"Inopportune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might be due to numbers, as in a political election, or to tough fibre, as in a tropical climate. Of course a form of being that circumstances make impossible or hopelessly laborious had better dive under and cease for the moment to be; but the circumstances that render it inopportune do not render it essentially inferior. Circumstances have no power of that kind; and perhaps the worst incident in the popular acceptance of evolution has been a certain brutality thereby introduced into moral judgment, an abdication of human ideals, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... This inopportune memory did not trouble her: she was almost grateful to Raymond for giving her the touch of superiority her compatriots clearly felt in her. It was not merely her title and her "situation," but the experiences she had gained through them, that gave her this advantage over ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... keeping a "Family Skeleton" shut up in a cupboard is that the horrid thing will insist on rattling its old bones at the most inopportune moments—just, for example, when you are entertaining to tea the nearest local thing you've got to God—whether she be an "Honourable" (in her own right, mark you!) or merely the vicar's wife! Whatever family skeletons do or do not possess, they most assuredly lack tact. ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... pleading for another, how much more should we do so when asking for ourselves! And if persistence has such power with selfish men, how much more shall it avail with Him who slumbers not nor sleeps, and to whom we can never come at an inopportune moment, and who will give us because we are His friends, and He ours! The very ugliness of character ascribed to the owner of the loaves, selfish in his enjoyment of his bed, in his refusal to turn out on an errand of neighbourliness, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... not help laughing. They cared for art for its own sake. Never had more useless question been discussed at a more inopportune moment. The fatal truth was that the projectile, whether hyperbolically or parabolically carried along, would never strike against either the earth ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... relating to a law case which he was asked to take up. The interruption was too much. He flung the papers on the table with remarks more forcible than complimentary concerning the person who had distracted his attention at such an inopportune moment. In 1863 he was made a professor at Cambridge, where, no longer troubled with the intricacies of land tenure, he published one investigation after another with ceaseless activity, to the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Revolutionary struggle was a most inopportune time for Timothy Edwards; but for that he would have become one of the wealthiest men of his day. All business was suspended and he gave himself to his country's cause with intense devotion. He was at once appointed on a commission with General Schuyler ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... majority of women lose their authority by abusing the kiss with untimely kisses. When they feel that their husband or their lover is a little tired, at those times when the heart as well as the body needs rest, instead of understanding what is going on within him, they persist in giving inopportune caresses, tire him by the obstinacy of begging lips and give caresses lavished with ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... I would know the little cub again but I don't." Mr. Johnson said further, that Mr. Young observed that life was a sad, sad thing —"because the joy of every new marriage a man contracted was so apt to be blighted by the inopportune funeral of a less recent bride." And Mr. Johnson said that while he and Mr. Young were pleasantly conversing in private, one of the Mrs. Youngs came in and demanded a breast-pin, remarking that she had found out that he had been giving a breast-pin to No. 6, and she, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it meant to have your life spoilt and your happiness ruined all through coffee and tongue, because someone you'd never speak to again had hidden the lunch. Whence it came that William, optimist though he was, felt that any appeal to Robert for funds would be inopportune, to say the ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... MINISTER managed to get the House out of its hostile mood and to satisfy the majority, at any rate, that the measure was neither provocative nor inopportune, but a necessary precaution against the possibility that "direct action" on the part of extra-Parliamentary bodies might confront the country with the alternatives of starvation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... caused the attack to be fixed for the 23d; an inopportune delay, during which Americans were strengthening their still very imperfect defences. On the 23d the wind was unfavourable. On the 25th the Experiment, 50, arrived, crossed the bar, and, after taking in her ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... crowd. I feel sure he intended to make a short speech, as the multitude seemed to demand it. The President was bowing his acknowledgments to the large gathering, when someone, with that bad taste that always crops out at the most inopportune moment, yelled 'Hurrah for Cleveland.' A great many others, with bad taste, laughed. Harrison flushed to his temples, bowed and backed into ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the first attempt of the French to colonize Acadia is among the bright deeds of their colonial history. While the death of De Chastes was most inopportune, the future of the French race in America did not hinge upon any one man. In 1603 fishing on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland was a well-established occupation of Normans and Bretons, the fur trade held out hope of great {24} profit, and the spirit of national emulation supplied a motive which ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... Lord North had, indeed, offered resolutions of conciliation. The measure amazed his own followers and was greeted by the Whigs with Homeric laughter. Offers of conciliation could scarcely have arrived in America at a more inopportune time,—the very moment almost when the battle of Lexington came like an alarm-bell in the night to waken men from the dream of peace. And the resolutions themselves had all the appearance of being a clever ruse designed to separate the Middle colonies from New ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... down; and in this her Care, she so well succeeded, that, to her Dismay, he bade her take Pen and Ink, and commenced dictating to her as composedly as if they were in Bunhill Fields. This was somewhat inopportune, for every Thing was to seek and to set in Order; and, indeed, Mother soon came in, all of a Heat, and sayd, "I wonder, my Dear, you can keep Nan here, at such idling, when she has her Bed to make, and her Box to unpack." Father ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... conduct as in the last degree tactless, indiscreet, and entirely inopportune. It is a thing unheard-of that occurrences relating to a sovereign reigning at the time should ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... At this moment John, the man-servant, approached Mrs. Barton with a gravy-tureen, and also with a slight odour of the stable, which usually adhered to him through his in-door functions. John was rather nervous; and the Countess happening to speak to him at this inopportune moment, the tureen slipped and emptied itself on ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... DEAR PUPIL:—Despite the fact that your manuscript score arrived at a time most inopportune, I having recently renounced all but my most pressing lessons to plunge myself entirely into an atmosphere of profound creation, I have conscientiously performed the task you imposed upon me. That this ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... said, "You know, monsieur, that without any cause on my part, you have during the whole journey insulted me grievously. You wished to make me fight at an inopportune time, and I refused; but now the time is good and ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... origin, being coordinated and synergic, clonic or at times tonic[*] muscular movements, physiologically and not anatomically grouped, premeditated, purposive, of abnormal intensity, apparently causeless and inopportune. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... knows that if there is one thing particularly liable to happen it is the arrival of fruit for preserving at the most inopportune moment of the week. It matters little what the excuse of the sender may be—there is always a sufficient reason why the original date set by the buyer has been ignored. In this case the strawberries had been engaged from ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... and say yes? Why does an objectlessly lying devil make its inopportune entry into me? Through some misplaced and crooked false shame I answer, "Not at all! not at all! of course a few minutes one way or the other could not make much difference; I was only puzzled to know what had ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... to enter. Mr. Wynn and the wounded man, who occupied an arm-chair by the window, were the only occupants of the room. But in spite of the former's ostentatious greeting, Brace could see that his visit was inopportune and unwelcome. The sheriff nodded a quick, impatient recognition, which, had it not been accompanied by an anathema on the heat, might have been taken as a personal insult. Neither spoke of Miss Nellie, although it was patent to Brace that they were momentarily ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... done was never known; perhaps, with his strong arm round her, Nesta would have yielded then and there; but a most inopportune childish voice ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... of this proposal the First Consul offered a well-judged refusal. To consult the people on the restoration of monarchy would, as yet, have been as inopportune as it was superfluous. After gaining complete power, Bonaparte could be well assured as to the establishment of an hereditary claim. The former and less offensive part of the proposal was therefore submitted to the people; and to it there could be ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... placing Rabican in hands where he would be safe, and whence he might recover him in time of need. While he stood deliberating where he should find a messenger, he saw Bradamante approach. That fair warrior had been parted from Rogero on their way to the abbey of Vallombrosa, by an inopportune adventure which had called the knight away. She was now returning to Montalban, having arranged with Rogero to join her there. To Bradamante, therefore, his fair cousin, Astolpho committed Rabican, and also the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... of Lords. At the great meeting in St. James's Hall in the summer of 1868 to protest against the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, some Orange enthusiast, in the hope of disturbing the Bishop, kept interrupting his honeyed eloquence with inopportune shouts of "Speak up, my lord." "I am already speaking up," replied the Bishop in his most dulcet tone; "I always speak up; and I decline to speak down to the level of the ill-mannered person in the gallery." Every one whose memory runs back thirty ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... with him for the public treasury. If the laws were invalidated by the disregard of Bibulus and the signs of the sky, then the Cyprus mission had been invalid also, and Cato's fine performance void. Caesar's grand victories, the news of which was now coming in, made it inopportune to press the matter farther; and just then another subject rose, on which the optimates ran off like hounds ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the Duchess continued, "look upon your husband's arrival as inopportune and unfortunate. We are all agreed that you must be kept apart. Certain obligations have been laid upon you. You could not possibly fulfil them with a husband at your elbow. The matter will be put plainly before your husband, as I am now putting it before you. He will be ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... near adding "for life," but decided that such a declaration would be inopportune. "Why should you engage in business, Quincy? You are not ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... difficulty in applying the word simple to this. Nature must therefore triumph over art, not by its blind and brutal force as a dynamical power, but in virtue of its form as a moral magnitude; in a word, not as a want, but as an internal necessity. It must not be insufficiency, but the inopportune character of the latter that gives nature her victory; for insufficiency is only a want and a defect, and nothing that results from a want or defect could produce esteem. No doubt in the simplicity resulting from surprise, it is always the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... protested Ramblethorne. "Corpses have a nasty way of turning up at inopportune moments. These youngsters are worth more ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... stopping now and then to give an ear to any chance noise in the courtyard, and to glance alertly at the door; so that Shere understood that she was expecting another visitor, and that he himself was in the way. An inopportune intrusion, it seemed, was the sole outcome of the two years' anticipations, and utterly discouraged he rose from his chair. On the instant, however, Esteban signed to Shere to remain, and with a friendly smile himself made an ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... the little New Zealander appeared as capable of taking care of himself as any gentleman in Her Majesty's dominions; and a note had already been sent to his aunt informing her of his arrival. Still, a summons to the Doctor in an opposite direction was inopportune, the more so as the guest was to remain at Stoneborough only this one day, and had letters and messages for Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, while it was also desirable to see whether the boy had gone ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not that the reader who is acquainted with the beautiful lines of Rogers is as much grieved as I am at the interference of the "casket-makers" with the achievement which the poet ascribes to the bridegrooms alone; an interference quite as inopportune as that of old Le Balafre with the victory of his nephew, in the unsatisfactory conclusion of "Quentin Durward." I am afraid I cannot get the casket-makers quite out of the way; but it may gratify some of my readers ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Dantonists and the Commune, were made to seem their outcome by the insinuations of cunning adversaries. In fact, to let the world appreciate the two essential characteristics of a conspiracy fomented by foreign gold against the Republic,—to wit inopportune moderation on the one hand and self-interested excess of zeal on the other, they had united in the same condemnation two very different women, the widow of Camille Desmoulins, poor lovable Lucille, and the widow of the Hebertist Momoro, goddess of ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Russell met him. Eric felt the meeting inopportune; he was ashamed to meet his friend, ashamed to speak to him, envious of him, and jealous of his better reputation. He wanted to pass him by without notice, but Russell would not suffer this. He came up to him and took his arm affectionately. The slightest ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... monster, a self-righteous person, full of self- approbation—in fact you were the Beast of this pious Apocalypse. Your friend Dr. Lind was an embittered and scurrilous apothecary, "a bad old man." But enough of this inopportune brawler. ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... the name, and also having asked Willie, long since, to identify it. However, she thought the topic just a little inopportune at the moment. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... all necessary to make advances to everybody—and, moreover, it is the very way to have no one for yourself. Look, observe, and keep an intelligent reserve, and don't cast yourself, German-wise, precipitately into politeness and inopportune modesty. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... of again trying Mary's disposition upon the marriage question. His hopes had waned since her arrival in London; he had spoken to Paget, who agreed that an alliance with the Prince of Spain was the most splendid which the queen could hope for; but the time was inopportune, and the people were intensely hostile. The exigencies of the position, he thought, might oblige the queen to yield to wishes which she could not oppose, and accept Lord Courtenay; or possibly her own inclination might set in the same direction; ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... Wilderness would be counterbalanced by the facility with which his position would enable him to secure a new base; and by the fact that as he would thus cover Washington, there would be little or no necessity for the authorities there to detach from his force at some inopportune moment for the protection ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... on a ten-month law," his wife said regretfully. "Of course, I can go out to camp to be with him; but it's not good for Mac. He picks up all the talk of the miners and retails it at inopportune times, and runs wild generally. Archie usually comes home for a day, every two or three weeks; but, this year, he is too far out for that, so I thought it was best for me to ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... were looking," pursued the countess-dowager, who had darted in at rather an inopportune moment for Maude—darting in on people at such moments being her habit. "And that was the sketch Hartledon asked you to do for him from the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... long white poles, stepped out of various wynds and closes and picked their solemn way to the house of mourning. Nanny Low, the widow, received them dejectedly, as one oppressed by the knowledge that her man's death at such an inopportune place did not fulfil the promise of his youth; and her guests admitted bluntly that they were disappointed in Tammas. Snecky Hobart's father's unusually long and impressive prayer was an official intimation that the deceased, in the opinion of the session, sorely needed everything ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... getting into an office. A salesman usually stands a much better chance if he writes ahead for an appointment. It is much more courteous to ask a man when he wants to see you than to drop in on him casually and trust to luck that the time is not inopportune. Some salesmen are afraid to write because they think the knowledge of what they have to sell will prejudice the prospect against it. At the same time they feel that if they can only get a chance to talk to him a few minutes they can over-ride the prejudice. ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... not have selected a more inopportune moment for his visit, and already began to fear that he would have no success to-day. But it began to look as though it were a question of now or never; Brodie would return despite the shotgun, and Brodie might now be looked to for rough-shod methods. So, in face of ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... to all, officials, exiles, and natives alike, who reside for any length of time in this hell upon earth.[42] The attack is usually unexpected; a person hitherto calm and collected will suddenly commence to shout, sing, and dance at the most inopportune moment, and from that time the mind of the patient becomes permanently deranged. A curious phase of this disease is the irresistible impulse to mimic the voice and actions of others. Thus I witnessed a painful scene one night in the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... notoriously inopportune, may even die inopportunely, and this was the revenge that Mr. Aubyn, some two years after her return to Hillbridge, took upon his injured wife. He died precisely at the moment when Glennard was beginning to criticise her. It was not that ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... very inopportune change in the direction of the wind, we had had an unprecedentedly quick passage. The distance from Copenhagen to Iceland, in a straight line, is reckoned at 1200 geographical miles; for a sailing vessel, which ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... eagerly, and hands that were ready gladly with any little service that there was room to render. She was no longer troubled by a group of people dogging her footsteps; and she found now that there had been, however inopportune, a little excitement in that. It was very well they were gone, she acknowledged; for Mr. Caruthers might have come to like her too well, and that would have been inconvenient; and yet it is so pleasant to be liked! Upon the sober humdrum of Lois's every day ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... honor at New Tavern. Mrs. Hancock was also in the city, and some fine preparations were made. There was a heated discussion. Some of the more sedate people, who never took part in gayeties, represented that this would be a most inopportune time for such a revel when the country was in the throes ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... more inopportune accident happened to me later in the day, when speaking at Shrivenham. A large yard enclosed by buildings was chosen for the meeting. The difficulty was to elevate the speaker above the heads of the assembly. In one corner of the yard was a water-butt. An ingenious elector got a board, placed it ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the tender, passing touch to show me my secret grief was understood, and my inconsistency was pardoned. I needed the generous smile to prove to me that my greed for kindness, even when perhaps inopportune, was met in an ungrudging spirit. I needed now and then—I needed this sometimes terribly, more, perhaps, than any other thing—a sacrifice of some very small, very personal desire of yours, because it was not mine or because it was opposite to mine. Never, never, did ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... single voice was raised to condemn the war for its criminality and injustice: the arguments which were urged against it by M. Thiers and others were that the Government had fixed upon a bad cause, and that the occasion was inopportune. Whether the majority of the Assembly really desired war is even now matter of doubt. But the clamour of a hundred madmen within its walls, the ravings of journalists and incendiaries, who at such a time are to the true expression of public ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... a little jealous of Hester. This illness, the cause of which had sincerely grieved him, had come at an inopportune moment. Hester was always taking ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... neatly dressed in black, and he had about him an appearance of prosperity which she was not accustomed to see. He looked different, more staid and respectable, but his drollness of speech and kindly manner were the same as ever. He held out his hand to Laura, who invited him in. He came at an inopportune time, but she could not forget his kindness to her during those terrible days ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... life. Thales gave the truest limits, who, young and being importuned by his mother to marry, answered, "That it was too soon," and, being grown into years and urged again, "That it was too late." A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune action. The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid thing for a man to have society with a woman before he was twenty years of age, and strictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for war the keeping their virginity ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... realized that this inopportune flirting with fate must stop; that I must give over dallying with sensations, or it would soon be all over with me. I was falling a prey to the native Lorelei—for all these spots in Japan have their familiar devils—subjectively, as befits a modern man. I numbed sensibility ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... them, or condemn and forbid them, accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own ipse dixit, it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or inopportune. It claims that whatever may be the judgment of Catholics upon such acts, these acts should be received by them with those outward marks of reverence, submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance, pay to the presence of their sovereign, without public ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... subordinate Parliament for Ireland as were his friends Carlyle and Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. After the introduction of the Home Rule Bill he could not bring himself, though requested by a friend, to write words which would have expressed or implied esteem for the statesman who had made that most inopportune experiment in opportunism[112] and whose talents he admired. Yet for a certain kind of opportunism—that which conserves rather than destroys—Browning thought that much might fairly be said. To say this with a special reference to the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... notwithstanding the energy of the tribunes, notwithstanding the eloquence of the Gracchi, the violence of Marius, and the triumph of Caesar, this execrable policy succeeded only too well. The Senate always temporized; the measures proposed by the tribunes might be good, but they were inopportune. It admitted that something should be done; but first it was necessary that the people should resume the performance of their duties, because the Senate could not yield to violence, and force must be employed only by the law. If the people—out of respect for legality—took ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Mrs. Hannah Tracy Cutler, and myself were employed under direction of Mrs. Elizabeth Jones, of Salem, to canvass the State, lecturing and procuring names to petitions to the Legislature for equal legal and political rights for the women of the State. The time chosen for this work was inopportune for immediate success—the opening scenes of the rebellion alike absorbing the attention of the people and their Legislature. Women in goodly numbers came out to hear, but men of all classes waited in the streets, or congregated in public places to hear the news and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of February 12th, dealing with certain very important points connected with the problem of National Defence. Though it would be inopportune for me to pass any detailed judgment upon the scheme which you have laid before me in outline, and though it is evident that difficulties of a serious kind must attend any effort to carry out so ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... right to an explanation, sir. As you have entered at what I can but call such a very inopportune moment, you heard what I was saying—words uttered, need I say, in no malicious spirit, but in a sincere and public-spirited desire to discover the truth. I was accusing and do accuse, no one; I was merely laying ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... property to the care of another who, even only occasionally, permits himself to take too much liquor, because he can never know just when that overdose may be taken. He is always ready to believe that it may be imbibed at the most inopportune moment, and that the master of his ship may be under its influence at the precise instant when the safety of the ship, crew, and cargo demand his utmost vigilance and most intelligent resource. And although you may imagine that what you ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... conscious that his lack of response seemed both sullen and awkward, but he was for the moment tongue-tied. His habit of inopportune self-analysis had once more asserted itself. He could not understand the curious nature of his mistrust of this woman, nor could he understand the pleasure which her suggestion gave him. He wanted to refuse, and yet he was glad to be able to tell himself that he was, after all, but an employee ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him with a vague inopportune desire to explain what so evidently did not need explaining. He walked about the room trying ways of putting it, while ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... already occupied by the recumbent and sleeping form of a man, and, jumping to the conclusion that he must be either a policeman or a detective, he promptly sat upon his head with a view to suppressing any inopportune remarks. A second later three men rushed into the room, and Banborough held his breath. But luck was with him, for one glance at the empty stove and the open door satisfied the ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... conjure you, let me act. No false generosity! No inopportune devotedness! You knew nothing of my projects. You have done nothing of yourself. With me it is different. I alone am the author of this plot. I stood in need of my inseparable companion; I called upon you, and you came to me in remembrance of ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at my house. Ritter's looks alone, and still more, a certain abrupt contradictoriness in his way of speaking, seemed to put Liszt into a state in which he was easily irritated. One evening Liszt was speaking in an impressive tone of the merits of the Jesuits, and Ritter's inopportune smiles appeared to offend him. At table the conversation turned on the Emperor of the French, Louis Napoleon, whose merits Liszt rather summarily insisted that we should acknowledge, whereas we were, on the whole, anything but enthusiastic about the general ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... rapidly but indirectly approaching. They had fully made up their minds by this time that they were leaving far behind them the central point which they would have probably reached half an hour ago if they had not been shunted off their course by that inopportune bolide. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... battle for nearly a quarter of a century. The association protested but the sponsors of both bills were adamant. As a result both bills were passed in March and April and it found itself in the midst of a campaign on the referendum at this most inopportune time. There was nothing to do but to plunge into it. Interest lagged, however, as the women were absorbed in war work and there was a wide belief that in recognition of this work the men would give the suffrage without a campaign for it. Mrs. Catt, now national ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... to grow, a certain rash greatness of idea; traces of veritable conviction, just resolution; veritable and just, though rash. That of admiration for King Friedrich was not intrinsically foolish, in the solitary thoughts of the poor young fellow; nay it was the reverse; though it was highly inopportune in the place where he stood. Nor was the Holstein notion bad; it was generous rather, noble and natural, though, again, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... cordially, but James fancied she tried to conceal a slight look of annoyance. He saw his visit was inopportune. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... that I had only a dollar or two in my pocket. Therefore the check for fifty dollars that the old gentleman had carefully drawn for me with his quill pen and then had as carefully sanded over was by no means inopportune. I took the shore-car back over the Warren Avenue Bridge, depressed at the thought of leaving the scene of my first acquaintance with the world and at the same time somewhat relieved, in spite of myself, by the consoling thought that I should no longer be worried by the ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... but he wishes now that he had taken the honorable step. If he only understood the turns and tricks of fashionable life. He has been in wilds and deserts so long, that he has a curious nervous dread of blunders or those inopportune explanations ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... far from saying that Mr Aiken's poetry is merely a chemical compound of the 'nineties, Freud and introspective Imperialism; but we do think it is liable to resolve at the most inopportune moments into those elements, and that such moments occur with distressing frequency in the poem called 'The Charnel Rose.' 'Senlin' resists disruption longer. But the same elements are there. They are better but not sufficiently fused. The rhetoric ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... "that our visit is not inopportune. Sir Richard Dyson, I believe?" he continued, bowing—"my friend, Mr. Masters here, has consulted me as to the loss of a betting book, and we ventured to call to ask you, sir, if by any chance on his ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... very readily account for myself, sir," was the stiff response. "I was summoned here to perform a wedding ceremony which your most inopportune arrival prevented. I am a man of peace, not of war, yet I cannot and ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... your good intentions toward me and my family, though your coming is inopportune, not to say impertinent. We know our own affairs. Colonel Burr and myself are, I conceive, sufficiently experienced in business, and well enough informed in law, to know what we are about. The interference ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love,—there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the presiding officer of the joint assembly, surprised but courteous. Philip Danvers was not one to be ignored, no matter how inopportune the time. As he stood there for the moment silent, he conveyed the impression of perfect poise, and the honesty and sincerity of his purpose ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... talking and laughing loudly, with the hoydenish manner peculiar to artists' daughters, with the studio jests, the familiarity of students, and knowing also better than anyone how to dismiss a creditor or blow up a tradesman impertinent enough to present his bill at an inopportune moment. ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... know," Philip said quite low. Just at this moment Jimmy Anstice, with that exasperatingly inopportune ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... crowned her folly by sending it to the King (Louis XIV.), with furious complaints against the Abbe for writing it without her knowledge, and for inflicting upon her such an atrocious injury as to mention this pretended marriage. Her letter and its enclosure reached the King at a very inopportune moment. Just before, he had received a letter, which, taken in connection with this of the Princesse des Ursins, struck a blow at her power ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... gave upon the floor of the landing brought out for me a certain impatience which I might otherwise have missed in those last words of hers. From Charley it brought out, I feel quite sure, the speech which (in some form) she had been expecting from him as her confederate in this unwelcome and inopportune interview with me, and which his less highly schooled perceptions had not suggested to ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... and night. Was ever man so tantalized? To hold the shadow and see the substance dangled temptingly within reach. The bishop made no sign of ridding me of my unwelcome charge, and the thought of what might happen in a case of burglary—fire—earthquake—made me start and tremble at all sorts of inopportune moments. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... wooing, inopportune, fatal as any method he possibly could have found, moreover a cruel, unseemly thing to do, here and with her situated thus. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... London," said Alice. "We are only schoolgirls. We are at school and must mind our lessons. I am trying for my scholarship, and I mean to get it. And I don't suppose, even if your aunt is coming at a most inopportune time, that she is going to ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... out, step by step, the programme laid down by Lalor in 1848. One of Lalor's adherents had been a young priest named Croke. By 1887 he had become Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. He had considered the "No Rent" manifesto inopportune; but now formally sanctioned the "Plan of Campaign," and in a violent letter urged that it should be extended to a general refusal to pay taxes. The Plan was also approved by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... Assembly's petition for a change to royal government, Franklin presented it, but never pressed it. He, too, was finally convinced that the time was inopportune. In fact, the Assembly itself before long began to have doubts and fears and sent him word to let the subject drop; and amid much greater events ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning. Then if you refrain, he is at you again, For he likes to get value for money: He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare, "If ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... am doubly inopportune," I said, "for I have been following you to ask a small favour—not for myself, but for a certain Major Dignum, at the Grand Pump Hotel; nothing more than the attesting of a signature—a mere ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... whole has been peaceful. From 5 a.m. we have been very busy among the Australian wounded, these being the principal sufferers in yesterday's fight, owing, it is said, to their charging with the bayonet at an inopportune moment. Many of their senior officers passed through our hands, and their men, fine, big ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... and then they sat still without talking. The children—must it be confessed?— asked all sorts of inopportune questions. At last Tom was even fain to tell the story of the bear himself, by way of silencing the Brick and Laura; and with much correction from Horace, had got the bear well advanced in smelling at the almond-candy and the figs, when a carriage was heard on the street, evidently coming rapidly ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... she approached an age whose only resource was tranquillity, she grew more restless. Her present vague agitation belonged ridiculously to youth. The philosophy of the evident that had supported her so firmly was breaking at the most inopportune time. And it was, she told herself, too late for anything new; the years for that had been spent insensibly with Arnaud. Linda was very angry with herself, for, in all her shifting state of mind, she preserved an inner ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... she would have to say to her aunts in her letter of farewell on leaving them would have to be thought out, too, so that no pursuit or inopportune prying into the truth would be ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... respectful distance! My pen is at your service. I prefer to be your historian, your literary maid—half slave, half confidant; for then you will always welcome me. If I were a lover, I might some day be inopportune. That ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... been asked, "Do not people bore you?" I do not understand quite what that means. I suppose the calls of the stupid and curious, especially of newspaper reporters, are always inopportune. I also dislike people who try to talk down to my understanding. They are like people who when walking with you try to shorten their steps to suit yours; the hypocrisy in both cases is ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... but felt that, inopportune as the demand was, she could not refuse it without laying herself open to suspicion, and perhaps worse. "Oh, let her come in, poor old soul," she said, "and find a seat for her. I'd really no idea she was well enough to ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... told by Neifile brings to my mind another in which also Jew appears, but this time as the hero of a perilous adventure; and as enough has been said of God and of the truth our faith, it will not now be inopportune if we descend to mundane events and the actions of men. Wherefore I propose to tell you a story, which will perhaps dispose you to be more circumspect than you have been wont to be in answering ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... version is an elaborate tissue of falsehoods. It is true that Bernick's evident uneasiness and embarrassment at the mere idea of the reappearance of Lona and Johan may lead us to suspect that all is not as it seems; but simple annoyance at the inopportune arrival of the black sheep of the family might be sufficient to account for this. To all intents and purposes, we are completely in the dark as to the course the drama is about to take; and when, at the end of the first act, Lona Hessel marches in and flutters the social dovecote, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... be inopportune to mention that this Government has imposed and collected some $70,000,000 by a tax on cotton, in the production of which the population of the Lower Mississippi is largely engaged, and it does not seem inequitable to return a portion ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... Now you have really started on your wedding tour in the belief of all London, and all outside of London who take the Times; and all our world do take it. And now, if any rumor of this most inopportune disappearance of our bride should get out, why, it will never be believed! That is all! For has not the departure of the 'happy pair' been published in the Times? Yes, I am very glad of the news reporter's indiscreet precipitancy on this occasion, at ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a matter of mental states. Feats of legal subtlety are inopportune, arithmetical exploits still more so. To emerge with the sum of 4s. 6-1/2d. as a minimum, by calculating on the basis of the mine's present earnings, from a conference which the miners and everybody else imagined was to give a minimum of 5s., may be clever, but it is certainly ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... seen. They were eating, drinking, gesticulating. In spite of the tumult, some, in utter weariness, were asleep. It was like a picture of 1870 by Detaille or De Neuville. Apparently, at last I had reached the headquarters of the mysterious general. I had arrived at what, for a suspected spy, was an inopportune moment. The Germans themselves had been surprised, or somewhere south of us had met with a reverse, and the air was vibrating with excitement and something very like panic. Outside, at great speed and with sirens shrieking, automobiles were arriving, ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... recent distribution of honors as an act of indifference towards themselves. It might be possible, therefore—but you will be the best judge—that the honor now proposed for me might lead to an aggravation of this feeling of dissatisfaction, which arises at the very inopportune moment of the ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... shores of the land, and carrying off the filth that was constantly poured into the sea there-from; which, Peterkin suggested, was remarkably tidy of it to do. Poor Peterkin could never let slip an opportunity to joke, however inopportune it might be: which at first we found rather a disagreeable propensity, as it often interrupted the flow of very agreeable conversation; and, indeed, I cannot too strongly record my disapprobation ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... doubt, however, was solved by the entrance of a strange horseman into the courtyard. A faint frown crossed the Abbot's face as he saw him, and De Lacy instantly decided to remain. Evidently the newcomer was either unwelcome or inopportune; and if it were because of their presence, then undoubtedly here ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... declared war against Prussia. But Fox, who was an advocate of peace, had come into power in England (Jan. 23, 1806); and Prussia discovered that Napoleon, who was friendly to him, was negotiating for the surrender of Hanover to that country. This crowning indignity moved Prussia, at this inopportune moment, to take up arms against him. Prussia had no ally but Russia. The Prussian army was full of pride and hope; but its organization and method of warfare were after the old, traditional fashion which had come down from the days of Frederick ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory" (Grant's "Memoirs"). A tactical success may be not only useless, but actually inopportune, if it is out of accord with the plans of the higher command. On the morning of June 18, 1815, Marshal Grouchy was in {8} pursuit of the Prussians whom Napoleon had defeated on June 16 at Ligny. Although ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... new doctrine. Hetvabhasas are those which appear as hetus but are really not so. Nyaya sutras enumerate five fallacies (hetvabhasas) of the middle (hetu): savyabhicara (erratic), viruddha (contradictory), prakara@nasama (tautology), saddhyasama (unproved reason) and kalatita (inopportune). Savyabhicara is that where the same reason may prove opposite conclusions (e.g. sound is eternal because it is intangible like the atoms which are eternal, and sound is non-eternal because it is intangible like cognitions which are non-eternal); viruddha is that where the reason ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity, which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... highlands would naturally be lower than ours. The main drawbacks in his opinion, however, were the slave-trade, and the power allowed the effete Portuguese of shutting up the country from all except a few convicts of their own nation. The time of his coming was inopportune; the disasters which, from inexperience, had befallen the Mission of the Universities, had a depressing effect on the minds of many at home, and rendered a new attempt unadvisable; though, had the Scotch ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... all her life of inopportune arrivals, had Miss Annabel been so truly welcome—or so bitterly resented! Esther turned to her with a heart-sob of relief, the minister walked away ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... find no satisfaction with wife, child, or home. Life has become almost unbearable. Often I have seriously thought of committing suicide, only to postpone it to a time which would be less cruelly inopportune to others. I see my friend (now married) almost daily, and suffer tortures at seeing others nearer to him than myself. No explanation seems possible, as the whole idea of inversion is so repugnant ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... up papers for a divorce?" said Mr. Middleton, gloomily. How was he going to get rid of this inopportune fellow? ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... arranged in his own mind to chloroform the bold Michigan cavalryman, but his wife broke it all up by throwing her arms around him at an inopportune moment, thus pinioning the President of the Confederacy so he could not whip the Union army. And so, like Adam, Jeff lays the whole business to the woman. What would we do without women to lay ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... bobbed her head, hardly more than a trifle pleased, one might say. Just like females. They're riddles, not worth spelling. Then, drunk I'll get to-night, my pretty dear! the man muttered, soured by her inopportune staidness, as an opponent's bruisings could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... an intrusion at such a time, Elvira. The effusions of even the best-intentioned friends are injudicious at the inopportune moment ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... minutes the Golden Butterfly was on the sward beside the crippled Cobweb. Mortlake's face was black as night. He fulminated maledictions on the young aviators who had appeared at—for him—such an inopportune moment. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... offers to take Ida's letters to the post, or to go and fetch home the mail, have been met with a hasty negative, and Minna despatched forthwith to attend to them; and whenever I might enter Ida's room, it would appear to be at a most inopportune moment, for the earnest conversation that had been going on between herself and Gabrielle would instantly stop, and their countenances assume a most transparent expression of indifference. Long whispered conversations ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... Pomander, who had had time to recover his aplomb, somewhat shaken, at first, by Mr. Vane's inopportune arrival. ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... people, acting as saviours to the poor, dark-eyed, dying young thing. And that attitude of Leonora's towards Mrs Maidan no doubt partly accounted for the smack in the face. She was hitting a naughty child who had been stealing chocolates at an inopportune moment. It was certainly an inopportune moment. For, with the opening of that blackmailing letter from that injured brother officer, all the old terrors had redescended upon Leonora. Her road had again seemed to stretch out endless; she imagined that there might be hundreds and hundreds ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... the ladies had not long left the dining-room. They were agitated when his name was announced; even Apollonia's heart beat; but then that might be accounted for by the inopportune recollection of an occasional correspondence ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... the switch is?" he asked, wondering whether she was going to be such an idiot as to faint at this inopportune moment. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... draft for a quarter's rent of the villa. I thank you a thousand times for your admirable punctuality. Decidedly you are of those with whom it is a consolation to do business. Need I assure you that the advent of this money is far from inopportune, since a grateful country, while showering distinctions upon me with one hand, with the other picks my pocket. I find it not a little expensive this famous military service! But then, ever since I can remember, I have found all that afforded me the slightest, active ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... kegs while Nolan kept watch for inopportune visitors. It was thought inadvisable to unload the camp outfit from the car until the whisky was all removed. The outfit effectually hid what was below—and they were taking no chances. They both breathed freer ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... we allowed to see that stern spirit giving way to any emotion, conceiving any affection, or working ever for the good of any but himself. Besides, in such an hour as this, the consciousness of the danger in which he stood by virtue of the Pope's death and his own most inopportune sickness, which disabled him from taking action to make his future secure, must have concerned him to the exclusion of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Jack agreed, wondering when the fellow would move on, or whether his inopportune presence was to be taken as a warning not to put his mad intention into effect. He was superstitious enough to believe ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... organisation of the municipality, and delivered a splendid series of orations on various abuses, such as plural voting, iniquitous monopolies, etc. Yet he proved his studious moderation by strenuously declaiming against the famous "Declaration of the Rights of Man," pronouncing it inopportune and perilous. His heroic harangues provoked disorder in his audience dangerous to himself. But his courage was dauntless, for even when the king and his chief minister abandoned the royal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... just the jolly kind of thing I should have delighted in," wrote her Highness. "And then, if I had known, I should not have sent that unlucky telegram. It serves you right for not taking me into your confidence, and I am glad you had a fright. Think of it coming in at that inopportune moment, just as telegrams do at a play! But, Jennie, are you sure you told me everything? A letter came from London the day before yours arrived, and it bewildered me dreadfully at first. Don Stirling, ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... Sabbath of compositions, in which the oddest scrolls and throngs of genii blended with flowers, buds, and all sorts of emblems of love twined around initial letters or the picture of the person who had captured my heart at a time so inopportune. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not help thinking that his visit was inopportune; that he had chose an unfortunate time for it. "If the count finds him still here," thought she, "I am not afraid that he will make a scene, but all his pleasure will be spoiled." There was a tinge of coldness in her welcome to M. Langis, of which ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... the diplomatic situation when the Czar's telegram of June 11th was received by King Ferdinand. Nothing could have been more inopportune for the Bulgarian cause. Though the government had no intention of changing its plan, sufficient deference had to be paid to the Czar's request to suspend the forward movement of troops. The delay was fatal. The Servians, who were already aware that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... were interrupted by a knock at the Master's door. It was most inopportune, for he was on the point of the great disclosure, but common politeness compelled him to answer it, and as the step which we had heard was that of one of the softer-footed sex, he chose to rise from his chair and ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 'It was the inopportune time I was thinking of. Who knows what confusion this event may not have thrown them into? If you like to risk the discomfort, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... which the revolt of the Duchies, and war with many powerful enemies had placed her, a struggle which required all her resources, both intellectual and material, of which she could dispose; and thus it would have been inopportune had we at that time obtruded ourselves on the notice of the government. But now, that the clouds which obscured the political horizon have been dissipated, now, that a glorious war is concluded, and peace sheds its blessings over Denmark, we ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... little. This dissipates some of the gas and reduces the volume somewhat. Let it rise again, which it will do in a short time, if it has not been allowed to become too light. If dough that has been kneaded and allowed to rise in mass, becomes sufficiently light at some inopportune moment for shaping into loaves, it may be kept from becoming too light and souring, by taking a knife and cutting it away from the sides of the bowl and gradually working it over toward the center. Re-cover and put in a warm place. It will soon assume its former bulk. This "cutting ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... still watched by the anxious eye of William; until he thought (as it almost reached him, angrily muttering, with the subdued murmur of the flood, its disappointed expectations of a victim) that he was safe. But his self-gratulation, at this moment, was very inopportune; for, just as he uttered an exclamation of thankfulness at his supposed escape, the tree approached the broad and shallower part of the creek; when, suddenly throwing its upper end into the air with a convulsive leap, it ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... seems to me a vile pitfall, put right in our pathway, and catching most of us,—all of us,—causing us to tumble in at the most inconvenient opportunities, so that all human life is a jest and a farce, just for the sake of this inopportune death; for I observe it never waits for us to accomplish anything: we may have the salvation of a country in hand, but we are none the less likely to die for that. So that, being a believer, on the whole, in the wisdom and graciousness ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Doctor was even worse, until poor Mrs. Sutherland's life was scarcely worth living. Wallace unwittingly brought down a torrent of wrath upon his head one day when the Spring Drive was on and prospects were looking black. It was an inopportune moment for Wallace to broach the subject upon which he had been thinking deeply for ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... you can state your plea briefly, I will hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you fail to justify the impertinence of this insistence at so inopportune a moment." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Since Negook's inopportune visit, the Indians had avoided the cabin. Edith sent Hans to their cabins to get them to take Dennin down the coast in a canoe to the nearest white settlement or trading post, but the errand was fruitless. Then Edith went herself and interviewed Negook. He was head man ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... these political agitations that George Washington Lafayette, a son of the marquis, arrived in the United States, to claim an asylum at the hands of Washington. He could not have appeared at a more inopportune moment; for political reasons rendered it inexpedient for the president, as such, to receive him; and to place him in his family might cause perplexities, connected with political affairs, prejudicial ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... fear of a confined area, the fear of a crowd, fear of loss of speech at an inopportune moment, fear of falling buildings, fear of being alone, fear of poison, fear of germs, fears ad nauseam. I have qualified in all of them ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... family. She began to feel unaccountable sinkings of spirit, nameless and formless fears seemed to surround and haunt her. Once when she arose in the morning she felt an uncontrollable desire to cry, and frequently thereafter this feeling would seize upon her at the most inopportune times. Mrs. Gerhardt began to note her moods, and one afternoon she ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser |
