"Ill-timed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... O Latins, we had determined our course of state, and it had been better thus; not to meet in council at such a time as now, with the enemy seated before our walls. We wage an ill-timed war, fellow-citizens, with a divine race, invincible, unbroken in battle, who brook not even when conquered to drop the sword. If you had hope in appeal to Aetolian arms, abandon it; though each man's hope is his own, you discern how narrow a path ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... unexplained and ill-timed merriment clouded over the household horizon even next morning; but Dick was so cheerful and so much at his ease that things ameliorated imperceptibly. The heart of a woman, even when most disapproving, is softened by the man who takes the trouble to make ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... are good in proportion to the sparing use of the sentimental and the general. Some of the smaller epic poems, even of recognized masters, unintentionally produce, by the ill-timed introduction of mythological elements, an impression that is indescribably ludicrous. Such, for instance, is the lament of Ercole Strozzi on Cesare Borgia. We there listen to the complaint of Roma, who had set all her hopes on the Spanish Popes, Calixtus III and Alexander ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... heightened her interest, and she observed him eagerly. Time had added to his corporeal weight since he had acted as her counsel, and enhanced the sober yet genial decorum of his bearing. His slightly pontifical air seemed an assurance against ill-timed levity. His cheeks were still fat and smooth shaven, but, like many of the successful men of Benham, he now wore a chin beard—a thick tuft of hair which in his case tapered so that it bore some resemblance to the beard of a goat, and gave a rough-and-ready ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... answered, as the gift she spurned: "What time, O simple Queen, is this For idle dreams of fancied bliss? Hast thou not sense thy state to know, Engulfed in seas of whelming woe; Sick as I am with grief and pain My lips can scarce a laugh restrain To see thee hail with ill-timed joy A peril mighty to destroy. I mourn for one so fondly blind: What woman of a prudent mind Would welcome, e'en as thou hast done, The lordship of a rival's son, Rejoiced to find her secret foe Empowered, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... by this ill-timed mania, I neglected my studies to compose poems, which certainly can have shown no great promise, to judge by a line of too many feet which became famous among my companions—the beginning of an ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences of his action caused him to relent, and he released his victims just as they were preparing for execution. His leniency was as ill-timed as his previous severity. The nobles could no longer trust him, and their fear was diminished by the weakness which they despised while they profited by it. They retired from Rome and concerted measures for the overthrow of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... struggle, but is bound by a sacred promise. They are horrified, too, by Mr. Wilmarth's sudden death. Violet's heart swells with pity as she sees the pale, tired face and heavy eyes. She would like to fly to his arms with infinite sympathy, but he is never very demonstrative, and now it seems ill-timed. She starts to follow him up-stairs, but Briggs intercepts her,—cook wants to know something, and she has to give a few orders. There seems some difficulty about dessert, and she attends to its ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... could not refrain from a low laugh at the description given of the persons whom they had just seen; but Wilton spoke loud again, in order to cover the somewhat ill-timed merriment of his companion, asking of the person who had replied, "Pray, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... diligent Freneda, the steadfast Las Vargas, and others who join them when the good party are in power. But there sits the hollow-eyed Toledan, with brazen front and deep fire-glance, muttering between his teeth about womanish softness, ill-timed concession, and that women can ride trained steeds, well enough, but are themselves bad masters of the horse, and the like pleasantries, which, in former times, I have been compelled to hear from ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... was to laugh in the face of a man who, old enough to be her father, addressed her in such terms; but one glance at the pale face and burning eyes of the speaker, convinced her that levity would be ill-timed—possibly dangerous. Even the few civil and serious words of discouragement and refusal with which she replied to his ardent protestations, were oil cast upon flame. He threw himself at the young girl's feet, and clasped her knees in passionate ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... previous night came so fresh and vividly over the imagination of the bee-hunter, that, instead of answering the question of the chief, he burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Then, fearful of giving offence, he was about to apologize for a mirth so ill-timed, when the Indian smiled, with a gleam of intelligence on his swarthy face, that seemed to say, "I understand it ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the action of that majority was of a kind eminently calculated to lend strength to the most feeble spirit and courage to the most craven heart. The coarse {163} contempt, the brutal menace which were the distinguishing features of all that ill-timed oratory might well have goaded into resistance men who had been slaves for generations till servility had grown a habit. Yet this contempt and menace were addressed to men trained by harsh experiences ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... guard against admitting facts for their guidance from any quarter whatever, if the purity of the source be not right well established. There is too much at stake just now to permit of our yielding with ill-timed complaisance to any authority without observing this very ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... to say. Gloom darkened the North as a consequence of these unfortunate speeches, for they expressed an optimism which we cannot believe he really felt, and which hurt him in the estimation of the country. "There is no crisis but an artificial one," was one of his ill-timed assurances, and another, "There is nothing going wrong.... There is nothing that really hurts any one." Of his supporters some were discouraged; others were exasperated; and an able but angry partisan even went so far as to write ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... I always did despise those people who are built like sounding boards and have fine acoustic qualities inside their heads—and not much of anything else; but never did I despise them more than at that moment. He sent his grating, raucous, discordant, ill-timed guffaws reverberating off among the precipitous crags, and then he turned from me ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Langley remained silent; the angry word was on his tongue; the contemptuous rejection of what he regarded for the moment as a proposition equally ill-timed and insolent, seemed bursting to his lips; but once more he restrained himself. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly backwards and forwards, deep in thought. Mr. Streatfield was too much overcome by his own agitation to plead his cause further by another word. There was a silence in the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the trouble of a return journey, and for thinking to bring along the bulk of our worldly possessions. Tiring at length of this, he switched to the opposite point of view. He goaded us nearly to madness with his criticisms of our inefficiency, and he mocked repeatedly the groom's ill-timed cry of Liberty. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... your rule in every thing for the rest of your life. Avoid disagreeable things as much as by dexterity you can; but when they are unavoidable, do them with seeming willingness and alacrity. Though this journey is ill-timed for you in many respects, yet, in point of FINANCES, you will be a gainer by it upon the whole; for, depend upon it, they will keep you here till the very last day of the session: and I suppose you have sold your horses, and dismissed ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting to introduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or to collect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish local self-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likely improper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to say stoutly, "Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all the world! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last! I ask ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... man's estate, and should not be ruled with too tight a hand, and exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father's caprices, and rather endeavour to turn them aside by temperate remonstrance than by ill-timed rebellion. This advice was received as such advice usually is. On John Willet it made almost as much impression as on the sign outside the door, while Joe, who took it in the best part, avowed himself more obliged than he could well express, but politely intimated his intention nevertheless ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... and loses much by this heavy pomp of abstract eloquence. So when Johnson wants to say in the eleventh Idler that it is wrong and absurd to let our spirits depend on the weather, he makes his reader laugh or yawn, rather than listen, by the ill-timed elaboration of his phrases: "to call upon the sun for peace and gaiety, or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and the idolatry of folly." So much must ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... may not be ill-timed to mention here, what Captain Krusenstern says as to the scarcity of gunpowder in Kamtschatka, to which Captain King alludes in his account of bear-hunting. It is owing to the deficiency of this article, that the inhabitants are so seldom provided with certain ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... devoted affection and gratitude of his right excellent heart. His figure appeared much less disproportioned than when first we saw him taunted into fury in his mother's hostelry by poor Jack Roupall's ill-timed jests on his deformity: he was much stouter; and the full cavalier dress was better calculated to hide any defects of person, than the tight fitting vests of the bygone Roundheads, who looked to ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... treading down, and of perplexity"—a day of "breaking down the walls and of crying to the mountains." Amidst this general alarm and mourning there were, however, found some whom a wild despair made reckless, and drove to a ghastly and ill-timed merriment. When God by His judgments gave an evident "call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth—behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... temples as he listened to these remarks, poured into his ear by a man of thirty-five, between puffs of his cigar, because there was nobody else to whom he could make them. But they seemed to Fred very ill-mannered and ill-timed. If he had not dreaded making himself absurd, he would gladly have stood forth as the champion of the Sparks, the Wermants, and all the other members of the Blue Band, so that he might give vent to the anger raging in his heart on hearing that odious compliment to Jacqueline. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... want to look out for them," warned Corrigan a little vaguely. He produced the customary cooky. Bobby sat and steamed, and munched and told about the fish he had almost caught. He liked Corrigan because the latter talked to him sensibly, without ill-timed facetiousness, as to an equal. In a moment Duke thrust his muzzle in the door. Bobby looked hastily down. His ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... news of the incident at once created an uproar. Here he was thrown into prison as a disturber of the peace, but in reality that he might be personally secure. The next day the Prince of Orange, after administering to him a severe rebuke for his ill-timed exhibition of pedantry, released him from confinement, and had him conveyed out of the city. "This theologian;" wrote the Prince to Duchess Margaret, "would have done better, methinks, to stay at home; for I suppose he had no especial ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Elsey for a good dog-fight! Can you, Peter?" the Fizzer chuckled, as Peter lay licking his wounds at Happy Dick's feet; but the Quarters, feeling the pleasantry ill-timed, delicately led the conversation to cribbage, and at sun-up next morning Happy Dick "did a get" to his work, with bulging pockets, leaving the Fizzer packing up and declaring that "half a day at the Elsey gave a man a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... is no slight consolation to us, while suffering under alternate reproaches for ill-timed severity, and injudicious praise, to reflect that no very mischievous effects have as yet resulted to the literature of the country, from this imputed misbehaviour on our part. Powerful genius, we are persuaded, will not be repressed even by unjust castigation; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... seems to keep a remarkably good table," said the physician. "There was a haunch to-day, which I really think was the finest haunch I ever met with; but that little move at dinner; it was, to say the least, very ill-timed." ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... now would be in offensively bad taste. Then, too, he began to reason that if Margherita had wished to see him she would have sent for him—all in all, the hour was decidedly unpropitious. He dared not risk his future happiness upon a blundering, ill-timed declaration; therefore he walked onward. But no sooner had he passed the house than a thousand voices urged him to return, in this the hour of the girl's loneliness, and lay his devotion at her feet. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... French army under M. De Jumonville, who fell in the action. Soon after Colonel Fry died suddenly, and the chief command devolved upon Washington. Innis, the commander of the North Carolina troops, was, it is true, placed over his head, but the new commander never took the field. An ill-timed parsimony had occasioned disgust among the soldiers, but Washington remained unshaken. Anticipating that a strong detachment would be sent against him from Fort Duquesne as soon as Jumonville's defeat was known there, he intrenched himself on the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness, however, a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa, and ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... me, ye sons of Greece! with silence hear! And grant your monarch an impartial ear: Awhile your loud, untimely joy suspend, And let your rash, injurious clamours end: Unruly murmurs, or ill-timed applause, Wrong the best speaker, and the justest cause. Nor charge on me, ye Greeks, the dire debate: Know, angry Jove, and all-compelling Fate, With fell Erinnys, urged my wrath that day When from Achilles' arms I forced the prey. What then could I against the will of heaven? Not by myself, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... answer, he was gone. Now he was afraid she might say, with an ill-timed acquiescence, that after all she would have a little walk, and he knew he simply couldn't stand it. By the fire, making an inexorable assault on his senses, the calm, steady beat of her futile talk could be borne. You bore it by listening through a ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... last petticoat assured her that the fugitives were safe. Then did she hesitate for a moment what course to take; but as I assumed my chair beside her, she composedly sat down, and crossing her hands before her, waited for an explanation of this ill-timed visit. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the allied fleet. For some reason this officer considered Tromp, who commanded the Dutch rear, as his personal antagonist, and in order to facilitate the latter's getting into action, he hove-to (stopped) the whole English rear to wait for him. This ill-timed point of honor on Spragge's part seems to have sprung from a promise he had made to the king that he would bring back Tromp alive or dead, or else lose his own life. The stoppage, which recalls the irresponsible and insubordinate action of the junior Dutch flag-officers ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... companion, and persuading myself that it would be useless, and that I was perfectly justified in remaining silent. What vile pusillanimity! why thus respect the presumptuous power of popular errors and opinions, resting upon no foundation. True it is that an ill-timed zeal is always indiscreet, and calculated to irritate rather than convert; but to avow with frankness and modesty what we regard as an important truth, to do it even when we have reason to conclude it will ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... so very ill-timed, but abiding by my invariable rule of never arguing with a man unless I see some way of getting the better of him, I did what he bade me, though I hated dreadfully to leave the spot and its woful mystery, even for so short a time as ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... French were driven back with no great loss, after inflicting considerable damage on the invaders. But though the English reached the east bank of the St Charles they could do no more. Phips wasted his ammunition on a fruitless and ill-timed bombardment, which was answered with much spirit from the cliffs. Meanwhile the musketeers on the bank of the St Charles were unable to advance alone and received no proper supply of stores from the ships. Harassed by the Canadians, wet, cold, and starving, ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... sheltered them.[79] Protestants even spoke of him as a humane and chivalrous enemy.[80] Nevers was considered to have disgraced himself by the number of those whom he enabled to escape.[81] The Nuncio was shocked at their ill-timed generosity. He reported to Rome that the only one who had acted in the spirit of a Christian, and had refrained from mercy, was the King; while the other princes, who pretended to be good Catholics, and to deserve the favour of ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... you as my future wife, I must ask you to believe that it was in the way of neither ill-timed ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... popularity placed within his reach, but casts a pensive, riveted look downwards to the modest flowers which the multitude trample under their feet. If he had a piece likely to succeed, coming out under all advantages, he would damn it by some ill-timed, wilful jest, and lose the favour of the public, to preserve the sense of his personal identity. 'Misfortune,' Shakespear says, 'brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows'; and it makes our thoughts traitors to ourselves.—It is a maxim with many—'Take care of the pence, and the pounds ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... author's style. That style is diffuse and turgid, marked in an eminent degree with the prevailing faults of the sixth century, an age of literary decay, when the language of Cicero and Virgil was falling into its dotage. There is much ill-timed display of irrelevant learning, and a grievous absence of simplicity and directness, in the "Various Epistles". It must be regarded as a misfortune for Theodoric that his maxims of statesmanship, which were assuredly full of manly sense ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... his armpits. The Frenchman ceased to jump and wring his hands, and smiled at him oddly. Mills, in the midst of his trouble, felt an odd sense of outraged propriety. The smile, he reflected, was ill-timed—and he ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... again when JORDAN explained that Father GILLIKAN, though he had been making a speech in the middle of the River Shannon at the moment of his arrest, was primarily in a boat. Even that didn't mend matters, and JORDAN, giving up attempt to understand ill-timed hilarity of House, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... until your Majesty's decisions on the proposals of the council of state, which will be immediately laid before you, is known." At this moment Captain Hess put himself forward beside the king, and said—"Colonel Kalergy; that is not the way in which it becomes you to speak to his Majesty." But to this ill-timed lesson in politeness Kalergy replied sharply—"Draw your head back, sir: you and such as you have brought the king and the country into their present unfortunate circumstances. You ought to be ashamed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... particular pleasure in physical existence, but well simply because he is not a subject for prescriptions. Yet there is no store of vitality, no buoyancy, no superabundant vigor, to resist the strain and pressure to which life puts him. A checked perspiration, a draught of air ill-timed, a crisis of perplexing business or care, and he is down with a bilious attack, or an influenza, and subject to doctors' orders for an indefinite period. And if the case be so with men, how is it with women? How many women have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... interrupt me, Lieutenant Munroe, with these ill-timed remarks, which are merely intended to throw discredit on my character for truth and veracity. I remarked, that I stepped into the uniform of the defunct major-general. To abbreviate the narrative somewhat, I walked through the Austrian lines for three hours, till I had discovered the ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... in store for me by degrees? In any case, my leaving the stage at the present moment could make no difference to us—you in the Highlands, I in London. And do you know, sir, that your request is particularly ill-timed; for, as it happens, I am about to enter into a new dramatic project of which I should probably never have heard but for you. Does that astonish you? Well, here is the story. It appears that you told the Duchess of Wexford that I would give her ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... explanation to offer of "why she would be that cross wid poor Denis O'Meara." Her mother accounted for it by pique at the Carberys' ill-timed gossip about his imaginary courtship of Mary Anne Neligan; and Mrs. Kilfoyle was for a while inclined to the same opinion, until one day by chance she espied in the little old tin box which contained Theresa's treasures, a ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... I should be just the same myself. It does look like a shocking breach of professional honour, and a sad disregard of his interests. If he knew the truth he would see that it was nothing worse than a silly ill-timed boyish joke. However, he never ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... epistles are, then, each of them contains weighty instruction—the first, in reference to ill-timed kindness and liberality towards the teachers of error; the second, concerning the character and conduct of those who love to have the preeminence, and the abhorrence in which they ought to be held by all who love the purity and peace ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... tried to persuade Jane to have the sick child carried on deck, for the sake of the fresh air, but she did not succeed; and not wishing to leave Mrs. Taylor, she took off her hat, and remained some time in the cabin—a piece of good-nature which Mr. Ellsworth seemed to think ill-timed. As they drew near the Highlands, however, she returned to her seat on deck; for the morning was lovely, and she did not wish to lose the scenery. She found Mrs. Hilson ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the middle of June, and determined the fate of the unfortunate bishop; and with it the fate, also, of his nobler companion. To the king, the pope's conduct appeared a defiance; and as a defiance he accepted it. In vain Fisher declared that he had not sought his ill-timed honours, and would not accept them. Neither his ignorance nor his refusal could avail him. Once more he was called upon to submit, with the intimation, that if he refused he must bear the consequences. His reply remained what it had been; and on the 17th of June he was ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... shallow talk, young man!" ordered Ephraim, with so much venom that the other realized his mirth was ill-timed and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... fact that this occurred in a region in which there were no Europeans at all—about three hundred and seventy-five miles from the nearest coast—the doctor and the captain would have assumed that it was an ill-timed joke, which had been perpetrated by some European children who had read the newspapers describing the abduction, or by wards of missions. But it was difficult not to believe their eyes; they had the kite in ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... nobles (szlachta), who deprived him of the control of the mint—then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kings—curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III. from ravaging Lithuania with the Tatars. The utmost ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; he should not have trifled with the feelings of his benefactor, his more than father; those feelings were to him sacred, and should be ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... financial peril we shall see the people combining to sustain the banks of their own locality, rather than, as is the case to-day, hastening to accelerate the ruin of perfectly solvent institutions which, but for their ill-timed fright, might weather the storm. Again I say, there could be no greater element of union and strength than this, which has grown out of our necessities and tribulations. In spite of all the confusion and ruin and bloodshed, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... state his case with consummate power, but who, by an aggressive manner or a too evident contempt for his adversary, or by the over-statement of a good cause, habitually throws the minds of his hearers into an attitude of opposition. There are the many men who, by ill-timed or too frequent levity, lose all credit for their serious qualities, or who by pretentiousness or self-assertion or restless efforts to distinguish themselves, make themselves universally disliked, or who by their egotism or their repetitions or their persistence, or their ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... having shot the mother through the shoulder, she fell struggling between her cubs; these pugnacious brutes immediately commenced fighting, and a couple of shots from the rapid breechloading Sharp rifle settled their ill-timed quarrel. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... caliph then repented, but too late, that he had not taken the advice of his vizier, who, with Mesrour, the calenders and porter, was from his ill-timed curiosity on the point of forfeiting his life. Before they would strike the fatal blow, one of the slaves said to Zobeide, and her sisters: "High, mighty, and adorable mistresses, do you command us to strike off their heads?" "Stay," said Zobeide, "I must examine them first." The ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... give a message to Darya Alexandrovna about the post," said Sergey Ivanovitch reluctantly, feeling the prince's remark to be ill-timed. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the five-cent piece given him by the kind-hearted old Master. But you need not think I am going to tell you every time his popgun goes off, making a Selah of him whenever I want to change the subject. Occasionally he was ill-timed in his artillery practice and ignominiously rebuked, sometimes he was harmlessly playful and nobody minded him, but every now and then he came in so apropos that I am morally certain he gets a hint from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... some man happier than ever man was before." His infatuation did not blind him to the fact that she cared nothing about him, looked on him in the most unpersonal way. But that knowledge seemed only to inflame him the more, to lash him on to the folly of an ill-timed declaration. "I have felt how much you will give—how much you will love—I've felt it from the second time I saw you—perhaps from the first. I've never seen any woman who interested me as you do—who drew me as you do—against ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... neighbouring bee-hive had swarmed, and the new colony, pitching on the window-sill, was making its way into the room when the horrified nurse shut down the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only abstained from her ill-timed interference, the swarm might have settled on my lips, and I should have been endowed with that mellifluous eloquence which, in this country, leads far more surely than worth, capacity, or honest ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... Mr. Hume brought on a motion for the extension of the franchise. Like most of that honourable gentleman's measures, this was as ill-timed as it was well-intended. Sir Joshua Walmsley seconded it. Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Fergus O'Connor, and some other members advocated it, who did not bring any parliamentary or moral influence to its support. Only ninety-six votes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... truce to your ill-timed mirth, Mr. Mareschal; this morning we were not committed publicly, as we now stand committed by your own mad act, when you had a letter in your pocket apprizing you that our ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... SIDO. Thy servant and thy friend. Ah! gentle lady, I deemed this unused scene and ill-timed hour might render solace welcome. He'll not come; Ho crossed the mountains, ere the set of sun, ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... I were able to conform myself to that further fictitious, not to say factitious, standard of taste, according to which, just as,—though a hemorrhage from the nose, howsoever ill-timed, distressing, or even dangerous to the patient, is comic,—one from the lungs is poetical and tragic; and an extravasation of blood about the heart is not inappropriate to the demise of the most romantic civil hero, (who would seem, indeed, capable of escaping an earthly immortality only by means ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but this Convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us, who but this convention will be held responsible for it? and who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... When he saw me stumbling and twisting about, falling now on my side, and now on my knees, toiling to advance a single step, my companion burst into a fit of laughter. I had then neither time nor will to do as he did, and his ill-timed mirth vexed me. At last I caught hold of the stake, bruised and exhausted, and ready to wish there was no such thing as travelling. Sumichrast told us that we had scarcely three hundred feet more to ascend, and shouldered the basket himself. Now that I was a mere spectator, I could ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... was not in the slightest degree beaten. The strategy, therefore, on that occasion was irreproachable. As will be seen, it was in his policy only that he failed. Conde quitted the army at a very ill-timed moment, in our opinion, but that step was taken through considerations which had nothing to do with ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... laughed at, especially when he is merely repeating a boy's pet phrase. Nor will he tamely submit to being chased from stem to stern with shouts of "Shoo! shoo!" Thor felt trebly insulted just then; possibly he believed that "Shoo! shoo!" had something to do with shooies, and the allusion was ill-timed he considered. ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... pin-money, and horses are no part of my agreement." Base, designing wretch!—I beg your pardon, Mr. Idler, the very recital of such mean, ungentleman-like behaviour fires my blood, and lights up a flame within me. But hence, thou worst of monsters, ill-timed Rage! and let me not spoil my cause for ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... with hartshorn, my assistance was so effectual, with the aid of a neighbouring window, that I had the satisfaction of restoring her in a few minutes to her friends, who did all they could, by crowding round her with ill-timed condolements, to prevent her recovery. By this time the rest of the ladies took warning from these little misadventures to retire. Caustic, in his sardonic way, would insist upon it, that they retired to avoid that exposure of defects in beauty, which the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... if paralyzed. There was something terribly uncanny about the laughter. It seemed so ill-timed, so jarring ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... only little cupfuls of blessing. Their gentleness is marred by human infirmity, and sometimes turns to harshness. Their helpfulness at best is impulsive and uncertain, and ofttimes is inopportune and ill-timed. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... in the penitentiary for bribery in San Francisco, Lane signed the petition. This brought a letter of remonstrance from his friend Charles McClatchy, editor and owner of the Sacramento Bee, who felt that such a movement was ill-timed and not in the interest ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... more fervently. His subjects of Babbiano were in a condition approaching open rebellion, resulting from the disquieting rumours that Caesar Borgia was arming at Rome for a decent upon the Duchy, and the continued absence of Gian Maria in such a season, upon a wooing that they deemed ill-timed. A strong party had been formed, and the leaders had nailed upon the Palace gates a proclamation that, unless Gian Maria returned within three days to organise the defence of Babbiano, they would depose him and repair to Aquila to invite his cousin, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... his assent to this bill." Morris, who had taken the highest legal advice on the subject in England, declined to compromise himself, saying: "Consider, gentlemen, in what light you will appear to His Majesty while, instead of contributing towards your own defence, you are entering into an ill-timed controversy concerning the validity of royal instructions which may be delayed to a more convenient time without the least injury to the rights of the people."[169] They would not yield, and told him "that they had rather the French should conquer them ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Modern surgery has lightened the difficulties under which our predecessors approached these operations, but none the less the experience in this campaign fully supports the objections to indiscriminate and ill-timed surgical interference, as accidents have followed both direct ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... the moment in favour of a restored monarchy, the Convention determined that its will must be overpowered by force or thwarted by constitutional forms. Threatened alternately by the Jacobin mob of Paris and by the Royalist middle class, the Government played off one enemy against the other, until an ill-timed effort of the emigrant noblesse gave to the Convention the prestige of a decisive victory over Royalists and foreigners combined. On the 27th of June, 1795, an English fleet landed the flower of the old nobility ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... mirth was certainly ill-timed, shook for some time in a noble effort to control himself, and despairing at length, went into the back place to recover. Sounds of blows indicative of Emma slapping him on the back did not add ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... Toby with a degree of fastidiousness that seemed to me ill-timed, was for picking out the minute particles of tobacco with which the spongy mass was mixed; but against this proceeding I protested, as by such an operation we must have greatly ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... abolition.(8) When the crisis passed and a Democrat was put at the head of the army, while Fremont was left in the relative obscurity of St. Louis, Abolition bitterness became voluble. The Crittenden Resolution was scoffed at as an "ill-timed revival of the policy of conciliation." Threats against the Administration revived, taking the old form of demands for a wholly new Cabinet The keener-sighted Abolitionists had been alarmed by the first message, by what seemed to them its ominous silence as to slavery. Late in July, Emerson said ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... the old ballad tales of Robin Hood, and histories of the Crusaders; very slovenly in diction, and lengthened out by tiresome repetitions; the same things being told in protracted dialogues which had been previously narrated in the historic course. Then there are very ill-timed interruptions, and wearisome disquisitions, just where they should not be. Yet are there passages of perfect excellence, that prove the master-hand of the author. The novel of "Ivanhoe" seems to resemble some of those plays which, though doubtful, are called Shakspeare's, because it ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Aghast at such ill-timed pleasantry, we erupted pellmell into the drive, all frantic by word or deed to distract the terrier from his purpose. Shrieks, curses, and a copy of La Fontaine's Fables were hurled simultaneously and in vain at our favourite, and it was Berry, to whom the fear of further ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the transmigration of souls, having taken the shape of these malignant insects in order to wreak vengeance on their destroyers. He, however, did not seem to relish my interpretation of this very singular event, and, in fact, was inclined to resent what he called my ill-timed jesting; but the story spread, and our poor friend became for some time afterwards the butt and laughing-stock ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... in a manner which, though well-meant, was exceedingly ill-timed and in bad taste. She was kindly-disposed, but had not the faintest trace of that delicate perception of others' feelings, and consideration for them, which constitutes the real difference between Nature's ladies and such as are ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... bewitching way, as did a pretty but slightly passe French actress under similar embarrassing circumstances. She pleads: "What has a woman to do with dates—cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates—new style, old style, precession of the equinox, ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their station and never come? Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in woman's autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of dropping dates in favor of incidents; and an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... that we "turn critics;" but our very bile rises at the ill-timed dedication of this work to the King, as the "first fruits of the combined exertions of a few of your majesty's subjects, educated within the GROSSLY misrepresented UNIVERSITY of LONDON." It is quite unnecessary for us to explain why this Dedication deserves the epithet ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... I deserve it, for my ill-timed truth. Was it for me to prop The ruins of a falling majesty? To place myself beneath the mighty flaw, Thus to be crushed, and pounded into atoms, By its o'erwhelming weight? 'Tis too presuming For subjects to preserve that wilful power, Which courts ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... have had them to cook and eat." On another occasion the noodle again went through the village, and met some people carrying a dead man. "May God aid you, good men!" he exclaimed. "Do you wish me to help you to thresh?" But he got himself well thrashed once more for this ill-timed speech. When he reached home, he howled, "They've felled me to the ground, beaten me, and plucked my beard and hair!" and told of his new mishap. "Ah, noodle!" said his mother, "thou shouldst have said, 'God give ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... grounds of reason and of faith; it knows that the work of a man of letters ought not to be examined like that of a theologian; that a bad interpretation does not condemn a proposition, and that it may injure the weak to see an ill-timed suspicion of heresy thrown upon geniuses of the first rank. In spite of this unjust accusation, M. de Montesquieu was always esteemed, visited, and well received by the greatest and most respectable dignitaries of the Church. Would he ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that he was ever making, he kept him almost always at his table; but one day Jacopo wearied him—as such fellows more often than not do come to weary their friends and patrons with their incessant babbling, so often ill-timed and senseless; babbling, I call it, for reasonable talk it cannot be called, since for the most part there is neither reason nor judgment in such people—and Michelagnolo, who, perchance, had other thoughts in his mind at the time and wished to get rid of him, sent ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... be able to keep my cap straight," said poor Mrs. Millar very literally and meekly, looking a little puzzled by Annie's ill-timed nonsense, and apparent hardness. "I daresay I should pin it, but the pins drag my hair ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... elder Mr. Maule had sufficiently recovered from the perturbation of mind and body into which he had been thrown by the ill-timed and ill-worded proposition of his son to enable him to resume the accustomed tenour of his life, he arrayed himself in his morning winter costume, and went forth in quest of a lady. So much was told some few chapters back, but the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... ill-timed, so disastrous for Ranny in its consequences, Ranny mourned as if it had been in itself an affliction, an irreparable loss. He felt with the most entire sincerity that now that the Humming-bird was dead he would ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... first; for though you never told me why your engagement to her was so abruptly broken off, I could not but think she was in some manner to blame, since I knew you too well, my darling boy, to believe you capable of inconstancy or unkindness. I thought, therefore, that her visit was very ill-timed, and I let her see that my feelings towards ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the mayor and sheriffs in full dress presented themselves at our carriage window, and were about to deliver an address "to please the King;" but I thought such a proceeding ill-timed, and my niece De Nevers told these magnates that we ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... was ill-timed, gentlemen. Seven had the floor, and I confess to finding what I happened to overhear extremely interesting. If he will be good enough ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... wish that any one should sit up with her during the night except Emilie, who was used to her ways. With that true politeness which understands quickly the feelings and wishes of others, Mrs. Somers forbore to make any ill-timed inquiries or officious offers of assistance; but immediately retired, and ordered the attendants to leave the room, that Mad. de Coulanges and her daughter might be at perfect liberty. Early in the morning Mrs. Somers heard somebody ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... length, when I heard the snore which announced Mammy's departure to the land of dreams, I rose as quietly as possible, and descended on a foraging expedition to the pantry. How very nice everything did look! I stood for a moment feasting my eyes with the sight, but oh, ill-timed delay! I had not tasted a single morsel, when a low whisper fell upon my ear, and on turning, I beheld Mammy gazing on me rather fearfully, while at her elbow stood Jane in night-gown and cap, who was violently rubbing her eyes in order to clear away ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... exultation at their triumph. So marked was this exultation in several of his opponents, that Burke, more generous, and more noble, exhorted them to guard against those passions which distort the human mind, and severely censured them for their ill-timed and misplaced joy. He also pointed out to them the great expectations which the nation had aright to expect from them after their manifold declarations, and set before them the difficulty of the task which they had to accomplish. Wise men there were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... should depart with a proper attention to the usages of his meeting. Some of the relatives who had lately appeared, and who were not so conversant with the state of things between the deacon and his divine, complained among themselves that the latter made too many ill-timed allusions to the pecuniary wants of the congregation; and that he had, in particular, almost as much as asked the deacon to make a legacy that would enable those who were to stay behind, to paint the meeting-house, erect a new horse-shed, purchase ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... above him little Gazan looked down and witnessed the stranger bull's discomfiture. Being young, and thinking himself safe above the reach of the heavy male, Gazan screamed an ill-timed insult at their tormentor. Toog looked up. Teeka had halted at a little distance—she would not go far from her balu; that Toog quickly realized and as quickly determined to take advantage of. He saw that the tree in which the young ape squatted was isolated and that Gazan could ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ill-timed foolery," said the Master, sternly; "put the horses into the stable, and interrupt us ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... it was I who wished to speak to you." And then, without pausing to consider how evidently ill-timed the conversation was, Mrs. Rothesay began to talk eagerly about Olive's "coming out," and whether it should be at home or abroad; finally arguing that a ball at Merivale would be best, and entering at large on the question of ball-costume. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... any great degree of danger or fatigue. All but the apex may often be reached in the saddle. The bergschrund with its fragile lip of ice, the crevasse with its treacherous bridges, and the avalanche which an ill-timed footstep starts with overwhelming havoc, do not threaten the explorer of the Western mountains; and ordinarily he passes from height to height—from the base with its wreaths of evergreens to the zone where vegetation is limited to the gnarled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... said this, whereupon he angrily demanded the cause of my ill-timed mirth; and as I detested his hypocrisy, I boldly told him that it ill became him to preach on the enormity of the crime of adultery, after having been guilty of that very offence with his kitchen wench! He turned deadly pale at this unexpected retort, and stammered out—'Then you know ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... and answered, and turned back again. He was not of the composition of those who are balked of answers to their questions by ill-timed interruptions. But the little diversion gave Georgiana an instant's chance to make herself ready to answer like a woman and not like a startled schoolgirl. So that when he repeated, his ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... in his harangue to take in my ill-timed parenthesis, and the color mounted slowly ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... convention did not adopt a platform, but an ill-timed sneer at Harrison furnished just what they needed. He would, a Democratic newspaper said, be more at home in a log cabin drinking cider than living in the White House as President. The Whigs hailed this sneer as an insult to the millions of Americans who then lived, or had once lived, or whose ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... pale as the snow his brother had brought in from outside and which now showered about the victim of the ill-timed jest. ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... come and make experiments on our human visitors; the elder members of the Chimpanzee Family have also been most useful, and have often restrained the young of their household from interrupting my inquiries by ill-timed pleasantries. Only once in the whole course of these scientific labours have I had seriously to complain of my tail being made ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... sentimental voice. "Oh, my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interesting child, grasping his father's cane—"won't I make 'em squeak again!" But we know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legal difficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, the school at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So far we have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture. But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with all the dogged perseverance ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... he had always been the victim of more or less ill-timed humor on the part of the Happy Family, and the victim of hunger-sharpened tempers as well. He had always grumbled and rumbled Dutch profanity when they goaded him too hard, and his amiability had ever expressed itself in juicy pies ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... almost beyond bearing by her ill-timed raillery, 'will you never be serious until you have ruined us and yourself? I tell you this house is not safe for you! It is not safe for me! I cannot bring my men to it, for there is not room for them. If you have any spark of consideration, of ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... premature, and dangerous.' * * * 'It seems now to be admitted that, whatever has any bearing upon that question, must be managed with the utmost consideration; that the peace and order of society must not be endangered by indiscreet and ill-timed efforts to promote emancipation; and that a true regard should be manifested to the feelings and the fears, and even the prejudices of those, whose co-operation is essential.'—[Memorial of the Society to the several States.—A. R. vol. ii. pp. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... himself in his place in the barge, and close to the Sovereign. Raleigh rose to retire, and Tressilian would have been so ill-timed in his courtesy as to offer to relinquish his own place to his friend, had not the acute glance of Raleigh himself, who seemed no in his native element, made him sensible that so ready a disclamation of the royal favour might ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... the influence of these preparations was the little German crank, who strolled from one to the other with a smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. More than once he even went so far as to burst into a shout of laughter, until the chaplain sternly rebuked him for his ill-timed levity. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... French system:—"Distorted, complicated, improbable plots, ill-understood scenic regulations, useless personages, double plots, inconsistent characters, gigantic or childish thoughts, feeble verses, affected phrases, the poetry neither harmonious nor natural; all this decked out with ill-timed descriptions and similes, or idle philosophical and political disquisitions; in every scene some silly amour, with all the trite insipidity of common-place sentimentality; of true tragic energy, of the struggle of conflicting passions, of overpowering ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... details of the infliction of the terrible death, and to listen to the mockeries of people and priests; but reverent awe forbids description of Him who hung there in His long, silent agony. Would that like reticence had checked the ill-timed eloquence of preachers and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... furnishings—witness the multiplicity of looking-glasses!—And then the prospect of this tete-a-tete dinner, the interest of her host's powerful and enigmatic personality, provoked her interest to the point not only of obliterating remembrance of the ill-timed advent of her ex-lover, but of inducing something as closely akin to self-forgetfulness as was possible to her self-centred nature. She grew hotly anxious to obtain, to charm—if it might be, to usurp the whole field of Richard's ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... unhurried, in the midst of a large leisure, with a savory broiled chicken dinner before him,—not exactly before him, either; most of it had been stuffed away. Only the fag-end remained on his plate. A perfectly good meal had been ruined by an ill-timed resistance to temptation. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... discourse applies especially to ship-preaching. Sailors are such odd fellows that they are nowise moved by noise and smoke; but they well know how to value a good aim, and always love and honour a commanding-officer who truly respects their feelings, nor by means of long-winded and ill-timed discourses, or what they irreverently call psalm-singing, interferes too ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army; and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror, inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of Praetorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... they got very vexed, we were delighted, they were disappointed. At last at the end of ten days, they began to unload the vessel. Now! thought we, "what is going to happen, surely they are not going to stay here." Our ill-timed hilarity received a sudden check, for our fears were confirmed, they unloaded the vessel completely, and after ballasting her with sand and shingle, they set sail, and departed. But alas! for us they left ten of their people behind them, who commenced ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... the real test of discipline and deliberate valor. Both centers are holding stoutly. Everything rests on the respective victorious right wings. Either they will foolishly forget that there is still fighting elsewhere on the field, and with ill-timed huzzaing pursue the men they have just routed, make for their camp to plunder it, or worse still, disperse to spoil the slain; or, if they can heed their general's entreaties, keep their ranks, and wheeling around come charging down on the rear of the enemy's center. If ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... his temples as he listened to these remarks, poured into his ear by a man of thirty-five, between puffs of his cigar, because there was nobody else to whom he could make them. But they seemed to Fred very ill- mannered and ill-timed. If he had not dreaded making himself absurd, he would gladly have stood forth as the champion of the Sparks, the Wermants, and all the other members of the Blue Band, so that he might give vent to the anger raging in his heart on hearing that odious compliment to Jacqueline. ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... in Ville-Marie she could not find persons suitable for teachers, she decided on going back to France, to induce the externs of Troyes, her native city, to form a corps of teachers for Canada. She foresaw her return would be considered unwise and ill-timed, but a voice within that would not be silenced, told her that God required her to return. According to the wisdom of the world, it did look badly for a single woman, without means or credit, to recross the ocean for the purpose of inducing others to imitate her wise folly, to renounce ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... Convent cloister is not a hen-yard. Such ill-timed devotion well-nigh merits penance. Rise from thy knees, and go at once ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... she sees herself outwitted by Napoleon, who refuses to cede to her Hanover in perpetuity. Prussia begins the war and calls on Saxony, who always moved in her orbit, to join her. To the Elector of Saxony this war (in 1806) appeared then ill-timed and too late; but with that good faith, nevertheless, which invariably characterized him, he remained faithful to his engagement and furnished his quota of troops to Prussia. The Saxon troops fought nobly at the battle of Jena. This battle annihilates all ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... could listen patiently to his confused speeches about dogs, horses, and the state of the crops, when other conversations were proceeding in which she was really interested; she could receive any little grateful attention that he wished to pay her—no matter how awkward or ill-timed—as she received attentions from any one else, with a manner which showed she considered it as a favour granted to her sex, not as a right ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... vexation and perplexity lately with the affair of the goods in Holland, and I have so many urgent correspondences to keep up, that some of them at times necessarily suffer. I purpose writing fully to you next post. In the meantime I send the enclosed for your meditation. The ill-timed bills, as you justly term them, do us infinite prejudice; but ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... is usually laid with centerpiece and plate doilies these days, and it may not be ill-timed to suggest that every effort be made to have this meal cheery and attractive, for it is, alas, too often suggestive of funeral baked meats and left-over megrims from the night before. If fruit is to be served, followed by a cereal and a meat or other heavier course, each place is provided with a ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... At that ill-timed inquiry, Amelius showed his temper again. He was in a state of nervous irritability which made him apt to take offence, where no offence was intended. "Oh, you needn't be alarmed!" he answered petulantly; "there's no fear of the poor child ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... eternal loveliness! O divinest of deities! O sole mistress of all my thoughts! whose power is felt to be most invincible by those who dare to try to withstand it, forgive the ill-timed obstinacy wherewith I, in my great folly, attempted to ward off from my breast the weapons of thy son, who was then to me an unknown divinity. Now, I repeat, be it done unto me according to thy pleasure, and according to thy promises ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... incur in those seas: they would have to contend with contrary winds, and the disadvantage of short days and thick mists. Santa Cruz did not wish to endanger his fame, the only thing he had earned during a long life, by an ill-timed or very venturous undertaking. He held an invasion of England to be more difficult than most other enterprises, and demanded such preparations as would make the victory certain. While they were being made he died, after having lost his sovereign's favour. ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... yet appear Which had the vantage of the doubtful fray: Nor, without light, could either foe see clear Now to avoid the furious blows; when day Was done, again the courteous cavalier To his illustrious opposite 'gan say; "What shall we do, since ill-timed shades descend, While we with equal fortune ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... devotee, built and repaired several churches which had been greatly injured by the Normans, and Paris began in his reign to assume an appearance of improvement, which continued until it received a check from an ill-timed joke of Philippe the First, who made a satirical remark upon William the Conqueror of England having become rather unwieldy, which so provoked that choleric monarch that he laid waste a great portion of Philippe's dominions; when his progress was checked by his falling from ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... look, but that wasn't a circumstance to her surprise when I proudly took off my little cousin's cap. She uttered a kind of a strangled cry and my cousin's mother came running, and the way she carried on was scandalous and ill-timed. I will draw a veil over the proceedings of the next few minutes. At the time it would have been a source of great personal gratification and comfort to me if I could have drawn a number of veils, good, thick, woolen ones, over the proceedings. My mother wept, my aunt ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... was "Bendigo" Phillips, with boxing-gloves fearfully brandished, appearing in the attitude in which he polished off young Thurlow of the R.A., under the pretence of giving him a lesson in the noble art of self-defence, but in reality to revenge himself upon him for an ill-timed interference in a certain affaire du coeur. The agony of young Thurlow, pretending to look pleased, was depicted by a very successful stroke of Art. To the extreme right you might have beheld Vegetable Warren, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... his despatch Nicias peevishly complains of the exacting temper of the Athenians, and their readiness to blame anyone but themselves if anything untoward occurred. Whatever may be the truth of the general charge, it was most ill-timed and ungrateful in his own case. Towards him, at least, the conduct of his fellow- citizens was marked by an excess of generosity, amounting to actual infatuation. Nothing is more remarkable than the unshaken confidence of the Athenians in their feeble general, after hearing this terrible ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... alcalde," spoke out Don Juan, disgusted with this ill-timed pleasantry, "a proof that there has been a forced entry into the chamber is this broken glass of the window, of which you see some pieces still lying on ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... not think the exercise of a little paternal authority would accelerate the accomplishment of your wishes? I hope you will pardon me if the suggestion is ill-timed or out of taste; it is made in accordance with a declaration to that effect you will remember to have made to me a short time previous to your ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison |
