"Indecorum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... speak in low and broken words. When the silver moonlight seems to be shining upon nothing else than new-made graves. When the sound of revelry from ball-rooms jars upon the heart until it creates deadly sickness; and the glare of lights from places of public amusement seems to be an indecorum like a waltz at a funeral. When a uniform in the street is a reproach and a horror; and the music of the band to which soldiers tramp, sounds like nothing but the "Dead March in Saul." When business is impossible, and idleness an agony. When the old flag is looked up to without pride, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... and tone down the final phrase of this extraordinary outburst, for though in the original it is but an indecorum as compared with that famous passage in the 'Memoirs of Madame Roland' which M. de Sainte-Beuve gracefully describes as 'an immortal act of indecency,' it is yet an indecorum of a sort more tolerable in the French than in the English tongue. If the style is the man, the style is also ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Another favorite indecorum of mine (the bread and cheese was mere mortal infirmity, not moral turpitude) was wading in the pretty river that ran through Lord Clarendon's place, the Grove; the brown, clear, shallow, rapid water was as tempting as a highland brook, and I remember its bright, flashing stream ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and well-developed figure, and as handsome a man as ever I beheld. The style of his beauty, however, though a masculine style, did not at all commend itself to my taste. His countenance—I hardly know how to describe the peculiarity—had an indecorum in it, a kind of rudeness, a hard, coarse, forth-putting freedom of expression, which no degree of external polish could have abated one single jot. Not that it was vulgar. But he had no fineness of nature; ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which mark the manners of the times when it was engraved, but are now generally disused, except in some of the provinces very distant from the capital; sprigs of rosemary were then given to each of the mourners: to appear at a funeral without one, was as great an indecorum as to be without a white handkerchief. This custom might probably originate at a time when the plague depopulated the metropolis, and rosemary was deemed an antidote against contagion. It must be acknowledged that there are also in this print some things which, though ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the stranger, you may consider the mode of this message as bearing the appearance of indecorum. If so, I presume, on reviewing the incidents which to—which enforced it, as the most safe, the only means of sure communication, you will change your opinion. Probably you would not wish finally to decide ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... dullest part of our conventionality is that when a man disguises the secrets of his soul in a play, a novel, a lyric, he is supposed to have helped us and ministered to our deepest needs; but if he speaks directly, in his own voice and person, of these things, he is at once accused of egotism and indecorum. It is not that we dislike sentiment and feeling; we value it as much as any nation; but we think that it must be spoken of symbolically and indirectly. We do not consider a man egotistical, if he will only give himself a feigned name, and write of his experiences in the third person. But if he ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... these two simpler creatures were abashed at the indecorum of suggesting in words the commonplaces of the theatre ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for herself, felt uneasy for Isabella, and after a moment's thought, asked Mr. Allen whether it would not be both proper and kind in her to write to Miss Thorpe, and explain the indecorum of which she must be as insensible as herself; for she considered that Isabella might otherwise perhaps be going to Clifton the next day, in spite of what had passed. Mr. Allen, however, discouraged her from doing any such thing. "You had better leave her alone, my dear; she is old ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... imitation of the unfortunate singer's grimaces and courtesyings, so accurately and quaintly true to the original, that her father roared with laughter; and even the footman (who came in at that moment with the post-bag) rushed out of the room again, and committed the indecorum of echoing his master audibly on the other side of ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... graceful, as it is at Church unbecoming and impertinent. By the way, I must take the Liberty to observe that I did not see any one who is usually so full of Civilities at Church, offer at any such Indecorum during any Part of the Action of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... even put on our red cloth stockings. Thirdly, with respect to hats: he announced his intention of pulling his off to make his bow to the king, although we assured him that it was an act of great indecorum to uncover the head. And then, on the article of dress, a most violent dispute arose: at first, it was intimated that proper dresses should be sent to him and his suite, which would cover their persons (now too indecently exposed) so effectually that they might be fit to be seen by the king; but ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... were woful: Lord Talbot piqued himself on his horse backing down the hall, and not turning its rump towards the King; but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty, that it entered backwards, and at his retreat the spectators clapped, a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew-fair doings. He had twenty demel'es and came out of none creditably. He had taken away the table of the knights of the Bath, and was forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the others in the court of requests. Sir William ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... order of the various courses—soup, boiled beef, raw fish, ducks, roast pork, fowls, pudding, baked fish, roast beef, and mutton. Every thing was well cooked, and I never saw people appear more disposed to do justice to a meal. There was not half the hurry and indecorum that you so often see in an American boat. One thing I observed—and that was, that no one used the left hand for the management of his knife. If any thing annoys me, it is to see persons carve and eat at table with this wretched habit. I always ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various |
