"Inopportune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when it should be calm, to remind themselves of some anecdote so appropriate that they have forgotten it. It has been supposed that the presence of women at our banquets has occasioned this fatal and inopportune desire to shine; and an argument has been founded on this circumstance in favour of their exclusion from an incident which, on the whole, has a tendency to impair that ideal which they should always study and cherish. It may be urged ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... but little is known of him. Letters found on his person prove his name to be W. Pfeiffer, and his residence Denver. His presence in Miss Moores house at a time so inopportune is unexplained. No such name is on the list of wedding guests, nor was he recognized as one of Miss Moore's friends either by Mr. Jeffrey or by such of her relatives and acquaintances as had the courage to enter the library to ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... archbishops, entreated his Holiness not to submit the dogma of infallibility for consideration, "because the Church has to sustain at present a struggle unknown in former times, against men who oppose religion itself as an institution baneful to human nature, and that it is inopportune to impose upon Catholic nations, led into temptation by so many machinations, more dogmas than the Council of Trent proclaimed." It added that "the definition demanded would furnish fresh arms to the enemies of religion, to excite against the Catholic Church ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... will be found upon an inspection of the Journal of the late Conference of Commissioners, that the undersigned voted against many propositions in themselves just and expressive of their sentiments and yours, because inopportune and useless; and against others, because introduced for the very purpose of sowing dissension among the Commissioners and to prevent an agreement by majority upon any thing. In this they must ask your candid construction of their conduct, looking to the crisis, the occasion, the purpose ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... rather a bad quarter of an hour over the pipe which this sentimental episode had extinguished; but he could not regret, in the face of his new engagement, the finale of a past and now inopportune love-affair. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... less deeply impressed. The arrest and subsequent conviction of her brother was quite a blow. She felt the shame of it keenly, and some of the grief. To her, coming as it did just at a time when the company was being strengthened and she more importantly featured than ever, it was decidedly inopportune, for no one could help connecting ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... already been signalized by divers disasters: the store of loaves in the wagon had been soaked by an inopportune shower; the young mountaineer who had combined the offices of guide and cook was the victim of an accidental discharge of a fowling-piece, receiving a load of bird-shot full in his face. Though his injury was slight, he had returned home, promising to supply his place by ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... any noise whatever. It was one of his amiable peculiarities that he never made any noise, but appeared and disappeared without giving any warning, making himself very agreeable thereby at inopportune moments. He slipped in without a sound, deftly left the door in its previous position, and at once slipped into a chair, or rather took possession of one, by balancing himself on the extreme edge of it, arranging his legs on the lower ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... words half-rose to her lips. She glanced at the distant nurse, who was still busy in the room, glanced at her husband's pale set face, and they died away again. Why detain him now in his haste and trouble? Why rouse his rage against Juan Catheron at this inopportune time? No, she would wait until to-morrow—nothing could be done now; then she would reveal ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... has pervaded the house for the past week. My offers to take Ida's letters to the post, or to go and fetch home the mail, have been met with a hasty negative, and Minna despatched forthwith to attend to them; and whenever I might enter Ida's room, it would appear to be at a most inopportune moment, for the earnest conversation that had been going on between herself and Gabrielle would instantly stop, and their countenances assume a most transparent expression of indifference. Long whispered conversations with mamma were continually ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... very cordially welcomed. Mrs. French said she was afraid a patient would come to hand at an inopportune moment. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of a servant prevented the happy lover from proceeding to extremities upon her lips, "according to the statute in such case made and provided;" and a very excellent statute it is too. Whether the "quashing of proceedings" by the inopportune appearance of the servant was agreeable to either party, I leave to wiser heads ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... a ten-month law," his wife said regretfully. "Of course, I can go out to camp to be with him; but it's not good for Mac. He picks up all the talk of the miners and retails it at inopportune times, and runs wild generally. Archie usually comes home for a day, every two or three weeks; but, this year, he is too far out for that, so I thought it was best for ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... in the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity, which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is understood, if not publicly announced. It is inconceivable that even if the destruction of the cathedral was necessary for strategical reasons the intensity of the Pope's sorrow would be lessened, but a public statement implies blame, which the Pope thinks now is inopportune and inexpedient, hence he refrains from any comment. God's mercy is undoubted; His justice inevitable. Time will show whether the criminal destruction of one of the most famous of the world's cathedrals will remain unpunished. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... Mrs. Petito, "what new turns are here? Well, sir, I shall tell my lady of the metamorphoses that have taken place, though by what magic I can't guess. But, since it seems annoying and inopportune, I shall make my finale, and shall thus leave a verbal P.P.C.—as you are leaving town, it seems, for Buxton so early in the morning. My Lord Colambre, if I see rightly into a millstone, as I hope and believe I do on the present occasion, I have to congratulate your ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... disregard of Bibulus and the signs of the sky, then the Cyprus mission had been invalid also, and Cato's fine performance void. Caesar's grand victories, the news of which was now coming in, made it inopportune to press the matter farther; and just then another subject rose, on which the optimates ran off like ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... upon the Franck family. The rich pupils, who formed the young men's chief clientele, all left Paris, alarmed by the forebodings of the revolution of 1848. Just at this most inopportune moment, Cesar decided to marry. He had been in love for some time with a young actress, the daughter of a well-known tragedienne, Madame Desmousseaux, and did not hesitate to marry in the face of bad times and the opposition of his parents, who strongly objected to his bringing ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... give a ball in her honor at New Tavern. Mrs. Hancock was also in the city, and some fine preparations were made. There was a heated discussion. Some of the more sedate people, who never took part in gayeties, represented that this would be a most inopportune time for such a revel when the country was in the throes of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... were to be concentrated against the President, it became necessary just at this inopportune time to make good the terrible waste in the armies caused by expiration of terms of service and by the bloody campaigns of Grant and Sherman. Volunteering was substantially at an end, and a call for troops would ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... while Mother, Mary, and Betty were turning the House upside down; and in this her Care, she so well succeeded, that, to her Dismay, he bade her take Pen and Ink, and commenced dictating to her as composedly as if they were in Bunhill Fields. This was somewhat inopportune, for every Thing was to seek and to set in Order; and, indeed, Mother soon came in, all of a Heat, and sayd, "I wonder, my Dear, you can keep Nan here, at such idling, when she has her Bed to make, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... even apostolic," said the doctor, with one or two contented and discontented grunts. Eleanor understood them; the content was his own, the discontent referred to the speaker whose words were so inopportune. The doctor rose and left the ground. Mr. Rhys had gone even before him; and Eleanor wondered anew whether this man were indeed shy or not. He was so little seen and heard; yet spoke, when he spoke, with such clearness and self-possession. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... at a moment most inopportune. It was not less her obvious policy than desire—prompted as well by the necessity of escaping the notice and consequent suspicions of those whom she had defrauded of their prey, as by a due sense of that delicate propriety which belonged to her sex, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... their grandeur felt. The high-toned friends of Hartrott emphasized their love for France, but it was the pious love that a weak and mischievous child inspires, needing protection. And they would accompany their affability with all manner of inopportune memories of the wars in which France had been conquered. Everything in Germany—a monument, a railroad station, a simple dining-room device, instantly gave rise to glorious comparisons. "In France, you do not have this," "Of course, you never saw ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Russell met him. Eric felt the meeting inopportune; he was ashamed to meet his friend, ashamed to speak to him, envious of him, and jealous of his better reputation. He wanted to pass him by without notice, but Russell would not suffer this. He came up to him and took his arm affectionately. The slightest allusion to his late disgrace ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... herself and irritable with all around her. In her anxiety to hear about Adam—what message he had sent and whether she could not go to see him—she had barely patience to listen to Mrs. Tucker's roundabout details and lugubrious lamentations, and, choosing a very inopportune moment, she broke out with, "What message has Adam sent, Mrs. Tucker? He's sent a message to me, I'm sure: I know he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... "your saengerfest came at a lamentably inopportune time! I regret to Inform you that old Bannister faces another problem, with regard to Thor, and unless it is solved, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... agitations that George Washington Lafayette, a son of the marquis, arrived in the United States, to claim an asylum at the hands of Washington. He could not have appeared at a more inopportune moment; for political reasons rendered it inexpedient for the president, as such, to receive him; and to place him in his family might cause perplexities, connected with political affairs, prejudicial ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... be better to leave the matter to district commanders, but would support the proclamation as better than inaction. Blair opposed it as likely to be unpopular and lose the Fall election. All this Lincoln had weighed beforehand. But now came a suggestion from Seward, that the immediate time was inopportune, because just after military reverses (McClellan's Peninsula defeat) it would seem like a desperate cry for help,—"our last shriek on the retreat," as Lincoln phrased it. His judgment welcomed this as a wise suggestion, and he put the draft of the proclamation aside and waited for victory. Among ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... looked about him with the anxious manner of a person unused to the gaudy splendor of the modern American house of entertainment. The professor had paused halfway between the door and the marble counter, because he began to fear that he had arrived at an inopportune time, that something unusual was going on. The hurry and bustle ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... danger from the violence of the inhabitants. Corn was brought from Etruria by way of the Tiber: by means of this the people were supported. In such straitened resources they would have been harassed by a most inopportune war, had not a dreadful pestilence attacked the Volscians when on the point of beginning hostilities. The minds of the enemy being so terrified by this calamity, that they felt a certain alarm, even after it had abated the Romans both augmented ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... over to a window and looked out, to hide the tears with which his eyes were filling. In the courtyard below a coach had stopped at one of the doors. Cyrene was entering it. Why was she brought before him just at that moment. This inopportune glimpse of her cancelled all reasoning. With fevered sight he watched her till the coach disappeared, and turning, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... waiting until the new house was almost completed, then getting panicky about the cost. And now Donald, whom she thought safely anchored on the other side of the world, threatening to come home at the most inopportune time and create ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... army than that of Pichegru; and those who were plotting the overthrow of the Consular Government knew that that measure could not be attempted with any chance of success without the assistance of Moreau. The moment was inopportune; but, being initiated in some secrets of the British Cabinet, they knew that the peace was but a truce, and they determined to profit by that truce to effect a reconciliation which might afterwards secure a community of interests. Moreau and Pichegru had not been ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... an explanation, sir. As you have entered at what I can but call such a very inopportune moment, you heard what I was saying—words uttered, need I say, in no malicious spirit, but in a sincere and public-spirited desire to discover the truth. I was accusing and do accuse, no one; I was merely laying before ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... Hymir for his inopportune interference, Thor dealt him a blow with his hammer which knocked him overboard; but Hymir, undismayed, waded ashore, and met the god as he returned to the beach. Hymir then took both whales, his spoil of the sea, upon his back, to carry them to the house; and Thor, wishing also to show his strength, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... would naturally be lower than ours. The main drawbacks in his opinion, however, were the slave-trade, and the power allowed the effete Portuguese of shutting up the country from all except a few convicts of their own nation. The time of his coming was inopportune; the disasters which, from inexperience, had befallen the Mission of the Universities, had a depressing effect on the minds of many at home, and rendered a new attempt unadvisable; though, had the Scotch perseverance and energy ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... of what she would have to say to her aunts in her letter of farewell on leaving them would have to be thought out, too, so that no pursuit or inopportune prying into the truth would be ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... of February, Mr. Sherman addressed the Senate on the pending concurrent resolution. He approved the principle but doubted the expediency of now reaeffirming it. "I regard it," said he, "as a mere straw in a storm, thrown in at an inopportune moment; the mere assertion of a naked right which has never yet been disputed, and never can be successfully; a mere assertion of a right that we have over and over again asserted. My idea is that the true way ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... year, until such time as a benefice of at least fifty pounds should fall to him; so that he was kept in hope. After this Dunbar tunes forth a song of welcome to "his ain Lord Thesaurair," in which terror at this functionary's inopportune absence—since quarterday we may suppose—is lost in gratulations over his return. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... ways, particularly in the way of cleansing the shores of the land, and carrying off the filth that was constantly poured into the sea there-from; which, Peterkin suggested, was remarkably tidy of it to do. Poor Peterkin could never let slip an opportunity to joke, however inopportune it might be: which at first we found rather a disagreeable propensity, as it often interrupted the flow of very agreeable conversation; and, indeed, I cannot too strongly record my disapprobation of this tendency in general: but we became so used ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... that Mr Aiken's poetry is merely a chemical compound of the 'nineties, Freud and introspective Imperialism; but we do think it is liable to resolve at the most inopportune moments into those elements, and that such moments occur with distressing frequency in the poem called 'The Charnel Rose.' 'Senlin' resists disruption longer. But the same elements are there. They are better but not sufficiently ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... the accomplishment of this object, for the reason that the Psyche was just then the only ship which could by any possibility interfere with the scheme. And in the event of her happening to put in an inopportune appearance on that part of the coast at the critical moment—as she had a knack of doing, in the most unaccountable manner—she was to be decoyed away from the spot by the simple process of dispatching to sea a certain notorious schooner well-known to be in the trade, but which, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... to him with a vague inopportune desire to explain what so evidently did not need explaining. He walked about the room trying ways of putting it, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... A late train to Cairo caused us to arrive near midnight, an inopportune time for first impressions, but the memory of a former visit caused a pleasant anticipation of scenes to be revisited. A week, however, was too short a time in which to cover the ground, but by persistent effort on our ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... mater!" said Arthur kindly. "It's very tiresome of Peggy to disappear at such an inopportune moment, but no harm can have happened to her, you know. It's impossible! As I said before, she has probably some wild prank in her head of which this is a part. I'll give her a lecture when I catch her for spoiling dinner like this, and such an ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... whom we have scarcely spoken. We would refer to the good bourgeois, whom we have seen quitting the group in the Rue de Valois, and making for the Barriere des Sergents at the moment when the street-singer began his collection, and who, it will be remembered, we have since seen at so inopportune a moment in the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... some, but not all, of the Nationalists opposed Canada's participation in the war, taking either the belated colonial view that it was Britain's part to fight the {318} Empire's wars, or the more logical but inopportune view that Canada should not fight in a war when she had had no part in shaping the policy that went before it. They claimed to stand where practically all Canadians had stood a generation before. They forgot that meanwhile the world, and Canada, had ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... deeply affected and stirred by the official atrocities in the Punjab and the manifestly dishonest breach of official declarations on the Khilafat. With the knowledge that India was bleeding at heart, the Government of India should have told His Majesty's ministers that the moment was inopportune for sending the Prince. I venture to submit that it is adding insult to injury to bring the Prince and through his visit to steal honours and further prestige for a Government that deserves to be dismissed with ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... doubt. Application to Herbert's father could not be judiciously made for some months. The earliest period at which, in accordance with old Hatto Heine's agreement, young Onslow might be admitted to the bank, was still distant by four years; and the present moment was thought to be inopportune for applying to him for any act of grace. Let them wait, said papa and mamma Heine,—at any rate till New Year's Day, then ten months distant. Isa quietly said that she would wait till New Year's ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... laughing at their caprices; while they enjoyed the brilliant costumes, and admired the ease and grace of the young actors. Josie was a prominent figure in the plot, as she listened at keyholes, peeped into notes, and popped in and out at all the most inopportune moments, with her nose in the air, her hands in her apron-pockets, and curiosity pervading her little figure from the topmost bow of her jaunty cap to the red heels of her slippers. All went smoothly; and the capricious Marquise, after tormenting the devoted Baron ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... most inopportune moment, just when Joe was head and shoulders out of the water, not more than twenty feet away from the boat, the searchlight ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... probably sell. He was conscious of powers in this way that the social world petted and admired. "What would Jesus do?" He felt that Jesus would never write such a book. The question obtruded on him at the most inopportune times. He became irascible over it. The standard of Jesus for an author was too ideal. Of course, Jesus would use His powers to produce something useful or helpful, or with a purpose. What was he, Jasper Chase, writing this novel for? Why, what nearly every ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... at the Council and then at the Chamber, that Granet would not introduce his question until the next day. Vaudrey had the desired time to prepare himself. In the Budget Committee, where he met Granet, the minister of to-morrow asked him an inopportune question concerning the expenses of the administration. Vaudrey was angered and felt inclined to treat it as a personal question. It now only remained for his adversaries to begin to suspect him! To appear so was even now too much. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... parliament should be based upon population, without regard to any line of separation between Upper and Lower Canada. On this he was defeated, but with rare pertinacity he stuck to his guns, and urged his views upon the Assembly at every opportune and inopportune moment. The Macdonald-Cartier Government opposed the principle of representation by population because it was not in accord with the Union Act. That Act was a distinct bargain between Upper Canada and Lower Canada, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... terror into their enemies), they filled the front ranks of the Isaurians with consternation. But as the troops were pressing forward eagerly to the combat their generals recalled them, thinking it inopportune to enter upon a contest of doubtful issue, when their walls were not far distant, under protection of which the safety of the whole army could be placed on ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... capercailzie and a plume of the royal eagle. Old Hansel was one of the gamekeepers on a large imperial preserve close by, with whom some years previously I had on more than one occasion shared a hard couch under the stunted pines when inopportune night overtook us near the glaciers while in hot pursuit of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Sniping has gone on, of course, and occasionally a regular fusillade, but to us the day on the whole has been peaceful. From 5 a.m. we have been very busy among the Australian wounded, these being the principal sufferers in yesterday's fight, owing, it is said, to their charging with the bayonet at an inopportune moment. Many of their senior officers passed through our hands, and their men, fine, big fellows, ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... King (Louis XIV.), with furious complaints against the Abbe for writing it without her knowledge, and for inflicting upon her such an atrocious injury as to mention this pretended marriage. Her letter and its enclosure reached the King at a very inopportune moment. Just before, he had received a letter, which, taken in connection with this of the Princesse des Ursins, struck a blow at her power of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... weaken in their elusive methods. Of course, they were playing their own game, and had a right to, and it was for their opponents, whom Nelson so well represented, to outwit and trap them into fighting; but as for having any grounds for complaint, it was not only silly, but inopportune, to give expression to having a grievance against the French admirals because they cutely slipped out of his deadly grasp from time to time and made him weary of life! His grievances were easier to establish against the Board of Admiralty, who ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... poetically invoked the House, in its collective unity, as a "Woodman," to "spare that tree" of the Constitution, and to "touch not a single bough," because, among other reasons, "in youth it sheltered" him; and furthermore, because "the time" was "most inopportune;" and, after Mr. Rollins, of Missouri, had made a speech, which he afterward suppressed; Mr. Pendleton closed the debate in an able effort, from his point of view, in which he objected to the passage of the Joint Resolution because "the time is not auspicious;" because, said he, "it is ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... not yet proved; that the efficiency of the blockade was a legal and international question, and that upon the whole it had been considered by Her Majesty's Govt. as efficient, though doubtless many ships had been enabled to run it"; and "that at all events there could not be a more inopportune moment for mooting the question both of the recognition of the South and of the efficiency of the blockade. The time was gone by when such measures could, if ever, have been taken—for every mail brought news of expeditions from the North acting with success upon the South; and every day added ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Ritter's looks alone, and still more, a certain abrupt contradictoriness in his way of speaking, seemed to put Liszt into a state in which he was easily irritated. One evening Liszt was speaking in an impressive tone of the merits of the Jesuits, and Ritter's inopportune smiles appeared to offend him. At table the conversation turned on the Emperor of the French, Louis Napoleon, whose merits Liszt rather summarily insisted that we should acknowledge, whereas we were, on the whole, anything but enthusiastic about the general state of affairs in France. ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... truth, and say yes? Why does an objectlessly lying devil make its inopportune entry into me? Through some misplaced and crooked false shame I answer, "Not at all! not at all! of course a few minutes one way or the other could not make much difference; I was only puzzled to know ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... letter came at a most inopportune time for the Wilson candidacy, and how to meet it was one of the most difficult problems that the Wilson forces had to face. Our enemies were jubilant. They felt that at last they had broken our lines and that we would not be ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... doubt, arranged in his own mind to chloroform the bold Michigan cavalryman, but his wife broke it all up by throwing her arms around him at an inopportune moment, thus pinioning the President of the Confederacy so he could not whip the Union army. And so, like Adam, Jeff lays the whole business to the woman. What would we do without women to lay ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... his seat. He was much agitated too, though doing all that was possible to conceal it. My inopportune arrival was evidently a great and unlooked-for vexation to him. He gave me the only look of passionate displeasure I have ever had from him, as he sat down again; ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... make any trouble o' havin' company; she always appeared so easy and pleasant, and let you set with her while she made her preparations," said Mrs. Hand, with great approval. "Some has such a dreadful way of making you feel inopportune, and you can't always send word you 're comin'. I did have a visit once that's always been a lesson to me; 't was years ago; I don't know ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... This inopportune memory did not trouble her: she was almost grateful to Raymond for giving her the touch of superiority her compatriots clearly felt in her. It was not merely her title and her "situation," but the experiences she had gained through them, that gave her this advantage ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... visited Edinburgh for a score of years, and when at last the Queen of Hearts did come, the citizens were found napping—a sore mortification with which her Majesty deals very gently in her Journal, scarcely alluding to the inopportune accident. In truth only a moiety of early risers—those mostly country folks who had trooped into the town—restless youthful spirits, ardent holiday-makers, who could not find any holiday too long—or gallant devoted innocent Queen-worshippers, sleepless with the thought that the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... so reduced that I had only a dollar or two in my pocket. Therefore the check for fifty dollars that the old gentleman had carefully drawn for me with his quill pen and then had as carefully sanded over was by no means inopportune. I took the shore-car back over the Warren Avenue Bridge, depressed at the thought of leaving the scene of my first acquaintance with the world and at the same time somewhat relieved, in spite of myself, by the consoling thought that I should no longer ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... the last degree tactless, indiscreet, and entirely inopportune. It is a thing unheard-of that occurrences relating to a sovereign reigning at the time should be published ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... with an expressively apologetic gesture,— "Have I come at an inopportune moment? I saw your uncle arrive, and I was extremely anxious to see him on a little confidential matter— I ventured to persuade your servant to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... several weeks before confinement. Davies relates an instance in which there was a copious watery discharge during pregnancy not followed by labor. There is a case mentioned in which an accident and an inopportune dose of ergot at the fifth month of pregnancy were followed by rupture of the amniotic sac, and subsequently a constant flow of watery fluid continued for the remaining three months of pregnancy. The fetus died ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... important Party. Old Friends and New Friends. Gowing is a little annoying; but his friend, Mr. Stillbrook, turns out to be quite amusing. Inopportune arrival of Mr. Perkupp, but he is most kind and ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... the congestion and nervous excitement which occur at the most inopportune moment possible. Man may suffer physical injury, though there are no grounds for the assertions of Pliny that the menstrual blood is so potent for evil that it will, by a mere touch, rust iron, render a tree sterile, make dogs mad, etc., or that ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... thirty-eight years, or a little better than a generation, we are asking the question, "What is the Negro Teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race?" In so brief a period of years it would seem to savor of arrogance to ask a question so seemingly fraught with significance, so inopportune and, too, about a people so recently freed from bondage that they have not yet had the time to grow a generation of teachers. It took England more than a generation to grow an Arnold at Rugby. It took France more than several ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... frequently in the extraction of the most complicated roots, which again, in similar cases, such as "xenoglossy" and psychometry, is one of the eccentricities of human mediumism and is explained by the same cause, namely, the inopportune intervention of the ever fallible intelligence, which, by meddling in the matter, alters the certainties of a subliminal which, when left to itself, never makes a mistake. It is, in fact, quite probable that the horse, being ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... certain rash greatness of idea; traces of veritable conviction, just resolution; veritable and just, though rash. That of admiration for King Friedrich was not intrinsically foolish, in the solitary thoughts of the poor young fellow; nay it was the reverse; though it was highly inopportune in the place where he stood. Nor was the Holstein notion bad; it was generous rather, noble and natural, though, again, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... existing electoral system and presented a powerful argument for Parliamentary Reform. He moved that the petition should be referred to the consideration 'of a committee'; but Pitt, in spite of his own measure on the subject in 1785, was now lukewarm about Reform, and accordingly opposed as 'inopportune' such an inquiry. 'This is not a time,' were his words, 'to make hazardous experiments.' The spirit of anarchy, in his view, was abroad, and Burke's 'Reflections,' had of course increased the panic of the moment. Although Grey pressed the ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... view of Ireland's recent progress, that she could have been permanently exempted from the burdens imposed on the British taxpayer, it will be admitted that the time chosen by Mr. Gladstone for abruptly raising the taxation of Ireland from 14s. 9d. per head to 26s. 7d. was inopportune, not to ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... his door and found a bundle of papers relating to a law case which he was asked to take up. The interruption was too much. He flung the papers on the table with remarks more forcible than complimentary concerning the person who had distracted his attention at such an inopportune moment. In 1863 he was made a professor at Cambridge, where, no longer troubled with the intricacies of land tenure, he published one investigation after another with ceaseless activity, to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... the sincerity with which Germany "passed on" the most important request of England and Russia for a little time to save the peace of Europe, and it strongly suggests the possibility that Count Berchtold's most inopportune absence in Ischl was to be the excuse for the gross discourtesy of refusing to give any extension ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... duty have come at a more inopportune time? I was distracted; and upon leaving the king went at once to seek the Lady Mary where I had left her in the ante-room. She had gone, so I went to her apartments, but could not find her. I went to the queen's salon, but she was not there, and I traversed that ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... spirit, nameless and formless fears seemed to surround and haunt her. Once when she arose in the morning she felt an uncontrollable desire to cry, and frequently thereafter this feeling would seize upon her at the most inopportune times. Mrs. Gerhardt began to note her moods, and one afternoon she resolved ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... as local practice and arrangements go, varies in almost every parish of England more or less; and, I repeat, it is almost impossible to deal with it successfully. We ought not to enter into the subject of the poor laws hastily, or at an inopportune period like the present. It will be better to wait till the country is restored to a state of complete prosperity, and then investigate the subject with a ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... to me a vile pitfall, put right in our pathway, and catching most of us,—all of us,—causing us to tumble in at the most inconvenient opportunities, so that all human life is a jest and a farce, just for the sake of this inopportune death; for I observe it never waits for us to accomplish anything: we may have the salvation of a country in hand, but we are none the less likely to die for that. So that, being a believer, on the whole, in the wisdom and graciousness of Providence, I am convinced that dying is a mistake, and ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... towards themselves. It might be possible, therefore—but you will be the best judge—that the honor now proposed for me might lead to an aggravation of this feeling of dissatisfaction, which arises at the very inopportune moment of the birth ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... was impracticable to discuss anything seriously in the presence of Frau von Greifenstein, for her inopportune interruptions rendered any connected ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... started off again, following an almost untracked path which led us over miasmatic marshes swarming with insects. Our poor legs were attacked by a perfect army of leeches and subjected to a most inopportune and undesirable bleeding. From time to time we were compelled to stop and free ourselves from their tenacious hold. They seemed to prefer European blood to Asiatic and made me suffer more than my escort, perhaps because my skin being ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... governor of Milan, evacuated by the Austrians after the battle of Magenta, a position which he held with great ability. But, disapproving of the government's policy with regard to Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition and the occupation by Piedmont of the kingdom of Naples as inopportune, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... frantic struggles, and agonized cry for help. As if in response to it, the door was suddenly opened, and the tyrant, making the most deprecating gestures and profound bows, entered the room and advanced towards Isabelle, who was at once released by Vallombreuse, with muttered curses at this most inopportune intrusion. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the curse of American social life, among a very considerable class of our people, is "perpendicular drinking''—that is, the pouring down of glass after glass of distilled spirits, mostly adulterated, at all sorts of inopportune times, and largely ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... redeemer. They received him in their city under the pall, with demonstrations of joy and honors as if he were a viceroy, for as such did they regard him; and they assured themselves that with his valor and powerful fleet, they were to deliver India from the inopportune war and the continuous pillaging of the Dutch. But (O human misery!) fortune changed within a few days, and all those hopes were frustrated; it brought the governor to his bed with a mortal burning fever, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English theology, the so-called laborious Catenas. These were the real tasks of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. Keble, on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of Scripture." It was hardly what the practical needs of the time required, and it took away men's ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... if you can state your plea briefly, I will hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you fail to justify the impertinence of this insistence at so inopportune a moment." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... that time," answered Basil, smiling. "I have long given up my official position, my dear Philip, and have been living in a deliberate retirement. I hope I do not come at an inopportune moment." ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... word simple to this. Nature must therefore triumph over art, not by its blind and brutal force as a dynamical power, but in virtue of its form as a moral magnitude; in a word, not as a want, but as an internal necessity. It must not be insufficiency, but the inopportune character of the latter that gives nature her victory; for insufficiency is only a want and a defect, and nothing that results from a want or defect could produce esteem. No doubt in the simplicity resulting from surprise, it ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... better of yourself. I hope, at least, that I have not been so unlucky as to surprise you in one of those inopportune moments." ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... racing gray and bearing the Mercury's silver insignia on his shoulder. The bend of his mouth was firmer, his dark-blue eyes had acquired the steady, all-embracing keenness of Gerard's—the gaze of all those men with whom the inopportune flicker of an eyelid may mean destruction. He was clothed with his virile youth as with a radiant garment, as he smiled across ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Sir George," he said, "for disturbing you at such an inopportune hour. Our business, however, made it necessary for us to reach you with as little ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... imploring procession, even at a respectful distance! My pen is at your service. I prefer to be your historian, your literary maid—half slave, half confidant; for then you will always welcome me. If I were a lover, I might some day be inopportune. That would not ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... moment we were interrupted by a knock at the Master's door. It was most inopportune, for he was on the point of the great disclosure, but common politeness compelled him to answer it, and as the step which we had heard was that of one of the softer-footed sex, he chose to rise from his chair ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... hall she encountered Archie and Doodles. Sir Hugh, who had been altogether at a loss to understand what she had meant by the man out of Warwickshire, followed her into the hall, and became more angry than before at finding that his brother had brought a friend to his house at so very inopportune a moment. The wrath in his face was so plainly expressed that Doodles could perceive it, and wished himself away. The presence also of the spy was not pleasant to the gallant captain. Was the wonderful woman ubiquitous, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... remember the suppressed activity in the State, War, and Navy Departments on a certain very humid night. Nothing leaked out at the time as to the cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly averted at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the departments were all away, the President was at his summer home in the North, and even some of the under-secretaries were out of town. Hasty messages had been sizzling over the wires in cipher and ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... all her life of inopportune arrivals, had Miss Annabel been so truly welcome—or so bitterly resented! Esther turned to her with a heart-sob of relief, the minister walked away without ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... step by step, the programme laid down by Lalor in 1848. One of Lalor's adherents had been a young priest named Croke. By 1887 he had become Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. He had considered the "No Rent" manifesto inopportune; but now formally sanctioned the "Plan of Campaign," and in a violent letter urged that it should be extended to a general refusal to pay taxes. The Plan was also approved by the Roman Catholic Archbishop ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... had lost ground. "I have never heard a Quaker woman," said he, "preach a sermon worth three cents (laughter), and yet I have heard the spirit move them to get up and speak at most improper times and on most inopportune occasions, and have heard them say most improper and impertinent things." In the Methodist Church he did not believe that there were over twenty-five women preachers, so the women were losing ground, and not gaining. Even the woman suffragists, who made so much noise a few years ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... landlady, silenced the master of the puppet-show, and put a speedy and final end to that grave and solemn harangue, of which we have given the reader a sufficient taste already. Nothing indeed could have happened so very inopportune as this accident; the most wanton malice of fortune could not have contrived such another stratagem to confound the poor fellow, while he was so triumphantly descanting on the good morals inculcated by his exhibitions. His mouth was now as effectually ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... cordially, but James fancied she tried to conceal a slight look of annoyance. He saw his visit was inopportune. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... round unwillingly, and with a vague feeling of irritation against this interruption, which seemed to her so inopportune, and in turning round she realized at once that her period of absorption must have lasted a good deal longer than she had had any idea of. She had walked straight across the marshes towards the little hillock on which she stood, but the way by which she ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... River Ourcq, I have been anxious to regain my original position on the left flank of the French Armies. On several occasions I have thought of suggesting this move, but the strategical and tactical situation from day to day has made the proposal inopportune. Now, however, that the position of affairs has become clearly defined, and that the immediate future can be forecasted with some confidence, I wish to press the proposal with all the power and insistence which are at my disposal. The moment ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... and Noble the Chief Secretary for Ireland declared in the House of Commons that 'that conviction was the most important one at the Commission'—thus prejudicing my case, I will not say willingly; but the observation was, at least, inopportune, and for me unfortunate. ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... the ordinary events of life, but he wishes now that he had taken the honorable step. If he only understood the turns and tricks of fashionable life. He has been in wilds and deserts so long, that he has a curious nervous dread of blunders or those inopportune ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... history had a more inopportune moment been chosen for such crying illegalities. For close upon the heels of the demonstrations and unrest which they evoked, came the dramatic events of the Balkan War, the crushing victories of the allies, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... determined, in view of the frightened expression in the new-comer's eyes, to forgive his inopportune enlistment. At her cordial words of welcome the alarm spread from his wide eyes to his trembling lips, and Teacher turned to the relatives to ask: ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... got as far as the library door on his way to the station, when he suddenly remembered the news with which he was fraught when he entered the poor bishop's bedroom. He had found the moment so inopportune for any mundane tidings, that he had repressed the words which were on his tongue, and immediately afterwards all recollection of the circumstance was for the time banished by the scene ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... we cry thee Ave! At such a time, when hearts with love are filled, It seems inopportune for us to build ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... to attend as witnesses against you, and that it was not worth their while to lose valuable time merely for the pleasure of seeing you hung. However, all this is beside the question. What I was saying was, it is a pity you did not say to me frankly: 'Your presence here is inopportune; but if you will stand apart if any unexpected affair takes place, you will get say two thousand crowns out of the twenty-five thousand my friends are going to capture.' Had you done that, you see, things might ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... as Charles Sumner presented them, if at all, under protest. A petition from Massachusetts, with the name of Lydia Maria Child at the head, was presented by the great Senator under protest as "most inopportune!" As if there could be a more fitting time for action than ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Folly Bay later in the afternoon, poorer by many dollars paid for rotten salmon. He wasn't in a particularly genial mood. The Sam Kaye affair had come at an inopportune moment. He didn't care to stand out as a bruiser. Still, he asked himself irritably, why should he care because Nelly Abbott and Betty Gower had seen him using his fists? He was perfectly justified. Indeed, he knew very well he could have done nothing else. The trailers had ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Acquet de Ferolles. The latter's denunciations had borne fruit; the Marquise was represented as having tried "to get rid of her son-in-law by poisoning his drink." And the old story of the bottles of wine sent to Abbe Clarisse and of his inopportune death were revived; all the unpleasant rumours that had formerly circulated around Donnay were amplified, made grosser, and elevated to the position of accomplished facts. It was decided that poison "was a weapon familiar to the Marquise of Combray," and as, after ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Galbraith, Roger, and Howard Snelling were all detained in New York, it was Bob who brought the party home. In the meantime no opportunity had presented itself for broaching to the financier the subject of Willie's invention. The interval during the funeral rites was too inopportune, and Robert Morton had lacked both the inclination and the courage to break in upon such an occasion with an affair so sordid and unpleasant. He had hoped that during the return to the Cape some chance for a talk with the capitalist would be afforded him. But now there was ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... sin in the eyes of a shipowner. No man will knowingly entrust his property to the care of another who, even only occasionally, permits himself to take too much liquor, because he can never know just when that overdose may be taken. He is always ready to believe that it may be imbibed at the most inopportune moment, and that the master of his ship may be under its influence at the precise instant when the safety of the ship, crew, and cargo demand his utmost vigilance and most intelligent resource. And although you may imagine that what ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... protested Ramblethorne. "Corpses have a nasty way of turning up at inopportune moments. These youngsters are worth more ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She has a moustache, anyhow!' said this Galileo when his ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... he unfolded a long, small parcel; it contained a riding-whip. "I am afraid the moment is inopportune," he said; "and yet she will need it. Who knows but she'll accept ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... the cash, not only was each willing to pay but to pay more than the other. Yet the Albanian is most mindful of tradition, and he is aware that his approach to the Slav in the Middle Ages was blocked by the inopportune arrival of the Turks; it is in the nature of man that the Albanian was more impressed by the brilliant young States of the early princes, with that barbarically sumptuous residence at Scutari (the Catholics of Scutari also being in the diocese of Antivari, which was under Serb domination) ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... numbers, as in a political election, or to tough fibre, as in a tropical climate. Of course a form of being that circumstances make impossible or hopelessly laborious had better dive under and cease for the moment to be; but the circumstances that render it inopportune do not render it essentially inferior. Circumstances have no power of that kind; and perhaps the worst incident in the popular acceptance of evolution has been a certain brutality thereby introduced into moral judgment, an abdication of human ideals, a mocking indifference ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Zara, in order to visit the city of Kara Hissar, and the neighboring Lidjissy mines, which had been pioneered by the Genoese explorers, and were now being worked by a party of Englishmen. This divergence on to unbeaten paths was made at a very inopportune season; for the rainy spell set in, which lasted, with scarcely any intermission, for over a fortnight. At the base of Kosse Dagh, which stands upon the watershed between the two largest rivers of Asia Minor, the Kizil Irmak and Yeshil ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... conscious that his lack of response seemed both sullen and awkward, but he was for the moment tongue-tied. His habit of inopportune self-analysis had once more asserted itself. He could not understand the curious nature of his mistrust of this woman, nor could he understand the pleasure which her suggestion gave him. He wanted to refuse, ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the two men left the room. I waited until certain they were safely out of the way. I was perplexed, hurt, by the girl's words and action. What cause had I given her for treating me with such open contempt? Surely not my avowal of love, however inopportune that might have been, nor my holding her prisoner. Could something have occurred of which I knew nothing? Could Le Gaire have poisoned her mind against me with some ingenious lie? It was all too hazy, too improbable, for me to consider seriously—but ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... longer, no, not a day! It seemed so hard that he, of all the world, should have injured the woman who loved him, the woman whom he so devotedly loved in return. He almost hated the innocent baby for its inopportune arrival; but remembering how that poor little creature too must bear the punishment of his crime, he flung the end of his cigar against the stove with a curse, and for one moment—only one bitter, painful moment—found himself ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... property? Could he have been there, then, by appointment, without the father's knowledge? Was this the common case of a clandestine assignation? Could the father have returned to the house unexpectedly, at an inopportune moment, and found his daughter there, closeted with a stranger—perhaps with a man who had already, for sufficient grounds, been forbidden the premises? Such things might be, in this world that we ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... this claim, and went on about a hundred rods further, but, just as he was slanting to the left to return to the crossroad, another man, armed like the first, had suddenly started up with the same inopportune question. Jacques gave him the same answer: "Watching for game." The man had then pointed to the edge of the woods, saying in a threatening manner: "If I have any advice to give you, my young friend, it is to go over there. It will be safer for ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... visits entirely, for fear of Miss Darrell's remarks. To my surprise, I found her tete-a-tete with Uncle Max. She welcomed me with a great show of cordiality; but before I had been five minutes in the room I found out that my visit was inopportune, though Max seemed unfeignedly pleased to see me, and she had repeated his words in almost parrot-like fashion. 'Oh yes, I am so glad to see you, Miss Garston! it is so good of you to call when dear Gladys ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... point, leaving as a somewhat debatable ground, for mutual jealousy, that through which valuable interests must pass, and where they must be transferred. The reason and manner of this division, impolitic and inopportune as it was, and bitterly as Nelson resented it, seem to have been misunderstood. Convinced that he could not endure another winter such as the last, he made a formal application, about the middle of August, 1804, for permission to go home for a while. "I consider the state of my health ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... to me very inopportune to ask about getting away from a country before you get to it," ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning Then if you refrain, he is at you again, For he likes to get value for money. He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare, If ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... make a short speech, as the multitude seemed to demand it. The President was bowing his acknowledgments to the large gathering, when someone, with that bad taste that always crops out at the most inopportune moment, yelled 'Hurrah for Cleveland.' A great many others, with bad taste, laughed. Harrison flushed to his temples, bowed and backed into ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the kegs while Nolan kept watch for inopportune visitors. It was thought inadvisable to unload the camp outfit from the car until the whisky was all removed. The outfit effectually hid what was below—and they were taking no chances. They both breathed freer when the two kegs were in the cellar. Nolan was pleased; too, when Casey came ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... firmly. "Then, of course, its object became plain to me—as indeed to anyone. For ten minutes, perhaps, a wire must be carried from the overhead line to the chestnut-tree. Creake has everything in his favour, but it is just within possibility that the driver of an inopportune train might notice the appendage. What of that? Why, for more than a week he has seen a derelict kite with its yards of trailing string hanging in the tree. A very calculating mind, Mr. Hollyer. It would be interesting to know what ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... regarded her with a certain severity, humbly took up the cards, and began to play again. But instead of this touching example of respect and submission making a grave impression on the onlookers, it provoked a smile of amusement on almost all their faces, and there emanated from some of them inopportune bursts of laughter that were only ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... we left Crowland, and before we had replaced a tire casing that, as usual, collapsed at an inopportune moment, the long English twilight had come to an end. The road to Peterborough, however, is level and straight as an arrow. The right of way was clear and all conditions gave our car opportunity to do its utmost. It was about ten o'clock when we reached the excellent ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... by the lord of Villequier. The poor father was the more cut up at this, as he had arranged a capital marriage for the said son with a young lady of the male branch of Amboise. Now, by this death most piteously inopportune, vanished all the future and advantages of his family, of which he wished to make a great and noble house. With this idea, he had put his other son in a monastery, under the guidance and government of a ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... could Fido have spoken he would have confessed that he indeed was afflicted with fleas,—not with very many fleas, but just enough to interrupt his slumbers and his meditations at the most inopportune moments. And the little boy's guileless impeachment set Fido to feeling creepy-crawly all of a sudden, and without any further ado Fido turned deftly in his tracks, twisted his head back toward his tail, and by means of several well-directed bites and plunges gave ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... of the Duke of York from the command of the army was singularly inopportune, for Sir David Dundas had scarcely been appointed as his successor when a juncture arose specially demanding a combination of energy and experience. The British government, already engaged in the Peninsular war, had at last ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... for me. But I think I understand now why our coming is inopportune. And it's comforting to know that the reason is a ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the strange but not inappropriate inscription, "Begone about your business." The story runs that, many years before, a crusty old bencher had promised the dial-maker to provide a motto for the then new dial. The messenger, however, arrived at an inopportune time, received the above curt dismissal in answer to his request, and conveyed it to his master as the legend to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... inopportune moment, when seduced by his reasoning, I had promised dear Brisquet to run away with him as soon as he could keep a wife comfortably, Puck appeared, followed by ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various |
