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More "Indecorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hamilton was pained and scandalized, as, indeed, was but natural before a confession so indecorous seemingly ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... rate) of ancient verse, not even if it be Spenser's or Milton's. Manners and modes of speech, again, have changed; and much that was admissible centuries since, or at least sought admission, has now, by a law against which protest is idle, lapsed into the indecorous. Even unaccustomed forms of spelling are an effort to the eye;—a kind of friction, which diminishes the ease and ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... "your indecorous interruption has stamped you with the signature of genuine ignorance and vulgarity; still, I say, we must have some conversation on that subject immediately. Yes, I love your daughter a thousand times better than nay ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... sir," exclaimed the lieutenant from somewhere at the back; "and I beg to know what is the meaning of this indecorous proceeding." ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... company, for there is not a soul among them who would not sooner suffer the pangs of dissolution than laugh outright. As for me, I am nearly expiring with the merriment that consumes me and my efforts to prevent indecorous explosion. The young woman, after having wiped me dry, once more presents the cream-jug, this time with both hands, but I can only murmur faintly in my trouble, "Thanks, no—no more cream." This appears to be quite too much for the young person, who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the time, that it became in our hands a totally different dance, which the Germans themselves would have found it difficult to recognize. At that period, "fast dancing" was unknown in England, and would have been regarded as highly indecorous. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... our lips, is depressing in the extreme. It may be injudicious, but it is certainly allowable, to look sad when the bank that holds our all suddenly falls; but for a woman to acknowledge in her face that the bank of her affections is broke is most indecorous, and shows a want of proper spirit and proper pride pitiful to witness. She may scream if she is pinched; but neither sign nor cry must show that her ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... Walk down it at almost any hour of the day or night, and you will see many things that are new to you. Strange characters meet you at every step; even the shops have a Bohemian aspect, for trade is nowhere so much the victim of chance as here. You see no breach of the public peace, no indecorous act offends you; but the people you meet have a certain air of independence, of scorn, of conventionality, a certain carelessness which mark them as very different from the throng you have just left on Broadway. They puzzle you, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... himself any trouble to inquire into the nature of those proofs which Lucy Munro had assured him were in her possession; but satisfied as much by his own hope as by her assurance, that all would be as he wished it, he had been elevated to a pitch of almost indecorous joy which strongly contrasted with his present depression. He had little now to say in the way of consolation, and that little was coupled with so much that was unjust to the maiden, as to call forth, at length, the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... a sad perplexity at her father's offer. She pleaded her youth unsuitable to marriage, the recent death of Tybalt, which had left her spirits too weak to meet a husband with any face of joy, and how indecorous it would show for the family of the Capulets to be celebrating a nuptial feast, when his funeral solemnities were hardly over: she pleaded every reason against the match, but the true one, namely, that she was married already. But Lord Capulet was deaf to all her excuses, and in a peremptory ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... of life generally do," replied the doctor. "Good-morning. I'm going to be so indecorous as to hurry home for a bath and a breakfast instead of catching cold standing out here on a wet street discussing other ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... sanctity of religion, by making light of the character of her ministers. As for what the prisoner said touching the magistrates, I trust that it is true, and am disposed to connect no evil intent therewith. My judgment is to pronounce him guilty of using indecorous language respecting a minister of the gospel, and to condemn him therefor in a light fine, to help replenish ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... A traditional anecdote represents the Rev. William Thomson, a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, as having got into a scrape by a very indecorous alteration of a word in Scripture. A young divine, on his first public appearance, had to read the solemn passage in 1st Corinthians, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Thomson scratched ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... unfortunate inmates were obliged to take their rest on the oaken floor. The condition of the rooms was indescribably filthy and disgusting; nor were the habits of the occupants much more cleanly. In other respects, they were equally indecorous and offensive. "It is with no small concern," writes an anonymous historian of Newgate, "that I am obliged to observe that the women in every ward of this prison are exceedingly worse than the worst of the men not only in respect to their mode of living, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... expression of natural passion in tragedy, prohibited all indelicate licence in comedy. Charles, probably, was secretly pleased with a system, which cramped the effusions of the tragic muse, and forbade, as indecorous, those bursts of rapturous enthusiasm, which might sometimes contain matter unpleasing to a royal ear.[5] But the merry monarch saw no good reason why the muse of comedy should be compelled to "dwell in decencies for ever," and did not feel at all degraded when enjoying a gross pleasantry, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... described. The fourth point is consistency: for though the subject of the imitation, who suggested the type, be inconsistent, still he must be consistently inconsistent. As an example of motiveless degradation of character, we have Menelaus in the Orestes: of character indecorous and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the Scylla, and the speech of Melanippe: of inconsistency, the Iphigenia at Aulis,—for Iphigenia the suppliant in no ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as his own ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... confused childish desire for information, was just ready to ask why this sycamore looked so morose, when the door opened and M. Batifol appeared. The master of the school had a severe aspect, in spite of his almost indecorous name. He resembled a hippopotamus clothed in an ample black coat. He entered slowly and bowed in a dignified way to M. Violette, then seated himself in a leather armchair before his papers, and, taking off his velvet ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... Chronicler, married Mary Morbeck, and died; was fond of collaboration, and received assistance in his best work from Drayton, Webster, Dekker, Rowley, and Jonson; his comedies are smart and buoyant, sometimes indecorous; his masques more than usually elaborate and careful; in the comedy of "The Spanish Gypsy," and the tragedies of "The Changeling," and "Women beware Women," is found the best fruit of his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... my courage indomitable. I am philosopher, statesman, and writer, worthy of the highest success," is constantly in her mind, and always perceptible in her phraseology. Real modesty never shows itself. On the contrary, many indecorous things are said and done by her from bravado, and to set herself above her sex. Cf. the "Memoirs of Mirs. Hutchinson," which present a great contrast. Madame Roland wrote: "I see no part in society which suits me but that of Providence."—The same ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Fish's letter, we must first notice its animus. The manner in which Dickens's two old women are brought in is not only indecorous, but it shows a state of feeling from which nothing but harsh interpretation of every questionable expression of Mr. Motley's was to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... would be tolerated at Marocco, and actually desired him to adopt a different and a more parsimonious system, if he wished to be quiet; alleging, that his munificence exceeded that of his Imperial Majesty, which was highly indecorous; but afterwards finding little attention was paid to his injunction, he published a decree throughout the city, that any one that should be found asking for, or receiving money from Ali Bey, should have a very severe bastinado! After residing some time at Marocco, he expressed a desire ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... interesting stories of rural regeneration I heard was told me by a blind man who had become headman of his village at the time of the war with Russia. His life had been indecorous and he had gradually lost his sight, and he took the headmanship with the wish to make some atonement for his careless years. This ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... chain-shot, is to be stationed on the stage, and play upon the audience, in case of any indication of misplaced applause or popular discontent (which accounts for the large space between the curtain and the lamps); and the public will participate our satisfaction in learning that the indecorous custom of standing up with the hat on is to be abolished, as the Bow-street officers are provided with daggers, and have orders to stab all such persons to the heart, and send their bodies to Surgeons' Hall. Gentlemen ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... even if only to express the ideas of others. Suppose the governor comes and asks, "Why is it the judge stammers?" And they'd say, let's assume, "It's a paralytic stroke." "Then bleed him," he'd say. And it would be highly indecorous, in your position, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... were bereaved widows, whose partners had been slain in battle many moons previously; and who, at every festival, gave public evidence in this manner of their calamities. It was evident that Kory-Kory considered this an all-sufficient reason for so indecorous a custom; but I must say that it did not satisfy me as ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... somewhat good-looking, elderly lady, who wore her silver-white hair in old-fashioned curls. She was an amiable but strictly matter-of-fact person, who beheld her daughters' mad humors with surprise as well as alarm. What were they forever laughing at? Besides, it was indecorous. She had not conducted herself in that manner when she lived in her ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being Sunday, I can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. Bland I have not seen since my last letter; but on Tuesday he dines with me, and will meet M * * e, the epitome of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... shame! noble Lords! Is it with this irreverent glee, these scurvy flouts, and indecorous mockery, that you would have this stranger believe that we celebrate the ceremonies of our Father Rhine? Shame, I say; and silence! It is time that we should prove to him that we are not merely a boisterous and unruly party of swilling ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... has some misgivings about the loaded pistols that are kept handy in case of an emergency. The Emperor, in one of his slashing dictated declarations which hit home with every biting sentence, reminds the Governor again what the inevitable result will be should indecorous liberty be taken. Sir Thomas would be made aware of this danger, so contents himself by knocking at the door and shouting at the top of his voice: "Come out, Napoleon Bonaparte. We ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... they think she has mourned long enough, and which is generally at the expiration of a year. She is then, but not before, released from her mourning, and at liberty to marry again. She has the privilege to take this husband to the family of the deceased and leave it, but this is considered indecorous, and is seldom done. Sometimes a brother of the deceased takes the widow for his wife at the grave of her husband, which is done by a ceremony of walking her over it. And this he has a right to do; and when this is done she is not ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... Sara rose. Accepting the proffered guidance to the seat of the all-wise Amarna, she proceeded to hustle her amiable conductor over the grass toward the grotto at a most indecorous rate of speed, born of her ardent determination to test the mettle of the Seeress of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... received with great caution, and are introduced here as simple hearsay. That the commander, however, took a handkerchief and attempted to show his guest the mysteries of the sembi cuacua, capering in an agile but indecorous manner about the apartment, has been denied. Enough for the purposes of this narrative, that at midnight Peleg assisted his host to bed with many protestations of undying friendship, and then, as the gale had abated, took his leave of the presidio, and hurried ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... he was weak and weary, and wished for rest. That he was little disposed to controversies, or what is called a detailed opposition. That at his time of life, if he could not do something by some sort of weight of opinion, natural or acquired, it was useless and indecorous to attempt anything by mere struggle. Turpe senex miles. That he had for that reason little attended the army business, or that of the revenue, or almost any other matter of detail, for some years past. That he had, however, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... nemestrinus, turn this part of their bodies, which in all these species is more or less brightly coloured, to him when they are pleased, and to other persons as a sort of greeting. He took pains to cure a Macacus rhesus, which he had kept for five years, of this indecorous habit, and at last succeeded. These monkeys are particularly apt to act in this manner, grinning at the same time, when first introduced to a new monkey, but often also to their old monkey friends; and after this mutual display they begin to play together. The young ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... was nailed down, and then as a last resort the "smoking machine" was brought into action. This was an "infernal machine," employed in hazing students who had in any way offended the opinion of the class, especially by indecorous subservience to the authorities or informing against their fellow students. The latter was a rare offense and never pardoned. The smoking machine consisted of a short length of stove-pipe with a nozzle at each end, into one of which was introduced ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the report made to it by the fiscal, and considering the disrespectful and indecorous character of the attorney-general's communication, and that it was entirely directed against the reputation and equitable procedure of the supreme tribunal and its ministers, issued a royal decree that the archbishop should punish his attorney-general, and should ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... yes, and knew that he had not failed to so understand it. As she walked over to the Citadel Square she could feel that he was standing where she had left him and looking after her. She would have turned to fittingly rebuke behavior so indecorous, but something told her that her insulted dignity would be better saved by removing it to ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... indeed!" muttered the outlaw, with a laugh of scorn; "even Injuns don't kill their own children." And taking advantage of her terror, he beckoned to the Piankeshaw, who, as well as all the other Indians, seemed greatly astounded and scandalised at the indecorous interference of a female in the affairs of warriors, to remove the prisoner; which he did by immediately beginning to drag him down the hill. The action was not unobserved by the girl, whose struggles to escape ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... mustering in the common room of the inn, the first thing to be done was to appoint a chairman, who mostly retained his post of honour during the journey. At the breakfast or dinner there was none of that indecorous hurry in eating and drinking which marks our degenerate days. Had the travellers affected such thin potations as tea and soup, there was ample time for them to cool. But they preferred the sirloin and ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... each, moreover—and here one comes upon a capital point of contact and resemblance—each was at times prodigiously inferior to himself. Shakespeare often writes so ill that you hesitate to believe he could ever write supremely well; or, if this way of putting it seem indecorous and abominable, he very often writes so well that you are loth to believe he could ever have written thus extremely ill. There are passages in his work in which he reaches such heights of literary art as since his time ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... stately brows, and the twenty rosy lips were all tightly pursed up, to prevent the indecorous exhibition which the wicked courtier had provoked. But it would not do: one and all the twenty lips broke into a smile,—but a smile so tortured, constrained, and nipped in the bud, that it only gave an expression of pain to the features it was ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... where what natural wickedness might be in them, was suppressed by the sternness of her rule. Were he to leave her fold—for a fold in very truth, and not a sty, it appeared to her—and wander away to Jock Thamson's or Jeemie Deuk's, he would be drawn into loud and indecorous talk, probably into ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... me well, and I now resolved to make it avail me to the end. Besides, after the correspondence which had passed between us, what act of mere informality could I commit, within bounds, that ought to be regarded as indecorous by Madame Lalande? Since the affair of the letter, I had been in the habit of watching her house, and thus discovered that, about twilight, it was her custom to promenade, attended only by a negro in livery, in a public square ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... always tranquillised by the happy termination of the story. Nor may any deeply tragic incident take place in the course of the play; for death is never allowed to be represented on the stage. Indeed, nothing considered indecorous, whether of a serious or comic character, is allowed to be enacted in the sight or hearing of the spectators, such as the utterance of a curse, degradation, banishment, national calamity, biting, scratching, kissing, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... majesty, as well as for me, it suffices that I am true to my duties as your subject. As to my duty as a man, this is no place to discuss a matter which lies between God and myself it would be indecorous for me to raise the veil of my private life before the eyes of your majesty. I came here to speak of Austria's welfare and yours, not ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Dickens converted me to its observance ten years or more ago. But none are so sound as those who are tinged with heresy. And am I not a "blue Presbyterian?" It would not do to lend my countenance too readily to indecorous invasions of the sanctuary with festivals borrowed from the Roman Catholics. Besides, what would the elders say? I ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... about four or five of us—picked men. I'm goin' this afternoon to see an old friend—Joe Benavides—and have him make all arrangements and be all ready to start whenever we get back, without any delay. I won't take the sheriff, because we might have negotiations to transact that would be highly indecorous in a sheriff. But he's to share my share, because he put up a lot more money for the mine to-day. I sent it on to Yuma, where an old friend of mine and the sheriff's is to buy a six-horse ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... her for repairs, in covering up the name of the inn painted on the front. But after heavy rains the great black letters stared perversely through their veil, and the organist made small jokes about it being a difficult thing to thwart the Hand of God. Silly and indecorous, Miss Joliffe termed such witticisms, and had Bellevue House painted in gold upon the fanlight over the door. But the Cullerne painter wrote Bellevue too small, and had to fill up the space by writing House too large; and the organist sneered again at the disproportion, saying ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... his arms directly. It might be that Mr Tappertit's heart was really softened by her distress, or it might be that he felt it in some degree indecorous that his intended bride should be struggling in the grasp of another man. He commanded him, on second thoughts, to put her down again, and looked moodily on as she flew to Miss Haredale's side, and clinging to her dress, hid her flushed face ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... "a part of you have come here legitimately, to hear a lecture; a part to satisfy the curiosity aroused by rumors to the effect that I am likely to make indecorous and indecent remarks, which your decorum and decency make you wish to hear, and of which you will carry away evil and twisted reports, to gain the reputation of being fearless defenders of the truth. It is a temptation to gratify your desire and ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... antagonism natural between a hot-blooded impetuous boy and a grandmother such as Mrs. de Tracy became rather painfully apparent. He had already been hauled over the coals for his arrival on Sunday and his indecorous appearance in church after ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for the tricksy spirit in her was not a domineering spirit, but was easily abashed by the moods of others. She ought not to have laughed at Dick's speeches, she soon told herself, much less helped him on. She dreadfully feared that she had done something indecorous, and she was pensive and silent over it as she moved listlessly about after supper; and she sat at last thinking in a dreary sort of perplexity on what had passed during the day, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... bedroom opened hastily, and that pink of maidenly propriety stepped out into the hail in her night-gown—the only indecorous thing I ever knew her to do. She held a lighted candle in her hand and looked like a ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... enough for all social purposes, is far from being well adapted to theatrical ones; insomuch—or, rather, so little—that it is my opinion we shall be in each other's arms, laps, and pockets throughout the whole performance, which will be inconvenient, and in some of the situations slightly indecorous. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... relatives shed just as many tears as those that are; to which may be added, that in the instances which we saw there was no real occasion for crying at all. It must, therefore, be considered in the light of a ceremony of condolence, which it would be either indecorous or unlucky ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... There are birds—for instance, jays, kingfishers, goldfinches—which are, taken absolutely, extremely brilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So it was with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous. Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle it would have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one could discover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even to the lips, which were full and parted, as if she ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... surprising that an article coming into their hands, the use of which they have no idea of, should be appropriated to that use which they consider it best adapted to. On the occasion of a dinner given to us by the sultan of Bruni, the whole party were seized with a fit of very indecorous and immoderate laughter, by finding the centre dish, which was a curry, served up in a capacious vessel, which in Europe is only to be found under a bed. The curry, nevertheless, was excellent; and what matter did it make? "What's in a ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... planters of Cape Verd, and some generous officers who had not the honour (if it could be accounted one) of being considered among the ignorant confidents of MM. Schmaltz and Lachaumareys. My father, indignant at a proceeding so indecorous, swore we would not embark upon the raft, and that, if we were not judged worthy of a place in one of the six boats, he would himself, his wife, and children, remain on board the wrecks of the frigate. The tone in which he spoke ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... as to begin her education at once, by reproving her sharply for her indecorous behavior here to-night," said the duke, beginning ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... fair to state that Garcilasso, who was personally acquainted with the bishop of Cuzco, doubts the fact of the indecorous conduct imputed to him by Fernandez, as inconsistent with the prelate's character. Com. Real., Parte 2, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... of Mr. Falkland upon any former occasion; and the spectacle of such humanity, delicacy, firmness, and justice in the form of man, as he crowded into this small space, was altogether new to her, and in the highest degree fascinating. She had a confused feeling as if there had been something indecorous in her behaviour or appearance, when Mr. Falkland had appeared to her relief; and this combined with her other emotions to render ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... which had ever been known in that house at that time of day. It was so still, and so solemn withal, that when somebody's cup slipped from his fingers and landed in his plate the shock made people start, and the sharp sound seemed as indecorous there and as out of place as if a coffin and mourners were imminent and being waited for. And at last when Brady's feet came clattering down the stairs the sacrilege seemed unbearable. Everybody rose softly and turned ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... These indecorous and malicious allusions were received with shouts of derisive laughter from the Jacobin benches. The majority, however, frowned upon Danton with deep reproaches for such an attack upon a lady. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... one has been here—not a soul;—and as for yourself, you have been too busy looking after a certain gentleman ever to think of your poor uncle;—that you have;—taking advantage of his illness to behave in so indecorous a manner. I would have told him everything, but I was afraid ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... adjudged fitted to star the social capital, so to London they went, in June, 1751. Their reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The gayety of Vauxhall Gardens ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... honourable in all;" and while it would be ungrateful to Providence, not to accept with suitable emotions of cheerfulness the blessing which has been so long and so eagerly sought, it must always be injurious to character to indulge in extravagant merriment or indecorous festivity. Let persons forming such a connection aim to chastise their mirth with a solid piety, recollecting that while they are allowed to be cheerful, they ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... the chambers, an unwilling witness of all these indecorous proceedings, resolved, for that one night, to do his duty stanchly by his employer, but give up his place with inflexible ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... was necessary to be like himself. Here is the source of all his erroneous reasoning upon nature— the foundation of his ideas upon his gods. He has therefore concluded, perhaps not with the most polished wisdom, that it would be indecorous in himself, injurious to the Divinity, not to invest him with a quality which is found estimable in man—which he prizes highly—to which he attaches the idea of perfection—which he considers as a manifest proof of superiority. He sees his fellow-creature ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... phoebe, not knowing that there was a Phoebe on the premises all the while. And one day the little mate came and both birds forgot the snow and cold in the joy of their reunion. Phoebes consider it extremely indecorous to travel in mixed company, (just like Aunt Phoebe, thought Hinpoha humorously,) so the females linger behind for several days after the males start north and join them in the seclusion of their own homes. Hinpoha's heart sang in sympathy with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... their adversaries, they deliver many more words than blows. Their defensive weapons—and this is characteristic—are greatly superior to their arms of offence; and death is an unusual, unforeseen and almost indecorous event which throws the ranks into disorder and most often puts a stop to the combat or provokes a headlong flight that seems quite natural. As for the wounds, these are enumerated and described, sung and deplored ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... seated in the drawing-room, we may gather from the internal evidence of his letter written the following morning 'from the regions of hell, amid the horrors of the damned.' It would appear that the gentlemen left in the dining-room had got ingloriously drunk, and there and then proposed an indecorous raid on the drawing-room. Whatever it might be they did, it was Burns who was made to suffer the shame of the drunken plot. His letter of abject apology remained unanswered, and the estrangement was only embittered by some lampoons which he wrote afterwards on this accomplished lady. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... and not very lightly, at the head of poor Stringstriker. The fiddler for a time received his cuffs very manfully—but they grew intolerable at last. First, his legs were criticised—then his lank withered arms; even his fiddling was disparaged, and he himself pronounced highly indecorous, because he persisted in smoking his pipe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... and Mary scarcely deigned to cry about it, but went to her father, as she always did when any weight lay on her mind. Nothing was said about any injustice, because that might lead to more of it, as well as be (from a proper point of view) most indecorous. Nevertheless, it was felt between them, when her pretty hair was shed upon his noble waistcoat, that they two were in the right, and cared very ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... apparently serious propositions or assertions of Mr. Whistler. How far the witty tongue may be thrust into the smiling cheek when the lecturer pauses to take breath between these remarkably brief paragraphs it would be certainly indecorous and possibly superfluous to inquire. But his theorem is unquestionably calculated to provoke the loudest and the heartiest mirth that ever acclaimed the advent of Momus or Erycina. For it is this—that [38]"Art and Joy go together," and that[39] tragic art is not ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... either —rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He complied, and then proceeded ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... point of contact and resemblance—each was at times prodigiously inferior to himself. Shakespeare often writes so ill that you hesitate to believe he could ever write supremely well; or, if this way of putting it seem indecorous and abominable, he very often writes so well that you are loth to believe he could ever have written thus extremely ill. There are passages in his work in which he reaches such heights of literary art as since his time no mortal has found accessible; and there are passages which few or none of us ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... friends and her enemies. The former say that this visit to her lieutenant in his confinement from a wound received in her service was perfectly proper, both in the design itself, and in all the circumstances of its execution. The latter represent it as an instance of highly indecorous eagerness on the part of a married lady to express to another man a sympathy and kind regard which she had ceased to feel ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... impudent to question the lawful endowment of the church, and he reproved his wife for being piqued at Mrs. Mellicent's blaming her passion for high-crowned hats, ruffs, and farthingales, which the sage spinster thought indecorous for yeomen's wives, though very suitable to Lady Waverly. He silenced the good dame's remarks on Mrs. Mellicent's interfering disposition, by reminding her of the value of that lady's green ointment, adding that though she was apt to be domineering and outrageous, she was ever a true friend, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... himself that it would be tolerated at Marocco, and actually desired him to adopt a different and a more parsimonious system, if he wished to be quiet; alleging, that his munificence exceeded that of his Imperial Majesty, which was highly indecorous; but afterwards finding little attention was paid to his injunction, he published a decree throughout the city, that any one that should be found asking for, or receiving money from Ali Bey, should have a very severe bastinado! After residing some ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... we must first notice its animus. The manner in which Dickens's two old women are brought in is not only indecorous, but it shows a state of feeling from which nothing but harsh interpretation of every questionable expression of Mr. Motley's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... keep the noiseless tenor of our way, finding in life if not great and gaudy pleasures, at least content and relief from many of the vexations that gnaw away the lives of the multitude. Though it was acknowledged a long time ago to be—indecorous—an abominable thing for a man to commend his ways; though his mode of living may not commend itself to others; though it may seem blank and colourless, thin and watery, devoid of expectation, and the hope of fame, name, and that kind of success which comes of the acquirement ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... operates powerfully without our being conscious of its weight. Everyone knows that governments, manners, and beliefs which were thought to be right, decorous, and true at one period have been judged wrong, indecorous, and false at another; and that views which we have heard expressed by those in authority over us in early life tend to become axiomatic and ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... with as much propriety as if they had possessed the whitest of cuticles, being quiet, serious, and attentive; nor did I detect anything indecorous on the part of the spectators, beyond an occasional smile or whisper by the younger negroes, whose soft-skinned, dusky faces and white eyeballs glanced upward at the six couples with admiring curiosity, and at us, visitors, with that appealing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Shame! shame! noble Lords! Is it with this irreverent glee, these scurvy flouts, and indecorous mockery, that you would have this stranger believe that we celebrate the ceremonies of our Father Rhine? Shame, I say; and silence! It is time that we should prove to him that we are not merely a boisterous and unruly party of swilling ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... chair many hours beforehand, and caused it to be kept, in fear that another might deprive him of it; the churches were so full, that it was hardly possible to move in them. The eagerness to obtain room was so great, that indecorous and even scandalous scenes took place among the wives of the populace; they quarrelled for chairs and seats with a ferocity, qui les mettoit souvent hors du cercle de la politesse civile et Chretienne." (Perhaps, as a townsman, he ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... the horrid thing, for fear the nice young man would feel obliged to do it for me; but, in my indecorous haste, I caught hold of the wrong end, and emptied the entire contents on the stone flagging. Aunt Celia didn't notice; she had turned with the verger, lest she should miss a single word of his inspired testimony. So we scrambled up the articles together, the nice young man and I; and oh, I hope ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... entering into conversation with them was to listen—one could not help it, they shouted so loudly all the time—to the conversation among themselves. We will not refer to the choice language they used, so inexplicably sacrilegious and indecorous that it would have set on edge the teeth of the coarsest specimens of humanity; but the subject—I say subject in the singular, mark you, for alas! there was only one subject—discussed in all its phases perhaps, but only one single subject—assassination. The accounts of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... this way. There are birds—for instance, jays, kingfishers, goldfinches—which are, taken absolutely, extremely brilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So it was with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous. Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle it would have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one could discover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even to the lips, which ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... sits in insensibly affects his manner and his bearing, and that the habits which would not be deemed strange in the low-ceilinged chamber, with the sanded floor and the "mutton lights," would be totally indecorous in the richly-carpeted room, a blaze of wax-light, and glittering with decoration. Now this alternating between Club and Cafe spoils men utterly. It engenders the worst possible style—a double manner. The over-stiffness here and the over-ease there ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... order either —rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He complied, and then proceeded ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... who'd just got back with the children and was unhitching Calamity Kate, retreated with his eyebrows up, toward the stable. And on the youthful face of Pauline Augusta I saw nothing but pained incredulity touched with reproof, for Poppsy is not a believer in the indecorous. She has herself staidly intimated that she'd prefer the rest of the family to address her as "Pauline Augusta" instead of "Poppsy" which still so unwittingly creeps into our talk. So hereafter we must be more careful. For Pauline Augusta can already sew a fine seam and array ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... imitation, who suggested the type, be inconsistent, still he must be consistently inconsistent. As an example of motiveless degradation of character, we have Menelaus in the Orestes: of character indecorous and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the Scylla, and the speech of Melanippe: of inconsistency, the Iphigenia at Aulis,—for Iphigenia the suppliant in no ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... exclaimed the lady, overcome with horror. "Rouge! What are you saying, and what are young girls coming to! At your age, I'd never heard the word, no, indeed. And, besides, my love, it is indecorous of you to address me as 'Lydia.' I ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... him their haughty determination "not to receive another minister plenipotentiary from the United States, until after the redress of grievances demanded of the American government, which the French republic had a right to expect from it." This message was succeeded, first by indecorous verbal communications, calculated to force the American minister out of France, and afterwards, by a written mandate to quit the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... have sympathy for the Northern States of America, I turn in absolute disgust from their hypocrisy. If there is a sink of political iniquity, it is at Washington. They are corrupt; they are base; they are cowardly; they are cruel." This highly indecorous speech was made in the presence of members of the British Ministry. The Premier, Lord Palmerston, followed Mr. Roebuck on the floor, calling him his "honorable and learned friend," and offering neither rebuke nor objection to the words he had used. On the contrary, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... contents; indeed, I thought so much about it that I revoked at Lady Betty Blabkin's whist-party, and lost four shillings and sixpence. You say that you have a child at your house belonging to your cousin, who married in so indecorous a manner. I hope what you say is true; but, at the same time, I know what bachelors are guilty of; although, as Lady Betty says, it is better never to talk or even to hint about these improper things. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... commenced a general kissing of the assembled females, which occasioned great commotion and much excitement. We observed that several young gentlemen—including the young gentleman with the pale countenance—were greatly scandalised at this indecorous proceeding, and talked very big among themselves in corners; and we observed too, that several young ladies when remonstrated with by the aforesaid young gentlemen, called each other to witness how they had struggled, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the good name of an English citizen, the restraint of a prison cell is imposed upon the audacious libeller. Sometimes when a book offends against the public morals, and contains the outpourings of a voluptuous imagination, its author is condemned to lament in confinement over his indecorous pages. The world knows that Vizetelly, the publisher, was imprisoned for translating and publishing some of Zola's novels. Nana and L'Assommoir were indeed fatal books to him, as his imprisonment and the anxiety caused by the prosecution are ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... been scolding me for sitting on the damp ground, forgetting my shawl behind, and all that. As a punishment, she has carried off my poor book, and threatens to burn it. I have been very imprudent, and very indecorous, you will say," she added, glancing at her dress, with a faint laugh, "but, no doubt my caprice is sufficiently punished by this time; for, if that access of smoke means anything, my ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... in regard to the rule of duty. Each person is bound to inquire and judge for himself, as to his own duty or deficiencies; but as both the resources and the amount of the actual charities of others are beyond our ken, it is as indecorous as it is uncharitable to sit ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... down it at almost any hour of the day or night, and you will see many things that are new to you. Strange characters meet you at every step; even the shops have a Bohemian aspect, for trade is nowhere so much the victim of chance as here. You see no breach of the public peace, no indecorous act offends you; but the people you meet have a certain air of independence, of scorn, of conventionality, a certain carelessness which mark them as very different from the throng you have just left on Broadway. They puzzle you, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... indecorous interruption has stamped you with the signature of genuine ignorance and vulgarity; still, I say, we must have some conversation on that subject immediately. Yes, I love your daughter a thousand times better than ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... moments vainly scrutinising the masks in her immediate neighbourhood. Their eyes gleamed uncannily through the slits in the black silk, and when she intercepted a direct glance, it was hastily lowered or averted, as if there were something indecorous in acknowledging ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of white paint all over the sloping tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance. Still, there are few who will fail to thank the good folks of Whitby for preserving an ecclesiastical curiosity of such an unusual nature. The box-pews on the floor of the church are separated by very narrow gangways—we ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... attempted to push him backwards; and, shaking away the grasp that was fixed upon his collar, seized his brother's wrist, so as to prevent the accomplishment of his purpose. In this unnatural and indecorous strife the corpse of their father was reft of its covering and the hand discovered ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... little ashamed, a little shy, what with his gray hairs, his paternity, that there should still be a thrill in his heart, a sense of flight in him. At fifty-eight to feel like a schoolboy going home, it seemed—well, not indecent, indecorous. This thing of returning to Antrim had been a matter of pure reason, and then suddenly his heart had ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... the next day to see a priest whom they did not know, officiating without ceremony in the place of their Cure. He was stout and plain, with an inflamed face, bloated lips, a cynical look, and a thundering voice: he said Mass in such a hasty and indecorous manner that they went away scandalized. The handsome Marcel certainly was no longer there, with his sweet and unctuous voice, his evangelic piety, and his eyes ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... portion of her sex who are bound in cruel bondage?" It is replied, that, the rectitude and propriety of any such measure, depend entirely on its probable results. If petitions from females will operate to exasperate; if they will be deemed obtrusive, indecorous, and unwise, by those to whom they are addressed; if they will increase, rather than diminish the evil which it is wished to remove; if they will be the opening wedge, that will tend eventually to bring females as petitioners and ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... occupation the canon walked up to Bowshott himself with Mrs. Ogilvie's card of invitation. Mrs. Ogilvie frankly and without a moment's hesitation refused to be one of the party; a picnic was in her eyes one of those barbarous, not to say indecorous things which she classed with bathing in the open sea or trying on a hat in a shop. Why should one sit on the ground and eat indifferent food out of one's lap? Mrs. Ogilvie was too sorry, but it was impossible; she had friends coming, or letters to write, or something—at any ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... opponents counted upon the ex-secretary's attitude of criticism to work against his appointment. But Mr. Lincoln sternly checked all presentations of this personal argument; nor were the prayers of those who urged him to overlook the harsh and indecorous things Mr. Chase had said of him at all necessary. To one who spoke in this ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... things of life generally do," replied the doctor. "Good-morning. I'm going to be so indecorous as to hurry home for a bath and a breakfast instead of catching cold standing out here on a wet ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... carried them back to a date earlier than the Revolution. M. Hugon had acted as acolyte at the consecration of M. de Talleyrand in the chapel of Issy in 1788. It seems that the attitude of the Abbe de Perigord during the ceremony was very indecorous. M. Hugon related that he accused himself, when at confession the following Saturday, "of having formed hasty judgments as to the piety of a holy bishop." The superior-general, M. Garnier, was more than eighty, and he was in every respect ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... round. Never had she been much more amazed in her life. Her maid, her well-bred Jane Cupp, who had not drawn an indecorous breath since assuming her duties, was running after her calling out to her, waving her hands, her face distorted, ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that he would like to walk out of his pulpit when the obnoxious and hated flutes, violins, bass-viols, and bassoons were played upon in the singing gallery. One clergyman contemptuously announced "We will now sing and fiddle the forty-fifth Psalm." Another complained of the indecorous dress of the fiddle-player. This had reference to the almost universal custom, in country churches in the summer time, of the bass-viol player removing his coat and playing "in his shirt sleeves." Others hated the noisy tuning of the bass-viol while ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... and wagging his tail with sympathy.' For the usquebaugh of the less honoured week-days, at the Sunday board he circulated the champagne briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each man's fair share afterwards (v. 339). In the evening, music being to the Scottish worldly mind indecorous, he read aloud some favourite author, for the amusement or edification of his little circle. Shakespeare it might be, or Dryden,—Johnson, or Joanna Baillie,—Crabbe, or Wordsworth. But in those days 'Byron was pouring out his spirit fresh and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... impudent, insolent. Importance, consequence, moment. Impostor, pretender, charlatan, masquerader, mountebank, deceiver, humbug, cheat, quack, shyster, empiric. Imprison, incarcerate, immure. Improper, indecent, indecorous, unseemly, unbecoming, indelicate. Impure, tainted, contaminated, polluted, defiled, vitiated. Inborn, innate, inbred, congenital. Incite, instigate, stimulate, impel, arouse, goad, spur, promote. Inclose, surround, encircle, circumscribe, encompass. Increase, grow, enlarge, magnify, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... will find some account of the Revels introduced before James the First at Hoghton Tower, in the copious notes of the editor, the Rev. F.R. Raines, M.A., F.S.A., elucidating the origin and history of these "coarse and indecorous" dances—the Huckler, Tom Bedlo, and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... Russian Court differed greatly from that of most others in Europe, it would be most indecorous for a lady-in-waiting, during her turn of service, to give ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... when venturing abroad. Here, in the capital, the wives and daughters of foreign ministers, European officers and telegraphists, have made uncovered female faces tolerably familiar to the natives; but they cannot quite understand but that there is something highly indecorous about it, and the more unenlightened Persians doubtless regard them as quite bold and forward creatures. Armenian women conceal their faces almost as completely as do the Persian, when they walk abroad; by so doing they avoid unpleasant criticism, and the rude, inquisitive gaze of the Persian ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... unconscious; so you have had all your long journeys for nothing, my learned friends, and a very good joke too;" at which the Regius Professor of Physiology burst into a roar of laughter and slapped his thigh in a highly indecorous fashion. The audience were so enraged at this unseemly behaviour on the part of their host, that there might have been a considerable disturbance, had it not been for the judicious interference of young Fritz von Hartmann, who had now ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the singular delicacy of common sailors in their behavior in the presence of women; and they say that this good trait is still strongly observable even in the present race of seamen, greatly deteriorated as it is. On shipboard, there is never an indecorous word or unseemly act said or done by sailors when a woman can be cognizant of it; and their deportment in this respect differs greatly from that of landsmen of similar position in society. This is remarkable, considering that a sailor's female acquaintances are usually and exclusively ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... know you'll have to be able to speak, anyhow, even if only to express the ideas of others. Suppose the governor comes and asks, "Why is it the judge stammers?" And they'd say, let's assume, "It's a paralytic stroke." "Then bleed him," he'd say. And it would be highly indecorous, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... the most part impassive; only their dark eyes seemed to sparkle, either with wine or suppressed passion. Marcia still felt that one pair was trying to look through her, and she was conscious that Silenus, the Sicilian Greek, was making eager and indecorous love to one of the women at the other table. Another of the latter had just ventured on some light badinage with the chief guest, in whose face smiles had chased away all the abstraction of the earlier hours. ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... its proceedings—"tramp, tramp, across the land," came, flying at full speed, boar-spear in hand, our madcap huntress; and without other note of preparation sounded than their own thunder, her iron-grey's hoofs were in the thick of the sage assembly, causing an indecorous trepidation, combined with devastation dire to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... look as well as purity of style. This sarcastic remark found wings in a moment, and flew through all the coteries and through both courts; it did most harm to him who uttered it; all men laughed, and then began to wonder how Lawrence, limner to perhaps the purest court in Europe, came to bestow indecorous looks on the meek and sedate ladies of quality of St. James's and Windsor, while Hoppner, limner to the court of a gallant young prince, who loved mirth and wine, the sound of the lute and the music of ladies' feet in the dance, should ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... have said what now she only thought—"I am sure I do my duty." But in 1557 young ladies were required to "hear, see, and say nought," and for one of them to join unasked in the conversation of her elders would have been held to be shockingly indecorous. The rule for girls' behaviour was too strict in that day; but if a little of it could be infused into the very lax code of the present time, when little misses offer their opinions on subjects of which they know nothing, ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... the women alone. I was then called in, with my uncle, to go through the ceremony, and strict injunctions were made me not to laugh, nor even to smile, while it lasted; for ill luck would attend the marriage if anything so indecorous took place ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... odd-tempered, free-mannered woman, deeply crafty, absolutely unmoral, and yet with a true kindliness of heart and a thorough understanding of human nature which, together with her ready laugh, her clever, indecorous anecdotes and sharp wit, made her attractive. For these traits people forgave her her ugly face and fifty years of a past even less reputable than was ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... for her to go out alone in Marlingate after dark. Though she would have walked out on the Brodnyx road at midnight without putting the slightest strain on either her courage or her decorum, the well-lighted streets of a town became to her vaguely dangerous and indecorous after dusk had fallen. "It wouldn't be seemly," she repeated to herself in the loneliness and dullness of the lounge, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... enjoined both to sleep and to worship with the sword girt on their side, in token of readiness for action. In the earlier days of the institution, the spiritual, as well as the military brethren, were allowed to make part of the martial array against the infidel, until this was prohibited, as indecorous, by the Holy See. From this order branched off that of Montesa, in Valencia, which was instituted at the commencement of the fourteenth century, and continued dependent ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... monarch as clown, and of tragic relief in the torture chamber with the monarch as pantomime demon committing real atrocities, not forgetting the indispensable love interest on an enormous and utterly indecorous scale. Catherine kept this vast Guignol Theatre open for nearly half a century, not as a Russian, but as a highly domesticated German lady whose household routine was not at all so unlike that of Queen Victoria as might be expected from the ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... Redferne were at the bottom of it. As to the portrait of Isole de Heton, it was found under the table, and it was said that Nicholas himself had pulled it down; but this he obstinately denied, when afterwards taken to task for his indecorous behaviour; and to his dying day he asserted, and believed, that he had danced the brawl with Isole de Heton. "And never," he would say, "had mortal man ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... abortions arise merely from technical demerit. In every line of those leaden dolls is expressed the fact that they were not set up with any heat of natural enthusiasm for beauty or dignity. They were set up mechanically, because it would seem indecorous or stingy if they were not set up. They were even set up sulkily, in a utilitarian age which was haunted by the thought that there were a great many more sensible ways of spending money. So long as this is the dominant national sentiment, the land is barren, ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... &c (commonalty) 876; Goth, Vandal, Boeotian; snob, cad, gent; parvenu &c 876; frump, dowdy; slattern &c 653. V. be vulgar &c adj.; misbehave; talk shop, smell of the shop. Adj. in bad taste vulgar, unrefined. coarse, indecorous, ribald, gross; unseemly, unbeseeming^, unpresentable^; contra bonos mores [Lat.]; ungraceful &c (ugly) 846. dowdy; slovenly &c (dirty) 653; ungenteel, shabby genteel; low, common, hoi polloi [Gr.], &c (plebeian) 876; uncourtly^; uncivil &c (discourteous) 895; ill bred, ill ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... walked up to the mantelpiece, established himself upon the rug, and subducting his coat-tails one under each arm, turned towards the fire that portion of the human frame which it is considered equally indecorous to present to a friend or an enemy. A serious, not to say anxious, expression was visible upon his good-humored countenance, and his mouth was fast buttoning itself up for an incipient whistle, when little ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... MAY, on rising, said: The sudden and unjustifiable repeal of the License Law of 1846, changed the face of the community, which had everywhere brightened with new hope under the brief but salutary operation of that law. That repeal, which it was indecorous if not presumptuous in the representatives of the people to make, seeing the law had been enacted directly by the people in their primary assemblies; that repeal brought back all the evils of intemperance aggravated by the successful efforts which had been openly and covertly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... but went to her father, as she always did when any weight lay on her mind. Nothing was said about any injustice, because that might lead to more of it, as well as be (from a proper point of view) most indecorous. Nevertheless, it was felt between them, when her pretty hair was shed upon his noble waistcoat, that they two were in the right, and cared very ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... predecessors the example of drawing largely on that perennial and somewhat facile source of laughter—the putting together of incidents and phrases which even by those who laugh at them are regarded as indecorous. But of this expedient she availed herself rather less than any of her forerunners. She had further the example of a generally satirical intent; but here, too, she was not content merely to follow, and her satire ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... that the irregularity in question is only a partial revival of the practice of our grandfathers and grandmothers, much as a crinoline may be regarded as a modified reproduction of the hoop. Junius thus denounces the Duke of Grafton's indecorous devotion to Nancy Parsons: "It is not the private indulgence, but the public insult, of which I complain. The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have been known, if the First Lord of the Treasury had not led her in triumph through the Opera House, even in the presence of the Queen." Lord March ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... prayers offered. The only proof of this custom which I have found is the negative one which Judge Sewall gives when he states of his own wedding that "none came to us," after he and his elderly bride had retired. When the weddings of English noblemen of that period were attended by most indecorous observances, there is no reason to suppose that provincial and colonial weddings were entirely free from similar ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... speaker was a Washington beauty in an evening dress that she would have condemned as indecorous for the dancer it is not so bad ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... here in a most pleasant country, full of walks, and idle to our heart's desire. Taylor has dropped the "London." It was indeed a dead weight. It had got in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand, like Christian, with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and everything that is bad. Both our kind remembrances to Mrs. K. and yourself, and strangers'-greeting to Lucy,—is it Lucy, or Ruth?—that gathers wise sayings in ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... differ in this from almost all other nations; that they do not permit their children to approach them openly until they are grown up so as to be able to bear the service of war; and they regard it as indecorous for a son of boyish age to stand in public in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... or he would have been there. He is a little rascal. It was a relief to me to have Perdita live up to her name and reputation, though," said Hannah. "I heard about her all summer as a little mischief, and I never saw her do an indecorous thing. I didn't see her ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... is a study of dress for the aged, as well as for the young. Inattention is no less indecorous in one than in the other; we may distinguish the taste appropriate to each, by the reflection that youth is made to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not consider myself as guilty of any great offense, yet I could not think of owning the truth. Besides, to make such an avowal to a husband, I considered as somewhat indecorous. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... exquisite a palate, so craving an appetite, that fortune enabled him to obey these calls, and to satisfy these demands of nature.... Had he hurt his health or fortune by indulgences of this kind, they would have been vicious; as he did not, they were at the most indecorous." ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... bookshelves, and when he comes home after an absence and finds his study has been tidied, which in the feminine mind means putting things in order, and to the bookman general anarchy (it was the real reason Eve was put out of Eden), when he comes home, I say, and finds that happy but indecorous rascal Boccaccio, holding his very sides for laughter, between Lecky's History of European Morals and Law's Serious Call, both admirable books, then the bookman is much exhilarated. Because of the mischief that is in him he will ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... tranquillised by the happy termination of the story. Nor may any deeply tragic incident take place in the course of the play; for death is never allowed to be represented on the stage. Indeed, nothing considered indecorous, whether of a serious or comic character, is allowed to be enacted in the sight or hearing of the spectators, such as the utterance of a curse, degradation, banishment, national calamity, biting, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... restraint of decorum, which prevented the expression of natural passion in tragedy, prohibited all indelicate licence in comedy. Charles, probably, was secretly pleased with a system, which cramped the effusions of the tragic muse, and forbade, as indecorous, those bursts of rapturous enthusiasm, which might sometimes contain matter unpleasing to a royal ear.[5] But the merry monarch saw no good reason why the muse of comedy should be compelled to "dwell in decencies for ever," and did not feel at all degraded ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Peng skipped derisively, jeered at them, performed a brief but indecorous pantomime, and then, kicking up his heels with joy, scurried for ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... little Jewess I purchased from Hassan Bey in Sidon, but how can one be sure? Still, this is certainly Judith, and this is Myrina. I have half a mind to look again for that mole, but I suppose it would be indecorous. Lord, how one's women do add up! There must be several scores of them in all. It is the sort of spectacle that turns a man to serious thinking. Well, but it is a great comfort to reflect that I dealt fairly with every one of them. Several of them treated ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... was the clergyman—a little handsome old man, like an abbe, with a clear-cut face and thick white hair. I am afraid that the ceremony had no religious significance for me at that time, but I was deeply interested, thought it rather cruel, and was shocked at Hugh's indecorous outcry. He was called Robert, an old family name, and Hugh, in honour of St. Hugh of Lincoln, where my father was a Prebendary, and because he was born on the day before St. Hugh's Feast. And then I really remember nothing more of him for a time, ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is among us, in comparison with France or Germany, a defective reverence for the State as such; and a positive irreverence towards the laws of the Commonwealth, and towards the occupants of high political positions. Mayor, Judge, Governor, Senator, or even President, may be the butt of such indecorous ridicule as shocks or disgusts the foreigner; but nevertheless the personal joke stops short of certain topics which Puritan tradition disapproves. The United States is properly called a Christian nation, not ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... impose upon your good uncle! You know that no one has been here—not a soul;—and as for yourself, you have been too busy looking after a certain gentleman ever to think of your poor uncle;—that you have;—taking advantage of his illness to behave in so indecorous a manner. I would have told him everything, but I was afraid of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... of the two mules with side- saddles, dismissed one of the guides after a brief consultation, and helped Miss Denham to mount. In attending to these preliminaries Lynde had sufficient mastery over himself not to make any indecorous betrayal of his intense satisfaction at the turn affairs had taken. Fortune had given her into his hands for five hours! She should listen this time to what he had to say, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... within hail of him. Met by Gower, she talked, smiled, patted her donkey, clutched his ear, lifted a silken covering to show the child asleep; entirely at her ease and unhurried. These women get aid from their pride of maternity. And when they can boast a parson behind them, they are indecorous up to insolent in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... day about mid-year in 1855, the conventional literary world was startled into indecorous behavior by the unannounced appearance of a thin quarto sheaf of poems, in form and in tone unlike anything of precedent issue. It was called Leaves of Grass, and there were but twelve poems in the volume. No author's name appeared upon the title page, ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... edge with his thumb. "Low"—Mabel's face twitched. He had persisted in the idiotic and indecorous names, and her face always twitched when he used them—"Low, do you keep my axe for chopping coal or what?" And he addressed Mabel. "I'm getting fat, I think. I don't want the axe to cut lumps off myself, though. I'm going to chop a marking peg. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... and returned by the English privy council. Townshend prorogued parliament; and before its next meeting secured a majority by wholesale corruption, such as had been employed in England by Fox and Bute, and overthrew the power of the undertakers. His want of tact and his indecorous conduct rendered his victory fruitless, and he ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... became in our hands a totally different dance, which the Germans themselves would have found it difficult to recognize. At that period, "fast dancing" was unknown in England, and would have been regarded as highly indecorous. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... gentleman had no very great breadth of view. To sit about on boxes and window-seats, picnicking in an empty room, while the stranger upon whom he had come to call lay above him in red pajamas, painting Cupids on the ceiling, was to his mind monstrously indecorous. It was amusing to see the dignified way in which he took the pleasantries of the party; and he made no response to Sir Robert's farewell overture except a bow. "Your guest is a very entertaining man," he said ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... is exceedingly destructive to young people, even when considered aside from all undue excitements, indecorous habits, and improprieties. The custom of late hours, night air, and the vitiated air of apartments where companies assemble together, with the liability to contract colds by being detained in draughts, or from want of sufficient protection while returning from social assemblies; all these ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... allegedly blasphemous satire in A Tale of a Tub, published and misunderstood early in his career, critically affected, even by his own admission, his employment in the Church. It is this evil character of the author, the priest with an indecorous and politically suspect humor, that offended some contemporary readers. To them, the engraved frontispiece of Jonathan Smedley's scurrilous Gulliveriana (1728) is the proper image of the author of the Travels. ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... who raised them; not because it is an ill-natured thing of itself to say of a family that they have household worship, but the ill-nature consisted in their intending to throw out a sneer and a sarcasm upon a subject where all such reflections are unbecoming and indecorous. It is one of the best proofs of change of habits and associations on this matter, that the anecdote, exquisite as it is for our purpose, will hardly be understood by many of our young friends, or, at least, happily has lost much of its force ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Walter's fate. For aught they knew some accident might have happened to the boy; but, instead of making a serious effort to find out what had become of him, his mother found it easier to accuse him of indecorous conduct ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... conscience, it envenoms them. The best means of curing them is not to see them. To punish by the pangs of hunger simple and venial errors, would be an opprobrium to legislation—a horror in morals. The legislator leaves to God the care of avenging his own glory, if he believe it violated by an indecorous worship. Would you, in the name of tolerance, again create an inquisition which would not have, like the other, the excuse of fanaticism? What, gentlemen, would you transform into arbitrary proscribers the founders of liberty? You will judge, you will exile, you will imprison, en masse, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... least disconcerted by these violent replies, Dubuche repeated quietly: 'The public won't understand—the public will think it indecorous—and so it is!' ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the funeral, talking by himself, and now and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought his conduct indecorous, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... another smile, however, for Mr. Edgar Marten; and yet another one for Don Francesco who, as she passed near him, profited by the occasion to give her a paternal semi-proprietary chuck under the chin, accompanying the indecorous movement with an ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up, and leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve o'clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature, too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easily ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the conventional nothings upon our lips, is depressing in the extreme. It may be injudicious, but it is certainly allowable, to look sad when the bank that holds our all suddenly falls; but for a woman to acknowledge in her face that the bank of her affections is broke is most indecorous, and shows a want of proper spirit and proper pride pitiful to witness. She may scream if she is pinched; but neither sign nor cry must show that her ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... of humour, although incapable of receiving the delights which a cultivated mind derives from the gradual developement of a story, the just dependence of its parts upon each other, the minute beauties of language, and the absence of every thing incongruous or indecorous. Dryden, on the other hand, wrote for a stage patronized by a monarch and his courtiers, who were professed judges of dramatic composition; while the rigour of religious prejudice, and perhaps a just ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... heart throbbed heavily as he watched it, just catching glimpses, among the trees, of the white bubble of Valerie's parasol slanting against the sun. Yet there was a dullness in his excitement. It was over, at all events. He was sure that the last die was cast. And his own trivial and somewhat indecorous part, of shifter of scenes and puller of strings, was, he felt sure, a thing put by forever. He could help her no longer. And in a sort of apathy, he sat out there in the sunny green, hardly thinking, hardly wondering, conscious only of a hope that had become a mere physical sense of oppression ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... he would have done the trumpet's call to horse; and his dishevelled grey locks and half-arranged dress, though they showed zeal and haste, such as he would have used when Charles I. called him to attend a council of war, seemed rather indecorous in a pacific drawing-room. He paused at the door of the cabinet, but when the King called on him to advance, came hastily forward, with every feeling of his earlier and later life afloat, and contending in his ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... in scenes finely studied from the domestic interior. How far the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles are to be ascribed to him is doubtful; it is certain that these licentious tales reproduce, with a new skill in narrative prose, the spirit of indecorous mirth in their Italian models. The Petit Jehan de Saintre is certainly the work of Antoine de la Salle; the irony of a realist, endowed with subtlety and grace, conducts the reader through chivalric exaltations ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... power, and assist the brevity of nomenclature; and we gain the convenience of using the second term by itself, when we wish to do so, more naturally. Thus, one may shortly speak of 'The Sagitta' (when one is on a scientific point where 'Swift' would be indecorous!) more easily than one could speak of 'The Stridula,' or 'The Velox,' if we gave the bird either of those epithets. I think this of Sagitta is the most descriptive one could well find; only the reader is always to recollect that arrow-birds must be more heavy in the head ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... Stringstriker. The fiddler for a time received his cuffs very manfully—but they grew intolerable at last. First, his legs were criticised—then his lank withered arms; even his fiddling was disparaged, and he himself pronounced highly indecorous, because he persisted in smoking his pipe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... comic interludes was recognised; and it is needless to say to any one who has ever looked even slightly at the subject that these interludes soon became a regular part of the performance, and exhibited what to modern ideas seems a very indecorous disregard of the respect due to the company in which they found themselves. The great Bible mysteries, no less and no more than the miracle plays of the Virgin[153] and the Saints, show this characteristic throughout, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... amendment, by which they increased the number of the slaves to the tonnage of the vessel. They increased it too, without taking into the account, as had hitherto been done, the extent of the superficies of the vessels, which were to carry them. This was the third indecorous attempt against what were only reasonable and expected proceedings in the present session. But their advantage was of no great duration; for, the very next day, the amendment was rejected on the report by a majority of ninety-five to sixty-nine, in consequence, principally, of the private ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... the court of her grandfather, Ferdinand, King of Naples, who carried bonhomie and familiarity to exaggeration, and lived in the company of peasants and lazzaroni, she had a horror of pretension and conceit. Her child-like physiognomy had a certain playful and rebellious expression; slightly indecorous speech did not displease her. This idol of the aristocracy was simple and jovial, mingling in her conversation Gallic salt and Neapolitan gaiety. In contrast with so many princesses who weary their companions and ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... amity, insomuch, that the inhabitants of a street seem only to compose one family, and are particularly circumspect in their behaviour to females, as it would be reputed exceedingly disgraceful to use any indecorous language to a married woman. The natives are of a most peaceable disposition, and no way addicted to strife or quarrelling, and altogether unused to arms, which they do not even keep in their houses. They are extremely hospitable to foreign merchants, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... Lucy Mowbray, who had just arrived with her brother, bent their steps toward the grove, through which ran a purling stream; and thither they were followed after a little by Miss Martha Wayles and her admirer, Bathurst. We cannot follow them and listen to their conversation—that would be indecorous. But we may be permitted to say that two young ladies—one very young—on that morning plighted their troth to two young gentlemen—one very young. And if they blushed somewhat upon returning, ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... sorrow, that those who are not relatives shed just as many tears as those that are; to which may be added, that in the instances which we saw there was no real occasion for crying at all. It must, therefore, be considered in the light of a ceremony of condolence, which it would be either indecorous or unlucky ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... ourselves to think always with propriety in little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... ready enough to make a Jingalese princess feel at home in their midst. But the whole thing, in view of its local color, was rather precipitate and indecorous; and when the Queen heard of it, and of its special application, from the old match-making Margravine with whom she had shared confidences, she was aghast. "Charlotte," she cried, "whatever ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
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