the true English production, they were all inoffensive, good-natured people, who loved a joke and a song, delighted in telling a merry story, and prided themselves in the art of catering, especially in the articles of fish, venison, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... general. I indulge the hope and expectation that WAR shall one day be universally and finally extinguish'd. But I will confess also, that appearances would tempt us to apprehend that day is far distant. And while we make War for Sport on useful, generous, inoffensive Animals, it is not easy to imagine that we shall cease to ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... having been burned, Bull and five families of his relatives settled what the whites called Bulltown, on the Little Kanawha. This was at a salt spring about a mile and a quarter below the present Bulltown P. O., Braxton county, Va. Capt. Bull and his people were inoffensive, and very friendly to their white neighbors, as our author ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... stage came along between old Marm Rodger's "bottom," and the Rattle Snake Fork of Paint, the driver discovered poor old Jake laid out, stiff and cold as a wedge! Alas, poor old Jake! Gone! Quite a gloom hung over the "grocery;" Jake was an inoffensive, good old fellow, nobody denied that, and certain young "fellers" who had shaved the tail of Jake's mare the night previous, and set her loose, now felt sort of sorry for the deed. The editor of the "Argus of Freedom" came down ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... in opposition—the intellectual and peculiarly courteous and accomplished nobility, as well as the priesthood—but in vain. Seeing that the law secures perfect equality of rights, and is impartially administered; that, besides, the conduct of the German settlers is correct and inoffensive, the Poles can adduce no well-grounded causes of complaint either against their neighbors or the government. It is their innate want of order that throws business, money, and, at length, the land itself, into the hands of Jews and Protestants. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Lawrence" a wealth of really choice and masterly vituperation, not to be matched out of Shakespeare. The poem is a clever study of that mood of active disgust which most of us have felt toward some possibly inoffensive enough person, whose every word, look or action jars on the nerves. It flashes, too, a brilliant comic light on the natural tendencies of asceticism. Side by side with this poem, under the general name of Camp and Cloister, was published the vigorous and touching little ballad now known as Incident ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... trip was without event. They encountered one or two Indians on the way, jogging slowly along on their shaggy ponies; but the creatures were mild and inoffensive. The road was fairly good and they made excellent time, so that long before twilight Spotville was reached and the party had taken possession of the one small and primitive "hotel" the place afforded. It was a two-story, clapboarded building, the lower floor being devoted ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... might be in business, possibly even in the silk business, and that he would perhaps talk on the subject. The other traveller, however, was a Catholic priest. He was a little man who ate his salad with a knife, yet so gently that it was almost inoffensive, and it was the sight of "the cloth" that recalled his memory of the old antagonism. Harris mentioned by way of conversation the object of his sentimental journey, and the priest looked up sharply at him with raised eyebrows and an expression of surprise and suspicion that somehow piqued him. He ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... year of 1911 the process was unrolled in its most complete form. The first bad move—though it was a relatively small and inoffensive move—was made by France. The Powers, after much deliberation, had come to certain conclusions concerning Morocco, and while giving France a predominant influence in that country, had carefully limited her ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... they prove inoffensive, and, better still, are useful, especially the almanacs,[6260] "in rectifying on various points the people's attitudes. It will probably be possible after 1812 to control their composition, and they are filled with anecdotes, songs and stories adapted to the maintenance of patriotism and of devotion ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... uniformity of characters. I have shown elsewhere that all mental constitutions contain possibilities of character which may be manifested in consequence of a sudden change of environment. This explains how it was that among the most savage members of the French Convention were to be found inoffensive citizens who, under ordinary circumstances, would have been peaceable notaries or virtuous magistrates. The storm past, they resumed their normal character of quiet, law-abiding citizens. Napoleon found amongst ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... a brick at a dog on a very hot day (when no doubt that inoffensive animal was in a stew) imagine that he had hit upon the whole of the common Chinese materia medica? PUNCHINELLO is gravely told that a Celestial doctor is about to come to New York, whose favorite prescriptions, in accordance with Chinese practice, "will be baked clay-dust, similar to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... Take poor, inoffensive Olga for example. Her placid being seemed clumsy and her movements bovine as he pictured again the dainty grace of that new arrival as she stepped down from the teacher's platform; or Irish-eyed, boisterous, fun-loving Margaret! John had ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... through a slum, join casually in a stuss game, or loaf unmarked about a street corner. He was fond of pool and billiards, and many were the unconsidered trifles he picked up with a cue in his hand. His face, even in those early days, was heavy and inoffensive. Commonplace seemed to be the word that fitted him. He could always mix with and become one of the crowd. He would have laughed at any such foolish phrase as "protective coloration." Yet seldom, he knew, men turned back to look at him a second time. Small-eyed, beefy and well-fed, he could have ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... made sail.[57-2] They brought on board yams, cocoanuts, some bread fruit, and a few hogs and fowls, and would have supplied us with more hogs had it been convenient for us to have made a longer stay with them, and which they entreated us much to do. We found them very fair in their dealings, very inoffensive and better behaved than any savages we ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... small room to which I was now removed, the lodgers were quiet, inoffensive men, and in a few cases ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... he says, "are so little anarchical in their habits, or live, unless under immediate excitement, in a more orderly and peaceable manner, or are so easily governed. The presiding genius of the country is tranquillity, and quiet, inoffensive demeanour, in every class of society, and in every part of the kingdom; nor is there any necessity, unless where domination, or unpopular and false principles are the object, for the application of force to coerce them at any time. What they want, by their universal consent, is a steady, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... there might not be found some unfortunate human creature, who, if his ill-treatment had made him "frenetic," was chained in the cellar or garret of a workhouse, fastened to the leg of a table, tied to a post in an outhouse, or perhaps shut up in an uninhabited ruin; or, if his lunacy were inoffensive, was left to ramble, half-naked and half-starved, through the streets and highways, teased by the rabble, and made the jest of the vulgar, ignorant, and unfeeling. "I have witnessed," he says, "instances ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... above a year at the asylum, and it was found that he was perfectly harmless and inoffensive, he was allowed to roam at his will all over the neighbourhood and through the whole of the forest. This freedom he greatly enjoyed, and not a day passed without his taking long excursions in all directions. In these wanderings he was mostly accompanied by T. Campbell, the only son of ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... the merchant service, and that was the reason why, hitherto, he had been so reserved; since he well knew that merchant seamen generally affect a certain superiority to "blubber- boilers," as they contemptuously style those who hunt the leviathan. But Larry turned out to be such an inoffensive fellow, and so well understood his business aboard ship, and was so ready to jump to an order, that he was exempted from the taunts which ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... her conception, and beyond the age. She left no example of it to her successor; and he was not of a character which rendered a sentiment either so wise or so liberal would originate with him. At the present period it seems incredible that the learned, accomplished, unassuming, and inoffensive Robinson should neither be tolerated in his peaceable mode of worship in his own country, nor suffered quietly to depart from it. Yet such was the fact. He left his country by stealth, that he might elsewhere enjoy ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... must be understood, tossed off in the frenzied instantaneity of the American mode; before a tiny glassful of Curacao or sugar and water, the Gallic "knight of the round table" will sit for hours in utter content, reading the papers, talking, smoking, or clicking the inoffensive domino. Intoxication is almost unknown in the better cafes; their patrons may sear their oesophagi with hot Chartreuse, derange the nerves with Absinthe, stimulate themselves hourly with their little cups of black coffee and ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... grappling with another, brought him to the ground and cut his throat with a pocket knife. Lieutenant Peyton was by birth, education, and character a thorough gentleman. Perfectly good natured and inoffensive—except when provoked or attacked—and then—he dispatched his affair and his man in a quiet, expeditious and thorough manner. The Federal cavalry retreated from the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... along well enough if it wasn't for SUMMERS. CONEYBEARE'S cantankerous; STORY is strenuous; TANNER tedious; and DILLON denunciatory. But there's something about SUMMERS that is peculiarly aggravating. In the first place, he is, as far as appearances go, such a quiet, amiable, inoffensive young man. Looking at him, one would think that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, much less that Mixed Marriages in Malta should keep him awake at night, and the question of International Arbitration ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... threats, hales him to the law courts, while the relieved poet quotes in his joy from the rescue of Hector in the Iliad, "Thus Apollo bore me from the fray." In this Satire, which was admirably imitated by Swift, it always seems to me that we get Horace at his very best, his dry quaintness and his inoffensive fun. The delicacy of Roman satire died with him; to reappear in our own Augustan age with Addison and Steele, to find faint echo in the gentle preachments of Cowper, to impress itself in every page on the lambent humour, the self-accusing tolerance, ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... viewpoint, I suppose," he laughed. "He came into my office this morning, after being served with a summons from Judge Lindman's court in regard to the title of his land, and tried to kill me. Failing in that, he knocked poor, inoffensive little Braman down—who had interfered in my behalf—and threw him bodily through the front window of the building, glass and all. It's lucky for him that Braman wasn't hurt. After that he tried to incite a riot, which Judge Lindman nipped in the bud by sending a number ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... timorous; and they viewed the Spaniards as a superior order of beings descended from the sun; which, in that island and in most parts of America, was worshipped as a Deity. By this it was easy for Columbus to perceive the line of conduct proper to be observed toward that simple and inoffensive people. Had his companions and successors of the Spanish nation possessed the wisdom and humanity of this great discoverer, the benevolent mind would have had to experience no sensations of regret in contemplating ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... inoffensive young gentleman, now rapidly approaching my twenty-sixth year. It is unnecessary to state that I am unmarried. I should have been wedded a great many times, had not some fresh attack of my malady invariably, and in some new shape, attacked me in season to prevent ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... sense of envy or design of mischief; his white, handsome face (which I beheld with loathing) looked in upon us at all hours across the fence; and once, from a safe distance, he avenged himself by shouting a recondite island insult, to us quite inoffensive, on his ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... generally bloodshot, giving them a disgusting appearance. Both sexes wore a sort of woollen gaiter, open at the calf, the protruding muscle of which looked as if nothing could have confined it; their shoes, as far as the dust would allow me to see, were of the same material. They seemed good-natured and inoffensive, but are not free from the vice of drunkenness; they consume quantities of tea ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... to cultivation, the chief object of his culture being the "yerba de Paraguay," which yields the well-known mate, or Paraguayan tea. In this industry he was eminently successful. His amiable manners and inoffensive character attracted the notice of his neighbours, the Guarani Indians—a peaceful tribe of proletarian habits—and soon a colony of these collected around him, entering his employ, and assisting him in the establishment of an extensive "yerbale," ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended. I defy any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and inoffensive manner. In describing this Siren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... generations before America was discovered. Indeed the true denizen of the Amazonian forests, like the forest itself, is unique and not to be forgotten." Elsewhere (3) Wallace speaks of the quiet, good-natured, inoffensive character of these copper-colored peoples, and of their quickness of hand and skill, and continues: "their figures are generally superb; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue as ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... middle of a row when they see one, men with a lust for gore, great powerful men who have learnt ju-jitsu. But the fact that they'd all rather like it shows that it can't really be their duty to join; they wouldn't be making a big enough sacrifice. The men we want are the quiet, the mild, the inoffensive, the butterflies of life, the men who would simply loathe being special constables, the men who would be entirely useless at it'—and, having said this to yourself, you looked round and you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... Why, who would be so wicked as to stab a poor, inoffensive wretch like me, if it ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... character of a national war, by the calling out of the Zandwehr and Zandsturm which made the situation far more dangerous than against the tactics of the best disciplined army. To so many other complications was added the fear, soon only too well justified, of seeing Austria from an inoffensive and unbiased mediator become ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... When we really hate a thing it makes us sick, and we use this expression to symbolise the utmost hatred of which our nature is capable; but when we know we hate, our hatred is in reality mild and inoffensive. I, for example, think I hate all those people whose photographs I see in the shop windows, but I am so conscious of this that I am convinced, in reality, nothing would please me better than to be in the shop windows too. So when ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... however, not an unamiable bird, as was proved by Colonel Montagu in the case of one which he managed to catch by means of a slight wound in the wing, and which lived with him for upwards of a year. It used to follow its feeder about, and displayed a most inoffensive disposition. With other birds it was on terms, of peace, and goodwill, never threatening them with its big, strong bill. An excellent angler, its skill in capture was seen to greatest advantage when it had to encounter an ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... to armed assistance from Portugal. May the Lord in his mercy grant that the soldiers who proceed to her assistance may be of a different stamp: and yet, from the lax state of discipline which exists in the Portuguese army, in comparison with that of England and France, I am afraid that the inoffensive population of the disturbed provinces will say that wolves have been summoned to chase away foxes from the sheepfold. O! may I live to see the day when soldiery will no longer be tolerated in any civilized, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... was said about Ernest or Laddie. I had taken no part in the discussion, for I felt no great interest in the matter. Laddie was a nice dog; Ernest was a quiet, inoffensive little fellow, five years younger than myself; that was all I thought ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... met with a little misadventure on account of the sheep—an animal which one is accustomed to regard as of a timid and inoffensive nature. When I set out at a brisk pace to walk to the house I have spoken of, in order to make some inquiries there, a few of the sheep that happened to be near began to bleat loudly, as if alarmed, and by and by they came hurrying after me, apparently in a great ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... in the south to Makin in the north—do to this day of quiet, spectacled Bob Corrie, of wild Maiana, who can twist them round his little finger without an angry word. Perhaps poor Keyes, being a notoriously inoffensive man, might have died a natural death in due time, but for one fatal mistake he made; and that was in bringing a young wife ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... the fingers, at which all the boys became great adepts from necessity. One evening Barker, having snuffed the candle, suddenly and slyly put the smouldering wick unnoticed on the head of a little quiet inoffensive fellow named Wright, who happened to be sitting next to him. It went on smouldering for some time without Wright's perceiving it, and at last ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... over the child and remained perfectly still. He did not dare to move, lest any action, however inoffensive, might induce Moosa to change his mind and ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... in his look and tone as he uttered these inoffensive words which took Game aback and even startled Telson. It was not at all like what fellows had been used to from Riddell, certainly very unlike the manner he was generally credited with. But neither ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... observed in what manner just wars were waged by the children of Israel against the Amorites; for inoffensive transit was denied to them, although by the most equitable laws of human fellowship it should ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... possible a story should be new, clever, short, simple, inoffensive, and appropriate. As such stories are scarce, it is advisable to set them down, when found, in a special note-book for convenient reference. It is said that Chauncey M. Depew, one of the most gifted of after-dinner speakers, was for many years in the habit of keeping a set of scrap-books in ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... and Julius Caesar—they must have a bath," with which coarse and brutal remark he imitated the shrill war-hoop of the western savige, and, assisted by his infamus coal-heavin companyins, he threw all my wax-work into the river, and let my wild bears loose to pray on a peaceful and inoffensive agricultooral community. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... cleverer than I thought! Daggett is anything but dull and inoffensive, and if he can play that estimable role——! It seems that he is the son of some common workman in the Middlewest; he isn't an engineer at all; he's really a chauffeur or a taxi-driver or something; and he ran into Claire ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... chivalry and parasitic nobility, may naturally have encouraged the satirist to repeat his stroke next year—and must have astounded his retrospection, when he found himself in prison, and under threat of worse than imprisonment, together with his unoffending associates in an admirable and inoffensive comedy. It is impossible to suppose that he would not have come forward to assume the responsibility of his own words—as it is impossible to imagine that Jonson or Chapman would have given up his accomplice to save himself. But the law of the day would probably ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Iroquois perpetrated in their worst raids. Two hours the massacre lasted, and when it was over the French had, to their everlasting discredit, murdered in cold blood thirty-eight men (among them the poor inoffensive dominie), ten women, {174} twelve children; and the victors held ninety captives. To the credit of Iberville he offered life to one Glenn and his family, who had aided in ransoming many French from the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... began to drink. Finally, about midnight, he was seen going homeward, saluting those whom he met with exaggerated but inoffensive courtesy. Not yet was Calliope's melancholy at the danger point. He would seat himself at the window of the room he occupied over Silvester's tonsorial parlours and there chant lugubrious and tuneless ballads until morning, accompanying the noises ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... was certainly of the most harmless kind. The world would be a far better and more enjoyable place than it is, if all people who are old and uncomely could find amusement as innocent and Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive thread-case ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the assembled servants, "is about to suffer condemnation by default for having had the audacity to defend his life against a madman; it was Giletti who meant to kill him. You have all been able to see how gentle and inoffensive Fabrice's character is. Justly incensed at this atrocious injury, I am starting for Florence. I shall leave ten years' wages for each of you; if you are unhappy, write to me; and so long as I have a sequin, there ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... have to that poor unfortunate animal! I know you intend to take his life away!' 'You are mistaken, upon my honour! (replied the squire, with a sarcastic smile) I should be incapable of harbouring any such cruel design against an object so amiable and inoffensive; even if he had not the happiness to ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... and withered, with velvet hat, not of the latest style, its well-kept strings of black vastly different from the glossy blue he had so much admired at an earlier period of the day. Was ever man more disappointed? Who was she, the old witch, for so he mentally termed the inoffensive woman devoutly conning her prayer book, unconscious of the wrath her presence was exciting in the bosom of the young man beside her! How he wished he had stayed at home, and were it not that he sat so far distant from the door, he would certainly have left in disgust. What a ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... slaughter of birds which has been indulged in by individuals who have killed them for the uses of their own lady friends. I know one Brown Pelican colony which was visited by a tourist who shot four hundred of the big, harmless, inoffensive creatures in order to get a small strip of skin on either side of the body. He explained to his boatmen, who did the skinning for him, that he was curious to see if these strips of skin with their feathers would not {154} make an interesting coat for his wife. The birds killed ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... Harry Gilmor's band of partisans; that he had been caught wearing citizen's clothes inside the union lines; and that he was in the habit of conveying quinine and other medical supplies into the confederacy. He was a mild mannered, inoffensive appearing person who had been an employe of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company. He appeared under guard, before the commission, at its daily sessions, accompanied by his counsel, a leading attorney of Winchester, whose learning and ability were not less pronounced than was ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... I was welcomed by every one. Already had they felt the horrors of war; for marauding parties of both Persians and Russians (both equally to be feared) had made their appearance, and molested the peaceable and inoffensive inhabitants of ours and the neighbouring villages. This frontier warfare, in its general results, was of no great utility to either of the powers at war, yet to those who inhabited the seat of it, its consequences ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... loudly on about nothing at all, even Sir Tom did not refuse to listen. What was Montjoie doing here? When the gentlemen streamed into the drawing-room, a procession of black coats, Jock, who came last, could not help being aware that he was scowling at everybody. He met the eyes of one of those inoffensive little girls in blue, and made her jump, looking at her as if he would eat her. And all the evening through he kept prowling about with his hands in his pockets, now looking at the books in the shelves, now frowning at Lucy, who could not ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... any part in the development of the head voice? This inoffensive thing is still the subject of a considerable amount of more of less inflammatory debate both as to what it is and what it does. Without delay let me assure every one that it is perfectly harmless. There is no other one thing involved in singing, immediate or remote, from ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... priest, backed by the whole opinion of the village, condemned justly the conduct of the ingenious hidalgo, who, sallying forth from his native place, broke the head of the muleteer, put to death a flock of inoffensive sheep, and went through very doleful experiences in a certain stable. God forbid that an unworthy churl should escape merited censure by hanging on to the stirrup-leather of the sublime caballero. His was a very noble, a very unselfish fantasy, fit for nothing ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... came home at night, and they were all at supper, one of them took the freedom to reprove the three Englishmen, though in very gentle and mannerly terms, and asked them how they could be so cruel, they being harmless, inoffensive fellows: that they were putting themselves in a way to subsist by their labour, and that it had cost them a great deal of pains to bring things to such perfection as they ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... time the children were in a state of intimidation. It was plain that their mother was fairly aroused, and each deemed it best to be as quiet and inoffensive as possible. The reappearance of harmony being thus restored, Mrs. Abercrombie, whose head and heart were now both throbbing with pain, retired in a most unhappy state of mind to her chamber, where she threw herself into a large ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... statement of our case is not sufficient, and that the only way to make an impression is by insult or abuse. A man who is satisfied with the justice of his position is content to state it in simple and inoffensive terms.—Dr. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... be somewhere, I suppose," said Mr. May. "We cannot kill them off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the laws. So that, after all, a ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... warfare immediately blazed forth all along the Virginia frontier. This conflict with the Indians, very brief and very bloody, is usually called Lord Dunmore's war. The white men have told the story, and they admit that the war "arose in consequence of cold-blooded murders committed upon inoffensive Indians in the region of the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... in compassing the destruction of the unsuspecting porker was only equalled, when he was caught flagrante delicto, by the ingenuity of his excuses. According to the Confederate private, the most inoffensive animals, in the districts through which the armies marched, developed a strange pugnacity, and if bullet and bayonet were used against them, it was ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... indecently," and were so mauled by some spectators that they had difficulty in escaping with their lives. It is to be hoped they were not members of Boodle's, who, on the whole, appear to have been somewhat inoffensive persons. At any rate they allowed Gibbon ample quietude ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... keep a servant and buy superior garments; he puts money by, and in the course of time solidifies his position as a genuine bourgeois. In the meantime he exhales Smiles. He believes in Rising in the World. He would blot out a perfectly inoffensive, if ignoble, ancestry, and he would also, if he could, make friends with English Grammar. But how can I hope for his success in the latter struggle when the books he borrows from my little store are returned uncut. Possibly the colourless eyes, which survey me over the retrousse ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee |
