"Discourteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... power to take from its numbers, so far as ordinary members are concerned, but it is considered discourteous to ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... was not discourteous in manner, but was so far from gallant that Kate felt a new and inconsistent resentment. Before she could say anything he added, "And I hope you will remember, whatever may happen, that I did my best to avoid staying here longer ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... went by, and I wrote asking for another book, and this time came Richard Rolle to my acquaintance—a little dried-up hermit, a holy man too, though I noticed how very discourteous he was to women; severe, critical, and suspicious, merely because they were women. How often I noticed this peculiarity, both in the monks of to-day with their averted eyes, as if the shadow of a woman falling on them were pollution, and long ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... went on board, and I wished that we might go. Yet the king had bidden me stay, and I had no reason for what would be discourteous at least, if it did not look like flight. What the trouble was we could ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... your mysterious letter. It has more than surprised, it has really alarmed me. After having made the friendliest advances to you on my side, I find myself suddenly shut out from your confidence in the most unintelligible, and, I must add, the most discourteous manner. It is quite impossible that I can allow the matter to rest where you have left it. The only conclusion I can draw from your letter is that my confidence must have been abused in some way, and that you know a great deal more than you are willing ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Disconsolate cxagrenega. Discontented malkontenta. Discontinuance interrompo. Discord malpaco. Discord (music) malakordo. Discordant malpaca, malakordo. Discount diskonto. Discourage senkuragxigi. Discouragement senkuragxeco. Discourse parolado. Discourteous malgxentila. Discover eltrovi. Discovery eltrovo. Discredit senkreditigi. Discreet diskreta. Discretion singardemo, diskreto. Discriminate distingi. Discursive tro skribema. Discuss diskuti. Discussion diskutado. Disdain malsxati. Disease malsano—ego. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... for some weeks, they saw less of each other. Without knowing it, Barbara had, since the revelation of Alice, grown a little shy of Richard. It came of her truthfulness, mainly. As Dante felt ashamed of the discourteous advantage of alone possessing eyesight in the presence of the poor souls upon the second cornice of the purgatorial mountain, just so Barbara, without altogether defining to herself her feeling, regarded ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... guide, to whom a shade return'd: "Come after us, and thou shalt find the cleft. We may not linger: such resistless will Speeds our unwearied course. Vouchsafe us then Thy pardon, if our duty seem to thee Discourteous rudeness. In Verona I Was abbot of San Zeno, when the hand Of Barbarossa grasp'd Imperial sway, That name, ne'er utter'd without tears in Milan. And there is he, hath one foot in his grave, Who for that monastery ere long shall weep, Ruing ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... "Discourteous woman, nature's fairest ill, The woe of man, that first created curse, Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins, Proud, disdainful, cruel and unjust, Whose words are shaded with enchanting wiles, Worse than Medusa mateth all our ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... G'-by." It was so Scattergood always ended a conversation, abruptly, but as one became accustomed to it it was neither abrupt nor discourteous. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... discussing politics or stocks and shares with her father, her own common sense will tell her that it is a very good investment for the future. Moreover, a really nice-minded girl would never tolerate a man who was discourteous to her parents, however flattering his attitude might be ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... the worthy vicar worked his brains—quite uselessly, for he was soon at the end of them—to explain to himself the extraordinarily discourteous conduct of Mademoiselle Gamard. The fact was that, having all along acted logically in obeying the natural laws of his own egotism, it was impossible that he should now perceive his own ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... at him steadily. He was so noble and so handsome in his bearing, his eye revealed so much gentleness, candor, and resolution, that the idea could not possibly enter her mind that he was either rudely discourteous, or a mere simpleton. She only perceived, clearly enough, that he loved another woman, and not herself, with the whole strength of his heart. "Ah! I now understand you," she said; "you have left your heart behind you in ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... taking a great deal of trouble for the sake of a very discourteous person," she said. "I sent Minutia to tell a certain soldier that I am willing to bid him farewell, despite his unworthiness, and he comes and nearly strangles poor old Rhetus for trying to say that I was awaiting ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... and true, that if the woman at the next desk finds that she is annoying our friend, unconsciously she seems to ferret out her most sensitive places and rub them raw with her sharp, discourteous words. ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... that suffers and is kind, That envies not nor vaunts its pride or fame, Is not puffed up, does no discourteous act, Is not provoked, nor seeks its ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... for a joke, and they laughed aloud. At this point Flossy caught Dr. Dennis' distressed face turned that way. It was not reassuring; he evidently expected disastrous times in that corner. Flossy ignored the discourteous treatment of her ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... her flaming eyes wide, her expression puzzled and wounded. "It's nothing to me," Barbara repeated to herself firmly; but because she was a lady, as she understood the word lady, almost before she was a woman, she smiled faintly, with a distant, and yet not discourteous, inclination of ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... and independent opinions on the public acts of public men, to animadvert severely upon them when considered censurable, is both the right and duty of the press; nor have I ever been discourteous, or felt any animosity towards those who have censured my official acts, or denounced my opinions. Had I considered that you had done nothing more in regard to myself, I should have felt and acted differently from what I have done in regard to you—the only public ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the negative holds down to the revived conventionalism of the Greek school by Leonardo, when he tells you how you are to paint young women, and how old ones; though a Greek would hardly have been so discourteous to age as the Italian is in his canon of it,—"old women should be represented as passionate and hasty, after the manner of ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... I saw her look at me quite uneasily more than once. I could not conceal that I was terribly bored. I have no wish to be discourteous to a lady, especially to one of my own church workers; but after what has passed I find it ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... marvellous in one so young; and leaving him, she came again to my side. I peeped at Mr Coningham, curious to see how he regarded all this wrangling with his daughter. He appeared at once amused and satisfied. Clara's face was in a glow, clearly of anger at the discourteous manner in which ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Marston would be additionally aggrieved if he refused to accept a bequest from her late husband; it would, he said, have the result of making the lady feel that his rejection of the gift was uncalled-for and discourteous.) ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... is invariably truthful. Like the Indians to the south of him, seeking to please you by answering a question in the way that you desire, he will at times tell you an untruth, for it seems to him discourteous to answer your question other than in the way which you anticipate. For instance, if you say to Roxi, "Wasn't that a grey goose we heard overhead?" Roxi will readily assent, though he well knows it to have been a mallard duck, but he would spare your ignorance. Again, it is Eskimo ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... on my coming below. "I told the Frenchmen something of your story," said he; "if I had not done so, they would have thought you discourteous, and your conduct somewhat strange. However, they now enter into your feelings and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... fair haired youth, his hair parted in the middle, his dress the height of correctness and foppery. Some rich tourist-woman probably! She was directly opposite Rafael's bench. He could see that her gloved hand rested on the railing, as she moved her fan to and fro with an almost discourteous noise. The rest of her body was lost in the darkness of the gallery. She bent back from time to time to whisper and ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... watching, taking, manning, nusling, dieting, curing, bathing, carrying, and mewing them, as it must needes proceede from a greater folly, that they cannot discerne their folly herein. To which you may adde, their busie, dangerous, discourteous, yea, and sometimes despiteful stealing one from another of the Egges and young ones, who, if they were allowed to aire naturally, and quietly, there would bee store sufficient, to kill not onely the Partridges, but euen all the ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... country, on that account, that I feel for America as for a brother. And if America should fall, I should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother." The reply of Franklin to these sincere words, seems a little discourteous. Assuming an air of great indifference and confidence, as though the fall of America was an idea not to be thought of, he bowed, and with one of his blandest smiles said, "I assure you, my lord, that we will do everything in our power to save your ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... straight to the nest of his treasure, and Robert slipping out noiselessly, was in the next street before Dooble Sanny, having found the fiddle uninjured, and not discovering the substitution, had finished concluding that the whisky and his imagination had played him a very discourteous trick between them, and retired once more to bed. And not till Robert had cut his foot badly with a piece of glass, did he discover that he had left his shoes behind him. He tied it up with his handkerchief, and limped home the three miles, too ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... really the truth, yet the truth lies somewhere in the vicinity of it. As I said before, so I say again, true love ought to beget a freedom which shall do away with the necessity of ceremony, and much may and ought to be tolerated among near and dear friends that would be discourteous among strangers. I am just as sure of this as of anything in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... slipped out of her, and she checked herself suddenly. Robert saw that she was uncertain as to his opinions, and afraid lest she might have said something discourteous. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that you had third-floor apartments," Mr. Bows said; "and was going to say—you will please not take my remark as discourteous—that the air up three pair of stairs is wholesomer for gentlemen, than the air of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was not enough to fortify me against words so harsh, and tones so discourteous, as those his lordship permitted ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... have spoken so strongly of the attempts to identify the personages of the Heptameron, it might seem discourteous not to mention that one of the most enthusiastic and erudite English students of Margaret, Madame Darmesteter (Miss Mary Robinson), appears to be convinced of the possibility and advisableness of discovering ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... sad day, when with a poignant sting Lost opportunities shall speak to us reproachfully; And ours shall be the disapproval of the King— "Discourteous to these, my creatures, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... of the company followed her, gazing at me as they passed, the big, fashionable fellow especially giving me a rather impertinent glance. I did not try to pick a quarrel with him on account of this discourteous manifestation. When the cavalcade was at some distance, I went in search of my stick, which I found under a tree on the edge of the precipice; then I continued climbing the steep path, with my eyes fastened upon the rider in the black silk gown, her hair flying in the wind and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... me, Tim, you were rather discourteous," said Elwood. "Be careful that we do not trespass too ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... sorry to seem in any way discourteous or disobliging, Aunt Katherine, but Daddy Neil and Compadre, have always wished Tzaritza to accompany me when I ride. I have never felt any fear but they feel differently, as there are, of course, some undesirable characters between Severndale and Annapolis, and ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... have felt your absence every hour. Pray be seated, and pardon my robe. I saw you through the blinds and could not wait. Tell us the glorious news. The Baron's good words I have already overheard; I listened to them with great entertainment while I was dressing. I hoped he would say something discourteous or foolish, but he was quite discreet until he told Erhaupt that he had kept back none of the money. Then I lost interest. Fiction is never so entertaining to me as the truth and real people. But tell us now of your mission and of all you did; and whether successful ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... was a fine woman." Jerry had a discourteous habit of interrupting. "No wonder she walked out and left you flat—she was human. No doubt she had a fine character to start with. So did I, for that matter, but there's ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... touching reference to his mother, when Uncle Jacob, gesticulating energetically, and with his forefinger leveled at the speaker, cried: "Just a word—just one word right there," and so persisted until Garfield was compelled either to yield or be absolutely discourteous. The General, therefore, got in his word; nay, he held the floor for the remainder of the evening. The conspirators made brave efforts to put him down and cut him off, but they were unsuccessful. At midnight, when Keifer and I left, he was ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... "It is never too late to learn," cried he. "I will make a fisherman of you in no time, if you will only attend to my directions." It was impossible for me to make any more apologies, without the risk of appealing discourteous. So I thanked my host for his friendly intentions, and, with some secret misgivings, accepted the first fishing-rod that ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... was not so remote but that these delicate attentions might have been already projected before Mrs. Tucker had declined them, and she could not, without marked discourtesy, return them now. She did not wish to seem discourteous; she would like to have been more civil to this old gentleman, who still retained the evidences of a picturesque and decorous past, and a repose so different from the life that was perplexing her. Reflecting that if he bought the estate ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... his eyes on Ieyasu and addressed him as follows: "The greatest work of Confucius teaches that to order oneself is the most essential of achievements. How shall a man who does not order himself be able to order his country? I am lecturing on ethics to one who behaves in a disorderly and discourteous manner. I believe that I preach in vain." Ieyasu immediately changed his costume, and the event contributed materially to the reputation alike of the intrepid teacher and of the magnanimous student, as well as to the popularity of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... devis'd: Stern did the monarch look, and sharp upbraid For foul seducement of his queen assay'd: The knight, whose loyal heart disdain'd the offence, With generous warmth affirm'd his innocence; He ne'er devis'd seduction:—for the rest, His speech discourteous, frankly he confess'd; Influenc'd with ire his lips forwent their guard; He stood prepared to bide the court's award. Straight from his peers were chosen judges nam'd: Then fix the trial, with due forms proclaim'd; By them 'tis order'd that the ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... form of adventure, from the rescuing of a stranded opera-company to the ramming of a slaver's dhow. The regret with which he spoke of these free days, which was the regret of an exile marooned upon a desert island, excited all her sympathy for an ill she had never known. His discourteous scorn of the social pleasures of the post, from which she herself was excluded, rilled her with speculation. If he could forego these functions, how full and gay she argued his former life must have been. His attitude ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... late for you to start for the seaside, and, moreover, it would appear very discourteous in you to absent yourself the first evening that these strangers spend here. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Tate quickly, "I'd forgotten all about your—friend here." He indicated the rear part of the camel. "I didn't mean to seem discourteous. Is it any one I know? ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... what I have read or heard. I have no desire to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten this interview to ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me most was the woman's face. I had looked in her direction, lest I might seem discourteous to some acquaintance; but this was a stranger. The face was that of a woman in an agony of suffering! The wide-open eyes were full of trouble; the whole countenance expressed pain and something like terror. (I am describing the impression made upon me at the moment, for ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... criticism of texts and sources has become a branch of sport: the least breach of the rules of the game is considered unpardonable, while conformity to them is enough to assure the approval of connoisseurs, irrespectively of the intrinsic value of the results obtained. Scholars are mostly malevolent and discourteous towards each other; they make molehills and call them mountains; their vanity is as comic as that of the citizen of Frankfort who used complacently to observe, 'All that you can see through yonder archway is Frankfort territory.'"[120] We, for our part, are inclined to draw a distinction ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... after Gareth and bring him back. Even as Gareth overtook the damsel, so did Kay come up with him and cried: "Turn back, Fairhands! What, sir, do ye not know me?" "Yes," answered Gareth, "I know you for the most discourteous knight in Arthur's court." Then Sir Kay rode upon him with his lance, but Gareth turned it aside with his sword and pierced Sir Kay through the side so that he fell to the ground and lay there without ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... juncture an interruption occurred. Hopkins the discourteous came in with a card, which he presented to his principal. The gentleman was waiting to see Mr. Kedge. Two more clients were also waiting, he added, Thomas Carr rose, and the end of it was that he went with Mr. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... filled with banditti and malefactors of every description, who committed the most diabolical excesses, in open contempt of law, there was now such terror impressed on the hearts of all, that no one dared to lift his arm against another, or even to assail him with contumelious or discourteous language. The knight and the squire, who had before oppressed the laborer, were intimidated by the fear of that justice, which was sure to be executed on them; the roads were swept of the banditti; the fortresses, the strong- ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... holy sepulchre from the infidel? No, sirs, you must lay aside your feuds, and must promise me and my good brother here that you will keep the peace between you until this war is over. Whose fault it was that the quarrel began I know not. It may be that my Lord of Brabant was discourteous. It may be that the earl here was too hot. But whichever it ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... too glad to accept the explanation conveyed in this discourteous answer. But he was destined for another singular experience. When they had reached the summit of the eminence now known as Russian Hill, an exclamation again burst from the Padre. The stranger turned ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... that a lady may reply to the question, "Will you marry me?" with a conclusive "No." But the same answer, given to the stock ball-room interrogatory, "May I have the (honor/pleasure) of a dance?" would be conventionally reprobated as discourteous, and is practically impossible. The natural consequence is, that the fair answerer is driven to all manner of distressing—sometimes almost amusingly distressing—shifts and equivocations, merely to escape ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... sloshed her husband, Lord Freddy, over the head with his own decanter (vide Chap. XXI.) he rather overdid it. For "the jagged thing fell with a sullen thud behind his (Lord Freddy's) ear," and that discourteous nobleman collapsed to rise no more. When the detective arrived the following noon he convinced himself that there was no necessity to detain any of the guests, even though no windows had been found open or doors unlocked, and though Dicky had a contused lip from the conflict overnight and everybody ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... surroundings. His hands were thrust deep in his overcoat pockets, and his eyes were fixed upon the ground. The stream of people from the train had melted away now, and we were almost alone upon the platform. I hesitated for a moment, and then walked slowly off. I did not wish to seem discourteous to the man with whom I had exchanged a few remarks more intimate than those which usually pass between strangers, but he had distinctly the air of one wishing to be alone, and I was unwilling to seem intrusive. I had barely taken a dozen steps, ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... business had he to tell a girl his heart was buried in the past and pay her all lover-like attentions in the present? "He hasn't," said Miss Allison, promptly and flatly. "He has simply been kind and friendly. He would have been discourteous, un-American, had he done anything less." It wasn't he who told her he never had cared or would care for any one after Miss Hosmer; Kate Lenox told her that, and so did other girls here. When, then, did Mr. Forrest inform her of his broken engagement? asked Aunt Lawrence. ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... way for what I had done; but he added that my revelations had so upset him that he found it impossible to tolerate my presence in his country any longer, and he therefore begged me so to arrange matters that I could resume my journey that same afternoon. Naturally, I remonstrated against such discourteous treatment, reminding His Majesty that although the revelation was certainly mine, the evil-doing was Machenga's; and I wound up by saying that, so far from expecting to be expelled from the country, I had confidently reckoned upon being granted a concession to mine gold in Mashonaland. But ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... would walk either just in front or at a little distance, so that no one would have known we were companions. I used to remonstrate with him sometimes, for it made me feel that I was selfish and discourteous to have him to guide or follow me without acknowledgment; but he always replied that people couldn't talk in the noise of the streets, and that what I came out for was 'to see London or to look at shop-windows, or to see how places looked after dark, or to get a walk and some fresh air on London ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... too, and well bred. I had seen nothing to impeach her virtue: on the contrary, it had been the principal topic of our discourse. 'Tis true I had, as became me, been too respectful to put her chastity to any proof. I was not so discourteous a knight. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of myself; but that would be discourteous to the last degree to Anna Sergyevna, who will ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... right, Hopkins, although somewhat discourteous in your rectitude," replied Bradford, and hasting forward he came in sight of the Town Square, where some fifteen or twenty of the Fortune passengers were amusing themselves at "stool-ball," a kind of cricket, at pitching the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... this kind of discourse some time longer without being interrupted by Lord Nelville. He said nothing that was discourteous; but he always wounded the delicate feelings of Oswald by speaking with too much boldness or too much levity upon what interested him. There is a certain tact that even wit and knowledge of the world will not teach; so that, without being ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... was in their dealings with ladies that the Frenchmen of that day showed the perfection of their system. Vicious they might be, but discourteous they were not. No well-bred man would then appear in a lady's room carelessly dressed, or in boots. In speech between the sexes, the third person was generally used, and a gentleman in speaking to a ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... before Smith came back, though he managed to get several naps, curled up in the bottom of the boat. At last, about eleven o'clock, just as Pierre was getting very nervous, and dreading every minute that one of the white ladies of Normandy (those dames blanches who are so cruel to the discourteous) should appear to him, or a hobgoblin or a ghost, in all of which he was, like most Norman peasants, a firm believer, to his intense relief he heard the carpenter whistling in the distance, and a minute or two ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... and none was alien at the breaking of Arthur's bread. At this table sat Britons, Frenchmen, Normans, Angevins, Flemings, Burgundians, and Loherins. Knights had their plate who held land of the king, from the furthest marches of the west even unto the Hill of St. Bernard. A most discourteous lord would he be deemed who sojourned not awhile in the king's hall, who came not with the countenance, the harness, and the vesture that were the garb and usage of those who served Arthur about his court. From all the lands there voyaged to this court such knights as were ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... his usual grace, saying; "I am Mrs. Arthur's brother, Miss Payne. Pray, let me apologize for her discourteous reception of you; she has been very ill, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "Discourteous tree" the first replied, "The tempest in my boughs had cried, The hunter slumbered in my shade, A hundred ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fashion. She is a Galatea perfectly formed, whose heart has not yet been adjusted. She shrinks from humanity. She wants to be classical and severe, and her last cry to Pygmalion, instead of being the utterance of a tortured soul, is 'monotonous and hollow as a ghost's.' It is with no desire to be discourteous that we venture any comparison between the Galatea of Miss Anderson and of Mrs. Kendal. The comparison should only be made on the point of reading. Yet surely there can be no doubt that Mrs. Kendal's idea of Galatea, while appealing to the ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... must now go a great deal farther," said Mr. Percy, "before the discourteous knights will deign to take ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... something that interested him. Charlie was sidling up unseen by the orator. There was a little nip followed by a sharp exclamation, and the thread of the discourse was broken! The relieved poet now had the floor as an apologist for his discourteous parrot. ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... the princess said, his hungry eyne Adrastus fed on her sweet beauty's light, "The gods forbid," quoth he, "one shaft of thine Should be discharged gainst that discourteous knight, His heart unworthy is, shootress divine, Of thine artillery to feel the might; To wreak thine ire behold me prest and fit, I will his head cut ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... were dry (we lived in a perpetual atmosphere of steaming clothes) they would insist upon leaving us, which seemed to me discourteous after all that we had done for them, and would dress themselves once more and start off home, and get wet again before they ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... I assure you that the matter is more serious than you think. Do you think that you've crushed some one there? You've pulverised no one, but have broken yourself to pieces like an empty bottle." (Oh, I was coarse and discourteous, I remember it with regret.) "You've absolutely no reason to write to Darya Pavlovna... and what will you do with yourself without me? What do you understand about practical life? I expect you are plotting something else? ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... so infernally unreasonable," I said. "If Miss Sakers lends us a book, it is discourteous not to look ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... ungracious but Rosemary, looking at Alec, saw that he did not mean to be discourteous. He looked a little unhappy, a little shy, a bit afraid, even. And Louisa's blue ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... not wish to seem discourteous," he said, "but I cannot recognize that you have any right to ask me these questions. You may accept my word that the child is ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... discourteous, O Prince, if I seem to look upon yonder lovely lady which in our country, where women do not appear in public, we should think it an insult to do. But on her fair breast I see certain pearls like to some that are known throughout the world, which for many years have been ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... you without your mind," said Andrew, grown suddenly discourteous. "If you are mad you ought not to have come. Don't you see that you have given my ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... like another "little boy," of whom you may have heard, With a cabalistic action as discourteous as absurd, (The Bulgar boy maintains it means no more than prudent doubt) He "puts his thumb unto his nose, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... more to say or do but to nod once in the same frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, "You can go. Show these men out, there!" Being shown out, they repair to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... morgue, and to-night, owing to his condition, his dread of it was child-like. It seemed as if this particular charnel-house harbored some grisly thing which stood between him and food and warmth and hope; the nearer he drew to it the greater grew his dread. A discourteous man, shrunken as if from the chill of the place, was hunched up in front of a glowing stove. He greeted ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... I expected the retort discourteous to that from Fred, who was between Will and me, shepherded like us by hard-breathing, unseen men. But he was much too subtly skilful in piercing the chain-mail of Will's humor—even ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... brought her a free ticket to a concert. She went, and as soon as she reached the hall she was struck by the discourteous and indecent manner in which the bystanders looked at her. A well-dressed woman moved away from her. Some men kept walking around her, grinning at her. She found ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... matter with Master Manners?" asked De la Zouch, whose eagle eye had discovered that HIS tankard was not upraised with the rest. "A discourteous ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... body they rode to the castle of the prince who was at war with Meriadus, and next day they marched against the discourteous chieftain. Long did they besiege his castle, but at last when the defenders were weak with hunger Gugemar and his men assailed the place and took it, slaying Meriadus within the ruins of his own hall. Gugemar, rushing to that place where ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... you" is just as golden when it applies to our servants. It is only the extremely discourteous man or woman who will address servants in a peremptory, rude tone. And it is especially ill-bred and unkind to be overbearing to servants in the presence of guests, or to scold one servant in the ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... consider it of the first importance. The senators were crossing the floor in support of this view,[430] when Clodius, being called on, began trying to talk out the sitting. He spoke in furious terms of having been attacked by Racilius in an unreasonable and discourteous manner. Then his roughs on the Graecostasis[431] and the steps of the house suddenly raised a pretty loud shout, in wrath, I suppose, against Q. Sextilius and the other friends of Milo. At this sudden alarm we broke up with loud expressions of indignation ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... cut out for the part of tame cat. Another forty-eight hours, and she'll expect me to drive round London and look at dresses with her. . . ." But if his petulance had made her cry again . . . Eric hunted for a pen and, without involving himself in delicacies of address, wrote—"I am not discourteous by preference, but you drive me to it. La comedia e finita." He left the note unsigned and asked his secretary to have it sent by hand to Berkeley Square. When it had left him past recall, he felt that he could have done better; and he knew that he would have done best of all ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... equally worthy of the noble profession to which he belonged, and said he did not want to stay longer than he need, but would be willing to return whenever wanted. Needless to say that Dr. Drysdale was there, ready to do his duty. Dr. W.B. Carpenter was a strange contrast to these; he was rough and discourteous in manner, and rudely said that he was not responsible for 'Human Physiology, by Dr. Carpenter', as his responsibility had ceased with the fifth edition. It seems a strange thing that a man of eminence, presumably a man of honor, should disavow ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... this emergency to wait upon Timon. To him they come in their extremity, to whom, when he was in extremity, they had shown but small regard; as if they presumed upon his gratitude whom they had disobliged, and had derived a claim to his courtesy from their own most discourteous ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... evening our trio, after escorting the women to the home of their friend, visited every drinking resort, hotel, and public house in the village, meeting groups of Oxenford's witnesses, even himself as he dispensed good cheer to his henchmen. But no one dared to say a discourteous word, and after amusing ourselves by a few games of billiards, we mounted our horses and returned to Shepherd's for the night. As we rode along leisurely, all three of us admitted misgivings as to the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Blossom. "And I want you to apologize to Miss Mason for being discourteous. Never mind if she does think you spoiled the book. As long as you know and we know you didn't, that really doesn't matter very much; and you'll feel so much better if you do what is right. The boy who did ruin the book will be found out some day. ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... (for the season as yet Was but young) in this selfsame Pavilion of Chance. The idler from England, the idler from France, Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure: An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure, And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray One discourteous remembrance of things pass'd away. 'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen, These friends exchange greetings;—the men who had been Foes so nearly in days that were past. This, no doubt, Is why, on the night ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... and when travelling. I, myself, carried a Derringer pistol and a Bowie-knife until the Summer of 1854, though of course out of sight. I did so by the advice of Judge Mott, of the District Court, who remarked that, though I never abused a witness or a juror, or was discourteous to any one in court, there were desperate men in the country, and no one could know to what extremity they might go, as I would not be deterred by any considerations from the discharge of my whole duty to my clients. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... This discourteous reply was repeated by the courtier to a renegade, who, having newly adopted the Moorish faith, was eager to show his devotion to the Moslem creed, and proposed to engage the hot-tempered Catholic knight in argument. Seeking Don Juan, they found him playing ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... certificate of deposit, opened a compartment in the safe, and tossed in the bag without sealing it. And, as I stood waiting, he lighted a scented cigarette, glanced over at me, puffed once or twice, and finally dismissed me with a discourteous nod. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... hardly concealed contempt, with the scornful indifference of one looking down from a superior height—Lesley did not wonder that her mother had left him. It was a manner which had never been displayed to her before, and she said to herself that it was horribly discourteous. And the worst of it was that it did not seem to be directed to herself alone: it included her friends the nuns, her mother, her mother's family, and all the circle of aristocratic relations to which she belonged. She was despised as part of the class which he despised; and ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... better knights in this country than I supposed there to be." Therewith he turned and went out from that place very haughtily and scornfully, taking that goblet with him, and not one of all those knights who were there made any move to stay him, or to reprove him for his discourteous speech. ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... Cato the elder does not permit man truculently to exalt himself by contrast with discourteous woman. He expressly disclaims the declaration of the implication that man is mannerly, while woman is not. In many men he remarks indifference to rudimentary courtesies, and in many women a gentle ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... noticed that several members of the family, to accommodate us with lodgings in the house, slept in the piazza outside. To have objected to sleeping in the house, however, would have been considered discourteous and offensive. ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... still hoped to find clients there, and sat once a week, for an hour, in a dingy back office waiting for them. True, they never came; but Gifford had once read law with Mr. Denner, and knew and loved the little gentleman, so he could not do a thing which might appear discourteous. And when he further remarked that there seemed to be a good opening in Lockhaven, which was a growing place, and that it would be very jolly to have Helen Jeffrey there when she became Mrs. Ward, the two Misses Woodhouse smiled, and said firmly that they approved of it, and that they would send ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... almost fancied that the windows did twinkle kindly. The big front door swung open without any discourteous hesitation, and Ken ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... Great Rule of Letter Writing.—The great rule of letter writing is, Never write a letter which you would not be willing to see in print over your own signature. That which you say in anger may be discourteous and of little credit to you, but it may in time be forgotten; that which you write, however, may be in existence an untold number of years. Thousands of letters are now on exhibition whose authors never had such a use of them in mind. If you ever ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... savage character of the debate, that even Mr. Calhoun, who was not generally discourteous, finding himself rather hard pressed by some of Mr. Hale's arguments, excused himself from an answer, on the ground that Mr. Hale was a maniac! The slave-holders set upon Mr. Hale with all their force; but, though they succeeded in voting down his bill, it was generally agreed, and ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... a big surprise to me. I was then corresponding with two Boston papers and one in the West. I thought it discourteous in the artists of the new Impressionist school, to sneer a little at Bierstadt's great paintings, as if he could ever be set back as a bye-gone or a has-been. And it gave me great pleasure to say so. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... threaten you; I do but place an obstacle in the path of your hasty anger. I maintain that, to adopt towards the Duke of Buckingham, or any other Englishman, any rigorous measure—to take even a discourteous step towards him, would be to plunge France and England into the most disastrous disagreement. Can it be possible that a prince of the blood, the brother of the king of France, does not know how to hide an injury, even did it exist in reality, where political necessity ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... discourteous to me to-day. The whole evening you have not deigned to speak to me. Ten times, at least, I have purposely passed by where Rudolf was standing, and Rudolf took not the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... articles which I believe are usually passed free. Ordinarily at this port, the luggage of respectable passengers is passed with little examination, on an assurance that it comprises no merchandise. This was almost the only instance of discourteous treatment I met with in the United States. We remained in New York from the 4th to the 10th of this month, which time was occupied in visiting different friends of the anti-slavery cause, and in receiving ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... conventions had been defied, because it was possible to defy them with impunity; and editors who had gone through many black hours because of the failure of the great man to keep his promises, and who smarted under the recollection of the discourteous refusal of advances it had been an effort to make, did not spare their arrogant enemy now that it was possible ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... had been a man. Had any man —an emperor or a coal-heaver, it would not have mattered—spoken as Patricia had done within the moment, here, within arm's reach of the poor flesh that had been Agatha's, Rudolph Musgrave would have known his duty. But, according to his code, it was not permitted to be discourteous ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... man had a pleasant way with him, too—darn him—with his bright, twinkling eye and his silly little beard), "I'm sure I don't want to be discourteous. If you move me on from here, of course I'll go; but I warn you I shall lie in wait for Mr. McGill just down this road. I'm here to sell this caravan of culture, and by the bones of Swinburne I think your brother's the man to ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... discourteous Giant," answered the stranger quietly, "and I shall probably have to teach you a little civility, before we part. As for my name, it is Hercules. I have come hither because this is my most convenient road to the garden ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and desired separate treatment. But the people of Cape Town strongly objected, and it was unwise for the Secretary of State to take a side in local politics. Froude found his position by no means agreeable. Molteno, though never discourteous, received him coldly, and objected to his making speeches. The Governor, who liked to be good friends with his Ministers, gave him no encouragement. The House of Assembly, after proposing to censure ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... and might yet be a thorn in the side of Normandy in the event of a renewal of war with France. It was therefore to William's interest to treat Conrad's obedience to his orders as if it had been a voluntary submission, and to ignore his discourteous treatment of his captives. In order to eradicate all sense of injury on the part of his vassal, he not only paid him the ransom for Harold but gave him a considerable grant of territory. The duke now presented his nobles and principal officers to Harold, and then with his arm placed ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... But the skipper—Captain Pigot—was a regular tartar. He was a tall, powerful man, and would have been handsome but for his somewhat bloated features. Even to his officers he was arrogant, overbearing, and discourteous to an almost unbearable degree; to the men he was simply an unmitigated tyrant. There was certainly some excuse for severity of discipline and occasional loss of temper, had it gone no further than that, for our crew was, as a whole, the worst I have ever had the misfortune to be associated ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... irresolute person, and took no such precaution; though, to do the poor man justice, it is only fair to say that such an intervention of authority at such a time and place would be considered on all hands as a very impertinent, unjustifiable, and discourteous interference with the private ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... in the Club, besides the Surgeon mentioned before, with a Chemist and an Undertaker, who all felt themselves equally hurt and aggrieved by this discourteous Retort:—And they were all five rising up together from their Chairs, with full Intent of Heart, as it was thought, to return the Reproof Valiant thereupon.—But the President, fearing it would end in a general Engagement, he instantly call'd out, To Order;—and gave Notice, That if there ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... over the proposition; indeed West felt his response almost discourteous, yet this very suspicion aroused his own desire to make one of the party. The fellow evidently disliked him instinctively, and would exert every influence possible to discredit him in the eyes of ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... most transcendentalists has taught them to lay to heart, and to repeat without the qualifications of David when certain aspects of supernatural narrative are introduced—Omnis homo mendax! But lest I should appear to be discourteous, I should like to add a brief dictum from the Magus Eliphas Levi. "The wise man cannot lie," because nature accommodates herself to his statement. In a polite investigation like the present, there is, therefore, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... how long his daughter's visit was to last. After the evening meal he wanted to clear out of the house, go up town, and he had a guilty feeling that in doing so he was being discourteous to his daughter. While the two women washed the dishes he put on his hat and going into the back yard began chopping wood. Rosalind went to sit on the front porch. The dishes were all washed and dried but for a half ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... larger people, who failed not, under such pretences as taking a grasshopper off her dress, or no pretence at all, to come and look over her shoulder. There is a kind of familiarity among these Florentines, which is not meant to be discourteous, and ought to ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... assumed an air of unwonted activity, having pulled off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and there he stood hammering up a form and whistling "It ain't all Lavender" —very appropriate verses, considering the surroundings. The Russian merely recognised my presence with a slight bow, not discourteous, but characterised by none of the doctor's encouraging benevolence; I, however, felt more honoured than snubbed, and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... arrival Adams felt himself sufficiently informed to take what was practically judicial action in the matter. He declared upon Lee's side. The two then signed an order for Williams's dismissal, and presented it to Franklin. It was discourteous if not insulting behavior to an old man and the senior commissioner; but Franklin wisely said not a word, and added his signature to those of his colleagues. The rest of the story is the familiar one of many cases: the agent made repeated demands for the appointment of an accountant to examine ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... burlie had not insued. For it was a violent example & a mightie motiue to the people to maligne the Jewes; as also a hart-grefe to them in respect of their reiection, when the prince gaue them so discourteous a repulse. Here therefore is to be obserued, that the people is the princes ape, as one verie well saith. For looke whereto he is inclined, note wherein he delighteth; the same is the practise of the people: in consideration whereof the mightie ones ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... director, Peter Benoit, of his Rubens Cantata and of his Oratorio [La Guerre, De Oorlog.] recently sung at Brussels on the occasion of the national commemoration by 900 members of your Society. Greatly flattered by your invitation, I hope, Gentlemen, that my answer to it may not appear discourteous to you. Allow me to decline the honor of directing the Festival you have in view for 1881 and to be present at it as a simple listener. Should any work of mine have been admitted to your programme, I would ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... about to upbraid him for his rude and discourteous manners when we heard, outside, a loud outcry, and Ann ran in to fetch me. All in the Lodge who had legs came running together; all the hounds barked and howled as though the Wild Huntsman were riding by, and mingling therewith lo! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... addressing Ned rather than the Captain, "but I must confess that I have been doing a discourteous thing. I have ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson |
