"Infelicitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... characteristic of him that, while most great poets have been fertile coiners of new words, his only addition to the language is the ugly "idealism" in the sense of "ideal object." He seems to have strayed from the current vocabulary only in two other cases, both infelicitous—"glode" for "glided," and "blosmy" for "blossomy." He did not, like Keats, look on fine phrases with the eye of a lover. His taste was the conventional taste of the time. Thus he said of Byron's 'Cain', "It is apocalyptic, it is a revelation ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... bald. Fortunately for her, Beauty draws us with a single hair, or she had not netted Calfsfoot. Now what a miserable time he has of it. She is a vixen. You know what fiddle-strings are made of; well, I'm told she supplies her own. But why should I dwell on infelicitous unions of this kind? It was obvious to every rational creature from the first—and to him most concerned—that Mrs. Calfsfoot would fiddle poor C. into a lunatic asylum. And if he be not there yet, depend upon it he's on ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... exerted himself to entertain her in this somewhat confidential fashion she looked occasionally at Madame Merle, who met her eyes with an inattentive smile in which, on this occasion, there was no infelicitous intimation that our heroine appeared to advantage. Madame Merle eventually proposed to the Countess Gemini that they should go into the garden, and the Countess, rising and shaking out her feathers, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... with the infelicitous word 'proudly,' caused Nicholas to flush with mortification. He knew that it was in his aunt's nature to make a brag of that sort; but worse than the brag was the fact that this was the first occasion ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... authority had by no means diminished on that account. But his death now altered the state of things, and the ascendancy of the family of Udaijin became assured. The people in general entertained great fear that infelicitous changes would take place in public affairs, and among these Genji and the Princess Wistaria were the most disturbed ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various |
