"Distasteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... became more and more embarrassing every day, had cut the knot of a difficult position by a piece of wilfulness and perversity which seemed to put her in the wrong. The necessity she would have been under of crushing such a girl, who was now eighteen, would have been distasteful and unprofitable; she was very glad to get rid of her stepdaughter, always provided it could be done decently and without scandal. Those two, who had once so loved each other and who were now sharers in the same sorrows, became enemies—two hostile parties, which only ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests revolt against the ruler: his mental torpidity, founded upon physical indolence, renders immediate action and all manner of exertion distasteful: his conscious weakness shows itself in overweening arrogance and intolerance. His crass and self- satisfied ignorance makes him glorify the most ignoble superstitions, while acts of revolting savagery are the natural results of a malignant fanaticism and a furious hatred ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... loving her. He had never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient. He had had no single personal thought of her. Nay, this introduction of the personal element was very distasteful to him, a violation of his professional honour. It was horrible to have her there embracing his knees. It was horrible. He revolted from it, violently. And yet—and yet—he had not the power to ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... habits and indulgences that however trivial have grown to be important to us. It means the shaping of our own desires to the needs of others; the acceptance often of surroundings and conditions personally distasteful to us. It means affection deep and strong enough to bear away the ugly things of life—its quarrels, wrongs, misunderstandings—swiftly and silently into the sea of forgetfulness. It means courage, ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... to say to my daughter?" asked Esther. The thought of a dramatic interview between them was exceedingly distasteful to her. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... with dust and the smell of the machine oil, which almost everywhere smears the floor, sinks into it, and becomes rancid. The operatives are lightly clad by reason of the warmth, and would readily take cold in case of irregularity of the temperature; a draught is distasteful to them, the general enervation which gradually takes possession of all the physical functions diminishes the animal warmth: this must be replaced from without, and nothing is therefore more agreeable to the operative than to have all the doors and windows ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... the master had carefully explained to us the nature of metaphor, said that so far as he could see a metaphor was nothing but a long Greek word for a lie. And certainly men who know that the mere truth would be distasteful or tedious commonly have recourse to metaphor, and so do those false men who desire to acquire a subtle and unjust influence over their fellows, and chief among them, the Proverb-Maker. For though his name is lost in the great space of time that has ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... joined the German army, fought in the Masurian operations, was invalided out of the army at the beginning of 1915, and thereupon became correspondent in Constantinople of the Koelnische Zeitung, in which capacity he acted until the end of 1916, when his too great truthfulness proved distasteful to his employers and he had to give up his place. Now he resides in Switzerland and "makes use," he says, "of the opportunity ... to range himself boldly on the side of truth, and show that there are still Germans who find it impossible to condone, even tacitly, the moral transgression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt her: "I am very diffident about saying this to you—to a man so justly celebrated—pre-eminent in the greatest of all professions. I am so insignificant in comparison, so unimportant, so ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... strange things long before. Judith left the piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of Judith Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but suddenly she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith rested against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all contact with men ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the idea of entering the army, for the measures taken to fill the ranks rendered the military service distasteful in the extreme to the English people. Since the days of Agincourt the English army had never gained any brilliant successes abroad, and there was consequently none of that national pride which now exists in its bravery ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... gentleman is really a dear—only he doesn't know it," continued Cecile. "He thinks he hates women, and the idea of marriage is as distasteful to him as a red ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... detest the old-style can opener. Yet in every home in the land cans are being opened with it, often several times a day. Imagine how thankfully they welcome this new method—this automatic way of doing their most distasteful job. With the Speedo can opening machine you can just put the can in the machine, turn the handle, and almost instantly the job ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... when they returned from the farm. Gordon left the buggy at the Courthouse. The thought of his dwelling, with Lattice's importunate fancies and complaints, was distasteful to him. A long-drawn-out evening in the monotonous sitting room, with the grim form of Mrs. Caley in the background, was insupportable. There was no light in the office of the Bugle, but there was a pale yellow blur in the lower windows ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... escaped through any cross street while your back was turned. I saw you before you saw me.... But these false situations stretching along indefinitely are distasteful to me. It is better to speak the entire truth face to face.... And therefore I have come to ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was vain in him, but he really fancied that the name of Jones was distasteful to Ethelyn, just as the Van Buren name would have been more distasteful to him than it already was had he known of Frank's love affair. And to a certain extent he was right. Ethelyn did dislike to hear of the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... young man starting on the game of life. It is a wise, cheerful manly, and warm-hearted discourse on the words of Bacon,—"He that is wise, let him pursue some desire or other: for he that doth not affect some one thing in chief, unto him all things are distasteful and tedious." We will not spoil this little volume by giving any account of it. Let our readers get it, and read it. The extracts from his Thesis, De Mentis Exercitatione et Felicitate exinde derivanda, are very curious—showing the native vigor and bent of his mind, and indicating ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... husband in the garrison town she had married with the excellent young officer, making a trifling indisposition of her mother a pretext for escape. On the night before her departure the four girls huddled in her bed after the opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and fortune, but quite without character behind ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... Indian summer, we increased the strain on nerve and muscle and cut down the grocery bill, though I insisted on feeding the horses even better than before. It is never economy to stint one's working cattle, especially when one demands the utmost from them, besides being a procedure which is distasteful to any merciful man. However, though we had to hire more horses, wondering how we would ever pay for them when the contract was finished, the track crept on along the treacherous slope, where we scooped out a double width as basis, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... spruce." This is almost, if not quite, a blend of "swinging the lead" and "doing a mike." To spruce is to dodge duty or to deceive. A man who contrived to slip out of the ranks of a squad when they were performing some distasteful task would be said to "spruce off." Or he would be denounced as a "sprucer" if he managed to arrive late for his meal and yet, by a trick, to secure a front place in the waiting queue at the canteen. A word in constant ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... of '63, see ante, chap, xxiii. See also Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp. 300, 320.] The attempts to use them in large bodies were rarely successful, and the more modest duties of outpost and patrol in connection with the infantry columns were distasteful. All this knowledge, combined with the special causes of impatience now existing, gave to Grant's dispatches a more and more urgent tone, leading up to the "Delay no longer" of the 11th. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 70, 97, 143.] To judge fairly the attitude of both Grant and Thomas, this ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... cloud, rests over all mankind, and in the glimmer of hope that now appeared it seemed to him that all things appeared in a new light. Even his detested Greek was not quite so bad as it previously had been, and in the reaction that came Will bent to his distasteful ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's Essay was published in 1744. Hume wrote:—'Pray do you not think that a proper dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my Dialogues'! I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who says that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Flavia's face fell. Luke Asgill of Batterstown was the nearest Justice, and of necessity he was a Protestant. But it was not this fact, nor the certainty that Augustin was pouring his wrongs into his ears, that affected Flavia. Asgill was distasteful to her, because her brother affected him. For why should her brother have relations with a Protestant? Why should he, a man of the oldest blood, stoop to intimacy with the son of a "middleman," the son of one of those who, taking a long lease of a great estate and under-letting at rack rents, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... cautelous in his proceedings. An old man should not marry a young woman, nor a young woman an old man, [6240] Quam male inaequales veniunt ad arata juvenci! such matches must needs minister a perpetual cause of suspicion, and be distasteful ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... utmost wish the Fair-One crowns, And thy calm'd heart may well pursue The paths of knowledge;—Lyce frowns, And I, distasteful, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... intention to preach to you. To intrude serious topics upon our friends at all times, has a tendency to make both ourselves and our topics distasteful. I mention these things to you, not that they are not obvious to you and every other right-minded man, or that I think I can clothe them in more attractive language, or utter them with more effect than others; but merely to account for my absence ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of king and nobility made departure from the English model a matter of necessity. Moreover, any avowed attempt to provide an effective substitute for the hereditary branches of the English model would have been distasteful to the people generally and for that reason would have ensured the rejection of the Constitution. Theoretically, the nearest approach to the English system possible would have been life tenure, and there were not wanting those who, like Hamilton, contended for ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... capacity of the magpie, he pays no higher tribute to the merits of the cat than that she is as capable of being amused as himself, and like himself, too, has her periods of gravity when recreative sports are distasteful. Her social qualities he does not allude to, though he, so eminently social himself, could scarcely ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... amusements to fill up the inordinate blank left by the lack of productive activity. And as the hand whitened and frame softened, till, at last, the very duties of motherhood, which were all the constitution of her life left her, became distasteful, and, from the instant when her infant came damp from her womb, it passed into the hands of others, to be tended and reared by them; and from youth to age her offspring often owed nothing to her personal toil. In many cases so complete was ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... society? Are not his labors dry and hard and exhausting? Does not the blacksmith spend half his life in soot and grime, that he may gain a competence for the other half? If this woman were to work in a factory, would she not often be brought into associations distasteful to her? Might it not be the same in any of the arts and trades in which a living is to be got? There must be unpleasant circumstances about earning a living in any way; only I maintain that those which a woman would be likely to meet with as a servant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... his throat that it made one wish to clear one's own throat to listen to him. So, what with a pair of fat, white hands, and that hoarse voice, and his swollen face, and his thick lips sticking out, it seemed to Barnaby True he had never seen a countenance so distasteful to him as that one into which ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... said: "The real answer to prayer is the increase of the joyful emotions, the decrease of the painful ones."[126-1] It would seem a simpler plan to make this directly the purport of our petitions; but to the modern mind this naked simplicity would be distasteful. ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... attain their goal was by inviting Japan to co-operate with the Allies in Europe. As "invitation" was the term employed, the peculiar manner in which the idea was conceived hardly needs definition. To the Japanese themselves the inference was patent and distasteful. Theretofore it had been a dogma that France, Britain and Russia, being quite capable of crushing Germany and Austria, neither attempted nor wished to draw any neutral or Asiatic nation into the sanguinary maelstrom of war. And even now it was held to be undignified to swerve from ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... himself distasteful to northwestern Indian girls. It was the first time an aboriginal face had ever covered itself from exposure to his eyes. He felt the sudden respect which nuns command, even in those who scoff at their visible consecration. ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... revered him with such enthusiasm for what she called his magnificent manhood and beneficence, as was ready on the least encouragement to have become something a good deal warmer; but whatever she did served to make her distasteful to him. First, she hastily shuffled over Eustace's portrait, because, as she allowed us to hear, "he would give her no peace till he was disposed of." And then she not only tormented her passive victim ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... personage altogether superior—this is essential. If he does not possess this attribute, he must assume it. Modesty is ineffective; mock-modesty is distasteful; you must instruct your audience. The commonest platitudes will serve if you call it a "lecture," and address them to an audience as if they were ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... subject of the King's Regulations was even more distasteful to the cuddy than Pine's interminable anecdotes, and Mrs. Vickers hastened to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came upon Madame du Bousquier when she found herself reduced to this absolute servitude. She often got into the carriage against her will; she saw herself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she no longer had the handling of her dear money,—she who had known herself free to spend money, and ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... the habit of doing, without grumbling, until October, but that I would not be treated like a dog any longer; I would take to the woods and live like a bear before I would stand it. My remarks were evidently very distasteful to my companion. He did not say much, and I was sorry to see that he was nursing his wrath against me. He regarded me as a being vastly inferior to himself, and the decided stand I had taken filled him with the same kind of indignation which a brutal teamster feels ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... clearly enough that Phil Abingdon was one of those women in whom a certain latent perversity is fanned to life by opposition. Whether she was really attracted by Ormuz Khan or whether she suffered his attentions merely because she knew them to be distasteful to others, ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... books and arts were more to this lady's liking than the diversions by which she beguiled the tedium of Louis XV.; and many a time she would rather have been quiet with her plays and novels than engaged in conscientiously conducted but distasteful revels. ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... how profound, how comprehensive was his sympathy with the mood of each and all! He pictured forth their very thoughts. To the youthful he showed the scenes of the adventurous life before them; to the aged the shadows of departed love and hope; and, if all earthly things had grown distasteful, he could gladden the fireside muser with golden glimpses of a better world. And, amid this varied communion with the human soul, how busily would the sympathizer, the deep moralist, the painter of magic pictures, be causing the teakettle ...
— Fire Worship (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... inmates; the walls were of glass and could harbor no equivocal conduct. What particularly delighted him in his friend's return to virtue was that it absolved him from the obligation of verifying the accounts. Nothing was more distasteful to him than the inspection of a number of ledgers, and as long as Burle kept steady, he—Laguitte—could smoke his pipe in peace and sign the books in all confidence. However, he continued to keep one eye open for a little while longer and found ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... house—has passed into a local phrase to designate a neighbour's unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient of these favours must never blab or even hint at the origin of his good fortune, for all gossip is highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that, we suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic information can be gleaned as to the methods ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... as he surveyed the stately mansion in the distance, the white porch columns of which shone like snow in the slanting rays of the sun. "It is Saunders's pride," he said. "Atlanta is becoming more and more distasteful to him. He is never really happy anywhere but up here. He yawns his head off at every party, dance, or dinner down there. They all laugh at him and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... politicians had had their say, now let the soldiers terminate the strife which politicians had begun. That Napoleon while in Italy, against all precedent and without the knowledge of the civil department, had entered into negotiations with the enemy, made peace, and while distasteful to the authorities, they were too polite to refuse the terms. But General Lee was too much a soldier to consider any act outside of his special prerogatives. He, however, was pleased with the idea, and wrote General Grant, asking an interview looking ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... possession of some of the most ordinary inventions of civilization on the part of the officials of the Company as clearly demonstrating a close affinity between these gentlemen and the Manitou, nor were these attributes of divinity altogether distasteful to the officers, who found them both remunerative as to trade and conducive to the exercise of authority. When, however, the Free Traders and the missionary reached the Saskatchewan this primitive state of affairs ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... criminal in "Retained for the Defence." In the burlesque of "Masaniello," he had an opportunity—which some thought would prove a magnificent one to him—of showing the grotesque side of insanity; but, for some reason or other, the part seemed distasteful to him. It may have been repugnant to his eminently sensitive spirit to exhibit the ludicrous aspect of the most dreadful of human infirmities. A peste, fame, bello, et dementia libera nos, Domine! Perhaps the piece itself was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... courage, I remember that the idea that on the continent there were other peoples going ahead of us, mentally alert while we fumbled, disciplined while we slouched, aggressive and preparing to bring our Imperial pride to a reckoning, was extremely novel and distasteful to me. It set me worrying of nights. It put all my projects for social and political reconstruction upon a new uncomfortable footing. It made them no longer merely desirable but urgent. Instead of pride and the love of making one might own to a baser motive. Under Kipling's ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... still continued, and they planned a division of the empire, a measure which was then distasteful to all the Romans, and which was only prevented from taking place by the tears and entreaties of their mother, Julia Domna. Geta, the younger son, who was of a gentle disposition, soon after, in A.D. 212, February 27th, was murdered by the cruel and relentless Caracalla. Twenty ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... cast over the little community by this sudden appearance of the King of Terrors lasted for many days, and had the good effect of turning the thoughts of all of them to those subjects which are obviously and naturally distasteful to fallen man—the soul and the world to come. But gradually the gloom passed away, though it left in the party a greater longing than ever to escape from their ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... Graham was seriously alarmed. He had warned Gardener that the bill was distasteful to him and to those whom he called his "friends." It was particularly distasteful, it seemed, to the Denver City Tramway Company. And he could promise, he said, that if we dropped the bill, the railway company ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... reservation to procure their modification as soon as might be thereafter. The German delegates, with Count Brockdorff-Rantzau at their head, did their best to expose the inconsistencies between the Allies' professions and their performance, and to secure a reconsideration of the more distasteful terms. An elaborate protest and counterproposals were delivered early in June and promptly answered by the Allies. A few minor points were conceded, but the terms as a whole were maintained, with an intimation ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... sharply, "forces me to confess that this conversation is particularly distasteful to me. The lady ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... absurdity. We are good democrats—in theory. It is a pity that our practice does not bear out our theory, for the sake of the homely virtue of consistency. To a great many otherwise sensible people our simple republican ways are distasteful, and they are apt to look with, admiring, envious eyes on the conventional life of foreign lords, not considering how burdened with forms it is, and full of the selfishness, the pride and arrogance of the privileged and titled few, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I fancied I understood that he was afraid of appearing comical in my eyes, with his face smothered in lather; but he was wrong. I felt myself all in a quiver at being beside a man—the word man is rather distasteful to me, but I can not find another, for husband would not express my thoughts—at being beside a man in the making of his toilette. I should have liked him to go on without troubling himself; I should have liked to see how he managed to shave himself ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... for his merciful conduct, and declared that the duty had been distasteful, but that as soldiers ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... than one of them so expressed their feeling before The evening ended. The relations between the races in this city have for years been such as to make remarks like those in which Flipper indulged not only uncalled for, but really distasteful. They are not to be blamed ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... wight. Beholding so many brave Kshatriyas lying (dead) on the field of battle, I censure myself, (saying) fie upon the profession of a Kshatriya. The Kshatriyas will regard me powerless in battle. For this alone, I am battling. Else, O slayer of Madhu, this battle with kinsmen is distasteful to me. Urge the steeds on with speed towards the Dhartarashtra army. I will, with my two arms, reach the other shore of this ocean of battle that is so difficult to cross. There is no time, O Madhava, to lose in action'. Thus addressed by Partha, Kesava, that slayer of hostile ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... regarded her with equal curiosity, though few with so kindly an interest as her own. The unconscious ease of Amy's bearing they esteemed "boldness," or even "cheek," and her air of superior breeding was distasteful to them. ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... imagined, this independence of spirit was most distasteful to the vain and fickle queen; but Sidney's grace and talents and personal beauty rendered him a courtier with whom she was unwilling to dispense. The queen had favored him for these lesser gifts, but the great heart of the English people loved him for the chivalric ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... second offence, and had attempted suicide, he was still irresistible, and he was discharged with several years of imprisonment to run. But, in truth, he was born for honour and distinction, and common actions, common criminals, were in the end distasteful to him. In his heyday he stooped no further than to employ such fences as might profitably dispose of his booty, and the two partners of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Face,—and (as King Charles said) was the best Villain in the World.' The performance of an actor with such a marked personality and unpleasantly peculiar talents as are thus enumerated, in the role of Daring must been grotesque and distasteful to a degree. In such an accumulation of unfortunate circumstances there could have been no other event than the failure of the play, which was so complete as effectually to bar any chance of subsequent revival. Indeed, there seems ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... word expresses effort and toil, the other a burden and endurance. The one speaks of the active, the other of the passive, side of human misery and evil. Toil is work which is distasteful in itself, or which is beyond our faculties. Such toil, sometime or other, more or less, sooner or later, is the lot of every man. All work becomes labour, and all labour, sometime or other, becomes toil. The text is, first of all, and in its most simple ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... should be borne in mind that the Parthian rule must have been from the beginning distasteful to the Persians, owing to the rude and coarse character of the people. At the moment of Mithridates's successes, the Persians might experience a sentiment of satisfaction that the European invader was at last ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... sir. Just common sense." Any thought of a sentimental revenge was distasteful to the trainer, but he was glad that good Happiness should get his box and disappointed about the soap. It would have lent relish to his somewhat perfunctory washings to say to himself, "Doubtless this here bit of soap is a piece of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... of plague while sleeping at Abbeville. Later the misalliance of the princess was cautiously touched upon. That lady, said Francis gravely, to whom the gaieties of the court at the present time could not fail to be distasteful, had left the chateau immediately upon her return. Ever of a devout mind, she had repaired to a convent and announced her intention of devoting herself, and her not inconsiderable fortune, to a higher and more spiritual life. Charles, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... o'clock in the morning in order to drive into Lowestoft, less than two miles distant. At this time, be it remembered, Dr. MacOubrey was eighty-one years of age. Now, as to the general untidiness of Borrow's home at the time of his death—the point is a distasteful one, but it had better be faced. Henrietta was twenty-three years of age when her mother married Borrow. She was sixty-four at the time of his death, and her husband, as I have said, was eighty-one years of age at that ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... shouldn't care to be a practicing physician," Beason declared, "just for that reason. That sort of business would be very distasteful to me." ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... can easily find situations where more regard is had to their feelings and comfort. But the thought that the leisure and freedom they enjoy is due in a great measure to favour, and not to right, is the fly in the ointment of the domestic's lot which renders it distasteful to many women, and which causes it to be looked down on by those who exist under far less favourable conditions. It seems to us that it is the want of some definite respite from liability to work which constitutes the "slavery" of which our correspondent speaks. If we are ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... for Christians in heathen lands was a more convincing object lesson than the Peace of Westphalia. It was difficult for one Christian Church to acknowledge its equality with another Christian Church and to tolerate heresy, but it was far more distasteful to have to come to terms with the heathen and to ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... was every day making discoveries about life, and about myself. I had naturally some elements of the recluse, and would never, of my own choice, have lived in a crowd. I loved quietness. The noise of machinery was particularly distasteful to me. But I found that the crowd was made up of single human lives, not one of them wholly uninteresting, when separately known. I learned also that there are many things which belong to the whole world of us together, that no one ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... intercourse and receptions, which were never intermitted at Spanish Town, the seat of Government. The isolation and monotony of this position, broken only once by a conference held with some of the neighbouring Governors on a question of common interest respecting immigration, could not fail to be distasteful to his active spirit; and when it had lasted over three years, it was not unnatural that he should seek to be relieved from it. Early in 1845 we find him writing ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... incessant work into which we all drift is as bad in its way as dram-drinking. In time you cannot be comfortable without stimulus." But continued bodily weakness told upon him to the extent that all work became distasteful. An utter weariness with frequent spells of the blues took possession of him; and the story of his life for some years is the story of the long pursuit of health in England, Switzerland, ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their actual conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that there seems to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This latter proposition is distasteful to some of the party, who endeavour to maintain that there really is no uncertainty ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... free, unfettered creature I had been for the first part of my life. I could no longer dispose of my days and hours as I liked best, but was on the contrary forced to devote many of them to occupations of a most distasteful nature. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... at last, he found the pursuit to be distasteful and revolting. He grew tired even of amusement. He indulged his tastes, humors, and passions, until indulgence itself was disgusting. When he returned to his friends, he had laid up nothing in his memory, by the relation ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... trunks being put on the roof, she suddenly woke to the fact that the strong influence of her life during the last couple of months had come to a complete end; that Rosamund, the strong, the vivacious, the daring, the noble, was leaving her. All in a minute even little Agnes seemed distasteful to the excited girl. She flew up to Rosamund's side and flung her arms ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... such consequences of severe continuous fever were by no means uncommon, and might last for an indefinite period. Meanwhile the young man was now, by slow and painful application, doing his utmost to recover his lost power and skill. Naturally, the subject was distasteful to him, and he shrank from discussing it. Here the voice again spoke to me through the tube, telling me to observe the young man, and especially his face. On this I scanned his countenance with attention, and remarked that it wore a singularly odd ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... system of monarchy, introduced by Diocletian, was distasteful to the philosophic mind of Julian; he refused the title of lord and master, and attempted to restore in all its pristine simplicity the ancient government of the republic. In a campaign against the Persians he received a mortal wound, and died on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... in years, and he knew that before long he would either have to go into business or to college, which he had not yet fully decided. To tell the truth, the thought of separating from his brothers was exceedingly distasteful to him. ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... outline of the buildings in which the members meet (Great laughter.) Perhaps the reported occasional quickening of the political current, and the hurried words to which it gives rise, occur only because pure panegyric is distasteful, and a wholesome criticism is on ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... the Tenderfoot stage. Of the forty odd subjects for which Proficiency Badges are given, more than one-fourth are in subjects directly related to the services of woman in the home, as mother, nurse or homekeeper. Into this work so often distasteful because solitary is brought the sense of comradeship. This is effected partly by having much of the actual training done in groups. Another element is the public recognition, and rewarding of skill in this, woman's most elementary service ...
— Girl Scouts - Their Works, Ways and Plays • Unknown
... hence our daily food, and the daily alternation of repose and action, are no less grateful than imperative. That life may be sustained, and most of its functions performed, without any coincident enjoyment, is certainly possible. Our food may be distasteful, action painful, and rest unrefreshing; and yet we may eat, and exercise, and sleep, nay, live thus for years. But this is not our natural condition, and we call it disease. Were man a mere animal, the very ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... the most pleasant of his poems is an epistle to his friend Paulus Silentiarius, written from a country house on the opposite coast of the Bosporus, where he had retired to pursue his legal studies away from the temptations of the city. He tells us himself that law was distasteful to him, and that his time was chiefly spent in the study of ancient poetry and history. In later life he seems to have returned to Myrina, where he carried out improvements in the town and was regarded as the most distinguished of the citizens (/Anth. Pal./ ix. 662). He is believed to have died ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... been found with the motherly carefulness and attention of Madame C——. It was charmingly polite and French. But the sight of her preparing the child's food, or coaxing him with unaccustomed delicacies and bonbons, grew to be utterly distasteful,—an infliction so nervously annoying that I could not overcome it. A secret antipathy which I had nourished against Madame seemed to be germinating; every action of hers irritated me, every sound of her sharp, yet well-modulated voice gave me a tremor. The truth was, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life. Take full account of all the pains, all the bitter ingredients, remembering that for us weak and sinful men the bitter is needful. If still the cup seem charged with distasteful draught, remember whose lip has touched its rim, leaving its sacred kiss there, and whose hand holds it out to you while He says, 'Do this in remembrance of Me.' The cup which my Saviour giveth me, can it be anything but ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... charms of her romantic scenery, and the fascinations of her laughter-loving daughters, Jackson's serious nature soon asserted itself. The constant round of light amusements and simple duties grew distasteful. The impress of his mother's teachings and example was there to guide him; and his native reverence for all that was good and true received an unexpected impulse. There were not wanting in the American army men who had a higher ideal of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... will note that the early ambitions of the boy were at once humoured. There would seem to have been no attempt usual with poor parents anxious for the commercial success of a child, to thrust the boy into a trade or employment which, though distasteful, would have been profitable to him. Old Mr. Turner probably knew little enough of art, and could have had but a poor opinion, in a pecuniary sense, of the profession to which his son was desirous of attaching himself. But no obstacles were thrown in his path; he was soon placed with ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... battered, but with a fine air about them still. These were the contributions of Milly's mother, who had been of a Kentucky family. To these had been added here and there pieces of many different styles and shades of modern inelegance. One layer of the conglomerate was specially distasteful to Milly. That was the black-walnut "parlor set," covered with a faded green velvet, the contribution of Grandma Ridge from her Pennsylvania home. It still seemed to the little old lady of the first water as it had been when it adorned ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... making proselytes, and Juliet was not aware that she was treading upon dangerous ground, with a very subtle companion. Untouched by the sacred truths she sought to impress upon his mind, and which indeed were very distasteful to him, Godfrey, in order to insinuate himself into the good graces of his fair instructress, seemingly lent a willing ear to her admonitions, and pretended to be deeply ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Christians were marked by ecstatic and unusual phenomena, whole multitudes were simultaneously affected, and the changes wrought were permanent; but the subjects were chiefly ignorant people, who no doubt did many things which would have been distasteful to us as ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... deal of good to make Rattler mix my drinks for me—Rattler! the gay, brilliant, and unconquerable Rattler, who had tried to snub me two years ago. I talked to him about old Fagg and Nellie, particularly as I thought the subject was distasteful. He never liked Fagg, and he was sure, he said, that Nellie didn't. Did Nellie like anybody else? He turned around to the mirror behind the bar and brushed up his hair! I understood the conceited wretch. I thought I'd put Fagg on his guard and get him ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... of a free Negro of Connecticut, who came south to observe conditions of slavery, found them very distasteful, then voluntarily entered that slavery for seven years is the interesting tale that Samuel Smalls, 84 year old ex-slave of 1704 Johnson Street, Jacksonville, tells of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... in at him from time to time. After the first glance she went to the small store room and got out a jar of sweet pickle, and after the second she produced a glass of crab apple jelly. Serving a soldier guest who had voluntarily adopted her country, was after all not so distasteful, if only she did not have to talk to him. But already the coming ordeal was ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... irregularities which went on wherever the praetorian system was applied to the cases of foreign litigants. Probably no colour of ethical meaning belonged at first to the expression; nor is there any reason to believe that the process which it indicated was otherwise than extremely distasteful ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... Finley had been playing. The preliminary conversation had been aimed to bring The Panther to see that the only way he could save himself from the charge of cowardice was by meeting Kenton in mortal combat. Such an issue, in which one of the contestants must fall, was extremely distasteful to the man of peace. There could be only one combination of circumstances that would justify, in his judgment, that supreme test; ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... latter half of the seventeenth century, after the execution of Charles I (1649), the Puritans had temporarily risen to power, and during their control of affairs had imposed their strict Calvinistic standards as to Sabbath observance and piety on the nation. This was very distasteful to many, and from such strict observances the people in time rebelled. The standards of the English in personal morality, temperance, amusements, and manners at the beginning of the eighteenth century were not especially high, and in the ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... his unnatural mode of life. Thomas was already a member of the church and was a teacher in the Sunday-school; but his mother was uneasy, for a serious attachment between Thomas and anybody in the town would have been very distasteful to her. The tea having been poured out, and Mr. Broad having fairly settled down upon the buttered toast ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the evil influence of the depression in trade was felt as never before. More men were discharged, and Penhallow and his wife practised economy which to him was difficult and distasteful. To limit expenditure on herself was of little moment to Ann Penhallow, but to have to limit her ability to give where more and more were needing help was to her at least a hard trial. With the spring of 1858, business had begun to revive, while more bitterness arose ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Berry. "Look here, I knew you when you were seven, before you had put off the white mantle of innocence and assumed the cloak of depravity. It has been my unhappy lot to be frequently in your company ever since, and, speaking from a long and distasteful experience of you and your ways, I am quite satisfied that, if you did meet with some slight contretemps, you made no whole-hearted effort to rejoin us in time to degrade your intellect by discussing the sort of topics which appeal to that genus of hopeless wasters which ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... buried the whitening bones, and Sigmund registered a solemn oath to avenge his family's wrongs. This vow was fully approved by Signy, who, however, bade her brother bide a favourable time, promising to send him aid. Then the brother and sister sadly parted, she to return to her distasteful palace home, and he to a remote part of the forest, where he built a tiny hut and plied the craft ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... you expect a girl to say after so short an acquaintance? But this I can tell you, that the proposal is not altogether distasteful to her, and that I have her permission to speak of it at some future time, when we have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... succeeds in his wish so far as to receive an invitation to dinner at the Ellerslys', which is given for reasons that are obvious. It is made plain to him, however, that his intentions with respect to Anita are extremely distasteful to her, and after an evening spent under a tremendous nervous strain he leaves the house ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... the love and power of sin, so that it becomes growingly distasteful, and the soul turns with loathing from the carrion on which it once fed contentedly. This begets a sense of purity, robed in which the soul claims kinship to the white-robed saints of the presence-chamber, and reaches out toward the blessedness of the pure in heart who see ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... occupation. The Christmas court was held at Lincoln; but warned perhaps by the recent ill luck of Stephen in defying the local superstition, Henry did not attempt to wear his crown in the city. Crown wearing and ceremony in general were distasteful to him, and at the next Easter festival at Worcester, together with the queen, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... however, was very distasteful to me, and I could so little bear to see it, that I even spoke of it aloud, and ran the risk of offending some of my customers. I mean the way in which several of the dogs devoured the meat after they had bought it. You will think that when they had purchased ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... nearer together than they had been for a long time, even now Nancy had been wrapped in peaceful thought; this was like the old times, when she had been tired and weak, and Bert had sat and talked about things, beside her! She brought her mind resolutely to bear upon all the distasteful suggestions ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... whom Henry married the day after Anne Boleyn's execution, died within a year at the birth of a son (Edward VI.). In 1540 Cromwell arranged another union with the plainest woman in Europe, Anne of Cleves; which proved so distasteful to Henry that he speedily divorced her, and in resentment at Cromwell's having entrapped him, by a flattering portrait drawn by Holbein, the Minister came under his displeasure, which at that time ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... acerbity was noticeable in the comments of those who were unaccustomed to the sensation of being excluded, among them Mrs. Abe Tutts, whose quick recognition of slights led one to believe she had received a great many of them. Mrs. Tutts, who was personally distasteful to Mr. Symes, went so far as to inquire belligerently of Mrs. Symes why she had not ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... concerning the sense of smell and of taste. In all likelihood, smell is not acute at the time of birth. Taste probably is better perceived, yet some newborn babies are said to suck a two per cent solution of quinin as eagerly as milk, though stronger solutions are distasteful. According to the best available information a young infant can detect the difference between a sweet, bitter, sour, or salty taste only when the tests are made with a solution possessing the quality in question ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... did not pause to examine them, or to regulate her conduct by any sentiments except the tyrannical one which suddenly usurped the empire of her heart. She yielded to its influence, and the too natural consequence in a mind unattuned to soft emotions was, that the attentions of Adrian became distasteful to her. She grew capricious; her gentle conduct towards him was exchanged for asperity and repulsive coldness. When she perceived the wild or pathetic appeal of his expressive countenance, she would relent, and for a while resume her ancient kindness. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... which a habit inevitably must take. A habit is after all but an acquired appetite, and what appetite was ever begun with instant enjoyment! No inveterate smoker ever appreciated his first cigar and the most persistent of tipplers choked once over the first distasteful introduction ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... if she were happy, if she had forgotten; but she dreaded reviving a distasteful subject. She would be glad never to ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Nobody, not even her father or mine, or Monsieur Leblanc, took the slightest notice of this queer relationship, or seemed to dream that it might lead to ultimate complications which, in fact, would have been very distasteful to them all for reasons ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... me in a suspense between hope and fear, misdoubting that, for the contentment which I aim at, I will but reap what shall be most distasteful to me: my cake will be dough, and for my Venus I shall have but some deformed puppy: instead of serving them, I shall but vex them, and offend them whom I purpose to exhilarate; resembling in this dubious ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... often owed their highest promotions to base subservience. After the Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and general view) might be described as a body of supine persons, known to the public only as a dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the Government. In the last century and a half, the nation was often afflicted with sensual royalty, bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies, bribery and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading all ranks, and insinuating itself into Colleges and Rectories. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... Girl! girl! this artifice does not blind me. Mere opinions do not speak out so warmly. Beneath the cloak of these sentiments lurks some far dearer interest. 'Tis that which makes my service particularly distasteful—which gives such energy to your language. (In a threatening voice.) What it is I ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... faint was over; the toddy had sent the blood tingling through the young girl's veins. The role of the invalid was an unaccustomed one for her to play, and the thought of supping in bed was peculiarly distasteful to her self-helping Northern training. It was not long before she ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... congenital lassitude, which has rendered all labour, whether manual or mental, distasteful, nay, intolerable to me, I find myself at the age of 41 so out of touch with the spirit of strenuous effort which has invaded every corner of our national life that I am anxious to confer on the State or, failing that, some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... thoughtfully; "it is strange that true charity should be distasteful to any one." Then offering his hand, as he bade them good-by, he said to Emma, "I hope, my dear, that this ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... drop the empty baskets, shake her skirts, and put up a black braid that had fallen down; then, with the air of one resolved to do a distasteful task as quickly as possible, she came up the steps, held out the rough basket cover, and said in a ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... in a particularly infectious way he had, and, before he quite knew it, Rowdy was laughing, also. After that the world did not look quite so forlorn as it had, nor the day's work so distasteful. So Pink, having accomplished his purpose, was ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... to have said: "I am the new lord—I am Lord Angleford." But he shrank from it. The whole thing, the transformation of the old place, though he knew it was necessary, was distasteful ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... had great sympathy with the position of Liberal High Anglicans; but there is not the slightest reason to suppose that he ever desired to join the English Church. Even with the old Catholic movement he had no sympathy, and dissuaded his friends from joining it.[1] All forms of Gallicanism were distasteful to Acton, and he looked to the future for the victory of his ideas. His position in the Roman Church symbolises in an acute form what may be called the soul's tragedy of the whole nineteenth century, but Acton had not the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... passions, or their judgment His inclinations were towards the Church; but after graduating from Harvard College, which he entered at the age of sixteen, he had a brief experience as a school-teacher and found it so distasteful to him that he adopted the law as a relief, without waiting to consult his inclinations further. "Necessity drove me to this determination," he writes, "but my inclination was to preach." He began the practice of law in ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Slave law was settled conclusively by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that the State courts could not release the prisoner. Chief Justice Swan gave the leading opinion. Its positions were thoroughly distasteful to the people of Ohio. He knew they would be. His term, which was one of five years, expired in the following February, and the vacancy was to be filled at the State election in October. On the day before the judgment was announced he told his wife that this ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... these foreigners hang on together more than we do. I am only too glad for her to be with him as much as she chooses. It is just a little unfortunate that his friends should sometimes be—well, a trifle distasteful, but—one must put up with it. One must put up with it, eh? After all, Rosario was a man very well spoken of. There was no reason why he shouldn't have come to my house. Plenty of other men in my position would have been ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album, and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass, nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though it was ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... England. Her household was managed on English principles, her children brought up by English nurses, she herself always spoke English with them. Of course there must have been many things in Germany which were distasteful to her,—so many of the small refinements of life which are absolute necessaries in England were almost unknown luxuries in Germany,—particularly when she married. Now there has been a great advance in comfort and even elegance in German houses and habits. Her English proclivities made ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington |
