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Shameful   Listen
adjective
Shameful  adj.  
1.
Bringing shame or disgrace; injurious to reputation; disgraceful. "His naval preparations were not more surprising than his quick and shameful retreat."
2.
Exciting the feeling of shame in others; indecent; as, a shameful picture; a shameful sight.
Synonyms: Disgraceful; reproachful; indecent; unbecoming; degrading; scandalous; ignominious; infamous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shameful" Quotes from Famous Books



... imaginative persons, especially, the God and beast in man seem to part asunder more than is natural in a well-regulated mind. The Platonic Socrates (for of the real Socrates this may be doubted: compare his public rebuke of Critias for his shameful love of Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorabilia) does not regard the greatest evil of Greek life as a thing not to be spoken of; but it has a ridiculous element (Plato's Symp.), and is a subject for irony, no less than for moral reprobation (compare Plato's ...
— Symposium • Plato

... to act for himself. Of energy he had more than enough, but it was always misplaced. In personal character he was one of the weakest of all the kings of England, and his reign was the worst and most shameful in English history. In the golden days of his father, Edgar the Peaceable, all things had gone exceeding well in the land. There was a strong and well disciplined navy to protect the coasts, and all intending invaders were held in defiance. Edgar did much for ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... unmistakable; he was a lover, and perhaps she, Henrietta Mallett, alone knew the truth. She had suspected a secret, now she knew it; and she had a sense of power, she had a weapon. She imagined herself standing over Aunt Rose, armed with knowledge, no longer afraid; she was involved in a romantic, perhaps a shameful, situation. Aunt Rose was meeting a lover clandestinely in the woods while Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia sat innocently at home, marvelling at Rose's indifference to men, yet rejoicing in her spinsterhood; and Henrietta felt that Rose had wronged her stepsisters ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... dregs remain, Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain; Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes, Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times. 530 No pardon vile obscenity should find, Though wit and art conspire to move your mind; But dulness with obscenity must prove As shameful sure as impotence in love. In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease, Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase: When love was all an easy monarch's care;[21] Seldom at council, never in a war: Jilts ruled the state, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... self, intervened to distract him. He couldn't bear to feel he might be instrumental in bringing upon his pure Herminia the tortures that must be in store for her; he couldn't bear to think his name might be coupled with hers in shameful ways, too base for ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... unites, Admitting the ally to equal rights. Accius, and Ennius lines, thus duly wrought, In their bold Trimeters but rarely sought: Yet scenes o'erloaded with a verse of lead, A mass of heavy numbers on their head, Speak careless haste, neglect in ev'ry part. Or shameful ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... people's ever able to say can teach him different. From first to last you-all could measure Monte's notion of the pulcritoode of a petticoat passenger by the extent to which he lams loose with his whip. Given what he deems is a she-sunburst, he shorely does maltreat the company's live stock shameful. ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... something else to do, than looking out of the windows; in the drawing-room, the uncomfortable stillness of the quarter of an hour before dinner, may, indeed, be alleviated by having something to converse about at the windows: but it is very shameful to spoil a prospect of any kind, by looking at it when we are not ourselves in a state of corporal comfort and mental good-humor, which nobody can be after the labor of the day, and before he has been fed. But the breakfast-room, where we meet the first light of the dewy day, the ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... to a confidential person, which M. de Bressac has thought fit to intercept, and send to us as another proof of the success of the steps he has taken, and for which he hopes we shall give him credit—as to serve us, he adds, he betrays his friend in the most shameful manner, and acts a part in an odious comedy. M. de Bressac trusts that, in return for these good offices, we will deliver up to him those papers, which place him in our absolute dependence, as they might ruin for ever a woman he loves with an adulterous passion. He says that we ought to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... is, in our judgment, as secure as his character. Like the stone which he placed over his father's grave at Lichfield, and which, it is shameful to think, has been removed, it is 'too massy and strong' to be ever much affected by the wind and weather of our literary atmosphere. 'Never,' so he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, 'let criticisms operate upon your face or your mind; it is very rarely that an author is hurt by his ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... allow such a horrible thing!" he cried passionately, and drew her closer to him. "Carmen, I conjure you, I beseech you, not to submit to this shameful custom ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... Gamelin had no gifts as an erotic artist. Nowadays, though he was still short of thirty, these subjects struck him as dating from an immemorial antiquity. He saw in them the degradation wrought by Monarchy, the shameful effects of the corruption of Courts. He blamed himself for having practised so contemptible a style and prostituted his genius to the vile arts of slavery. Now, citizen of a free people, he occupied ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... commanded a French squadron in Canada in 1762, and James Cook was a junior officer on the British squadron which blockaded him in St. John's Harbour. He managed to slip out one night, much to the disgust of Colville, the British Admiral, who commented scathingly on his "shameful flight.") ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... cannot but think if a wife may claim death at her husband's hands, to escape a shameful life, a betrothed wife may claim death at the hands of her betrothed husband, to escape the same fate. John! at this last moment I ask you, have we not long been betrothed to each other in our secret hearts? May I rely on you, as Lady Helena ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... strength of which of these it is that you claim to rule over us. Is it that you are more just than ourselves? Yet the people, who are poorer—have never wronged you for the purposes of plunder; but you, whose wealth would outweight the whole of ours, have wrought many a shameful deed for the sake of gain. If, then, you have no monopoly of justice, can it be on the score of courage that you are warranted to hold your heads so high? If so, what fairer test of courage will you propose than the arbitrament of war—the war just ended? Or do ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... without religion is a slave of the most shameful passions. He tries to prove to the world that man is a brute, in order that he might have the gratification of leading the life of a brute. I ask you, what virtue can that man have who believes that whatever he desires is lawful, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... friendly relations were now disturbed. It was useless for Reinhart to have absolute faith in the honesty of his wife and Christophe. He suspected them in spite of himself. He felt that his suspicions were shameful and absurd, and tried hard not to pay any heed to them, and to leave Christophe and his wife alone together. But he suffered, and his wife ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... knew that she had done the thing that was right, however hard. It was not fitting that she should be his wife; and it was better that he should suffer for the moment than be degraded for all time by association with one so shameful, so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... the embankment. The club did not find out whether this was an intended retreat, or simply the taking of a convenient route to reach home. They put their own construction on it, and the movement was judged to be "a shameful retreat by the enemy." Billy led off in a brave, determined charge up the embankment—Sid shouting, "Hurrah! Glory for us! Those getting the ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... horrible captivity, were pounced upon and overcome in a twinkling. The strait-waistcoats were taken off from the wretched captives languishing in the dungeons; the guardians were invested in these shameful garments, and with triumphant laughter plunged under the Douches. The gates of the prison were flung open, and they marched forth in the blackness ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... must," said Berry, taking the ruins of his correspondence out of my hand. "Perhaps she also taught him to collect stamps. And / or crests. And do you mean to say you've got no chocolates for him? How shameful! I'd better run round and knock up Gunter's. Shall I slip on a coat, or will the ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... were characterized by frankness and good faith. How this effort was received, how the Commissioners were kept waiting, and, while fair promises were held to the ear, how military preparations were pushed forward for the unconstitutional, criminal purpose of coercing States, let the shameful record of that ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... Aphrodite herself was less perfect than the beauty of Psyche, and when the goddess found that men were forsaking her altars in order to worship a mortal maiden, great was her wrath against them and against the princess who, all unwittingly, had wrought her this shameful harm. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... ''Tis shameful that such cruelty can be perpetrated! I shall write to the Governor himself—he is a just and humane man—oh, it is wicked, wicked,' and then she covered her face with her hands ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... people that think themselves wise may be imposed upon! But it is fit that they should take their turn, for I am sure, while they can keep poor girls close in the nursery, they tyrannize over us in a very shameful manner, and fill our imaginations with tales of terrour, only to make us live in quiet subjection, and fancy that we can never be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... Despite the shameful way in which she had behaved to him, Sir Lionel accepted the charge, eventually took his cousin's little girl away from the disagreeable relatives, and put her at Madame de Maluet's, where Mother Ellaline was educated ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... if Mr Cophagus was inclined so to do, that he would be most happy to enter into an arrangement with him. Self-interest will not only change friendship into enmity, in this rascally world, but also turn enmity into friendship. All Mr Pleggit's enormities, and all Mr Cophagus' shameful conduct, were mutually forgotten. In less than ten minutes it was, "My dear Mr Pleggit, and so on," and "My dear ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... with his circle in Warwick Street. And yet to him the attractions of that circle became daily more difficult to resist. And often when he was enduring the purgatory of the Divan, listening to the snarls of St. Barbe over the shameful prosperity of everybody in this world except the snarler, or perhaps went half-price to the pit of Drury Lane with the critical Trenchard, he was, in truth, restless and absent, and his mind was in another place, indulging ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... life-time, Jack," he declared. "It would be shameful to keep him out of it, and, mind you, he wouldn't say he would go until I ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... lots of verse—I have kissed (ah, that stings!) Lips that swore I had cribbed every line that I wrote on them—cribbed— honour bright! Then I loathed her; but now I forgive her; perhaps after all she was right. Yet I swear it was shameful—unwomanly, Bill, sir—to say that I fibbed. Why, the poems were mine, for I bought them in print. Cribbed? of course they were cribbed. Yet I wouldn't say, cribbed from the French—Lady Bathsheba thought it was vulgar— But picked up on the banks of the Don, from the lips of a highly intelligent ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... been so particular about that mending," she thought ruefully. "It was a shameful waste of time to do it at the studio. I was so particular to have everything done up to the last notch that there isn't a single letter to write, or button to sew on, or—or—anything. I simply can't sit down like a tame tabby this first ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther

... refuge—that all things are possible to God. But God cannot do things which are disgraceful, nor does he wish things contrary to his nature; nor, if in accordance with your wickedness you desire something shameful, would God be able to do it; nor must you believe at once that it will be done. For God is the author, not of inordinate desires nor of a nature disordered and confused, but of what is upright and just. For the soul, indeed, he might be able to provide everlasting life; but dead ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... old Phoenician rites were still retained. "This," he says, "was a grove and a sacred enclosure, not situated, as most temples are, in the midst of a city, and of market-places, and of broad streets, but far away from either road or path, on the rocky slopes of Libanus. It was dedicated to a shameful goddess, the goddess Aphrodite. A school of wickedness was this place for all such profligate persons as had ruined their bodies by excessive luxury. The men there were soft and womanish—men no longer; the dignity of their sex they rejected; with impure lust ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... Street into narrow, shameful alleys. Two women with painted faces mocked at him as he went by. From a dark courtyard came a sound of oaths and blows, followed by shrill screams, and, huddled upon a damp door-step, he saw the crook-backed forms of poverty and eld. A strange pity came over him. Were these children ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... it was the universal custom to send women and young girls to whipping-houses, to the hands of the lowest of men,—men vile enough to make this their profession,—there to be subjected to brutal exposure and shameful correction. She had known it before; but hitherto she had never realized it, till she saw the slender form of Rosa almost convulsed with distress. All the honest blood of womanhood, the strong New England blood of liberty, flushed to her cheeks, and throbbed bitterly ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... sibimet ipse imperare, &c. The Etruscan element imparted to this earnestness an especially solemn character. The Roman was no more, like the Greek, unembarrassed at naturalness. He was ashamed of nakedness; verecundia, pudor, were genuinely Roman. Vitam praeferre pudori was shameful. On the contrary, the Greek gave to Greeks a festival in exhibiting the splendor of his naked body, and the inhabitants of Crotona erected a statue to Philip only because he was so perfectly beautiful. ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... suggestive of a shuffle, in the evening. He was at his best when tramping the country roads with a congenial companion or two on a Sunday afternoon. On such occasions he would pour forth a continuous stream of light-hearted talk on everything under the sun—the new board of village trustees, the shameful condition of the village streets, the prospects of a new roof for the railway station. Good-nature was the keynote of his character, but he would frequently sum up a situation or a person with a sly touch of irony or a trenchant ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... met his death in a duel; Karel Fabritius was killed by the explosion of a powder-magazine; Johann Schotel died, brush in hand, of a stroke of apoplexy; Potter died of consumption; Lucas of Leyden was poisoned. So, what with shameful deaths, debauchery, and jealousy, one may say that a great part of the Dutch painters ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... may ask, was it possible that Jonson's noble friend could at all think of trying to use him as a go-between in this shameful manner? Are we not reminded here of the position of thirsty Toby Belch towards the simple Aguecheek, if not even of honest [12] Iago in his dealings with the liberal Rodrigo? Neither in Olivia's uncle, nor in Othello's Ancient is it reckoned a merit to have ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... essentials of our language. As a matter of fact, there was no need for special knowledge in this respect, as the sole problem seemed to be to make the French verses less stiff and stilted which poor Roche had constructed under the shameful control of Lindau, who used to make out that he knew everything better than any one else. The inexhaustible patience with which Truinet proceeded from one change to another in order to satisfy my requirements, even with regard to the musical fitness of the version, won my sympathy for this last ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... is shameful!" says Molly, from within, seeing no chance of escape. Whichever way she rushes can ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... 'every one that come here do be crying out upon the pews; and to be sure, I see the folk sleepin' in them as is shameful!' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spiritual in its values when one ceases to believe in its practical efficacy and comes to think it shameful to traffic with the divine. Prayer beautifully illustrates a point previously noted, how speech oscillates between the expression of feeling and the conveyance of ideas. Beginning in primitive religion as a crude and cheap petition for favors, it becomes ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... low class people and students. Japanese people say it is a shameful thing to go to the Yoshiwara. And, if they go, ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... terrifying hideousness of their head-gear, and that the portrayal of these same fighting fellows was in very truth unseemly, as contrarie to good and peaceable manners, immodest, no thing in the world being more shameful then homicide, and eke lascivious, as alluring folk to cruelty, the which is the worst of all allurements. For to entice to pleasant dalliaunce is ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... really are in need of all your energy. For years I have submitted to your shameful service. I have been at the beck and call of one of the greatest roues and villains in France. Years of such association would somewhat soil any nature. Another thing, my lord, I must tell you, since you and I are settling our last accounts. For years I have endured your miserable King Louis ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... altogether novel, and surprising. You are well paid for your caressing care, And this fine gentleman rewards your love Most handsomely, with zeal that seeks no less Than your dishonour, as has now been proven. I've just surprised him making to your wife The shameful offer of a guilty love. She, somewhat over gentle and discreet, Insisted that the thing should be concealed; But I will not condone such shamelessness, Nor so far wrong you as to ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... bark and bite, For 'tis their nature to. But 'tis a shameful sight to see, when partners of one firm like we, Fall out, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... against the Ministry's wish—the Ministry must find the money. Accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay. They will have to pay the bill for it; they will have to impose taxation, which is always disagreeable, or suggest loans, which, under ordinary circumstances, are shameful. The Ministry is (so to speak) the bread-winner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory, just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... like the wandering talk of an old woman muttering in a corner by the fireside of witches and the like than it is like a truthful account set down by Jeremiah Wilkins. And now that I have written it I see there is nothing to tell. Nothing but the shameful account of my fear of some horror beyond my knowing. And now that it is written I am tempted to destroy—No, I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... than ever!" exclaimed Bressant, who would not dare to entertain a hope until the full depth of his sin had been brought forward for the pure and clear-sighted eyes of his companion to look upon and judge. "When I found out my shameful secret—when I learned what a thing I was, even with no sin of my own to drag me down—I didn't care what crime I committed! A kind of evil intelligence seemed to come to me. I saw that Cornelia ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... taken the wrong way when he had admitted that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him—for shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was intolerable ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... him of her strange, steady gaze when before he pleaded for her love near that same spot, but her hand trembled in his like a fluttering, frightened bird. In a low, eager tone she said, "And can you still truly love me after all the shameful past?" ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... backed him against the wall and proceeded to go thru his pockets, producing the shameful contents—a soiled rag, and two cigarette butts picked up on the street, and a broken pipe, and a watch which had once cost a dollar, but was now out of order, and too badly damaged to be pawned. That was all they had any right to find, so far as Peter knew. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... estates in Louisiana, Mississippi and other States were a national scandal. Benjamin F. Linton, United States Attorney for Western Louisiana, reported to President Andrew Jackson on August 27, 1835, that in seizing possession of Government land in that region "the most shameful frauds, impositions and perjuries had been committed in Louisiana." Sent to investigate, V. M. Garesche, an agent of the Government Land Office, complained that he could get no one to testify. "Is it surprising," he wrote to the Secretary ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... "between you and Boots and myself I've decided that I'm going in for—for whatever any man is going in for—life! Ninette, life to the full and up to the hilt for mine!—not side-stepping anything. . . . Because I—because, Nina, it's shameful for a man to admit to himself that he cannot make good, no matter how thoroughly he's been hammered to the ropes. And so I'm starting out again—not hunting trouble like him of La Mancha—but, like him in this, that ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... With his strength, he might impose her upon his family, and they might treat her as he should dictate, for he was a strong and dominant man. But in their hearts, Protestants, English people, foreigners as they were to her race, even they could not tell themselves honestly that it was not a shameful thing to break such vows as hers, shameful and nothing less. And if, for a moment, he were not there to hold them in his check, she should see it in their faces, and she must hang her head, for she ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... I don't think so. Most probably it's trailing around the Birch Creek Country or lying in some trader's shack on the Lower River. The way they run the mails in here is shameful. No order, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... loss of men, sustained in a skirmish at Bloomingdale; but all the heavy artillery, and a large portion of the baggage, provisions, and military stores, much of which might have been saved had the post at Kipp's bay been properly defended, were unavoidably abandoned. In this shameful day, one colonel, one captain, three subalterns, and ten privates were killed: one lieutenant colonel, one captain, and one hundred and fifty-seven privates ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... through this old Book and call the names is to bring to mind the men who have gone through just such testings and temptings; some with splendid victory, and some with shameful defeat. ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... hands and drooping lid, See Mary sit at rest! Shameful it was her sister did No service ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... kind uncle I have been to you in the days of your youth, and how little you deserved any such thing; for yet, was always a graceless young man, given to wicked courses and bad company, whereby you would have come to a shameful end, had it not been for my care in sending you out of mischief's way. But this is not the cause of my present writing. The bearer, Mr. Timothy Trickle, is a distant relation of yours, being the son of the cousin of your aunt Margery, and is not over and above well as ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... were nice. Could she have married a dozen, she might have settled down, with only occasional regrets concerning those left without in the cold. But to ask her to select only one out of so many "poor dears" was to suggest shameful waste ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... sensible, and good-humored; and, by the helps of a more elevated education, would possess all the accomplishments desirable in the sex. Our schools are in the lowest order: the instructors want instruction; and, through a long, shameful neglect of all the arts and sciences, our common speech is extremely corrupt, and the evidences of a bad taste, both as to thought and language, are visible in all ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... I could meet some of their ships on their way back from Italy," Edmund said. "I warrant that we should obtain a rare booty, with gems of art such as would delight King Alfred, but are thrown away on these barbarians; but I agree with you that 'tis shameful that the coasts of all Europe should be overrun ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... conversation with you the other day, Mr. Peterson. I called to see you in the interests of the men, the men that are working for you—working like galley slaves they are, every man of them. It's shameful to a man that's seen how they've been treated by the nigger drivers that stands over them day and night." He was speaking in a loud voice, with the fluency of a man who is carefully prepared. There was none of the bitterness or the ugliness in his manner that had slipped ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... deathless gods. Once for all in this scandalous and beautiful book, the lying optimism of the preachers receives its crushing blow. "Candide" is the final retort of all sane and generous spirits, full of magnanimity and laughter, to that morbid and shameful propitiation of the destinies which cries "peace when there ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... deepest impulse of the soul. Every detail of the wildest dream of the night is merely a hieroglyph which may be interpreted. Every symptom of disease is a symbol of the heart's desire. In every seeming meaningless lapse of his tongue or his memory a man is unconsciously revealing his most guarded and shameful secret. It is the daring and fantastic attempt, astonishing in the unexpected amount of its success, to work out this Philosophy of the Unconscious which makes the work of ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... baby whose birth had cost that painted poppet's life! So it still lived and howled in unwelcome reminder and perpetuation of that brief but shameful episode. 'Grow dumb like your mother,' she murmured resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry Elkman had left behind him! Ah, how right she had been to suspect ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... these offers are made. Many an educated girl comes from the Old World to find a position as governess or teacher, who is taken up in this manner, and is never heard from again, or is only found in the most wretched condition. It is shameful that the most effective arrangements should not be made for the safety of these helpless beings, who come to these shores with the ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... most touching to hear her say: 'I ought never to complain anymore, now that I have seen the sufferings of that poor nun; her heart is surrounded with a crown of thorns, but she bears it placidly and with a smiling countenance. It is shameful indeed for me to complain, for she had a far heavier burden to bear ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... the cost of human souls. Honest work is a manly thing, and those who do it should be treated like men, and as laborers worthy of their hire. Because we have rendered them helpless to demand their rights is no excuse for denying them. It is cheap, but shameful, and can only teach them that the community can be as dishonest as the veriest ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... ruin and death to the shameful perjury proposed to her by Germany. For this reason Germany has devastated and immersed in blood a peaceful little country. Today she seeks to rob her of honor, her ...
— 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

... should not think much to do that, if I could but reclaim you from this Kind of Life, that is the most shameful and ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... registration of births, deaths, health conditions, school attendance, and other vital matters concerning each individual, and of immense importance to society as a whole, is a confession of social incompetency too shameful for a nation that calls itself civilized. Where there is no adequate registration babies may be easily lost sight of altogether. Children may escape the call to school and child labor be unchecked. ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... in words that were meaningless, disjointed things. It was a soul crying out to its source, a soul struggling towards the throne of Eternal Justice, through a darkness lit only by a sister's love and the gratitude of an eighteen-year-old boy saved from shameful death. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... river went up into the town and the striped fishes bit her heels. Not long after they stopped dancing and Gimbagonan was jealous and she said "Ala, give me the skirt and I will dance next." "Do not say that Gimbagonan, for it is shameful for us," he answered her. Not long after he gave the cloth to Dakandokan of Pakapsowan. She danced with Algaba of Dagala. Not long after they finished dancing and Iwaginan made Aponibolinayen and Balogaygayan dance. He often went ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... long since made up his mind that he was willing to die, if necessary, fighting for his country, his whole soul shrunk with fear and dread from the shameful death, in a shameful cause, with ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... joyously. But when he had followed forbidden trails it had been from the sheer youthful exuberance of life in him and not from weakness. Farrar judged that the heart of the young vagabond was sound, that the desert winds and suns had kept his head washed clean of shameful thoughts. ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... where they are taught what none of them have been taught before—to read and write. In a short time they became expert at their work; they lose their sullen shyness, and their physiognomy becomes comparatively open and cheerful. Their families are relieved from the temptations to theft and other shameful courses which accompany the ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help; and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy life before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... which happened that day, must here take place; first, an order to the whole horse on the left to march to the right, which so discouraged the foot of that wing to see themselves abandoned, that to it may be attributed their shameful behaviour that day; nor were these horse of any advantage to us where they were posted, for the ground was so bad that they could never be brought to engage. Another, of no less consequence, was the mistake of the officer who was sent to reconnoitre the ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... dwell among the tin houses and on the stony hills that will keep the name of Ladysmith fresh and full of meaning in the hearts of our countrymen. Every trench, every mound has its own tale to tell, some of them sad, but not one shameful. Here and there, scattered through the scrub by the river or on the hills of red stones almost red hot in the sun blaze, rise the wooden crosses which mark the graves of British soldiers. Near the iron bridge a considerable granite pyramid records the spot where Dick ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... incident anxious to forego her visit to the astrologer, and return to Whitehall, but her companion declaring this would be a shameful want of spirit, they once more entered a hackney-coach, and requested they might be driven to the lodgings of the learned Doctor Bendo. Their adventures for the evening were unfortunately not yet at an end; for just as they entered Tower Street they saw Henry Brinker, one of the ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... bench, would shake his head and smile, and all the ladies would hide themselves, so that he might not hear their laughter? When the heroic and exceptional young victim leaves the drawing-room, what a deluge of jokes bursts upon his innocent head? What a shower of insults! What is held to be more shameful in France than impotence, than coldness, than the absence of all passion, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... face upon me. "Did you think," she asked in a low, even voice,—"did you think that I would ever set my foot upon that ship,—that ship on the river there? One ship brought me here upon a shameful errand; another shall not take me upon one ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... branches lay across it then—which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposition, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting, regarded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place without seeming polluted ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens

... to it. He had made a mistake when he had admitted that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she shrank from the thought that she would marry him—for shelter. It brought to her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered the haste with which marriages were arranged on the prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost compelled her to yield to him passed away, she reflected ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... the contrary, that at any rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: "and twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually. Let the others make mistakes now!" said they, arguing that our retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series of blunders. "The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this. What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen, who made his mark ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... revenge my brain engendered while, with a looking-glass in my hand, I was groaning over the shameful havoc performed by this audacious priest! At the noise I made my grandmother hastened to my room, and amidst my brother's laughter the kind old woman assured me that the priest would never have been allowed to enter my room if she could have foreseen his intention, and she managed to soothe ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "I bring no food, for that would have been shameful, and men would have said: 'Iberi is a mean man who starves the guests of his house.' But only one half of my wise people shall sit in your huts, Iberi, and the other half will rest with T'lingi of the Akasava, and feed according to law. And behold, chiefs and headmen, ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... that Track Society's as Mr. Barton has begun—I've seen more o' the poor people with going tracking, than all the time I've lived in the parish before. And there'd need be something done among 'em; for the drinking at them Benefit Clubs is shameful. There's hardly a steady man or steady woman either, but ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... I fear, rather flippantly on this topic; but that is only because I dare not trust myself to be serious. I realize as much as any one that the life is a shameful life, and all that sort of thing; but I boil with indignation at the hundred shamefulnesses which these charity-mongers heap upon defenceless girls who, in a weak moment, have sought their protection. If you know anything about the matter, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... his own master as soon as he is able to act; parental authority is scarcely known to him; he has never bent his will to that of any of his kind, or learned the difference between voluntary obedience and a shameful subjection; and the very name of law is unknown to him. To be free, with him, signifies to escape from all the shackles of society. As he delights in this barbarous independence, and would rather perish than sacrifice the least ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... it's shameful," cried Mrs. Copperas, still following up her own indignant meditations, "and after taking such notice of ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope, with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing in their ears, mocking their shameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for the Euthanasy, the rich man's refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions, countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of anything but limitations and unsatisfied desires. They ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... author thereof, and agreed with the delightful Mrs. Pollock that "The Mayor of Casterbridge" was an infinitely better piece of work than "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." As for the American writers, he admitted a shameful ignorance ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... Dick Smithson, I will. But, really, it's shameful the way he's been neglected. He come and ketched me last night sitting on the floor cross-legged, fine-drawing a hole in his dress-vest, and he burst out a-laughing, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... the middle Department are in such a Situation as to afford us too much Reason to be chagrind. We have indeed sufferd no shameful Defeats, but a promising Campaign has however ended ingloriously. To what are we to attribute it? I believe to a miserable Set of General Officers. I mean to make some Exceptions. For the Sake of our Country, my dear Friend, let me ask, Is our Army perpetually to be an ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... were sung, after which there was much drinking, and people danced holding sticks wreathed with vine and ivy leaves. The women who danced were called Bacchanals. The better sort of Greeks at first would not adopt these shameful rites. There were horrid stories of women who refused them going mad and leaping into the sea, and the Bacchanals used to fall upon and ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... despatched with their reply to the King's letter, he was presented with 500, "to buy a jewel to wear, as an honour for being the messenger of so gracious a message." "So great a change was this," says Hyde. Three months before Grenville might have suffered a shameful death if he had been known to have interviewed the King; he was now rewarded for ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... to these interrogatories I answer, No! A thousand times No! Ignorance! A shameful ignorance of the true object and purpose of human life, on the part of these misguided girls, is their only sin. They are well-nigh hopelessly ignorant of the significance, or even the existence, of the great basic truths of evolutionary life. They know not that each age in the series of ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... with considerable suspicion, wondering what new mischief he was hatching. But Tinker looked like a guileless seraph pondering the innocent joys of the Islands of the Blessed, to a degree which made such a suspicion a very shameful thing indeed. Partly reassured, Sir Tancred returned to his brooding: he was angry with himself because he felt helpless in an impasse. On the one hand, he could not bring himself to fly from Dorothy; ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... pleased with them, these see in their sufferings and afflictions nothing but precious merits and the rarest possessions, the value of which no one can estimate. For faith and confidence make precious before God all that which others think most shameful, so that it is written even of death in Psalm cxvi, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." And just as the confidence and faith are better, higher and stronger at this stage than in the first stage, so and to the ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... perception of what had happened. But in his dreams he lived through one quarter of an hour of the day before, over and over and over again, always with the same result, always with the same sense of some unexpected, horrible, shameful catastrophe, that was to lead to his utter humiliation. That was the impression that still remained when at last the morning came, and he finally awoke to the life of another day. Over and over again he went over ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... shameful fears I'm now compelled to feel; I stacked the cards for thirty years And then mussed ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... that might not be. The hero of Troneg spake: "I do it in the hope that if we have a coward on this journey, who through faint-heartedness would run away, that in this stream he may die a shameful death." ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... that I had lost all claim to your love, that you could not forgive me. Yes! I did misjudge you, Madge, I know, but when I looked back upon the past, and all your faithful love for me, I saw you as I had ever seen you, the best of sisters, and then my shameful and ungrateful conduct rose up clearly before me. ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... the words, "My heart suffers beyond expression. I would willingly see it break if I could but save you from a shameful death." (I dared not mention to him my last hope ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... the shameful practice of too many Irish farmers, to wear out their ground with ploughing; while, either through poverty, laziness, or ignorance, they neither took care to manure it as they ought, nor gave time to any part of the land to recover itself; and, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... felt nothing short of shame. But she took him quickly enough. He didn't have to go far along the shameful road. She glanced round at him again, and, knowing what the look must be, he did not meet it. He could fancy well the hurt inquiry leaping into ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... sophistry has palmed upon the public,—it would be a work of supererogation, inasmuch as his 'airy vision' has already been completely 'dissolved' by the breath of that eminent gentleman, well known to us, who has so completely annihilated the wrong which he is so anxious to continue. But the shameful assumption that a writer, universally allowed to be the worst paid artist in creation, should not have—is not entitled to have, by every principle—of courtesy and honour, a sole and undivided right to, and in, his own productions—is so monstrous, that every editor imbued with those ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... shall it be? Ah! I have striven, God knows. I have endured so long that I hoped even to do so to the end. But to-day! Oh! the torment and the outrage: body and soul still bear the stain of it. I thought that my heart and my pride were dead together, but he has stung them again into aching, shameful life. Yesterday I might have spared him, to save my own cold soul from sin; but now it is cold no longer. It burns, it burns and the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... of silence before Joel asked huskily: "But was it like that he should stay with them freely?" For it is a black and shameful thing that a captain should desert his ship. When he had asked the question, he waited in something like fear for the ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... shameful!" then cried the Texican deputies. "A miserable slice of land like Florida to dare to compare itself with Texas, which, instead of being sold, made itself independent, which drove out the Mexicans on the 2nd of March, 1836, which declared itself Federative Republican after the victory ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... The mad king. The subtle-witted courtiers. The sombre-hearted Prince. The Queen-Mother who had loved a jester better than her royal mate, and the fruit of their shameful alliance, the Princess Marigold, a creature woven of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck

... to my virtue even; and the sect of which I am a member refuses her to me; it forbids me to marry an honest girl. The civil laws of to-day, unfortunately founded on canon law, deprive me of the rights of humanity. The Church reduces me to seeking either the pleasures it reproves, or the shameful compensations it condemns; it tries to force me to ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... I had done, the pale face of the carpenter was red as fire; for he had been acting contrary to all his own theories of human equality, and that in a shameful manner. Still, whether convinced or not, he would not give in. He only drove away at his work, which he was utterly destroying. His mouth was closed so tight, he looked as if he had his jaw locked; and his eyes gleamed over the ruined board with a light which ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... life; the same power when conferred upon another, upon his fellow-man, leads to tyranny of every kind. Man has no power whatever unless he has unlimited freedom of action. Suppose that he has been guilty of some irreparable error, from the shameful consequences of which there is no escape; a sordid nature swallows down the disgrace and survives it, the wise man drinks the hemlock and dies. Suppose that the remainder of life is to be one constant struggle with the gout which racks our bones, or with a gnawing ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... two of his knights staid by him, And little did they say; The blind old King talked with his heart, And that was in the fray. Alas! alas! He heard too soon The sounds of shameful flight; "Thank God," he sighed, "Bohemia's blind!"— He ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... bragging. We have no one yet, no men, look where you will. Everywhere—either small fry, nibblers, Hamlets on a small scale, self-absorbed, or darkness and subterranean chaos, or idle babblers and wooden sticks. Or else they are like this: they study themselves to the most shameful detail, and are for ever feeling the pulse of every sensation and reporting to themselves: "That's what I feel, that's what I think." A useful, rational occupation! No, if we only had some sensible men among us, that girl, that delicate soul, would ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... she asserted, and the straight brows went together in a little frown of perplexity. "You don't ask me how I know: I'm going to tell you, Mr. Ford—though it's rather shameful. Three days ago, while we were in Denver, Mr. North came down to the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... how the first floor at 27 had game almost every day, and made-dishes from Mutton's; how the family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby's had left, as usual, after the very first night, the poor little infant blistered all over with bites on its dear little face; how the Miss Leary's were going on shameful with the two young men, actually in their sitting-room, mum, where one of them offered Miss Laura Leary a cigar; how Mrs. Cribb still went cuttin' pounds and pounds of meat off the lodgers' jints, emptying their tea-caddies, actually reading their letters. Sally ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... of mind and character was revealed to the country on the 7th of March, 1850. What a downfall was there! That shameful speech reads worse in 1867 than it did in 1850, and still exerts perverting power over timid and unformed minds. It was the very time for him to have broken finally with the "irreconcilable" faction, who, after having made President Tyler snub Daniel Webster from his dearly ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... had degrading consequences for Dinah, who believed in a revival of his love. The mother, alas, gave way to the mistress with shameful readiness. She felt herself a mere plaything in the man's hands, and at last she confessed ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... who scandalously connived at an abuse of justice by which innocent women were condemned to transportation, though taking measures that the Government should indirectly hear of the transaction. There were shameful abuses in the sale of the office of gaoler, shameful frauds in the collection of taxes, in the Customs, in the ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... of Hector's nobleness, there is a certain amount of big talk about him, he has given us 'to hector'; [Footnote: See Col. Mure, Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. i. p. 350.] while the medieval romances about the siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful traffic out of which his name has passed into the words 'to pander' and 'pandarism.' 'Rodomontade' is from Rodomonte, a hero of Boiardo; who yet, it must be owned, does not bluster and boast, as the word founded on his name seems to imply; adopted by Ariosto, it was by him ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... combat or provokes a headlong flight that seems quite natural. As for the wounds, these are enumerated and described, sung and deplored as so many remarkable phenomena. On the other hand, the most discreditable routs, the most shameful panics are frequent; and the old poet relates them, without condemning them, as ordinary incidents to be ascribed to the gods ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... noised abroad—and it will be noised abroad—and you will become a hero. Imagine the amazement of Paris when it learns that Lia d'Argeles was a virtuous woman, who sacrificed her reputation for the sake of her son—a martyr, whose disgrace was only a shameful falsehood invented by two men of rank to increase the attractions of their gambling-den! It will take the newspapers a month to digest this strange romance. And whom will all this notoriety fall upon? Upon you, my dear sir; and as your millions will lend an additional charm ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... speaking of, when Dom Pedro had only just ascended the throne. Having satisfied his feelings of revenge against the murderers of Ines, a nobler desire filled his heart. He resolved that she who had been so ill-spoken of during her life, and had died such a shameful death, should be acknowledged openly as his wife and queen before his Court and his people. So he assembled all the great nobles and officers, and, laying his hand on the sacred books, swore solemnly that seven years before he had taken Ines de Castro to wife, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... them. "The White Slave Traffic," as Kneeland states, "is thus not only a hideous reality, but a reality almost wholly dependent on the existence of houses of prostitution," and as the authors of The Social Evil state, it is "the most shameful species of business enterprise in ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... despair, That, smooth-tongued traitor, glads my heart indeed! Was it not thou that drove her to this crime, And thou, false King, with thine hypocrisy? She was a noble creature-but ye drew Your nets of shameful treachery too close About her, till, in wild despair, cut off From all escape else, she o'erleaped your snares, And made thy crown, the kingly ornament Of royal heads, to be the awful tool Of her unnatural crime! Ay, wring your hands, But wring them ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... guess from the single fact that John of Padilla, when he rose in defence of municipal liberty in the time of Charles V., drew in one day from the teeming workshops twenty thousand fighting men. He met the usual fate of all Spanish patriots, shameful and cruel death. His palace was razed to the ground. Successive governments, in shifting fever-fits of liberalism and absolutism, have set up and pulled down his statue. But his memory is loved and honored, and the example of this noblest of the comuneros impresses ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... that craven, dread-struck host, One val'rous heart beat keen and high; In that dark hour of shameful flight, One stayed behind to die! Deep gash'd by many a felon blow, He sleeps where fought the vanquish'd van— Of silver'd locks and furrow'd brow, A venerable man. E'en when his thousand warriors fled— Their low-born valour quail'd and gone— He—the meek leader ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... shameful!" she said. "To leave you there alone in the dark wood, tied hand and foot! The boy ought to be served in the ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... a shameful time in returning your documents, but I have been very busy scientifically, and unscientifically in planting. I have been exceedingly interested in the details about the Galapagos Islands. I need not say that I collected blindly, and did not attempt to make ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort—the want of sleep—such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered—God knows what I might do—then give this packet to Ffoulkes—it contains my final instructions—and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... wail in protest; in anger he bids them begone; Bruennhilda, overcome with shame, sinks at his feet. The storm slowly dies away; Bruennhilda rises and pleads her cause—"Is this crime of mine so shameful?—in protecting Siegmund the Volsung I simply followed what I knew to be the dictates of your own innermost heart." At first Wotan will scarcely hear her; gradually he relents. But he cannot go back on his oath, on the sentence he has pronounced; and in the ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... of this afflicted land sat the girl, proud, tender, courageous Yetive. To all Graustark she was its greatest, its most devoted sufferer; upon her the blow fell heaviest. There she sat, merciful and merciless, her slim white hand ready to sign the shameful deed in transfer, ready to sell her kingdom for her love. Beneath her throne, beneath her feet, cowered six souls, possessors of the secret. Of all the people in the world they alone knew the heart of the Princess Yetive, they alone felt with her the weight of the sacrifice. With ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... of the Admiral's house, and summoned him and his brothers before him. Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality even, were poured down on their heads, and Columbus anticipated nothing less than a shameful death. Bobadilla put all three in irons, and shipped ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... that had marred the program, and requested Elmer Cuddeback, Aleck Sands and Penfield Butler to remain after school that she might confer with them concerning some proper form of apology to Colonel Butler. But when she had the three boys alone with her, and referred to the shameful discourtesy with which the donor of the flag had been treated, tears came into her eyes, and her voice trembled to the point of breaking. No one could have helped feeling sorry for her; especially the three boys ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... authentic, for the Professor had seen her so often that he had come to regard her with respectful friendship, the Lady Alicia was not quite an orthodox ghost. She did not come at midnight and wail in distressing fashion over the scene of her sad and shameful death. She seemed to come when and where she listed, whether in the glimpses of the moon or the full sunlight of mid-day. She never passed beyond the limits of the old lodge, and never broke the silence of her coming and goings. None of the present inhabitants of "The Wilderness" ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... close on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life—here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... whose testimony is all the more precious as coming from a Tory celebrity, after having described the shameful reception given by the noble House to Lord Cadurcis, when he presented himself there after the duel, and the atrocious conduct of the stupid populace clamoring against him outside, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... you at least should have the explanation, if for no other reason than to confirm your trust in the stars. Beguiled to wrong by the arguments of a serving woman, the sultana had a son. It is a shameful story, yet do I know that she begot the child out of pure love for me. Hasan was no son of mine. Enough! I have spoken. You ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... think that such foul treachery, such, abominable cruelty would go unpunished?" he said. "Nay, I, one of the most lowly of my King's subjects, have taken upon myself to avenge it. There is no name shameful enough with which to brand your deeds, no punishment severe enough to repay them. But though you cannot be made to suffer as you deserve you shall suffer all that an enemy may honourably inflict. Thus your fate shall be an example to teach others to keep the peace and friendly alliance, ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... all men? Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, sale of my birthright, shameful surrender, ignominious capitulation, acceptance of defeat. I shall decay like a thing that has served its purpose and is done with; I shall change from a man with a future to a man with a past; I shall see in the greasy eyes of all the other ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... course accompanied by a large crowd. Having been admitted into the Salle du Trone, they were received by the Mayor of Paris and M. Jules Ferry. The reply of the latter is not very clear. He certainly said that no shameful peace should be concluded; but whether, as some assert, he assured the officers that no portion of French soil should be ceded is not equally certain. Shortly after this deputation had left, another arrived from the Republican clubs. It is stated that M. Jules Ferry's answer ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... a big girl for your age. I'm astonished that you have no more self-respect, or your mother for you! How is it that she allows you to go about with such short dresses? Why, it is shameful; I am surprised, for your mother seemed to me a sensible sort of a woman. I declare, I never would allow my daughter to expose herself in such a shameless manner, and I certainly will not allow anyone in my employ to do so. ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... exclaimed, her brown eyes flashing with unwonted brilliancy, and the rich color mantling her cheek. "You surely are not taking me to Saratoga on such a shameful ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... whole wretched story of the forged letter and the murder. The last was bound to be confessed, but the young man had hoped against hope that Miss Greeby would be silent regarding Garvington's share in the shameful plot. Wickedly as his cousin had behaved, Lambert did not wish his memory to be smirched and the family honor to be tarnished by a revelation of the little man's true character. He heartily wished that the evil Garvington ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... now feel for thee, Alcmene dearest, Ah, see! it soars far, far beyond the sun, Which even a husband owes thee. Depart, beloved, flee from this thy spouse, And choose between us, either him or me. I suffer with this shameful interchange, The thought to me is all unbearable, That this vain fellow's been received by thee, Whose cold heart thinks he holds a right o'er thee. Oh! might I now to thee, my sweetest light, A being of another sort appear, ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... at your feet! From boyhood I have been chased from every door like a dog without a master; I had to steal or beg every morsel I eat; no one gave me a hand but those who were worse than myself, and who led me further astray. I have led a shameful, miserable life, full of deceit and treachery, and I tremble before any one who knows me; and you hold out a hand to me—you, for whom I have been lying in wait like a brigand, you will save me from myself! Let me kneel before you, and thus receive ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... asked the boys to get in the car!" ordered the fierce voice again; and Myrtle, recalled from another attempt to pass it all off pleasantly, went step by step through the whole shameful story ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... refused them passports. I think this was one of the most gloomy days I had as yet seen. I found the Parliament had almost lost all their spirit, and that I should be obliged to bow my neck under the most shameful and dangerous yoke of slavery, or be reduced to the dire necessity of setting up for tribune of the people, which is the most uncertain and meanest of all posts when it is not ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... prospect of a better parish, in case of greater diligence, set before him by his Bishop, on the music of such a promise, like one bit by a 'tarantula', we should probably soon see him in motion, and serving God, (O shameful!) for the sake of Mammon, as if his torpid body had been animated ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... lust, so lust, which dwells hard by hate, draws after it murder. The king is a traitor to his subjects, the soldier untrue to the chivalry of arms, the friend the betrayer of the friend. Nothing can be blacker than the whole story, and the Bible tells the shameful history in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... chambers in the Temple, made me pay all the fees, and pretended to study. But I soon found that he was leading a wild dissipated life, and was never likely to be good for anything. He got into debt, drew bills upon me, and behaved altogether in a most shameful manner. When I sent for him, and remonstrated with him upon his disgraceful conduct, he told me that I was a miser, that I spent my life in a dog-kennel for the sake of hoarding money, and that I ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... then grown characteristic of Italian parliamentary politics now assumed the most shameful form that I have ever known. The general sentiment of the country was that Crispi should be given dictatorial powers, and one of the Venetian deputies, an ultra-Conservative, coming fresh from an audience with the King, said to me that Crispi ought to be made dictator and that the King had professed ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... with the invisible. To die is also a joy, a joy of submitting to that which is greater than the known, namely, the pure unknown. That is a joy. But to live mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live as an entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious. There is no ignominy in death. There is complete ignominy in an unreplenished, mechanised life. Life indeed may be ignominious, shameful to the soul. But death is never a shame. Death itself, like the illimitable space, is beyond ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... for having played the part of a time server, no regrets for having played the part of a trimmer, no regrets for having played the part of a special pleader, no regrets for having concealed its colors behind its back in shameful silence as to its past history, no regrets for having turned away one of Christ's little ones for whom He died, no regrets for having counseled it, while professing friendship, to go elsewhere. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various

... come to see my son you will be disappointed. He has treated me in a shameful manner. He left home yesterday morning, and I don't know ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... their wonderfulness and their greatness. Try to hear them for the first time, and to bring into remembrance the circumstances in which they were spoken. Here is a man sitting among a handful of His friends, who is within four-and-twenty hours of a shameful death, which to all appearance was the utter annihilation of all His claims and hopes, and He says, 'Trust in God, and trust in Me'! I think that if we had heard that for the first time, we should have understood a little better than some of us do ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... bear him to the throne supreme for food, Even that pollution should not daunt my heart To yield permission for his funeral. For well know I defilement ne'er can rise From man to God. But, old Tiresias, hear! Even wisest spirits have a shameful fall That fairly speak base ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... was only the plunder and burning of a few helpless villages. The fleet and troops returned, however, with little loss. "The truth is," says Tindal, "Lestock was too old and infirm for enterprise, and, as is alleged, was under the shameful direction of a woman he carried along with him; and neither the soldiers nor the sailors seem to have been ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... to thy state'— 'No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee: Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate, Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee; That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee Unto the base bed of some rascal groom, To be thy partner in this shameful doom.' ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... rhythm and rhyme. He is always the master not the servant, the artist not the clumsy craftsman. And this I say not by any means as one likely to pardon poetical shortcomings in consideration of musical merit, for, shameful as the confession may be, a little music goes a long way with me; and what music I do like, is rather of the kind opposite to Moore's facile styles. Yet it is easy, even from the musical view, to exaggerate his facility. ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury



Words linked to "Shameful" :   ignominious, scandalous, black, opprobrious, disgraceful, dishonorable, immoral, shocking, inglorious, shamefulness



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