"Embarrassing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up his kit and sailed away. Not many months passed ere he met his colonel again, and under rather embarrassing circumstances. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... that may be taken for granted?' said Mr. Magnus; 'because, if she did not do that at the right place, it would be embarrassing.' ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... position to be very embarrassing. She had thought it out to the best of her ability, and had told herself that it would be better for her not to acquaint her father with all the circumstances. Had he been told the nature of the offer made to her by Madame Socani, he would at once, she thought, have ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... inside, readily afforded him ample elbow room; and, smiling agreeably at every one, including the conductor (who resented his good-humor) and a pretty girl in the corner seat (who found it embarrassing) he proceeded to Charing Cross. Descending from the 'bus, he passed out into Leicester Square and plunged into the network of streets which complicates the map of Soho. It will be of interest to ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... began his work as a teacher, is still standing, while some of the boys and girls who received instruction from him that term are yet alive to testify to his faithfulness as a common-school teacher. He was quite a young man at that time, in fact, he was still in his teens, and it must have been rather embarrassing for him to attempt to teach young men and women, some of them older than himself; but he was honest in his efforts to try to do his best, and, as is always the case under such circumstances, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the "find" were interminable, a homicidal fancy just grazed the border of his agitated consciousness. But no, that would not do either; the scientific conscience forbade the destruction of any datum however embarrassing. Destroy the spearhead he could not, and with a flash of intuition it came over him that it must simply be lost as promptly and ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... people—"be seen" by the audience to be occupying a specially distinguished place. Fashionable playgoers of the male sex might, if they opened their purses wide enough, occupy stools on the wide platform-stage. Such a practice proved embarrassing, not only to the performers, but to those who had to content themselves with the penny pit. Standing in front and by the sides of the projecting stage, they could often only catch glimpses of the actors through chinks in serried ranks ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... breaking down and bursting into tears, she turned away, and recognizing Maurice, gave him a smile. Jean's presence was embarrassing to her. She felt as if she were choking somehow, and removed the foulard that she wore ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... bring these considerations to a close—they will suffice to show the wide sphere, the diversity and embarrassing nature of the subjects embraced in a critical examination carried to the fullest extent, that is, to those measures of a great and decisive class which must necessarily be included. It follows from them ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Buddha only, Gautama, Prince of Kapilavastu (six centuries before Christ) whereas the Jainas recognize a Buddha in each of their twenty-four divine teachers (Tirthankaras) the last of whom was the Guru (teacher) of Gautama. This disagreement is very embarrassing when people try to conjecture the antiquity of this or that vihara or chaitya. The origin of the Jaina sect is lost in the remotest, unfathomed antiquity, so the name of Buddha, mentioned in the inscriptions, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... to be a thing a man's chivalry never leaves to a woman's own judgment; the determination of what she may find embarrassing." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... certain items contraband of war, to the dark side of the transport as nightfall came; and they were easily smuggled aboard and into uniform, and then, during the few days' stay at Honolulu, were formally enlisted and no embarrassing questions asked. ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... didn't talk for about a year after he found the bodies, most people thought he was simple-minded. But Aunt Amy had always treated him just like a regular boy. That was embarrassing sometimes, but still it was better than what he got ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... piece of coral, and the hide of whales. The chiefs, and all who occupied a prominent fighting rank, were dressed in military style—that is to say, in a quantity of stuffs, turbans, helmets, and breastplates. The height of some of the helmets was most embarrassing to the wearers. The entire equipment appeared more appropriate for scenic effect than suitable for a battlefield. But, in any case, it added to the grandeur of the display, and the warriors did not fail to show themselves with a view ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of Mrs. Spragg's chair, seemed to his grandparents evidence of ill-health or undue repression, and he was subjected by Mrs. Spragg to searching enquiries as to how his food set, and whether he didn't think his Popper was too strict with him. A more embarrassing problem was raised by the "surprise" (in the shape of peanut candy or chocolate creams) which he was invited to hunt for in Gran'ma's pockets, and which Ralph had to confiscate on the way home lest the dietary rules of Washington Square should ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... calling with so devoted an affection?" demanded Gertrude, in a haste that she might have found embarrassing to explain. ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... his ideal, she must needs have been overborne by force or fraud, constrained by sheer violence, caught in snares spread about her steps on every side. He questioned her in guarded terms, but with a close, searching, embarrassing persistency. He asked her how the liaison began, if it was long or short, tranquil or troubled, under what circumstances it was broken off. And his enquiries came back again and again to the means the fellow had used to cajole her, as if these ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... invariably carried through to the last extremity, and Ah Moy's request, instead of embarrassing her, afforded a thrill of gratification. She felt sure that he yearned for a fuller knowledge of the great truths that had been unfolded in the afternoon's lesson, and she also felt, with some exaltation of spirit, that her influence over the man was being exerted for much good. So she nodded ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... encumbrance to maintain this perception amongst the simple elements of the human mind: we now think otherwise, and see reason to acquiesce in the sound judgment, which took up the only safe, though unostentatious position, which this embarrassing subject affords. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... that they were both very hungry and very thirsty: that, if not hungry, they should order something to drink that would give them an appetite: if not inclined to quaff, something to eat that would make them athirst. In the midst of these embarrassing attentions, he was pushed aside by his master with, "There, go; hands wanted at the upper end; two American gentlemen from Lowell singing out for Sherry Cobler; don't know what it is; give them our bar mixture; if they complain, say it's the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... abruptly, as if he considered he had told enough. The brief recital had interested his auditors, but the ensuing pause was rather embarrassing. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... power of the Commander-in-chief had been used to prevent it. Repeated representations of the actual famine with which the army was threatened, had been made to congress, and to the state governments; but no adequate relief was afforded; and such was the condition of the finances, so embarrassing the state of affairs, that it was perhaps attainable only by measures which the governments could not venture ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... sense of haste with which he was hurried away after that first straight shot; the agitation, nay, the fright of his seconds; their eagerness to be swiftly rid of him, their insistence that he should go away for a time, get out of the country, out of the embarrassing purview of the law, which was prone to regard the matter as he himself saw it now, and which had an ugly trick of calling things by their right names in the sincere phraseology of an indictment. And thus it was that he was here, remote from all ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of the tea-tray and the parlormaid absolved Mary from the embarrassing compulsion to reply. She addressed herself to ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... the situation was altogether too unexpected and embarrassing for Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene to ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... "My studio is in No. 17 McBurney Place." Here she stopped upon a somewhat embarrassing thought. But the legless man read what ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... came off slowly. There was a rather embarrassing two minutes under the lights of the lobby while the night clerk and a few belated guests stared at them curiously; the loudly dressed girl with bent head, the handsome young man with his chin several points aloft; the inference was ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... glowered at the boy and the letter, and then his shrewd mind, suggesting a way out of the embarrassing predicament in which the boy had placed him, ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... her during their walk together. Albert was troubled and taken aback. In one way he would have liked to meet Helen very much indeed. They had not met since before the war. But he did not, somehow, wish to meet her just then. He did not wish to meet anyone who would speak of Madeline, or ask embarrassing ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... intervened between the invaders and the capital. The American proposals for peace had been summarily rejected. A new President, General Santa Anna, had been raised to power, and under his vigorous administration the war threatened to assume a phase sufficiently embarrassing to the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... should he not? To me alone was Tressilian's visit embarrassing and painful, for he brought news of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... S. Let me see: I was saying that my dear girl was a little confused, and so forth. As a matter of course, I put before her all the advantages which such a connection as yours promised—and at the same time, mentioned some of the little embarrassing circumstances—the private marriage, you know, and all that—besides telling her of certain restrictions in reference to the marriage, if it came off, which I should feel it my duty as a father to impose; and which ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... yield in silence. The opening was now large enough to allow him to pass. But near the door there stood a little table, which formed an embarrassing angle with ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... embarrassing, especially when you call on a man and his wife for the sake of information—the one being a merchant of varied knowledge, the other a woman of the world. In five minutes your host has vanished. In another five his wife has followed him, and you are left alone with a very charming maiden, doubtless, ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... that he was asked to wear it. The eminent Dr. Ricord, who had been an eyewitness of the devotion of the Brothers, was charged with the office of fastening the cross on the cassock of Frere Philippe, in the great hall of the mother-house. This was the most embarrassing moment in the life of that man of God. He could not bear to wear the cross of honour, and in fact he never did wear it. When he returned after conducting the Doctor to the door at the end of the ceremony, he somehow managed that no one should perceive his decoration. ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... worth remembering, as a caution to reviewers, as well as philosophers:—"At Port Dalrymple, in Van Diemen's Land, there was every reason to believe, the natives were unacquainted with the use of canoes; a fact, extremely embarrassing to those who indulge themselves in speculating on the genealogy of natives: because it reduces them to the necessity of supposing, that this isolated people swam over from the main land, or that they were aboriginal."—Rev. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... and white that all the air of the downs and the sea failed to embrown, and that peculiar openness and candour of expression which seems so much an English birthright, that the only trace of his French origin was, that he betrayed no unbecoming awkwardness in the somewhat embarrassing position in which he was placed, literally standing, according to the respectful discipline of the time, as the subject of discussion, before the circle of his elders. His colour was indeed, deepened, but his attitude was easy and graceful, and he used no stiff rigidity nor restless movements ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saluting and bowing low, conducted the other dignitary to the cabin, with the officers trailing after them. For the moment, Major Starland found his situation a trifle embarrassing. General Yozarro scowled savagely at him, but the others paid scant attention. There was some crowding, for it will be remembered that the apartment was of slight size. The American waited till a lull came in the conversation and then, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Philadelphian until he has waited for a Pine Street car on a snowy night. Please have my seat, madam, there's plenty of room on the strap. Wonder why the pavement on Chestnut Street is the slipperiest in the world? Always fall down just in front of our bank; most embarrassing; hope the paying teller doesn't see us. Very annoying to lose our balance just there. Awfully nice little girl in there who balances the books. Has a kind heart. The countless gold of a merry heart, as William ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the best possible arrangements of tax-supported aids to the realization of that standard. That is surely one of the ways in which the parental burden of child-care can be socially shared without starting embarrassing questions of radical or conservative theories of logical ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... Cabinet; and on January 22, 1875, Lord Salisbury urged Lord Northbrook to take measures to procure the assent of the Ameer to the establishment of British officers at Candahar and Herat (not at Cabul)[297]. The request placed Lord Northbrook in an embarrassing position, seeing that he knew full well the great reluctance of the Ameer at all times to receive any British Mission. On examining the evidence as to the Ameer's objection to receive British Residents, the viceroy found it to be very strong, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the complimenting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watching them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she appeared, the mother bluebird set up that pitiful melodious plaint. One morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came with her beak loaded with building material, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... desired was simply good-fellowship and a high degree of harmonious clamor. Certainly all our doings, whether on Friday evening, or on the other forenoons, afternoons, and evenings of the week, were quite devoid of an embarrassing sex-consciousness. We "trained together," as the expression went—all the fellows and all the Gertrudes and Adeles—with no sense of malaise, and postponing, or setting aside, in the miraculous American fashion, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... exceedingly embarrassing counter-question, quite took him aback. At that very minute, too, there was the pause, and the slight movement, and the glance from Lady Caroline which reminded him that he was the only clergyman present, and had to return thanks. He bent ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Feuerbach's philosophy as well as of that of Marx and Engels. As the fight between the Young Hegelians and the conservatives grew hotter, the radicals were driven back upon the English-French materialism of the preceding century. This was embarrassing for followers of Hegel, who had been taught to regard the material as the mere expression of the Idea. Feuerbach relieved them from the contradiction. He grasped the question boldly and threw the Hegelian abstraction completely to one side. His book, "Wesen des Christenthums," ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... to be at all disturbed by the embarrassing stillness, but went on shaving down a ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... somewhat stiffly and there were also various twinges. But considering the trying experiences of yesterday it was surprising that they could wiggle at all. He lifted himself slowly—and sank back with a relieved sigh. It would have been embarrassing, he thought, had he not ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... have worked too hard, I have lived in brutal climates and associated with tiresome people. When a man has reached his fifty-second year without being, materially, the worse for wear—when he has fair health, a fair fortune, a tidy conscience and a complete exemption from embarrassing relatives—I suppose he is bound, in delicacy, to write himself happy. But I confess I shirk this obligation. I have not been miserable; I won't go so far as to say that—or at least as to write it. But happiness—positive happiness—would have been something different. I don't know that it ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet, whose dark-blue eyes were ever upon him without boldness, without shyness, but with a steady, grave, and growing light. Many times Venters found the clear gaze embarrassing to him, yet, like wine, it had an exhilarating effect. What did she think when she looked at him so? Almost he believed she had no thought at all. All about her and the present there in Surprise Valley, and the dim yet subtly impending ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... still in some degree the misfortune of being a responsible member of society. He wanted to be surrounded by individuals who were above or below the conventional interests of what is called 'the World.' He wanted to hear nothing of those painful and embarrassing influences which from our contracted experience and want of enlightenment we magnify into such undue importance. For this purpose he wished to have about him persons whose knowledge of the cares of life concerned only the means of existence, and whose sense of its objects referred only to the sources ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... it may be much doubted if the inhabitants consider these methods as tending to promote either their interests, or that of their sovereign, the king of Portugal. This much is certain, that his behaviour cannot but be extremely embarrassing to such British ships as touch here in their way to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... quite well. It was rather embarrassing to be called "dear." He attempted to hide his confusion by wiping his nose; but in producing his handkerchief, he pulled out with it a forked catapult stick and a broken metal pen-holder, which clattered to the ground and had to be picked ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... forsake him, and the want was supplied in a rather remarkable manner. Being one day in Paris he was invited to dine at the house of an intimate friend. During the conversation the subject of colonizing Montreal was discussed, as it was his absorbing idea, and he spoke of the embarrassing want that delayed him. After dinner one of the guests, until then a stranger to him, but who had listened very attentively to the colonization plan, of which he had not before heard, freely offered to accompany the ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... it," she urged. "It's very embarrassing. And I ought to be asleep this minute, getting ready for my early start. I'm not quite sure that I shall sleep if you say it"—her voice dropped to a whisper again—"but I'm ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... into a school to be feared by the larger college. It seemed that Pomeroy had scheduled Grinnell merely for the purpose of giving her a drubbing and taking it easy between big games and that Grinnell's increased opposition had been embarrassing to Pomeroy students and alumni who rated their eleven far better than the intended victim. Now matters had become so acute, a report was going the rounds that Coach Carl Carver's job at Pomeroy hung upon his winning the Grinnell game, about which there was some doubt ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... presented a strange and embarrassing dilemma, as we have remarked. In the war itself, moreover, began the stern cleavage between the North and the South. At the moment the rift was not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm. Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in the South the combination ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... former utterances, of which he had any knowledge; and he never heard from him afterward, anything that could compare with it. His auditors were mainly those of his own people. His flow of thought was not interrupted by the slow, and embarrassing process of interpretation. The full grief of his heart, in view of the transactions of the previous year, was poured forth, and came like the irresistible sweep of a whirlwind. [Footnote: Conversation of the author with Samuel J. Mills, Esq., formerly of Mt. Morris, N. Y., later of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... who had been on the train at that time had one by one left it and been replaced by others, for the route lay through several large cities where many alighted and others came aboard. Only the little man from Beverly remained, quiet and unobtrusive but somehow haunting the girl's presence in an embarrassing manner. ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... kind and frequent in your invitations. You puzzle me. I hardly know how to refuse, and it is still more embarrassing to accept. At any rate, I cannot come this week, for we are in the very thickest melee of the Repetitions. I was hearing the terrible fifth section when your note arrived. But Miss Wooler says I must ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... latest ingenuities from France and Belgium, was to be granted to the entire Ottoman Empire. That Midhat Pasha, who was the author of this scheme, may have had some serious end in view is not impossible; but with the mass of Palace-functionaries at Constantinople it was simply a device for embarrassing the West with its own inventions; and the action of men in power, both great and small, continued after the constitution had come into nominal existence to be exactly what it had been before. The very terms of the constitution must have been ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... comment on the cooking and appointments of the table, in which some husbands habitually allow themselves, is the most unpardonable form of domestic rudeness. If a wife has philosophy enough not to mind it, so much the worse for her husband, as it confirms him in an unseemly habit, embarrassing to guests and a bad example to children. If she has no feelings that he is bound to respect, he should at least respect decorum and good taste, and confine the discussion of such matters to private intercourse, and not initiate every guest and child into the grating and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... quantity is just what I emphasize. This lack makes definite beat impossible: or at least it makes it absurd to attempt to scan English verse by feet. The proportion of 'irregularities' and 'exceptions' becomes painful to the student and embarrassing to the professor. He is put to fearful straits to explain his prosody and make it fit the verse. And when he has done all this, the student, if he has a good ear, forthwith forgets it all, and reads the verse as it was meant to be read, as a succession of musical bars (without pitch, of course), ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... but it lost that sweet accent of heaven which once had characterized it. It was now difficult and embarrassing for her to pronounce the name ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... but my situation began to be sufficiently embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the fog, which wrapped every thing, soon rendered the whole face of the country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could judge even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... remember, we had so far had. A battalion drill is simply one where the various companies are handled as a regimental unit, and are put through regimental evolutions. Battalion drill at first was frequently very embarrassing to some commanding officers of companies. The regimental commander would give a command, indicating, in general terms, the movement desired, and it was then the duty of a company commander to see to the details of the movement that his company ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... by Miss Kresney's loan had evaporated with the realisation that she had only contracted a debt in another direction—a debt more embarrassing than all the rest put together; for she knew that she would never have the courage to speak of it to her husband. Miss Kresney had told her to take her time in the matter of repayment, and she had taken it in generous measure. Not a fraction ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... to bring her to reason. She would listen to nothing. "For what do you reproach me?" The question could not help embarrassing him; for he had nothing with which to reproach her, except that she had been the object of his love, a reproach which of all men on earth he should be the last to make; and that she was poor, which he was ashamed to utter; and that she was ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... she said, "has left without giving the usual notice. She has left me in a most embarrassing position but I suppose she felt her own ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... you of the embarrassing situation, in which I am personally placed by these circumstances. But I shall take the liberty of observing to you, that in the present juncture, the best remedy is to take, as soon as possible, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... an argument ad omnipotentem, was stupefied; but persons of obtuse mind have the terrible logic of children, which consists in turning from answer to question,—a logic that is frequently embarrassing. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... made her escape out of the room when Lady Davenant had pronounced the words, "Set my mind at rest, Granville," as she felt it must then be embarrassing to him to speak, and to herself to hear. Her retreat, had not, however, been effected with considerable loss, she had been compelled to leave a large piece of the crape-trimming of her gown under the foot ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... a name.' I bent over once more, and a third time asked the question. The answer was the same, and repeated louder and with an emphasis, as if the parents were determined to have that name or none. By this time my situation had become embarrassing, for there was I, in the presence of the whole waiting congregation, standing up with the baby in my arms, which, to add to my consternation, set up a squall as if to convince me that he was entitled to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... should do next. Food was of high importance, but how could he get it without attracting attention to himself? He did not know. But finally he reasoned that a hot dog wagon would probably take cash from a youngster without asking embarrassing questions, so long as the cash wasn't anything larger than a ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... that if the debate be continued speakers should refrain from all further mention of the personal questions that had been raised, since these were not proper matters for discussion in the House and were embarrassing to the French Emperor. But Palmerston's skill in management was unavailing in this case and the "muss" (as Mason called it) was continued when Lindsay entered upon a long account of the interview with Napoleon, renewed the accusations of Russell's "revelations" to Seward and advised ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... a curious study, as they sat there together, during the first embarrassing moments. The man had spent his life in schemes for absorbing the products of the labor of others. He was cunning, brutal, vain, showy, and essentially vulgar, from his head to his feet, in every fiber of body and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... hostilities between France and China continues to be an embarrassing feature of our Eastern relations. The Chinese Government has promptly adjusted and paid the claims of American citizens whose property was destroyed in the recent riots at Canton. I renew the recommendation of my last annual ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... imagine a precise effect being produced on her by any amount of explanation. There is a quality in events which is apprehended differently by different minds or even by the same mind at different times. Any man living at all consciously knows that embarrassing truth. Heyst was aware that this visit could bode nothing pleasant. In his present soured temper towards all mankind he looked upon it as a visitation ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to return to the radio boys as they stood facing the angry storekeeper amid a constantly growing throng of curious onlookers. They had been in many tighter fixes in their life but none that was more embarrassing. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... and ordered food to be brought him. Then, after looking at it with an expression of fixed animation for half an hour, he paid for it and went home. He let himself into the boarding-house quietly, having hazy impressions that he was not popular there, also that it might be embarrassing to encounter Miss Cornish in the hall; and, after reconnoitering the stairway, went ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... is a smart one," Horatio announced after the first interview. "He gave me some good pointers." For after the embarrassing formalities of sentiment had been disposed of, the two men had naturally dropped into business, and Parker had suggested a method of inserting the tea and coffee business into the Exposition by getting concessions for "Coffee Kiosks," which should advertise the ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... air, took long walks, was absurdly exact about his cold baths, and like Kant, served the neighbors as a chronometer, so they set their clocks at three when they saw him going forth for a walk. And in the interests of truth, we will have to make the embarrassing admission that the great Apostle of Pessimism was neither a dyspeptic nor an invalid—if he was ever aware that he had a stomach we do not hear ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... flooded up into the maiden's face and neck at the action, but still more embarrassing to her was the awkward pause which ensued, as they set out on their return. She could think of nothing to say, and the stranger would not help her. "Let her blush and falter and stammer," was his thought. "Every minute of embarrassment is putting me deeper ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... gold-bowed spectacles. Dignified in bearing, he looked every inch the statesman and scholar. His gracious manner won him friends during his stay in New York, and his indefatigable propensity for asking questions—some of them rather embarrassing to those questioned, as when he politely inquired the ages of the ladies whom he met and the salaries of the officials ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... This was highly embarrassing, he thought, though he felt thankful that his Godmother had not had time to make him recognisable. "My name, your Royal Highness," he replied, "is Girofle. I have the honour to be one of ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... is embarrassing from its fulness of material. We can but lightly touch points on which volumes might be, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... so unprepared to answer the question put thus abruptly, accompanied as it was with a look of the deepest earnestness, that there ensued an embarrassing silence in the shop for a moment ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... representative. "What have you to give us in exchange for this and that?" "What have you to give us as reciprocity for the benefit of going to our islands?" "What assurance can you give that the States will agree to a treaty?" These were the embarrassing questions which Adams had to encounter. Baffled by the cool indifference of the English Ministry, Adams wrote home in despair that there was not the slightest prospect of relief for American commerce unless the States would confer the power of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... even when she is talking with other people. It embarrasses her in school, in spite of her teaching only girls in a private institution. This thought keeps her away from company and the effect of its embarrassing occurrence depresses her, but she is sure that the thought itself does not include any emotion. It is a mere thinking of it with a full consciousness that it is absurd, and yet she cannot ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... this part of the article was headed. No, these were not Mr. Crewe's words—he was too modest for that. When urged to give the name of one of his townsmen who might deal with this and other embarrassing topics, Mr. Ball was mentioned. "Beloved of his townspeople" was Mr. Ball's phrase. "Although a multi-millionaire, no man is more considerate of the feelings and the rights of his more humble neighbours. Send him to the Legislature! We'd send him to the United States Senate if we could. He'll ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... returned. "Anyhow it was rather an embarrassing, not to say painful, position for us to be in. But that ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... when Red Hoss' funeral obsequies had been inopportunely interrupted by the sudden advent among the mourners of the supposedly deceased, returning drippingly from the river which presumably had engulfed him. His unexpected and embarrassing reappearance had practically spoiled the service for his chief relative. She never had forgiven Red Hoss for his failure to stay dead, and he long since had ceased to look for free pone bread and poke chops in ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... the thighs with their feet parallel to the horse, we see them making all sorts of angles. But that gallery! that gallery! how I used to wish it wasn't there! The very sight of a lady under such circumstances is most embarrassing. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... one of the town people they pleasantly nodded to each arrival and inquired after their health and the welfare of their families. The replies were monosyllables. Millville folks were diffident in the presence of these city visitors and while they favored the girls with rather embarrassing stares, their chief interest was centered on the little man in the telephone booth, who could plainly be seen through the glass door but might not be ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are permitted"; ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... speeches in Congress, two hours' argument in the Supreme Court, a jury shut in a room until they agree upon a verdict, a court required by statute to render its decision by a day fixed, are not so strange as to be remarkable, or found in practice so embarrassing as to cause ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... a working bath-tender at Berkeley Springs, launched upon it a boat that he had invented of novel principle and propulsive force. The force was steam, and Rumsey had shown his model to Washington in 1780. First discoverers of steam-locomotion are turning up every few months in embarrassing numbers, but we cannot feel that we have a right to suppress the claims of honest Rumsey, the protege of Washington. The dates are said to be as follows: Rumsey launched his steamboat here at Sir John's Run in 1784, before the general and a throng of visitors from the Springs; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... solicitor was warmth itself. It was painfully embarrassing to the sensitive girl to hear the labored speeches ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... England,' which he probably thought would give him the security of an official diplomatic position. Having got this document, Marsilly's captors took it to the French Ministers. Nothing could be more embarrassing, if this were true, to Charles's representative in France, Montague, and to Charles's secret negotiations, also to Arlington, who had dealt with Marsilly. On his part, the captive Marsilly constantly affirmed ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Tonio. The hum of music could be heard above the "clack-clack" of the carpet-slippers tapping on the floor. Then suddenly the senorita swore a white man's oath, and stopped. Her carpet-slipper had come off, and as she wore no hosiery, the situation was indeed embarrassing. Our hostess asked us twenty times if everything was satisfactory, and finally confessed that she had spent almost a year's income for the refreshments. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... had not Phil Evans been elected president of the club? The votes were exactly divided between Uncle Prudent and him. Twenty times there had been a scrutiny, and twenty times the majority had not declared for either one or the other. The position was embarrassing, and it might have lasted for the lifetime of ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... The bridge club girls said their invitations came yesterday afternoon. I can't understand it. We certainly were on Mrs. Sewall's list when she gave that buffet-luncheon three years ago. And now we're not! That's the bald truth of it. It was terribly embarrassing this afternoon—all of them telling about what they were going to wear—it's going to be a masquerade—and I sitting there like a dummy! Helene McClellan broke the news to me. She blurted right out, 'Oh, do tell us, ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... then summed up with an amused smile: "There was a most embarrassing contretemps: a broken desk and empty safe at home to be accounted for, whether or not they attempted to swindle the insurance company; and if they did make the attempt—and remember, they were desperate for money—a witness to be taken care of. They couldn't let Miss Manwaring ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance |
