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More "Ill-timed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manumission, unnecessary, premature, and dangerous.' * * * 'It seems now to be admitted that, whatever has any bearing upon that question, must be managed with the utmost consideration; that the peace and order of society must not be endangered by indiscreet and ill-timed efforts to promote emancipation; and that a true regard should be manifested to the feelings and the fears, and even the prejudices of those, whose co-operation is essential.'—[Memorial of the Society to the several States.—A. R. vol. ii. pp. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... paralyzed. There was something terribly uncanny about the laughter. It seemed so ill-timed, so jarring ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness however a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa and went ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but this Convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the cases was undeniably funereal, not in shape only but also in color; for the dealer, with an ill-timed sense of fitness, had had them painted black. And the effect was heightened by the conduct of the two grinning carriers, who bore each case on their shoulders, coffin-wise, and proceeded to the museum at a slow, funereal walk; and when ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... wrath. But the blood mounted to his temples as he listened to these remarks, poured into his ear by a man of thirty-five, between puffs of his cigar, because there was nobody else to whom he could make them. But they seemed to Fred very ill- mannered and ill-timed. If he had not dreaded making himself absurd, he would gladly have stood forth as the champion of the Sparks, the Wermants, and all the other members of the Blue Band, so that he might give vent to the anger raging in his heart on hearing that odious compliment ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed sympathy; "I'm so much more used to bein' wet 'n ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... not ill-timed, especially for those who were dreamers or lovers. From the little open space where the halt had taken place, three beautiful long walks, shady and undulating, stretched out before them. These walks were covered with ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sheriffs in full dress presented themselves at our carriage window, and were about to deliver an address "to please the King;" but I thought such a proceeding ill-timed, and my niece De Nevers told these magnates that we were ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the Province itself,—an honor which has never been conferred upon it since the thrice happy administration of Sir Edmund Andres, of precious memory, who was also a Baronet"; and in a candid British judgment to-day, (that of Lord Mahon,) the honor was "a most ill-timed favor surely, when he had so grievously failed in gaining the affections or confidence of any order or rank of men within his Province." The subject occupies a large space in the private correspondence, and the title was the more flattering and acceptable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the diligent Freneda, the steadfast Las Vargas, and others who join them when the good party are in power. But there sits the hollow-eyed Toledan, with brazen front and deep fire-glance, muttering between his teeth about womanish softness, ill-timed concession, and that women can ride trained steeds, well enough, but are themselves bad masters of the horse, and the like pleasantries, which, in former times, I have been compelled to hear ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... considered sufficient refreshments, but which looked rather meagre to my hungry appetite. These footmen were standing solemnly opposite to a lady,—beautiful, splendid as the dawn, but—sound asleep in a magnificent settee. A gentleman who showed so much irritation at her ill-timed slumbers, that I think he must have been her husband, was trying to awaken her with actions not far removed from shakings. All in vain; she was quite unconscious of his annoyance, or the smiles of the company, or the automatic ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the moment in favour of a restored monarchy, the Convention determined that its will must be overpowered by force or thwarted by constitutional forms. Threatened alternately by the Jacobin mob of Paris and by the Royalist middle class, the Government played off one enemy against the other, until an ill-timed effort of the emigrant noblesse gave to the Convention the prestige of a decisive victory over Royalists and foreigners combined. On the 27th of June, 1795, an English fleet landed the flower of the old nobility of France at the Bay of Quiberon in southern Brittany. It was only ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... considered Tromp, who commanded the Dutch rear, as his personal antagonist, and in order to facilitate the latter's getting into action, he hove-to (stopped) the whole English rear to wait for him. This ill-timed point of honor on Spragge's part seems to have sprung from a promise he had made to the king that he would bring back Tromp alive or dead, or else lose his own life. The stoppage, which recalls the irresponsible and insubordinate action of the junior ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... either a knife or opium, which were the two methods by one of which he resolved to prevent his fate. But when he found that all his pretences of madness were like to produce nothing, and that he was in danger of dying in every respect like a brute, he laid aside much of his ill-timed gaiety, and began to think of preparing for ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Margaret. "Fanny, your suggestion is really ill-timed. We are all unhappy about Betty just now; and to see poor little Sibyl—of course, no one wants to say a word against her—in Betty's shoes would make our loss seem ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... partisanship is that of official proclamation rather than that of overworked and underpaid reporters striving to please their employers with all the desperation of servants working for a tip. The yelping after spies, the heaping of adjectives on every trifling achievement of British arms, the ill-timed talk of snatching the enemy's trade in a war theoretically fought for a high principle, all that journalistic vulgarity—which might be as characteristic of our own papers under similar circumstances—one ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... this ill-timed pride, Made fierce remonstrances, and then a threat He muttered (but the last was given aside) About a bow-string—quite in vain; not yet Would Juan bend, though 't were to Mahomet's bride: There's nothing in the world like etiquette In kingly chambers or imperial halls, As also ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... dialect, as shewed that he had learned it not by custom, but by rule. A man not early formed to habitual elegance, betrays, in like manner, the effects of his education, by an unnecessary anxiety of behaviour. It is as possible to become pedantick, by fear of pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill-timed civility. There is no kind of impertinence more justly censurable than his who is always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his own; who apologizes for every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... autumn. Since the spring of 562 Flamininus, by direction of the senate, had journeyed through Greece to thwart the intrigues of the opposite party, and to counteract as far as possible the evil effects of the ill-timed evacuation of the country. The Aetolians had already gone so far as formally to declare war in their diet against Rome. But Flamininus succeeded In saving Chalcis for the Romans by throwing into it a garrison of 500 Achaeans ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of this work is, to turn your thoughts a little off from the clamour of contending parties, which has so long surfeited you with their ill-timed politics, and restore your taste to ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... singled out as curious. They are the men who are in the lodginghouse sitting-rooms during bleak and bitter weather and who swarm about the cheaper shelters which only open at six in a number of the lower East Side streets. Miserable food, ill-timed and greedily eaten, had played havoc with bone and muscle. They were all pale, flabby, sunken-eyed, hollow-chested, with eyes that glinted and shone and lips that were a sickly red by contrast. Their hair was but half attended to, their ears anaemic in hue, and their shoes broken in leather ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... we "turn critics;" but our very bile rises at the ill-timed dedication of this work to the King, as the "first fruits of the combined exertions of a few of your majesty's subjects, educated within the GROSSLY misrepresented UNIVERSITY of LONDON." It is quite unnecessary for us to explain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... seem that Sebastian had only waited for the explanation of Charles's most ill-timed absence to carry out his usual programme. The clock in the tower of the Rathhaus had barely struck seven when he took his hat and cloak from the peg near the dining-room door. He was so absorbed ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... half-uttered apologies for the intrusion, he would not listen; but as he led her within, he gallantly professed his pleasure at being honored with her visits even at moments that, to her scrupulous delicacy, might appear the most ill-timed. ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Crusaders; very slovenly in diction, and lengthened out by tiresome repetitions; the same things being told in protracted dialogues which had been previously narrated in the historic course. Then there are very ill-timed interruptions, and wearisome disquisitions, just where they should not be. Yet are there passages of perfect excellence, that prove the master-hand of the author. The novel of "Ivanhoe" seems to resemble some of those plays ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... to do with dates—cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates—new style, old style, precession of the equinoxes, ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their station and never come? Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in woman's autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of dropping dates in favour of incidents; and an authority ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... she ceased to be the light of the circle in which she was placed—and she will answer that the very beings whom she was to bless, and from whom she was to derive blessings, darkened her pathway by the interference of injudicious kindness or ill-timed severity, and she became totally eclipsed. Ask the youth who has just made shipwreck of his wealth and his fame, and he will tell you that in passing through the shadow which relatives and associates had thrown across his path, his eclipse was so long that society had no patience ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... afternoon of the following day news came to him that Lord Lyttelton had died the previous night at the very time that he (Mr Andrews) was searching for his midnight visitant, and abusing him roundly for what he considered his ill-timed practical joke. On hearing the news, we are told, Mr Andrews swooned away, and such was its effect on him that, to use his own words, "he was not himself or a ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... stocks. He used to tell his friends in after years that he had "only five thousand to begin with,—the sole property left him by his lamented parents." He has now a handsome mansion in the Fifth Avenue, is a conspicuous member of the Rev. Dr. Holdfast's church, and most zealous against the ill-timed discussions and philanthropic vagaries of the day. What would he not give to forget that slowly-moving figure, with swimming eyes, carrying a flaring candle? How far along the years that feeble light was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... inconsiderable period, and involved a charge of treason, formulated and then abandoned with the reckless frivolity of the comic stage. We shall probably not be far wrong in ascribing the beginning of the trouble to Lady Castlemaine, who found her hold upon the royal favour threatened by some ill-timed intrigue of Buckingham. A charge of treason was brought against Buckingham, who was known to have at his command a rascally band of bullies and charlatans, who disturbed the streets of London, and whose outrages were ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... The first, though precipitated into action by fortunate discoveries on the part of the government, had been anxiously preconcerted for three years. The second was an unpremeditated effort, called forth by a most ill-timed, and also ill-concerted, foreign invasion. The general predisposing causes to rebellion were doubtless the same in both cases; but the exciting causes of the moment were different in each. And, finally, they were divided by a complete interval of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... ill-timed to mention here, what Captain Krusenstern says as to the scarcity of gunpowder in Kamtschatka, to which Captain King alludes in his account of bear-hunting. It is owing to the deficiency of this article, that the inhabitants are so seldom provided with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... been angelic; he had always been the victim of more or less ill-timed humor on the part of the Happy Family, and the victim of hunger-sharpened tempers as well. He had always grumbled and rumbled Dutch profanity when they goaded him too hard, and his amiability had ever expressed itself in juicy pies and puddings rather than in words. On ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... upon it. The thing appeared, however, so improbable that if it were not for the fact that this occurred in a region in which there were no Europeans at all—about three hundred and seventy-five miles from the nearest coast—the doctor and the captain would have assumed that it was an ill-timed joke, which had been perpetrated by some European children who had read the newspapers describing the abduction, or by wards of missions. But it was difficult not to believe their eyes; they had the kite in hand and the little ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without indulging the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... turned and answered, and turned back again. He was not of the composition of those who are balked of answers to their questions by ill-timed interruptions. But the little diversion gave Georgiana an instant's chance to make herself ready to answer like a woman and not like a startled schoolgirl. So that when he ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... passes the whole of Sunday forenoon committing the society columns of the Gossip to memory, and wishing her name was there," he chuckled, with a jocoseness which seemed to that lady extremely ill-timed. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... here speak; because the amor patriae its has long since shifted to amor nummi, and naked honesty has learned the decency of dress. There have been profligates in all ages; but the world, though sometimes a severe master, ruins as many by its deceitful indulgence, as by its ill-timed severity. Good fellows are usually the worst treated by the world allowing them to go beyond their tether, and then cutting them off out of harm's way. Nothing but an earlier discipline can improve us; for so habitual is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... I was foiled by the imperiousness of the soldier; and inwardly cursing his ill-timed interference, I proceeded to present my merchandise to the loving contemplation of the officers who thronged around me, with a strong light from an opposite window full upon ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... flushed and said somewhat violently that he should not make a jest of either hell or stake; and that she for one marvelled at his ill-timed pleasantries ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... was exceedingly disconcerted, and threw out all sorts of baits to catch the Duke's vote and support, but did not succeed, and he said that the Duke had again stepped in to save the Government. The 'Times' yesterday morning made a very sulky allusion to what they consider his ill-timed moderation; but he will not be a party to anything that has the semblance of faction, and to worrying and bullying the Government merely to show the power or to have the pleasure of doing so. In the present instance, although Melbourne gave way to the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... could not refrain from a low laugh at the description given of the persons whom they had just seen; but Wilton spoke loud again, in order to cover the somewhat ill-timed merriment of his companion, asking of the person who had replied, "Pray, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... displayed a complete lack of understanding of Corps discipline, the respect due a senior agent, even the basic courtesies. Your aggravated displays of temper, ill-timed outbursts of violence and almost incredible arrogance in the assumption of authority make your further retention as an officer-agent of the Diplomatic Corps impossible. It will therefore be my unhappy ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... were ill-timed, for hardly had he finished speaking when the runabout slowed down to the accompaniment of loud explosions in the muffler. Rosie's shrieks mingled with Abe's exclamations, and when at length the car came to a stand-still and the explosions ceased Abe scrambled ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... popularity placed within his reach, but casts a pensive, riveted look downwards to the modest flowers which the multitude trample under their feet. If he had a piece likely to succeed, coming out under all advantages, he would damn it by some ill-timed, wilful jest, and lose the favour of the public, to preserve the sense of his personal identity. 'Misfortune,' Shakespear says, 'brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows'; and it makes our thoughts traitors to ourselves.—It is ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... any great degree of danger or fatigue. All but the apex may often be reached in the saddle. The bergschrund with its fragile lip of ice, the crevasse with its treacherous bridges, and the avalanche which an ill-timed footstep starts with overwhelming havoc, do not threaten the explorer of the Western mountains; and ordinarily he passes from height to height—from the base with its wreaths of evergreens to the zone where vegetation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... they got very vexed, we were delighted, they were disappointed. At last at the end of ten days, they began to unload the vessel. Now! thought we, "what is going to happen, surely they are not going to stay here." Our ill-timed hilarity received a sudden check, for our fears were confirmed, they unloaded the vessel completely, and after ballasting her with sand and shingle, they set sail, and departed. But alas! for us they left ten of their ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... will, I dare say. He despises the surly brute too much to be angry with him, say what he will." He talked a great deal against me to Mrs. Jervis. You may guess, my dear, that she launched out in my praises; and he was offended at her, and said, "Woman! woman! forbear these ill-timed praises; her birth's a disgrace to our family. What! my sister's waiting-maid, taken upon charity! I cannot bear it." I mention all these things, as I afterwards heard them, because it shall prepare you to judge ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... said: "If, as the expression of the countenance is discerned by the sight, so the inward feelings of the mind could be distinguished, it would clearly appear to you that that laughter which you censure came from a heart not elated with joy, but frantic with misfortunes. And yet it is not so ill-timed as those absurd and inconsistent tears of yours. Then you ought to have wept when our arms were taken from us, our ships burned, and we were forbidden to engage in foreign wars, for that was the wound by which we fell. Nor is it just that you should suppose that the measures which the Romans ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... their pre-eminence, and stamp themselves as the characteristics which will appear as "innate qualities" in the succeeding incarnation. This balancing-up of the life-issues, this reading of the karmic records, is too solemn and momentous a thing to be disturbed by the ill-timed wailings of personal relatives ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... dogs, horses, and the state of the crops, when other conversations were proceeding in which she was really interested; she could receive any little grateful attention that he wished to pay her—no matter how awkward or ill-timed—as she received attentions from any one else, with a manner which showed she considered it as a favour granted to her sex, not as a right ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... it gladly, if I can. But, before you begin, let me apologize for what I said in ill-timed jest about doctors being atheists. I suppose that, in one sense, there isn't a more truly religious class of men in ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... unfortunate speeches, for they expressed an optimism which we cannot believe he really felt, and which hurt him in the estimation of the country. "There is no crisis but an artificial one," was one of his ill-timed assurances, and another, "There is nothing going wrong.... There is nothing that really hurts any one." Of his supporters some were discouraged; others were exasperated; and an able but angry partisan even went so far as ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... was ill-timed. I saw a spasm of anger distort Bezers' face. "Get up, boy!" he snarled, "I wrote to Mademoiselle what I would do, and that I shall do! A Bezers keeps his word. By the God above us—if there be a God, and in the devil's name I doubt it ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... and disgusted at so ill-timed an exit; but Zoe, who had seen his white face, was seriously alarmed, and made a movement to rise too, and watch, or even follow him; but, when he got to the side, he looked back to her, and made her a signal that his nose was bleeding, but it was of no great consequence. He even pointed ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... It could not well have been more ill-timed and useless. But his gallant work of the coming night and morrow, when Hooker left him almost alone to resist the fierce assaults of our victorious and elated foe, was ample compensation for his subordinate share in the ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... now holding. So tempting an opportunity of solving the great problem in regard to an Antarctic continent had never yet been afforded to man, and I confess that I felt myself bursting with indignation at the timid and ill-timed suggestions of our commander. I believe, indeed, that what I could not refrain from saying to him on this head had the effect of inducing him to push on. While, therefore, I cannot but lament the most unfortunate ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... we are just now in the neighborhood of a consecrated grove, your panegyric upon hunting is somewhat ill-timed, and I cannot assent to all you have said. For the present, All undisturbed the buffaloes shall sport In yonder pool, and with their ponderous horns Scatter its tranquil waters, while the deer, Couched here and there in groups beneath the shade Of spreading branches, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... able to conform myself to that further fictitious, not to say factitious, standard of taste, according to which, just as,—though a hemorrhage from the nose, howsoever ill-timed, distressing, or even dangerous to the patient, is comic,—one from the lungs is poetical and tragic; and an extravasation of blood about the heart is not inappropriate to the demise of the most romantic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and mental luxury, brought by this century, there has grown up also that counterpoise stigmatized as "militarism," which has converted Europe into a great camp of soldiers prepared for war. The ill-timed cry for disarmament, heedless of the menacing possibilities of the future, breaks idly against a great fact, which finds its sufficient justification in present conditions, but which is, above all, an unconscious preparation for something ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... the phrase to be improper, and consequently his associates would not permit the reading to proceed. During most of the time the captain was convulsed with laughter, and whenever he saw the commotion at all lulling, he immediately, by some ill-timed remark, renewed it to its accustomed fury. At length, as the seamen say, they all had got a cloth in the wind—the captain two or three,—and it was approaching the time for beating to quarters. The finale, therefore, as previously arranged, was acted. Captain Reud rose, and steadying ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... 28th of February, Mr. Hume brought on a motion for the extension of the franchise. Like most of that honourable gentleman's measures, this was as ill-timed as it was well-intended. Sir Joshua Walmsley seconded it. Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Fergus O'Connor, and some other members advocated it, who did not bring any parliamentary or moral influence to its support. Only ninety-six votes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... glance of smiling contempt—a glance which, passing him, rested finally upon the prone body of Chief Inspector Kerry lying stretched upon the floor before the stove. Her pupils contracted to mere pin-points and then dilated blackly. She recoiled a step, fighting with the stupor which her ill-timed indulgence ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... looked up. I had news that some of my Yankee speculations were turning out well, and I unexpectedly found myself a man of means again. Rimbolt, who certainly has the knack of making ill-timed suggestions, proposed that that would be a good opportunity for making good what properly belonged to my ward. I urged in vain that my ward was lost, and that the money properly belonged to me as a reward for the trouble I had ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Her very bitterness, which it had been policy for her to cloak or soften, would gush from her lips at the sight of him; nor, in the depth of his rage and torment, could he, on the other hand, control the ill-timed utterance of his continual and overmastering passion. It came to this, then: he must go forward, and against his better judgment, because he was afraid to go back, for the whip of a woman's tongue drove him on remorselessly. It was better that the Messenger should die, and the land run ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... difficulty in restraining themselves from marring the effect of the solemnity by ill-timed laughter. But they put a great restraint upon themselves, and listened gravely while the chief made them a long harangue, and pointed to the four damsels; who, elated at the honor of being selected, but somewhat ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... sat impatiently on her chair edge, as one waiting for a foolish formality to pass. She looked at the clumsy, bulky figure of a man in his ill-fitting Sunday clothes, and obviously was rather irritated at his ill-timed interjection of his own childhood affair into an entirely simple problem of true love running smoothly. But her daughter, seeing the anguish in the man's twisted face, was stricken with a terror in her heart. Laura knew that no light emotion had grappled ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Juliet would have preferred more pointed praise. He is indeed so lost in his ill-timed reverie that Juliet has to call him again and again by name before he attends ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... think this place must suit you exactly. Mr. Jones, we shall be late for the fireworks." And she swept on, taking no further notice of the discomfited Sir Guy, whilst Frank and I followed in her wake, feeling rather awkward even at witnessing this ill-timed rencontre. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... his hand and fortune in marriage. Marie de la Tour's first impulse was to laugh in the face of a man who, old enough to be her father, addressed her in such terms; but one glance at the pale face and burning eyes of the speaker, convinced her that levity would be ill-timed—possibly dangerous. Even the few civil and serious words of discouragement and refusal with which she replied to his ardent protestations, were oil cast upon flame. He threw himself at the young girl's feet, and clasped her knees in passionate entreaty, at the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed [v]jocularity. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... laughed. He thought Uncle Remus was making him the victim of one of his jokes; but the youngster was never more mistaken. The old man was serious. Nevertheless, he failed to rebuke the ill-timed mirth of the child, appearing to be altogether engrossed in his work. After a while, ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... but against such overwhelming odds they had no chance. It would have been better for them had they acted on the captain's advice. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and this truth is not less applicable to the act of submission than to that of resistance. The only result of their ill-timed display of valour was the tighter fastening of the cords with which the savages bound them hand and foot, and somewhat rough handling when they, with their comrades, were tossed into the bottom ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... laugh last indeed, but oft-times it is best not to laugh at all, for who can foresee the particle of dust which may enter your indecently and injudiciously wide open mouth to choke you in your ill-timed mirth. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... to listen with any degree of patience to so ill-timed a dialogue, sprang from his seat and paced the floor in disorder. Pitying his situation, the reverend gentleman, who was patiently awaiting the return of Caesar, changed the discourse, and a few minutes brought the black himself. The billet was handed to Dr. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the manner in which my efforts towards a more friendly understanding,—ill-timed as I confess them to have been,—were received, I hastened to close our correspondence by a short note, saying, that his Lordship had made me feel the imprudence I was guilty of, in wandering from ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of the control of the mint—then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kings—curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... kingdom, and his son and successor Robert, being a strict devotee, built and repaired several churches which had been greatly injured by the Normans, and Paris began in his reign to assume an appearance of improvement, which continued until it received a check from an ill-timed joke of Philippe the First, who made a satirical remark upon William the Conqueror of England having become rather unwieldy, which so provoked that choleric monarch that he laid waste a great portion of Philippe's dominions; when his progress ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... The next day I confided my troubles to M. Gosselin, who kindly reassured me, and who could not or would not see anything wrong. He made no effort, even, to conceal from me how surprised and annoyed he was at this ill-timed attempt upon a conscience for which he, more than any one else, was responsible. I am sure that he looked upon the hasty action of M. Gottofrey as a piece of impudence, the only result of which would be to disturb a dawning vocation. M. Gosselin, like many directors, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... saw me stumbling and twisting about, falling now on my side, and now on my knees, toiling to advance a single step, my companion burst into a fit of laughter. I had then neither time nor will to do as he did, and his ill-timed mirth vexed me. At last I caught hold of the stake, bruised and exhausted, and ready to wish there was no such thing as travelling. Sumichrast told us that we had scarcely three hundred feet more to ascend, and shouldered the basket himself. Now that I was a mere spectator, I could ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... GILLIKAN, though he had been making a speech in the middle of the River Shannon at the moment of his arrest, was primarily in a boat. Even that didn't mend matters, and JORDAN, giving up attempt to understand ill-timed hilarity of House, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... for the courtesy, and gay Good-humor, which on Washing Day Our ill-timed visit bore; Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke The morning dreams of Artichoke, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Elliott extended his visit beyond the day or two he had engaged for; and when Mr and Mrs Gaskoin saw how matters were going, they recommended an immediate avowal of the little deception that had been practised, lest some ill-timed visitor should inopportunely let out the secret, which had already been endangered more than once by the forgetfulness of the servants: but Frances wished to prolong their diversion till she should find some happy moment for the denouement; added to which, she had an extreme curiosity to know how ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... there and wait till I see what he wants," he had said, and, shutting the old man in, he had gone forth to admit Stark, resenting his ill-timed intrusion and inquiring ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... a long and hearty, but still a noiseless fit of merriment, from the trapper, which was considered so ill-timed by the offended naturalist, as to produce an instant cessation of speech, if not ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... so died the poet of youth, and of ambitious, struggling, hopeful poverty. We describe not his funeral, nor the monument reared over his grave. Our heart fails us at sight of these sterile honors. They are ill-timed. What boot they, when he on whom they are bestowed is beyond the reach of earthly voices? The ancients crowned the live animal they selected as the sacrifice for their altars; it saw the garlands of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... questioner, without noticing my ill-timed satire. "What were your possessions in ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... thinking to bring along the bulk of our worldly possessions. Tiring at length of this, he switched to the opposite point of view. He goaded us nearly to madness with his criticisms of our inefficiency, and he mocked repeatedly the groom's ill-timed cry of Liberty. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... difficulty of finding timber for her foremast (which, it must be remarked, bore the heavy gales of wind she met with, as well as could be desired even of wood the fittest for masts) was recollected, was an unlucky and an ill-timed want; for, should it happen that supplies were not received from England by the middle or end of the month of July, the services of this vessel would be again required; and, to save the colony, she must at that time have been dispatched ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... issue of the rival publication. He also dwells on the superior artistic quality of the programme of the Penny Reading in his parish hall as compared with that of the Little Titley Temperance Reed Band at their annual concert. And, finally, with ill-timed levity, he disclaims any intention of "bolstering up" his parish magazine by crude appeals to democratic sentiment—an allusion to the name of the Vicar of Little Titley which has been deeply resented by the numerous admirers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched. It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the most common-place condolence or remote allusion. It was the effect of the long strain on her powers, and the severe shock coming suddenly after so much pressure and fatigue; moreover, her habits had been so long disorganized that her ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sympathetically at the moment and the duenna found further argument impossible. She had to rush for her room, and later to confide her mandates as to Pancha to the stewardess, who came, peeped, and considered them ill-timed. At six bells Turnbull and a few determined, yet uncomfortable souls were consuming cognac and playing vingt et un in the cabin, while the lookouts were doubled on the deck and every ship's officer stood ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Meanwhile, Priestley, in silent communion with his Maker, stood by his team as if waiting to be photographed. The buggy was in a cool, pleasant shade; and Montgomery would maintain this flagitious procrastination of his managerial duties while I remained a butt for his ill-timed chaff. Critical is no name for ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... pale as the snow his brother had brought in from outside and which now showered about the victim of the ill-timed jest. ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... shallow talk, young man!" ordered Ephraim, with so much venom that the other realized his mirth was ill-timed and grew serious. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... to her. But I would not hear tell of such a thing, for which Miss Sabrina owed me a grudge that was not soon given up. At the same time, I was grieved to see the testimonies of joyfulness for a holy victory, brought into such disrepute by the ill-timed demonstrations of the two irreclaimable naturals, that had not a true conception of the cause ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... bewitching way, as did a pretty but slightly passe French actress under similar embarrassing circumstances. She pleads: "What has a woman to do with dates—cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates—new style, old style, precession of the equinox, ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their station and never come? Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in woman's autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of dropping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... did not know, sir," said the Doctor, now effectually roused, "that this was ill-timed buffoonery, and not an intentional insult, I should be seriously angry. As it is, I can overlook any exuberance of mirth which is, perhaps, pardonable when the mind is elated by the return to the cheerful bustle and activity of ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... me, ye sons of Greece! with silence hear! And grant your monarch an impartial ear: Awhile your loud, untimely joy suspend, And let your rash, injurious clamours end: Unruly murmurs, or ill-timed applause, Wrong the best speaker, and the justest cause. Nor charge on me, ye Greeks, the dire debate: Know, angry Jove, and all-compelling Fate, With fell Erinnys, urged my wrath that day When from Achilles' arms I forced ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... huntress-maiden, I was speculating on the reception I might expect, and the explanation I ought to give. How would she receive me? Not with much grace, I feared; at all events, not till she should hear what I had to say. The ambiguous and ill-timed appearance of the Chicasaw, combined with the sinister and dramatic incident which followed, must have produced on her mind eccentric and erroneous impressions. The effect would naturally be to falsify, not only the protestations of her lover, but my own testimony ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... pretended to look through it: "Have you read this?" said he.—"Yes, General."— "Well! what is your opinion of it?"—"I think it is calculated to produce an unfavourable effect on the public mind: it is ill-timed, for it prematurely reveals your views." The First Consul took the pamphlet and threw it on the ground, as he did all the stupid publications of the day after having slightly glanced over them. I was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... one from Bavaria, and one from Frankfort. Thus it will be seen that South Germany still kept the lead in the movement for German unity; and the president of the committee was that Izstein, of Baden, who had been known to Germany chiefly by his ill-timed expulsion from Berlin. But, though this distribution of power augured ill for the relations between the leaders of the German movement and the King of Prussia, the meeting at Heidelberg was not prepared to adopt the complete programme of the Baden leaders, nor to commit itself ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Quinton, "that my visit to your charming home the other evening was ill-timed. Mr. Roche seemed somewhat taken aback by ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... family by chance while riding through the forest, and having shot the mother through the shoulder, she fell struggling between her cubs; these pugnacious brutes immediately commenced fighting, and a couple of shots from the rapid breechloading Sharp rifle settled their ill-timed quarrel. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... jollity, introduces a topic that shall knit the brows and contract the face, and shall act as a damper to the Lysian[455] god, who, as Pindar says, "looses the rope of all our cares and anxieties." There is also great danger in such ill-timed freedom of speech. For wine makes people easily slip into rage, and oftentimes freedom of speech in liquor makes enemies. And generally speaking it is not noble or brave but cowardly to conceal your ideas when people are sober and to give free vent ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Hall gave a play in which Anne enacted the role of heroine, stage manager, prompter, and producer, besides doing all the coaching. After that her star was also in the ascendant and the little slights and coolnesses that had been noticeable after Elfreda's ill-timed gossip had done its work, ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... prince Dharma Dhwaj could not help laughing at the thought of how this must sound in his father's ear. And the Raja hearing the ill-timed merriment, sternly ordered the Baital to cease his immoralities ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... the Elsey for a good dog-fight! Can you, Peter?" the Fizzer chuckled, as Peter lay licking his wounds at Happy Dick's feet; but the Quarters, feeling the pleasantry ill-timed, delicately led the conversation to cribbage, and at sun-up next morning Happy Dick "did a get" to his work, with bulging pockets, leaving the Fizzer packing up and declaring that "half a day at the Elsey gave a man a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... eat." On another occasion the noodle again went through the village, and met some people carrying a dead man. "May God aid you, good men!" he exclaimed. "Do you wish me to help you to thresh?" But he got himself well thrashed once more for this ill-timed speech. When he reached home, he howled, "They've felled me to the ground, beaten me, and plucked my beard and hair!" and told of his new mishap. "Ah, noodle!" said his mother, "thou shouldst have said, 'God give peace to his soul!' Thou shouldst have taken off thy bonnet, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... burst into tears and went out into the shed-room, leaving Kirkwood's ill-timed gift ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... some wily questions of the canon retained him at Dona Perfecta's side. Rosario looked dejected, and was listening with an air of melancholy indifference to the words of the little lawyer, who, having installed himself at her side, kept up a continuous stream of fulsome flatteries, seasoned with ill-timed jests and fatuous remarks in the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... relative to the concern in which we are now engaged. My patience, however, is now worn out, and I have come here to learn whether I am to expect the steam-vessels or not,—whether the scandalous blunders of Mr. Galloway are to be remedied by those concerned, or if an ill-timed parsimony is to doom Greece to inevitable destruction; for such will be the consequence, if Ibrahim's resources are not cut up before the period at which it is usual for him to commence operations. You know my opinions so well, that it is unnecessary to repeat them to you. I shall, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... who strolled from one to the other with a smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. More than once he even went so far as to burst into a shout of laughter, until the chaplain sternly rebuked him for his ill-timed levity. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were not parallel. Irreligious persons, he remarked, were not in imminent danger of immediate death; they might die to-morrow; but in all probability they would not, and an ill-timed or injudicious admonition might forever repel them. We must accept the doctrine of probabilities, and act in accordance with it in this particular, as in ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... open rebellion, resulting from the disquieting rumours that Caesar Borgia was arming at Rome for a decent upon the Duchy, and the continued absence of Gian Maria in such a season, upon a wooing that they deemed ill-timed. A strong party had been formed, and the leaders had nailed upon the Palace gates a proclamation that, unless Gian Maria returned within three days to organise the defence of Babbiano, they would ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... impossible. The Judge-Advocate-General is a very high official; I cannot allow him to go to the English headquarters and give information as to what is going on here. The authorities would justly put a very bad construction upon such ill-timed amiability, and I should not like to obliterate the good impression which the success of the expedition to Simla has made upon my superiors by an unpardonable act of ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... lifted into the midst of the massive harmonies of the Adagio; I lingered outside a moment, in order to settle my garments and—that woman's look. What! was that a partially suppressed titter near me? Ah! she has no soul for music! How such ill-timed merriment will jar upon my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... the blood mounted to his temples as he listened to these remarks, poured into his ear by a man of thirty-five, between puffs of his cigar, because there was nobody else to whom he could make them. But they seemed to Fred very ill-mannered and ill-timed. If he had not dreaded making himself absurd, he would gladly have stood forth as the champion of the Sparks, the Wermants, and all the other members of the Blue Band, so that he might give vent to the anger raging in his heart on hearing that odious compliment to Jacqueline. Why was he not old ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... been the flower of the yeomanry, figuring in Sunday finery on the church green; others, the white-haired elders of the sanctuary, once arrayed in awful sanctity around the pulpit, and ever ready to rebuke the ill-timed mirth of the wanton stripling who, now a man, sobered by years and schooled by vicissitudes, looked down pensively upon their graves. "Our fathers," thought I, "where are they!—and the prophets, can ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... set them guessing, John." She saw the truth strike and felt that unlucky impulse of compassion which so often makes a woman's mercy so unmercifully ill-timed. "Oh!" she called as he ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... out toward the desert; but even as her glance sought relief in that direction she remembered that this window, of only half-sash dimensions, was nailed into its place and was immovable. Against the dusty panes a bird-cage hung, and she realized with an oddly ill-timed pang of sorrow that it was empty. It was plain that the canary had died during her absence; and she wondered if anything in all the world could seem so empty as a bird-cage which had once had an occupant and had lost it. The sunset ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... which moved him, to ooze forth in a cold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of color and cast a bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the thin and waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was), shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character of which would have made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on my part had not been held in check by the interest I immediately experienced in the display of open bravado with which, ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... profane, wicked, godless. implacable adj. implacable, relentless. implorar implore. imponer impose. importar impers. matter, concern. importunar disturb, harass. importuno, -a troublesome, ill-timed, vexatious, importunate, unreasonable. imposible adj. impossible. impotencia f. helplessness. impulso m. impulse, force. impuro, -a impure, foul. inagotable adj. never-failing, inexhaustible. incentivo m. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... beneath that odd exterior. Humbly bowing to the hermit's intellectual superiority, the weasel-hunter would stop respectfully whenever the poetic frenzy took possession of Patience and made his words unintelligible. At such a time Marcasse would refrain from questions and ill-timed remarks with touching gentleness; would lower his eyes, and nodding his head from time to time as if he understood and approved, would, at least, afford his friend the innocent pleasure of being listened to ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... At that ill-timed inquiry, Amelius showed his temper again. He was in a state of nervous irritability which made him apt to take offence, where no offence was intended. "Oh, you needn't be alarmed!" he answered petulantly; "there's no fear of the poor child ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... themselves, and that through the perils of others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased. {46} And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned for their great and ill-timed indifference by the loss of their freedom, while the leaders in affairs, who fancied that they were selling everything except themselves, have realized that they had sold themselves first of all. For instead of being called ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... with scraps from the old ballads and romances which he had read. Not understanding a word of what he said, they simply asked him, when they had finished, if he wanted anything to eat. "A slight refection would not be ill-timed," answered Don Quixote, and learning that there was nothing to be had but a "little trout," he bade them bring it with all speed. "Many little trouts," he added jestingly, "will serve my turn as well as one big one. Only let it be brought at once, for I begin to be conscious ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... paused in his harangue to take in my ill-timed parenthesis, and the color mounted slowly ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... we reached Parell after our day's pleasuring; and we all agreed that the climate of India, during the winter months, is of all others the best adapted for picnics, which are so often marred in England by ill-timed showers or gloom; and yet, certain memories came back half reproachfully as we spoke, painting to our mental vision the pretty lanes and fresh green dells and dingles of England, the soft cool breeze, the varied and flitting shadows, the open-air ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... Tullia descended the steps, got into her brougham, and proceeded to the studio of Monsieur Anastase Gouache, the portrait-painter. She had not accomplished much, save to rouse her curiosity, and that parting thrust concerning Don Giovanni had been rather ill-timed. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the time and occasion) somewhat ill-chosen words of familiarity, the Bailie claimed kindred with Rob Roy's wife. But in this he did himself more harm than good, for his ill-timed jocularity grated on Helen Mac-Gregor's ear, in her present mood of exaltation, and she promptly commanded that the Sassenachs should one and all be bound and thrown into the deeps of ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... up mine, but so rebellious Was he to what you had asked him That, instead of his presenting One, he wished to keep the other. Since he mine will not surrender To my prayers and my entreaties: Angry at this ill-timed jesting I endeavoured to regain it, That which in his hand is held there Is my portrait, if you see it; You ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... ill-understood scenic regulations, useless personages, double plots, inconsistent characters, gigantic or childish thoughts, feeble verses, affected phrases, the poetry neither harmonious nor natural; all this decked out with ill-timed descriptions and similes, or idle philosophical and political disquisitions; in every scene some silly amour, with all the trite insipidity of common-place sentimentality; of true tragic energy, of the struggle of conflicting passions, of overpowering ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... well I know thee, lord Pertolepe, thou art he who had me driven forth with blows and bitter stripes—thou art he who slew my father for an ill-timed jest—oho! well do I know thee, my lord Pertolepe." So saying, Beda the Jester set his pipe within his girdle, and, drawing his dagger, began to creep upon Sir Pertolepe, who shook the dripping blood from his eyes to watch him ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... disobedience, rushed forward to persuade them to their duty. In the mean time one of the most mutinous of the soldiers being struck by an officer, returned the blow, and was apprehended for his crime. This ill-timed severity produced a tumult and a mutiny through the whole army; and, while Cinna did all he could to appease it, he was run through the body by one of the crowd. 19. Scip'io, the consul, who commanded ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... accustom myself to the change you have in store for me by degrees? In any case, my leaving the stage at the present moment could make no difference to us—you in the Highlands, I in London. And do you know, sir, that your request is particularly ill-timed; for, as it happens, I am about to enter into a new dramatic project of which I should probably never have heard but for you. Does that astonish you? Well, here is the story. It appears that you told the Duchess of Wexford that I would give her a performance for the new training-ship she is ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... early nations, and that even where it existed, it had been often discovered by accident. A summary of what this excellent writer has said on the subject, with a quotation or two, cannot fail to be interesting to the reader, and will scarcely run any risk of being judged either ill-timed or tedious. The Chinese, Persians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and several other nations, admit that their ancestors were once without the use of fire. This is said on the authority of Plato, Diodorus Siculus, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... that death, so ill-timed, so disastrous for Ranny in its consequences, Ranny mourned as if it had been in itself an affliction, an irreparable loss. He felt with the most entire sincerity that now that the Humming-bird was dead he would never ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... should have shown him the futility of further effort; at any other time it would have set him to putting his house in order for the final crash, but now it merely enraged him. He redoubled his activity, launching a new campaign of publicity so extravagant and ill-timed as to repel the assistance he needed. He had lost his finesse; his nicely adjusted financial sense ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... emphutos chraestotaes] are Dion Cassius's words. Antony's language was differently reported, and perhaps there was no literal record of it. Dion Cassius, however, can hardly have himself composed the version which he gives in his history, for he calls the speech as ill-timed as it ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... this day too busy; Thy father's ill-timed mercy came too late. ( thank thee for thy labours, though; and him too, But all my poor, betrayed, unhappy friends, Have summons to prepare for fate's black hour. Yet, Belvidera, do not fear my cruelty, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... pacing slowly in the moonlight betwixt himself and the distant rocks. Who on earth could she be, and how had she got there? were the questions he asked himself, his first sensation being one of annoyance at so unexpected and so ill-timed an intrusion. But as the moments passed and the figure came more clearly into view, impatience gave way to curiosity, and curiosity to something ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... wisdom, understand their own interests. The world rests upon the example of the wise. Thou shouldst not address such words to a person possessed of learning and competent to understand his own interests. Thou art powerful. The reason of this affection that thou showest for me now is ill-timed. Guided, however, by my own interests, I myself am firm in peace and war that are themselves very unstable. The circumstances under which peace is to be made or war declared are changed as quickly ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and thy friend. Ah! gentle lady, I deemed this unused scene and ill-timed hour might render solace welcome. He'll not come; Ho crossed the mountains, ere the set of ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... a most ill-timed and discouraging blow, but Mr. Astor would not yet allow himself to pause in his undertaking. He determined to send the Enterprise to sea alone, and let her take the chance of making her unprotected way across the ocean. Just at this time, however, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... This ill-timed observation extorted a groan from Tyrrel; but the traveller, running on with his own recollections, did not appear to notice ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Journal (July 5th, 1773) an equally low opinion of the story, though free from ill-timed mirth: "St. Patrick converting 30,000 at one sermon I rank with the History of Bel and the Dragon" (Quoted in Church Quarterly Review, Jan. ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... openeth not His mouth.' We are bid to look on the grim details of the infliction of the terrible death, and to listen to the mockeries of people and priests; but reverent awe forbids description of Him who hung there in His long, silent agony. Would that like reticence had checked the ill-timed eloquence of preachers and teachers ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... your irrelevant remarks; they are ill-timed," said Montague, impatiently. "Let us hear the remainder of your suggestions. I shall judge of their value, and act accordingly. You have not yet told us what part you yourself intend to ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... so very ill-timed, but abiding by my invariable rule of never arguing with a man unless I see some way of getting the better of him, I did what he bade me, though I hated dreadfully to leave the spot and its woful mystery, even for so short a time ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... criminal of the Powers to delay the frontier commissions. Both Serb and Montenegrin are working to clear off the Albanians from the debatable districts so as to show a Slav majority to the Commission." The ill-timed revolt gave them a chance of doing this. The Serbs fell on the Gostivar district, burning the villages with petroleum, and throwing such people as could not escape, back into the flames with their bayonets. An urgent appeal for bandages and medicaments came from Elbasan, into which refugees ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; he should not have trifled with the feelings of his benefactor, his more than father; those feelings were to him sacred, and should be held so henceforward ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... in half an hour." Scott disappeared down the trail. Polly watched him a moment or two and then returned to her resting place. Something of the happiness was gone from her eyes. The accident was ill-timed. It brought a feeling of foreboding most disagreeable in its contrast with her former exaltation. She jumped to her feet determined to do something to take her mind ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just one would have been inflexible in a matter of life and death. But this man's facile yielding and his stiff-necked ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... unhappy over what she insisted was a totally unjust supposition, it was but natural that she should turn to another girl for consolation. Not to Polly, however; Nan said not a word to her, for Polly had given no evidence of having heard of her ill-timed visit to Betty's trunk, having been on her way to the village at the time the offence was committed, and above everything Nan desired to remain fixed in Polly's good graces. No, she confided the account ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... that was ill-timed and embarrassing, the Percivals themselves, returned from their visit, choosing a wet afternoon to drive over and pay their respects to Lady Hayes's young guest! Sheer horror of the situation took away Darsie's breath; she stood stock still in the middle of the floor, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... slight consolation to us, while suffering under alternate reproaches for ill-timed severity, and injudicious praise, to reflect that no very mischievous effects have as yet resulted to the literature of the country, from this imputed misbehaviour on our part. Powerful genius, we are persuaded, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... said. "The Convent cloister is not a hen-yard. Such ill-timed devotion well-nigh merits penance. Rise from thy knees, and go at once about ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... shout from the pilot-house, the steering-wheel was put hard over, and the boat began to swing slowly at right angles to the current. She was headed in the direction of the raft, and Mr. Gilder knew that, owing to those ill-timed blows, it had been discovered. Yes. Now he could see it again. There it was, not a hundred yards away, and the Whatnot was headed so as to intercept it as it came down. What should he do? It would be foolish to struggle for possession of the wheel against the two desperate men in the pilot-house. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... years that he had "only five thousand to begin with,—the sole property left him by his lamented parents." He has now a handsome mansion in the Fifth Avenue, is a conspicuous member of the Rev. Dr. Holdfast's church, and most zealous against the ill-timed discussions and philanthropic vagaries of the day. What would he not give to forget that slowly-moving figure, with swimming eyes, carrying a flaring candle? How far along the years that feeble ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the five-cent piece given him by the kind-hearted old Master. But you need not think I am going to tell you every time his popgun goes off, making a Selah of him whenever I want to change the subject. Occasionally he was ill-timed in his artillery practice and ignominiously rebuked, sometimes he was harmlessly playful and nobody minded him, but every now and then he came in so apropos that I am morally certain he gets a hint from somebody who watches ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was so deeply engaged and interested by his respected tutor's conversation, that he told the poor fellah to go to the deuce, and resumed the discourse which his ill-timed outcry for justice had interrupted. But the unlucky wight of a fellah was pushed by his evil destiny, and thought he would make yet another application. So he took a short cut down one of the garden lanes, and as the Prince and the Reverend Mr. MacWhirter, his tutor, came along once more engaged ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... no fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness however a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa and went ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... doors, afoot, in saddle, or adrift in snow, was Lieutenant Lanier. About the first officer Button wished to see was Bob, and about the last was Blake. Yet such was the freakishness of Fate that the first man to hail him, with ill-timed jocularity, was Blake, and the last of his officers whom he was destined that day to set eyes on was Bob Lanier, whom Schuchardt, in answer to the commander's summons, had earlier declared unfit ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... so almost at first sight. It is needless to say, that Major Elliott extended his visit beyond the day or two he had engaged for; and when Mr and Mrs Gaskoin saw how matters were going, they recommended an immediate avowal of the little deception that had been practised, lest some ill-timed visitor should inopportunely let out the secret, which had already been endangered more than once by the forgetfulness of the servants: but Frances wished to prolong their diversion till she should find some happy moment ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble; "I will tell you an excellent thing"; or, "I will tell you the best thing in the world." This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed, make the relater of this excellent ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... attention being attracted by a stone of peculiar shape, which he could see clearly lying at the bottom, he began to speculate as to the depth of water in that spot. But very soon, with a start of wonder at this extraordinary instance of ill-timed detachment, he returned to his train of thought. "I ought to have told very circumstantial lies from the first," he said to himself, with a mortal distaste of the mere idea which silenced his mental utterance for quite a perceptible interval. "Luckily, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... question was especially adroit. His party was in sore trouble over the issue, and naturally looked to him for relief and escape. To extricate the Administration from the embarrassment caused by its ill-timed and boastful pretensions to the line of 54 deg. 40' was a difficult and delicate task. To accomplish it, Mr. Buchanan had recourse to the original and long disused habit of asking the Senate's advice in advance of negotiating the treaty, instead of taking the ordinary but ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... I cried, provoked almost beyond bearing by her ill-timed raillery, 'will you never be serious until you have ruined us and yourself? I tell you this house is not safe for you! It is not safe for me! I cannot bring my men to it, for there is not room for them. If you have any spark of ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... to engage in no combat except by the express permission of her Royal Highness the Princess Micomicona; she having granted it, there could be no doubt as to the outcome of any battle in which he chose to draw his sword. Seeing this, in her opinion, ill-timed hesitancy, the one-eyed Asturian muttered that by the time the Princess was found, her master would have passed the heavenly border. The Princess, however, was quickly summoned, and Don Quixote knelt on his stiff knees before her; but ere he had finished his ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... they are ill-timed," said Montague, impatiently. "Let us hear the remainder of your suggestions. I shall judge of their value and act accordingly. You have not yet told us what part you yourself intend ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... that he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; he should not have trifled with the feelings of his benefactor, his more than father; those feelings were to him sacred, and should be held ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... satisfied to push the button and allow some one else "to do the rest." However, if you do not wish to go into photography extensively you may at least learn just what limits your hand camera has, and at the end of the season in place of a lot of ill-timed pictures you can have an album full of creditable prints for which no apology ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... signifies an evil-minded person who is virtuous bodily. They are never without ink or soft lead-pencils. Ink has accomplished more wonderful things than man can enumerate; though just now a dissertation on ink in ink is ill-timed. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... the trouble of a return journey, and for thinking to bring along the bulk of our worldly possessions. Tiring at length of this, he switched to the opposite point of view. He goaded us nearly to madness with his criticisms of our inefficiency, and he mocked repeatedly the groom's ill-timed cry of Liberty. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... intention, which you are aware she has long entertained, of a visit to Ireland. The general distress unfortunately still prevalent in Ireland precludes the Queen from visiting Dublin in state, and thereby causing ill-timed expenditure and inconvenience to her subjects; yet Her Majesty does not wish to let another year pass without visiting a part of her dominions which she has for so long a time been anxious personally to become acquainted with. She accordingly will, at ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... Honorius to tolerate a silence as to one or two wills in Christ. It is evident from the most authentic monuments, that Honorius never assented to that error, but always adhered to the truth.[1] However, a silence was ill-timed, and though not so designed, might be deemed by some a kind of connivance; for a rising heresy seeks to carry on its work under ground without noise: it is a fire which spreads itself under cover. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... proximal ligature. Modern surgery has lightened the difficulties under which our predecessors approached these operations, but none the less the experience in this campaign fully supports the objections to indiscriminate and ill-timed surgical interference, as accidents have followed both ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... if unable to listen with any degree of patience to so ill-timed a dialogue, sprang from his seat and paced the floor in disorder. Pitying his situation, the reverend gentleman, who was patiently awaiting the return of Caesar, changed the discourse, and a few minutes brought the black himself. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... approaching open rebellion, resulting from the disquieting rumours that Caesar Borgia was arming at Rome for a decent upon the Duchy, and the continued absence of Gian Maria in such a season, upon a wooing that they deemed ill-timed. A strong party had been formed, and the leaders had nailed upon the Palace gates a proclamation that, unless Gian Maria returned within three days to organise the defence of Babbiano, they would depose him and repair to Aquila to invite ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... longer, in the direction we were now holding. So tempting an opportunity of solving the great problem in regard to an Antarctic continent had never yet been afforded to man, and I confess that I felt myself bursting with indignation at the timid and ill-timed suggestions of our commander. I believe, indeed, that what I could not refrain from saying to him on this head had the effect of inducing him to push on. While, therefore, I cannot but lament the most unfortunate ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... natural thought gains nothing and loses much by this heavy pomp of abstract eloquence. So when Johnson wants to say in the eleventh Idler that it is wrong and absurd to let our spirits depend on the weather, he makes his reader laugh or yawn, rather than listen, by the ill-timed elaboration of his phrases: "to call upon the sun for peace and gaiety, or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and the idolatry of folly." So much must be admitted. Johnson ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... casts a pensive, riveted look downwards to the modest flowers which the multitude trample under their feet. If he had a piece likely to succeed, coming out under all advantages, he would damn it by some ill-timed, wilful jest, and lose the favour of the public, to preserve the sense of his personal identity. 'Misfortune,' Shakespear says, 'brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows'; and it makes our thoughts traitors to ourselves.—It is a maxim with many—'Take care of the pence, and the pounds ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... must pardon me," he began, "if I observe that his discourse—so warm with the true Christian spirit—is ill-timed. I gather that he is with us in desiring a Catholic reform. To-night only a proposal is before us; the proposal to form a sort of league among all those who cherish the same desire. Let ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... could not help laughing at the thought of how this must sound in his father's ear. And the Raja hearing the ill-timed merriment, sternly ordered the Baital to cease his immoralities ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... scold Olive; it was I who wished to speak to you." And then, without pausing to consider how evidently ill-timed the conversation was, Mrs. Rothesay began to talk eagerly about Olive's "coming out," and whether it should be at home or abroad; finally arguing that a ball at Merivale would be best, and entering at ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... noodle again went through the village, and met some people carrying a dead man. "May God aid you, good men!" he exclaimed. "Do you wish me to help you to thresh?" But he got himself well thrashed once more for this ill-timed speech. When he reached home, he howled, "They've felled me to the ground, beaten me, and plucked my beard and hair!" and told of his new mishap. "Ah, noodle!" said his mother, "thou shouldst have said, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... Tyrrel informed Mrs. Jakeman of the necessity in which he found himself of sending her to a distance, upon a business which would not fail to detain her several weeks; and, though the errand by no means wore an artificial or ambiguous face, the two friends drew a melancholy presage from this ill-timed separation. Mrs. Jakeman, in the mean time, exhorted her ward to persevere, reminded her of the compunction which had already been manifested by her kinsman, and encouraged her to hope every thing from her courage ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... lips to answer that none of us are immortal, but he bethought him that the pleasantry might be ill-timed, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... kept waiting longer than usual, and he had somehow the feeling that his visit was ill-timed, when at last she came to him. He looked up eagerly as she entered the little reception room which he had grown to know so well during the last few weeks, and it struck him for the first time that her welcome was a little forced, her ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... business was transacted. The king of the Parthians is said to have put Orobazus to death for submitting to this indignity; as to Sulla, some commended him for his haughty treatment of the barbarians, while others blamed him for his arrogance and ill-timed pride. It is said there was a man among the attendants of Orobazus, a Chaldaean,[177] who examined the countenance of Sulla and observed the movements of his mind and body, not as an idle spectator, but studying his character according to the principles of his art, and he declared that of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and ill-timed love-affair may be compared to this: you take boys somewhere for a walk; the walk is jolly and interesting—and suddenly one of them gorges ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... letters; and if, as his son asserts, the enmity of Catharine, which the discovery of her secret gained for him, delayed his acquisition of the marshal's baton for ten years, he certainly had some reason to remember and regret his ill-timed curiosity. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... too, he began to reason that if Margherita had wished to see him she would have sent for him—all in all, the hour was decidedly unpropitious. He dared not risk his future happiness upon a blundering, ill-timed declaration; therefore he walked onward. But no sooner had he passed the house than a thousand voices urged him to return, in this the hour of the girl's loneliness, and lay his devotion at her feet. Torn thus by hesitation and by the sense of his unworthiness, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... son," replied Mr. Squeers in a sentimental voice. "Oh, my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interesting child, grasping his father's cane—"won't I make 'em squeak again!" But we know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legal difficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, the school at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So far we have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture. But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... could not help admiring the dashing and decided way in which she had acted. They thought how useful she would have been in organising escape from some of the tight places in which they had found themselves of late in consequence of their ill-timed wishes. ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... rolled sympathetically at the moment and the duenna found further argument impossible. She had to rush for her room, and later to confide her mandates as to Pancha to the stewardess, who came, peeped, and considered them ill-timed. At six bells Turnbull and a few determined, yet uncomfortable souls were consuming cognac and playing vingt et un in the cabin, while the lookouts were doubled on the deck and every ship's officer stood to his post. The ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... be useless, and that I was perfectly justified in remaining silent. What vile pusillanimity! why thus respect the presumptuous power of popular errors and opinions, resting upon no foundation. True it is that an ill-timed zeal is always indiscreet, and calculated to irritate rather than convert; but to avow with frankness and modesty what we regard as an important truth, to do it even when we have reason to conclude it will not be palatable, and to meet willingly any ridicule or sarcasm ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... and gay Good-humor, which on Washing Day Our ill-timed visit bore; Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke The morning dreams of Artichoke, Along his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... even after she was married, to please that weak-minded old churl. And as to unprofitable questions—we are all tempted to think that question unprofitable which our incapacity or our ignorance keeps us silent upon at table. We think that topic both ill-timed and impertinent and unsafe to which we are not invited to contribute anything. "I am a very ignorant man," he went on to say; and, if that was said in any humility, Feeble-mind never said a truer word. "It is with me as it is with a weak man among ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... and histories of the Crusaders; very slovenly in diction, and lengthened out by tiresome repetitions; the same things being told in protracted dialogues which had been previously narrated in the historic course. Then there are very ill-timed interruptions, and wearisome disquisitions, just where they should not be. Yet are there passages of perfect excellence, that prove the master-hand of the author. The novel of "Ivanhoe" seems to resemble some of those plays which, though doubtful, are ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... are Dion Cassius's words. Antony's language was differently reported, and perhaps there was no literal record of it. Dion Cassius, however, can hardly have himself composed the version which he gives in his history, for he calls the speech as ill-timed as it ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... test of discipline and deliberate valor. Both centers are holding stoutly. Everything rests on the respective victorious right wings. Either they will foolishly forget that there is still fighting elsewhere on the field, and with ill-timed huzzaing pursue the men they have just routed, make for their camp to plunder it, or worse still, disperse to spoil the slain; or, if they can heed their general's entreaties, keep their ranks, and wheeling around come charging down on the rear of the enemy's center. If one right wing does ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... being utterly at a loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed [v]jocularity. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... battle out unaided; nothing could be hoped for now from Austria and Italy, for all the Emperor's plans were disconcerted by the tardiness of our operations and the incapacity of the commanders. Fate, even, seemed to be working against us, heaping all sorts of obstacles and ill-timed accidents in our path and favoring the secret plan of the Prussians, which was to divide our armies, throwing one portion back on Metz, where it would be cut off from France, while they, having first destroyed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... this dissonant roar. What a noise the big ocean makes! Schoolboys bursting from their prison are not louder than these waves set free to play. They disturb me. I will no more of their ill-timed brawling.—Silence, hoary One!—Winds, avaunt!—to your homes!—Clouds, fly to the antipodes, and leave our ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... came out of the distance and surveyed him, coldly curious. "I thought so," he said, and in his voice was an odd inflection as of one who checks a laugh at an ill-timed jest. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... encounter was only avoided by half a dozen strapping natives seizing Billy and making him sit down on the sand, while the wrathful Ludwig was hustled by Donald MacBride and Mrs Ludwig and threatened with a hammering if he insulted the gathering by his ill-timed and injudicious remarks about a foreign potentate. (Ludwig, I regret to say, had begun his Christmas ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... sir," said the Doctor, now effectually roused, "that this was ill-timed buffoonery, and not an intentional insult, I should be seriously angry. As it is, I can overlook any exuberance of mirth which is, perhaps, pardonable when the mind is elated by the return to the cheerful bustle and activity of school-life. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... never forget the well-deserved rebuke I once received from a sturdy old tar for an ill-timed comment on a woman's personal appearance. It was in St. Salvador. The captain of a Portuguese ship was going on shore accompanied by his wife. The boat crossed the bows of the ship I was in; the feminine garments attracted the attention of all hands, who suspended their work and gazed ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... he paced the room, half mad himself with surprise and vexation, "her fine understanding must be totally overthrown, and that by the effort which she has made to comply with my ill-timed, though well-meant, request. Without rest and attention her health ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I hope," I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, "that you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... those of great urgency, are of such domination that they take little thought for anything but themselves, except in persons of particularly adroit mind. It was Stelton's misfortune, therefore, to embark on an ill-timed ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim turned down, hiding his ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... while she spoke. "I should think this place must suit you exactly. Mr. Jones, we shall be late for the fireworks." And she swept on, taking no further notice of the discomfited Sir Guy, whilst Frank and I followed in her wake, feeling rather awkward even at witnessing this ill-timed rencontre. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... work at the windows on either side of the way, hesitating whether to light their lamps, and drawing nearer and nearer to the dead-line of the outer cold for the latest glimmer of the day, the passage of this ill-timed vehicle was a vexation little short of grievous. Every movement on the street was precious to them, and, with all the keenness of their starved curiosity, these captives of the winter could not make out the people in the cutter. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... of condolences, well meant but ill-timed; he responded curtly when Blake, pushing near, said to him, "It was awfully hard luck, Wes—but after that you played a mighty good game." He wished nothing but to be let alone, he wished no sympathy. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... such ill-timed pleasantry, we erupted pellmell into the drive, all frantic by word or deed to distract the terrier from his purpose. Shrieks, curses, and a copy of La Fontaine's Fables were hurled simultaneously and in vain at our favourite, and it was ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... late the errors of that policy which reduced the Elector of Saxony to extremities and forcibly drove this powerful monarch into an alliance with Sweden. By moderation, equally ill-timed, he now wished to repair if possible the consequences of his haughtiness; and thus committed a second error in endeavoring to repair the first. To deprive his enemy of so powerful an ally, he had opened, through the intervention ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... congresses were formed for concentrating their efforts and defending their rights; and that CONVENTIONS were ELECTED in THE SEVERAL STATES for establishing the constitutions under which they are now governed; nor could it have been forgotten that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those who wished to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity to the substance contended for. They must have borne in mind, that as the plan to be framed and proposed was to be submitted TO THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... already. Braesig, can you keep a secret?" "Like a safe when the padlock is on," he answered. "No, no. Do be serious. Can you be silent?" "I beg your pardon," he said gravely, and clapped his hand on his mouth in token of shame at his ill-timed jesting, though had any one else done it, he would have given him a black eye for his pains. "Why well then, listen," said Mrs. Behrens, who now proceeded to relate all that she knew of the affair. "Wheugh!" whistled Braesig, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... epistles are, then, each of them contains weighty instruction—the first, in reference to ill-timed kindness and liberality towards the teachers of error; the second, concerning the character and conduct of those who love to have the preeminence, and the abhorrence in which they ought to be held by all who love the purity and peace of ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... "Ill-timed charity and business principles scarcely go together, my good Burke," said Kingsnorth, with ill-concealed impatience. He did not like this man's tone. It suggested a glorification of the former BANKRUPT landlord and a lack of appreciation of the ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... touch, and tampering with his bow.[24] Helen of Argos with her female train 395 Sat occupied, the while, to each in turn Some splendid task assigning. Hector fix'd His eyes on Paris, and him stern rebuked. Thy sullen humors, Paris, are ill-timed. The people perish at our lofty walls; 400 The flames of war have compass'd Troy around And thou hast kindled them; who yet thyself That slackness show'st which in another seen Thou would'st resent to death. Haste, seek the field ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... consumed most of his time. His clever mother saw to that. He said that there were twenty guests at Grassmere. Naturally, I told myself, he couldn't take all-day motor trips with me. I was convinced that my strength lay in whatever charm I possessed for him, and I had no intention of injuring it by ill-timed complaints. I was attractive, alluring to him—more so than ever. I tried to be! Oh, I tried to be diplomatic, wise, to bide my time; by quiet and determined endurance to withstand the siege of Mrs. Sewall's disapproval; ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... from the first subservient to the Polish senate and nobles (szlachta), who deprived him of the control of the mint—then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kings—curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III. from ravaging Lithuania ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... young people sat Mrs. Harris and Alfonso. They talked earnestly about the ill-timed strike of the millmen at home. "Why did the men strike at the very time when father wanted his mills to glow with ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... contest the crown with Harold. Harold had no sooner advice of his landing than he advanced to meet him with all possible diligence; but there did not appear in his army, upon this occasion, the same unanimity and satisfaction which animated it on its march against the Norwegians. An ill-timed economy in Harold, which made him refuse to his soldiers the plunder of the Norwegian camp, had created a general discontent. Several deserted; and the soldiers who remained followed heavily a leader under ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... period, and involved a charge of treason, formulated and then abandoned with the reckless frivolity of the comic stage. We shall probably not be far wrong in ascribing the beginning of the trouble to Lady Castlemaine, who found her hold upon the royal favour threatened by some ill-timed intrigue of Buckingham. A charge of treason was brought against Buckingham, who was known to have at his command a rascally band of bullies and charlatans, who disturbed the streets of London, and ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... stillness was broken by the sudden outburst of a thrasher. 'Now then,' he seemed to say, 'if the rest of you are quite done, I will see what I can do.' He kept on for two or three minutes in his best manner, and at the same time a pair of cat-birds were whispering love together in the thicket. Then an ill-timed carriage came rattling along the road, and when it had passed, every bird's voice was hushed. The hyla's tremulous cry was the only musical sound to be heard. As I started away, one of these tree-frogs hopped out of my path, and I picked him ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... came forward to their dying friend, scornfully motioning away his murderers, fearless alike of the foes around them, and regardless of their ill-timed attempts to explain the fatal mistake. Will it be credited, that at such a scene as this the soldiers were indulging in coarse remarks, or brutal jests, upon the melancholy catastrophe; and comparing the last convulsive spring of the dying man to a salmon ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... fastidious: some will air Their last production in the public square: Some choose the bathroom, for the walls all round Make the voice sweeter and improve the sound: Weak brains, to whom the question ne'er occurred If what they do be vain, ill-timed, absurd. "But you give pain: your habit is to bite," Rejoins the foe, "of sot deliberate spite." Who broached that slander? of the men I know, With whom I live, have any told you so? He who maligns an absent friend's ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... shall be trodden down by a murderous soldiery, and the fiery car of war sweeps over our land, our temples of justice laid in ashes and every horror and desolation upon us; who, but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure shall be held to a strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and be cursed and execrated by all posterity, in all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... caustic publication by a Jew appeared, containing strictures on the conduct of the administration, and even on the Christian religion, which was controverted at length by Talavera, afterwards archbishop of Granada. The scandal occasioned by this ill-timed production undoubtedly contributed to exacerbate the popular ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... show, to exercise their senses, so as neither to suffer them to become indolent and torpid from want of proper objects to occupy their attention, nor yet to exhaust their senses by continual excitation. By ill-timed restraints or injudicious incitements, the nurse frequently renders the child obstinate or passionate. An infant should never be interrupted in its operations; whilst it wishes to use its hands, we should ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... invention of the steam-boat by Lord Stanhope. The atrocities committed during the fury of the French Revolution had so entirely cured him of his predilection for the popular part of our Government, that he could not resist the opportunity, however ill-timed, of casting a slur on this nobleman, who was accused of being over-partial to it. In the third Essay, on Parochial Psalmody, he gives the preference to Merrick's weak and affected version over the two other ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... As a two-months' babe that has been starved in the nursing. And sure I think He bore his death-wound like a little child; With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy He strove to clothe his agony in smiles, Which he would force up in his poor pale cheeks, Like ill-timed guests that had no proper dwelling there; And, when they asked him his complaint, he laid His hand upon his heart to shew the place, Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said, And prick'd him with a pin.— And thereupon Sir Francis called to mind The ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... wish it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed sympathy; "I'm so much more used to ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... should naturally outsail a ship now two and a half years in commission, and which, not long after, had to be wrapped with hawsers to hold her together. In his comments on the action he says comparatively little of the signal of recall, which, though ill-timed, he does not seem to have thought affected the result materially; but he was utterly dissatisfied with the previous management of the business, and into the causes of this dissatisfaction it is desirable to look, as bearing at once upon his ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... acting under his orders. This his royal highness refused with disdain; and the dispute was only settled by the determination that the emperor should take the field in person, and that the supreme command should be vested in him. This ill-timed quarrel has been generally attributed to the pride, petulance, and jealousy of rank of the Duke of York. It would appear, however, that the young prince had nobler reasons for objecting to the supreme command ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... my mind a thousand pictures of one woman. But of them all the one I love most, the one on which I dwell most as I sit of an evening with my pipe and my unopened book, is that which I first saw when I sought the chit who noticed my ill-timed applause and laughed at me. I found her. I saw that she laughed with me and for me, and I laughed too. We laughed together. An instant, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... of the Adagio; I lingered outside a moment, in order to settle my garments and—that woman's look. What! was that a partially suppressed titter near me? Ah! she has no soul for music! How such ill-timed merriment will jar ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... courier soon arranged with Dare, a noble of large estates, who possessed one of the valuable breed. A drunken quarrel, however, disarranged his plans. One of the men boasted that if Dare had not given the bull for payment, he should have been compelled to give it by force. Dare's steward heard the ill-timed and uncourteous boast. He flung down the meat and drink which he had brought for their entertainment, and went to tell his master the contemptuous speech. The result may be anticipated. Dare refused the much-coveted animal, and Meav proceeded to make good her claim by force of arms. But this ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... as a man who had nothing to say. Gloom darkened the North as a consequence of these unfortunate speeches, for they expressed an optimism which we cannot believe he really felt, and which hurt him in the estimation of the country. "There is no crisis but an artificial one," was one of his ill-timed assurances, and another, "There is nothing going wrong.... There is nothing that really hurts any one." Of his supporters some were discouraged; others were exasperated; and an able but angry partisan even went so far as to write in a private ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... silent; the angry word was on his tongue; the contemptuous rejection of what he regarded for the moment as a proposition equally ill-timed and insolent, seemed bursting to his lips; but once more he restrained himself. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly backwards and forwards, deep in thought. Mr. Streatfield was too much overcome by his own agitation to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... an emphasis which sternly rebuked the ill-timed, and, as he deemed, untruthful flattery. "There is not his like, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... to set them guessing, John." She saw the truth strike and felt that unlucky impulse of compassion which so often makes a woman's mercy so unmercifully ill-timed. "Oh!" she called as he ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... have been defiantly wasted, may be attained without any great degree of danger or fatigue. All but the apex may often be reached in the saddle. The bergschrund with its fragile lip of ice, the crevasse with its treacherous bridges, and the avalanche which an ill-timed footstep starts with overwhelming havoc, do not threaten the explorer of the Western mountains; and ordinarily he passes from height to height—from the base with its wreaths of evergreens to the zone where vegetation is limited to the gnarled dwarf-pine, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... amusements; instead of filling his treasury by a wise economy, he squandered his revenues by a needless theatrical pomp, and a misplaced munificence. With a light-minded carelessness, he did but gaze at himself in his new dignity, and in the ill-timed desire to enjoy his crown, he forgot the more pressing duty of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... I think I put him into a worse humour by remarking that a European surgeon would not have been so generous as to have blooded him without making a charge. He looked up in my face, but did not say a word: I saw he was of opinion that I had better have spared this piece of ill-timed levity. ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... neither Russian subjects nor refugees," Denviers replied. "You may save your inquiries for others, since we have no intention of satisfying your ill-timed curiosity." My companion turned his back to Rachieff, and raising a blazing piece of pine-wood which had fallen, tossed it again among the glowing embers, taking no more notice of the discomfited officer. Rachieff was nonplussed; ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... said. "I speak only for the lad's good, and I am sure that you cannot but feel the truth of what I have said. What does Alured want to make enemies for? It may be that it was only my son who openly resented his ill-timed remarks, but you may be sure that others were equally displeased, and maybe their resentment will last much longer than that which was quenched in a fair stand-up fight. Certainly, there need be no malice between the boys. Alured's defeat may even do him good, for he cannot but feel that it ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... new walking cane, which his favorite cousin had given him a few hours before, against a delicate china vase which stood upon the mantle-piece, and in a moment it lay in fragments at his feet. He was sadly frightened, and would have been very sorry too, but for the harsh and ill-timed reproof of his father, which checked the humble plea for forgiveness just rising to his lips, and as Mr. Colman left the room, put on his hat and coat in the hall, and closed the street door with more than usual force, to go to his store, the young lad's feelings were ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... to look out for them," warned Corrigan a little vaguely. He produced the customary cooky. Bobby sat and steamed, and munched and told about the fish he had almost caught. He liked Corrigan because the latter talked to him sensibly, without ill-timed facetiousness, as to an equal. In a moment Duke thrust his muzzle in the door. Bobby looked hastily down. His clothes were ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... thus adjured, On a king's word 'tis truth, but truth ill-timed; For her dear life is now exposed anew, Unless you wholly can put on divinity, And ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... in, in a manner which, though well-meant, was exceedingly ill-timed and in bad taste. She was kindly-disposed, but had not the faintest trace of that delicate perception of others' feelings, and consideration for them, which constitutes the real difference between Nature's ladies and such ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... pleasure in physical existence, but well simply because he is not a subject for prescriptions. Yet there is no store of vitality, no buoyancy, no superabundant vigor, to resist the strain and pressure to which life puts him. A checked perspiration, a draught of air ill-timed, a crisis of perplexing business or care, and he is down with a bilious attack, or an influenza, and subject to doctors' orders for an indefinite period. And if the case be so with men, how is it with women? How many women have at maturity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... and got among the heads of tribes assembled there in conference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush and flourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the circumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not adapted to the cheek of the young person. It was ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... it was very difficult to keep him on his perch for the last scene of all. He submitted, however, rather than spoil the grand finale, hoping that its beauty would efface that ill-timed pleasantry from the public mind. So, when the agreeable clamor of hands and voices called for a repetition, the Minute Man reappeared, grimmer than before. But not alone, for grouped all about his pedestal were Washington and his generals, the matrons and maids, with a background of ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... had a grated window; but the light from it and from the street door was too dim for Mr. Liakos to see what was going on inside the warehouse. As he stood there on the threshold, he saw that his arrival was ill-timed; for there was a dispute in progress. Although he did not understand, or even try to understand what it was all about, he heard hot words bandied back and forth, and above them he could distinguish the merchant's voice, loud ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... must be overpowered by force or thwarted by constitutional forms. Threatened alternately by the Jacobin mob of Paris and by the Royalist middle class, the Government played off one enemy against the other, until an ill-timed effort of the emigrant noblesse gave to the Convention the prestige of a decisive victory over Royalists and foreigners combined. On the 27th of June, 1795, an English fleet landed the flower of the old nobility of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... not informed, that any positive answer has been given yet to the Emperor's offer of mediation. It is ill-timed, and I believe, in reality, is not well taken. I know that this Court is about to send a Minister to Berlin, where they have had none for a long time. The circumstances of such an appointment at this juncture, seem to imply apprehensions of the Emperor's intentions. I enclose two extracts ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... Colonel Fry died suddenly, and the chief command devolved upon Washington. Innis, the commander of the North Carolina troops, was, it is true, placed over his head, but the new commander never took the field. An ill-timed parsimony had occasioned disgust among the soldiers, but Washington remained unshaken. Anticipating that a strong detachment would be sent against him from Fort Duquesne as soon as Jumonville's defeat was known there, he intrenched himself on the Great Meadows. The advance of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... with hartshorn, my assistance was so effectual, with the aid of a neighbouring window, that I had the satisfaction of restoring her in a few minutes to her friends, who did all they could, by crowding round her with ill-timed condolements, to prevent her recovery. By this time the rest of the ladies took warning from these little misadventures to retire. Caustic, in his sardonic way, would insist upon it, that they retired to avoid that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... appointed hour, I was informed that the President was in a special Cabinet meeting, but that he had left word if I called to be shown in to him with the Commodore. These were dark days in the rebellion, and I felt that my visit, if not ill-timed, must at all events be brief. When we were admitted, Mr. Lincoln received us cordially, and introduced us to the members of the Cabinet. When Mr. Chase was introduced as the Secretary of the Treasury, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... his place in the barge, and close to the Sovereign. Raleigh rose to retire, and Tressilian would have been so ill-timed in his courtesy as to offer to relinquish his own place to his friend, had not the acute glance of Raleigh himself, who seemed no in his native element, made him sensible that so ready a disclamation of the royal favour might be misinterpreted. He sat silent, therefore, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the troubled sky's no more serene, Nor hostile baleful shadows fall away. By thine own beauty, by this love of mine (So great that e'en with this it may compare), Render thyself, oh Goddess, unto pity! Prolong no more this all-unmeasured woe, Ill-timed reward for such a love as this. Let not such rigour with such splendour mate If it import thee that I live! Open, oh lady, the portals of thine eyes, And look on me if thou ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... conclusion of his despatch Nicias peevishly complains of the exacting temper of the Athenians, and their readiness to blame anyone but themselves if anything untoward occurred. Whatever may be the truth of the general charge, it was most ill-timed and ungrateful in his own case. Towards him, at least, the conduct of his fellow- citizens was marked by an excess of generosity, amounting to actual infatuation. Nothing is more remarkable than the unshaken confidence of the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... the unfortunate result of Sir Arthur's ill-timed jocularity in advising his daughter to turn her enthusiasm for humanity to account in reforming some of Colonel Antony's assistants, instancing Gerrard and Charteris as standing in special need of her services. Young ladies were scarce, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... to bivouac. The larger the army and the more compactly it marches, the more important does it become to arrange well the hours of departures and halts, especially if the army is to move at night. An ill-timed halt of part of a column may cause as much mischief as ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... petitioning the Governor to parole Abraham Ruef, who had served a part of his term in the penitentiary for bribery in San Francisco, Lane signed the petition. This brought a letter of remonstrance from his friend Charles McClatchy, editor and owner of the Sacramento Bee, who felt that such a movement was ill-timed and not in the interest of ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... and sheriffs in full dress presented themselves at our carriage window, and were about to deliver an address "to please the King;" but I thought such a proceeding ill-timed, and my niece De Nevers told these magnates that we ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... hurry their steps. They retreated without evidences of disorder—almost reluctantly—as though by this very slowness of movement to signify their disgust for the supposed fiasco that had enveloped them, causing them to waste lives in an ill-timed ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... beautiful deceit! Can Truth's own light thy loveliness outshine? To her bold speech misdoubting Aladine With unaccustomed temper calm replied: "If so it were, who planned the rash design, Advised thee to it, or became thy guide? Say, with thyself who else his ill-timed zeal allied?" ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... probability of escaping from the consequences of this ill-timed discovery was delightful to the spinster's feelings, or whether the hearing herself described as a 'lovely woman' softened the asperity of her grief, we know not. She blushed slightly, and cast a grateful ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... greater part of the bomb and gun vessels took their stations off Cronenburgh Castle, to cover the fleet; while others on the larboard were ready to engage the Swedish shore. The Danes, having improved every moment which ill-timed negotiation and baffling weather gave them, had lined their shores with batteries; and as soon as the MONARCH, which was the leading ship, came abreast of them, a fire was opened from about a hundred pieces of cannon and mortars; our light vessels immediately, in return, opened their fire upon ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... opportunity to escape, suffer the opportunity to escape, allow the opportunity to lapse, suffer the opportunity to lapse, allow the occasion to pass, allow the occasion to slip by; waste time &c. (be inactive) 683; let slip through the fingers, lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos[Fr], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c. 24; inexpedient ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... celebrated with sacred rites the vigil of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries. [64] The pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved, some extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have blasted the unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church had been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars of the gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of any form of religious worship. In his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... eye. He tapped the book with his finger and nodded, as much as to ask why I did not join him. At once I pulled my own from my pocket. He smiled acknowledgment as I opened it at random. Certainly he thought I did it to support his tactlessly ill-timed assertion of his own religion. Very likely my action, since I was a guest and therefore not to be insulted, saved him from violence. Incipient snarls of ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... was not the only sufferer, for his brother was not to go unpunished for his perfidy. A strange tale went forth, a scandalous tale to the effect that the Grecian damsel was unfaithful to her spouse. Sterrenberg began to rue his ill-timed marriage, and ultimately was forced to banish his wife altogether. And so, each in his wind-swept castle—for their father was now dead—the two knights lived on, brooding often on the curious events of which their lives had been composed. The elder never married, and the younger had no inclination ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... to laugh last indeed, but oft-times it is best not to laugh at all, for who can foresee the particle of dust which may enter your indecently and injudiciously wide open mouth to choke you in your ill-timed mirth. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... out. M. de Maupeou came to tell me the whole of this conversation, which wrote down under his dictation, that I might show it to the king. You will see in my next letter what resulted from all this, and how the ill-timed enmity of the Choiseuls served my interests most materially. CHAPTER XI A word concerning the duchesse de Choiseul—The apartment of the Comte de Noailles—The Noailles—Intrigues for presentation—The comte de Bearn—M. Morand once more—Visit of the comtesse Bearn to the comtesse du ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... overloading a discourse applies especially to ship-preaching. Sailors are such odd fellows that they are nowise moved by noise and smoke; but they well know how to value a good aim, and always love and honour a commanding-officer who truly respects their feelings, nor by means of long-winded and ill-timed discourses, or what they irreverently call psalm-singing, interferes too much with their ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Government engineer approves of the plan and sees the work well and duly performed. Under the old Act of William IV., passed in 1835, the rate of interest was fixed at 5 per cent. Under this statute Mr. Drinkwater applied for 45,000l. and thanks to his ill-timed energy in urging his application, obtained his loan at 5 per cent., just before the Act of 1879 was brought in for affording somewhat similar help ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... be certain that Juliet would have preferred more pointed praise. He is indeed so lost in his ill-timed reverie that Juliet has to call him again and again by name before he ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
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