"Disappointing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this tendency there is much to be said in favour of the radical operation which consists in removal of the fascia by open dissection. Owing to the long time required for healing and the sensitiveness of the scar, the results of excision of the fascia are sometimes disappointing. Greig has obtained good results by resecting the head of the metacarpal bone. When the little finger is completely flexed towards the palm it may be amputated, as it is always in ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their circumstances may advise. They will not be so base as to desert the post of honor they have sought in the great fight for freedom and maintained so long and so well, disappointing and throwing into confusion the distant allies who have stood behind them in their most evil hours, for all the lands that President and Congress have to give. It is, indeed, a momentous crisis for them, and we have faith to believe that they will not be wanting to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... weak enough to permit it. You may be interested to know that I am to be married "soon already" to a high official with gold in his teeth. It sounds ideal. G. was rather awed by the varied career he sketched for her. After tea, which was long in coming and when it came disappointing, we had still some time, so we hailed a man driving a depressed-looking horse attached to a carriage of sorts, and told him to drive us all round. He looked a very wicked man, but it may have been the effect of his only having one eye, for he certainly had a refined taste ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... hostility the cause of which was inexplicable to him, because he knew he had himself to blame for bringing this disquieting adversary into the very heart of his citadel. His first mistake was in yielding to the barren pleasure of disappointing Cerizet in the lease of the house. If Brigitte by his advice and urging had not taken the administration of the property into her own hands there was every probability that she would never have made the acquaintance of Madame de Godollo. Another imprudence ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... stood at last face-to-face him, he bore a most disappointing air of every-day respectability. He was a tall, thin young man, with light hair and mustache and large blue eyes. His back was towards the window, so that his face was in the shadow, and he did not rise as they entered. The room in which he sat was a prettily ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... the sofa and looking at him.] How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... knew that we were close to the watershed between the Kobuk and the Koyukuk, between the streams that fall into Kotzebue Sound and those that fall by the Koyukuk and the Yukon Rivers into Bering Sea; and because it seemed a capital geographic feature, it was disappointing that it was so inconspicuous. Indeed, we were not sure which of two ridges was the actual divide. Beyond those ridges there was no question, for the ground sloped down to Lake Noyutak, a body of water some three and a half miles in length and of varying breadth that drains into the Kobuk. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... rock crystal. Yet it does not follow that because the crystal is highly odylic and glass altogether negative the former will induce clairvoyance. My own first experience with the crystal was entirely disappointing, while very striking results followed immediately upon the use of a black ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... so long as they will have us." In a fourth room the listening Orangemen sat under a discourse on the efficacy of prayer, which they were urged to make a living part of their everyday life. All this was very disappointing, and when in Royal Avenue the helmeted watchman of the night assured me that nothing had happened, and that nothing was likely to happen, I abandoned ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Turkey decided to join the Central Powers that the British Government had no designs on Turkey and that His Majesty's Government would never think of punishing the Sultan for the misdeeds of the Turkish Committee. Examined by that standard the Viceregal reply is not only disappointing but it is a ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... sufficiently to proceed. Our landlord at Dulcigno had packed us up a meal with a bottle or two of wine at our orders, and we, now being hungry, inspected the basket. It was, to put it mildly, distinctly disappointing, and not fit to eat or drink. Added to this, my hunting knife was stolen, and we were very glad to ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... rather disappointing. Mysie had not a genius for correspondence, and dealt in very bare facts. There was an enclosure which made ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by his incompetency as a governor. He himself never lived to comprehend the real importance of his discovery and he persisted in regarding the islands as the outposts of a great Oriental empire. Having sailed to seek a short route to the ancient East, Columbus was constrained to render his disappointing discovery acceptable by making it profitable and, since the promised gold and rare spices were not forthcoming, only the trade in slaves remained to furnish immediate profits. In July, 1500, Francisco de Bobadilla sailed to supersede Columbus, with ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... day had been most satisfactory to the ghouls and vultures and it seemed probable that they would have equally exciting and plentiful fare next day. But in the opinion of many Morris's counsel was disappointing. He did not cross-examine witnesses at all sensationally, and drag out dreadful secrets (which had nothing to do with the case) about their private lives, in order to show that they seldom if ever spoke the truth. ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... subsided, and much of what was then seething has gone off in vapor or other volatile products. But some very solid matters have also been precipitated, some crystals of poetry translucent, symmetrical, enduring. The immediate practical outcome was disappointing, and the external history of the agitation is a record of failed experiments, spurious sciences, Utopian philosophies, and sects founded only to dwindle away or to be re-absorbed into some form ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Athanase seeks through the world the One whom he may love. He meets, in the ship in which he is embarked, a lady who appears to him to embody his ideal of love and beauty. But she proves to be Pandemos, or the earthly and unworthy Venus; who, after disappointing his cherished dreams and hopes, deserts him. Athanase, crushed by sorrow, pines and dies. 'On his deathbed, the lady who can really reply to his soul comes and kisses his lips' ("The Deathbed of Athanase"). The poet describes her [in the words of the final fragment, page 164]. This slender note is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... been in existence in America almost fifty years. Their careers have been both inspiring and disappointing. They have had to train their own teachers, create a body of knowledge, break down the bars of educational prejudice. This work has taken time. The results justify the time and effort. For today agricultural education is becoming organized, the subjects of study are well planned, ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... home, like Calchas in the Iliad, "Sorrowful by the side of the sounding sea." Already the purple mantle had fallen from his ideal of schoolboy life. He got home later than they expected, and found his parents waiting for him. It was rather disappointing to them to see his face so melancholy, when they expected him to be full of animation and pleasure. Mrs. Williams drew her own conclusions from the red mark on his cheek, as well as the traces of tears welling to his eyes; but, like a wise mother, she asked nothing, and left the boy ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... understood by the messengers as the questions were by the natives. The messengers sought something about which the natives knew little or nothing. The communications were interpreted through the medium of imagination and desire. Nothing accomplished, the commission returned and made its disappointing report. Washington Irving thus describes the further proceedings: "The report of the envoys put an end to the many splendid fancies of Columbus, about the barbaric prince and his capital. He was cruising, however, in a region of enchantment, in which pleasing chimeras started up ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... gone, Mrs. Dodd observed, "Dear me! what if the young gentleman did cry a little, it was very excusable; after such great exertions it was disappointing, mortifying. I pity him for one, and wish he had his mother alive and here, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of this confession, which agreed with that formerly made in Paris hospital by William Dodge. It was full, but disappointing. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... it is disappointing to find this organization divided, already, into so many mutually antagonistic sects. It is also a reason for regret that Mozumdar, who is a man of great culture, intelligence and deep spiritually, has recently relinquished the leadership of the movement. ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... a little reluctant to admit at this time that my earliest impression of the subject of these memoirs was disappointing. Perhaps the dead man's encomiums had raised my hopes. Perhaps the barriers which hedged in this most exclusive of youngsters had increased his importance in my thoughts. What I saw was a boy of ten, well grown for his years, who ambled forward rather sheepishly ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... the Bull, and walking along the somewhat narrow but picturesque street towards Chatham,—"the streets of Cloisterham city are little more than one narrow street by which you get into it and get out of it: the rest being mostly disappointing yards with pumps in them and no thoroughfare—exception made of the Cathedral close, and a paved Quaker settlement, in color and general conformation very like a Quakeress's bonnet, up in a shady corner,"—we pass in succession ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... away, during which the Seafowl sighted and chased vessel after vessel, each of which had been forced to lie to in response to a shot fired across her bows, but only with a disappointing result—one which sent the captain into a temper which made him dangerous to approach for a full half-hour after the strangers' papers had been examined, to prove that she had nothing whatever to ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... a truss has kept lots of people from answering our advertisements; lots of people, because of disappointing experience with other trusses, won't even take the trouble to investigate; give themselves no chance to find out about the merits of ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... real, satisfying things are complex and difficult to obtain. Our lives become unnaturally stressed and tormented by the pitiless and incessant struggle for social conditions which are, at best, second-rate and ultimately disappointing. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... uninterruptedly, parallel with his Christian Endeavour meetings. Wee Andra was even more irreverent than formerly and Donald showed no signs of an added desire to enter the ministry. Donald's case was particularly disappointing. He wanted Donald to sit at his young pastor's feet and learn the lesson of true consecration. He never dreamed that those two whom he desired to be fast friends were in great danger of becoming enemies, and that events were shaping themselves to ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... that her brother has as yet made no will; she intended asking him what were his intentions respecting Mademoiselle Brazier, as soon as she could take a walk with him alone,—a hope which Flore and Maxence were always holding out to her, and, of course, always disappointing. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... story is not to have a disappointing ending, after all, for in the spring and summer of 1902 my stars became auspicious, and I found three Kentucky warblers' nests that were tenanted and several more that were already deserted. Perhaps ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... was disappointing. Most of my old friends were dead or had moved away. Strange children, who meant nothing to me, were playing in the Harlings' big yard when I passed; the mountain ash had been cut down, and only a sprouting stump was left of the tall Lombardy poplar that used to guard the gate. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... results to be revealed by the tenth census, it is not worth while to speculate. That they will be disappointing in many aspects to the national pride, or at least to the national vanity, there can be little doubt; but it is to be hoped we have outlived the period when the truth can make us angry. Of course there will be no such increase of population as marked our earlier career ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... what do you want with her?' 'I'm the new captain, and I've come to see her, is she at home?' 'I'm Mrs. S——, but I'm too busy to come down. Good-day!' The captain turned away, sick at heart, but determined to have another fry. Still, that afternoon was a very disappointing one, and she brought it to a finish with another visit to the station to inquire if there was a likely train that might bring the lieutenant. At night she went alone again to the hall, opened the door, but waited in vain for even the sullen girl ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... morning of July 12, 1771, with the sun as bright as noon, the lakes converged to a single river-bed a hundred yards wide, narrowing to a waterfall that roared over the rocks in three cataracts. This, then, was the "Far-Off-Metal River." Plainly, it was a disappointing discovery, this Coppermine River. It did not lead to China. It did not point the way to a Northwest Passage. In his disappointment, Hearne learned what every other discoverer in North America had learned—that the Great Northwest ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... burying-ground, that upset me, but for the first time in a dozen years I found myself dissatisfied with my home. I remarked to Malachy that the roses seemed to be in a most discouraging condition, and that the garden in general was altogether disappointing. I noticed that my dogs barked a great deal, that the neighbors had become most tiresome, and that Bunsey was an unmitigated nuisance. Even the cuisine, which had been my pride and boast, grew at times unbearable, and I had not been home a fortnight before I ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... who provided the tea and other groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more delight. But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after all, and not on a common; indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand pits to hide in, and one was out of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's picture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with some comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots, so there was no danger ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... how much harm mescal (a kind of intoxicating drink made from the maguey or Mexican aloe) did among the neighbors. She did not doubt the woman's tale; only it was disappointing, when one thought a real customer had at last come to the panaderia, to find that it was not so. But the girl nodded sympathetically at the conclusion ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... be surprised, therefore, at finding him make an awkward figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were now open to him, and disappointing those who had formed an idea of him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Seraphim" were "The Poet's Vow," "Isobel's Child," and others, including, also, "The Romaunt of Margret." The Athenaeum pronounced the collection an "extraordinary volume,—especially welcome as an evidence of female genius and accomplishment,—but hardly less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss Barrett's genius is of a high order," the critic conceded; but he found her language "wanting in simplicity." One reviewer castigated her for presuming to take such a theme as "The Seraphim" "from which Milton would have ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... a little disappointing, for no sooner had the Ambulance car got clean away than the scouting-car broke down. Also Mr. Lambert stated that it was not his intention to take Mrs. Lambert into the German lines again to-day if ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... magnitude of the debt; at present it is not seen. But he prayed with all the effort of his being for his friends: eagerly, passionately, unceasingly he prayed. "Pray for him, believe in him; believe in him, pray for him," he was never tired of saying to those who spoke to him of some disappointing friend. And his own life was a proof of the power which lay behind ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... Britons;" but these objections have, perhaps, been set at rest for many minds by Dr. Guest and Mr. Green. Nevertheless, what little Gildas has to tell us is of slight historical importance. His book is a disappointing Jeremiad, couched in the florid and inflated Latin rhetoric so common during the decadence of the Roman empire, intermingled with a strong flavour of hyperbolical Celtic imagination; and it teaches us practically ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... report concerning Scheffer's portrait I had from Ward. It is in the best place in the largest room, but I find the general impression of the artists exactly mine. They almost all say that it wants something; that nobody could mistake whom it was meant for, but that it has something disappointing in it, etc. etc. Stanfield likes it better than any of the other painters, I think. His own picture is magnificent. And Frith, in a "Little Child's Birthday Party," is quite delightful. There are many interesting pictures. When you see Scheffer, tell him ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... self-supporting. Her pupils increased in number, and the working department promised occupation for a larger staff than was at present engaged. The young women in general answered their friend's expectations, but of course there were disappointing instances. One of these had caused Miss Barfoot special distress. A young girl whom she had released from a life of much hardship, and who, after a couple of months' trial, bade fair to develop noteworthy ability, of a sudden disappeared. She was without relatives in London, and ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... examination of school children is now required in many states, but unless it is followed up by some one who will see the parents and encourage them to secure the necessary medical or dental treatment, the results of these examinations are often disappointing. ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... books (only I did it on purpose, which they never do if heroines, not villainesses), and he ran after us and picked it up. That was, of course, the only time he ever spoke; but, though I have cared not only for Robert Loraine but Henry Ainley since, I should have known his voice anywhere. It was disappointing not to thrill; but to be honest, I must admit that the voice sounded meaningless now, compared with that of the Knight. Nevertheless, he was saying kind things, offering to be our guide over the Castle ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... assumed to pursue this Ideal, personated indeed by Lucifer himself, and which becomes—true and fearful lesson for those who seek the infinite in the human!—a loathsome skeleton as soon as grasped. From the false and disappointing search into which he had been enticed by the demon, he returns to find the innocent wife, whom he had deserted, in a madhouse. False to human duties, his punishment came fast upon the heels ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... accord. Don't explain in the letter. Letters are such hard, unsatisfactory things. The best one you could write wouldn't make up to him a bit for what he's suffered and what he must go on suffering, for you couldn't help studying your words, and they'd be stiff and disappointing, no matter how hard you tried to say the things just right. Ask him to come here and let you explain in your own words why you seemed so harsh. Only, warn him that it isn't to change your mind about—about saying yes. It would be awful ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... policy; experiments which it would have been sometimes dangerous, and still more frequently politically impossible, to inaugurate on a national scale. When these experiments have proved successful, State after State has followed the example set by one or a few among their number; when they have been disappointing in their results, the rest of the Union has profited by the warning. But, highly important as is this aspect of State independence, the most essential benefits of it are the training in self-government which ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... consummation of his fixed designs with even the slightest degree of popular good will in Spain. Nothing was to be gained at such a supreme moment by the ordinary brutal abuse which the Emperor was accustomed to heap on his brother-in-law for commonplace offenses; moreover, in view of the disappointing revolution, Murat's course was perhaps as good as any other. He must, however, bear whatever responsibility attached to it, and that responsibility would have been his even without the supposititious letter which he never ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... caretaker government oversaw new elections in the spring of 2001, which ushered in Alejandro TOLEDO as the new head of government - Peru's first democratically elected president of Native American ethnicity. The presidential election of 2006 saw the return of Alan GARCIA who, after a disappointing presidential term from 1985 to 1990, returned to the presidency with promises to improve social conditions and ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... believe that it was a personage whom he was bringing home with him—probably some important friend of Judge Trent; and to have their varied guesses met by the fact of a white-faced girl in mourning was disappointing. Nevertheless, to Mrs. Lem's suspicious eyes Sylvia had a cold, proud air, which caused the housekeeper to glory in her toilet and be grateful for her knowledge of the world. It should be Greek ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... perceive what a strong point my magnetizers gained by this scene. After disappointing me so many times, they could not, with all their power over me, have kept me from throwing the whole thing overboard, without resorting to some such coup d'etat. Being, doubtless, on better terms with the infernal than with the supernal regions, these denizens of the Intermediate ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... spring rain, swelling the rivers and ponds, and watering the newly planted garden; but discouraging the birds in their nest-building, and disappointing Nat and Dodo, who wished to have ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... replied aloud. 'Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose there's no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow. We shall soon be ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... asked various questions of the sentries. Anyway, when next I saw him he was coming back down the Cutting followed at an interval by a sentry with a fixed bayonet, who asked me if I knew who he was. My reply was no doubt disappointing to the soldier, who thought he had really captured a spy this time, and earned his two weeks' leave—the ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... lady, you must forgive me for disappointing you, and hidin' the truth, for your own sake. May God bless and restore you, and bring you to a proper sense of his mercies, is the prayer of your servant ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... circumstances or passages, which only can discover such qualities of the mind as most distinguish one man from another. These defects may perhaps appear in the stories of many succeeding kings; which makes me hope I shall not be altogether blamed for sometimes disappointing the reader in a point wherein I could wish ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... headless dolls and tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away. We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; but we did not find it. We believe in its existence none the less. Real as the coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... boys had been holding their lonely watch at the camp prior to setting forth the following morning on their disappointing search, matters of serious moment were taking place at the encampment of Mighty Hand and ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... subject not only as an order to be instantly and unhesitatingly obeyed, but as a high honor and distinction. "But the fact is," said Wills, with his easy smile, "I'd promised to be at my friend Corkran's reception that evening, and, of course, I couldn't think of disappointing him; there was no time to write, so I just sent a telegram to the castle saying I was engaged." Probably English society history does not contain a parallel to this piece of audacity, and one would have liked to see the face of the private ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... we were awaited at the French military post; therefore we were reluctantly obliged to refuse an invitation to take tea with the Caid, whose high-perched house commands the whole white amphitheatre of the town. It was disappointing to leave Moulay Idriss with the Hamadchas howling their maddest, and so much besides to see; but as we drove away under the long shadows of the olives we counted ourselves lucky to have entered the sacred town, ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... been superadded to the New Testament teaching, and that have caused our division. And so we try to compromise by "agreeing to disagree" or by ignoring the teachings of the New Testament. But such efforts must be futile and disappointing. We can never unite on the gospel until we agree in the gospel teaching. We can never unite in obeying the Master until we unite in our opinions as to what the Master has commanded us to do. But, thank God, the field is rapidly ripening ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... demands on our fortitude. There will be many lying in the no-man's land between vice and virtue who will need to be rescued at great risk. There will be many forlorn hopes to be led against disease, the foster child of vice, that has gained strength under the cover of war. The disappointing days of peace will give an opportunity for the development of Christian qualities fully as great as the bracing days of battle. Teachers will need to gird up their loins for the task of giving a wise welcome to the thousands that an awakened ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At first he thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on the door. Then he found a disappointing something—the lid of a cigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the Red Un known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's open life. But the picture was disappointing—a snapshot of a young ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I must place the Enchiridion of Epictetus, certainly one of the noblest books in the whole of literature; it has, moreover, been admirably translated. With Epictetus, [2] I think must come Marcus Aurelius. The Analects of Confucius will, I believe, prove disappointing to most English readers, but the effect it has produced on the most numerous race of men constitutes in itself a peculiar interest. The Ethics of Aristotle, perhaps, appear to some disadvantage from the very fact that they have so profoundly influenced our views of morality. The Koran, ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... opened, hats were doffed, backs bent. The Archduchess moved haughtily, looking neither to the right nor left. Her coming brought no enthusiasm. Perhaps the curious imagination of the mob found her disappointing. She did not look like an Archduchess. She looked, indeed, like an unnamiable spinster of the middle class. Hilda, too, was shy and shrinking, and wore an unbecoming hat. Of the three, only the Crown Prince looked royal and as he ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had flowed extemporaneously from his pen. Throughout life it was the lot of Ariosto to struggle against the difficulties inseparable from narrow and precarious circumstances. His patrons, among them Leo X., were often culpable in exciting expectations, and afterwards disappointing them. The earliest and latest works of Ariosto, though not his best, were dramatic. He wrote also some satires in the form of epistles. He died in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and his ashes now rest under the magnificent monument in ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... is a disappointing one. When it was announced that we were just too late for everything this year, I decided to buy some ready-made gardens and keep them about the house, until such time as Nature was ready to co-operate. So now I have three gardens. This enables me to wear that superior look (which is so ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... De Candolle said in speaking of the graminaceous plants. The era of equality means the triumph of mediocrity. It is disappointing, but inevitable; for it is one of time's revenges. Humanity, after having organized itself on the basis of the dissimilarity of individuals, is now organizing itself on the basis of their similarity, and the one exclusive principle is about as true as the other. Art no doubt will ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ruler and historian did not long endure. Severus grew disappointing to Dio through his severity, visited first upon Niger and later upon Caesar Clodius Albinus: and Dio came to be persona non grata to Severus for this reason among others, that the emperor changed his mind completely about Commodus, and since he had begun to revere, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... happen to be above the horizon, we can at once direct the telescope to the place, and even in broad daylight the planet will very often be seen. The telescopic appearance of Mercury is, however, disappointing. Though it is much larger than the moon, yet it is sufficiently far off to seem insignificant. There is, however, one feature in a view of this planet which would immediately attract attention. Mercury is not usually observed to be a circular object, but more or less crescent-shaped, ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... out] Oh, that's not true: it's NOT true, Jack. I never wanted you to do those dull, disappointing, brutal, stupid, vulgar things. I always hoped that it would be something really heroic at last. [Recovering herself] Excuse me, Jack; but the things you did were never a bit like the things I wanted you to do. They often gave me great uneasiness; but I could not tell ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... is the nature of the world and man—are at first glimpse disappointing. To this rule the great Culebra "cut" was no exception. After all this was merely a hill, a moderate ridge, this backbone of the Isthmus the sundering of which had sent its echoes to all corners of the earth. The long-fed imagination ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... expect something to happen. When the ship came at last they wouldn't go into it because they couldn't bear to think that something should happen at last and they not be there to see it. Oh yes, one of them went back, I remember. But his actual meeting with his girl was so disappointing in comparison with his long expectation of it in front of the Temple that he took the next boat back to the island ... but he never found it again. He travelled everywhere and died, a disappointed man, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... matter from the sick wife of a farmer, whom she had gone to see, and when she went home thought she had better not confess that she had taken Hayes' note to Mireside. When Osborn joined his wife and daughter at the tea-table in the hall after some disappointing shooting, his remarks about his tenants were rancorous. Grace thought it prudent not to talk and left the table as soon as she could. When she had gone, Osborn frowned and getting up savagely kicked a log ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... descended upon the Netherlands—more disappointing because succeeding a period of comparative prosperity and triumph—was the winter of 1587-8, when Leicester had terminated his career by his abrupt departure for England, after his second brief attempt at administration. For it was exactly at this moment of anxious expectation, when dangers ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... defects, the lax structure of the sonnet-form, the obscurities and needless blurring, and the disappointing inequalities, Phillis takes a high place among the sonnet-cycles, and must ever be dear to lovers of quiet, melodious verse, who have made themselves at home in the golden world of the pastoral poets and mislike not ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... first look about him was disappointing. Nothing but the bare walls met his eyes. Then, in the farthest corner, he observed something that in the dancing torch-light was darker than the logs themselves, and he moved toward it. It was a tiny shelf, ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... woman was staring furtively at Coxeter, but, noting his cold manner and imperturbable face, she felt that he was indeed a disappointing hero of romance—not at all the sort of gentleman with whom one would care to be shipwrecked, if it came to ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... distorted that the original reporters would probably have failed to recognise them. And now, at last, here was actually a Kablunet—a real foreigner in the body; but not alive! It was extremely disappointing! ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... the necessary cooeperation. On the one hand, syphilis is one of the most curable of diseases, and on the other, it is one of the most incurable. At the one extreme we have the situation in our own hands, at our own terms—at the other, we have a record of disappointing failure. As matters stand now, we do not cure syphilis. We simply cloak it, gloss it over, keep it under the surface. Nobody knows how much syphilis is cured, partly because nobody knows how much syphilis there really is, and partly because it is almost an axiom that few, except persons ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... said, "are destitute—absolutely. It's simply frightful, the wear and strain of it. Peggy, of course," he added plaintively, "is not a good manager. She likes spending, you know—and there's so seldom anything to spend, poor Peggy. So life is disappointing for her. The babies, I needn't say, are growing up little vagabonds. And they will bathe in the canals, which isn't respectable, of course; though one is relieved in a way that ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... exaltation of this triumph, he forgot that it was not yet the hour for a scholar's reappearance, and went forth in haste to search the ground beneath the window—a disappointing quest, for nowhere in the yard was there anything but withered grass, and the rubbish of other frost-bitten vegetation. His mother, however, discovered something else, and, opening the kitchen window, she asked, ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... again lives in a world of her own, Sees faces in flowers, hears voices in winds, reads poems from chiselled stone. I certainly havn't had the best of luck, I've tried in different lands, And, as I said, it's a drag to have others upon your hands. 'Twas a most disappointing thing, of course, when that old aunt died at Ayr, And only one hundred pounds was left to Aimee, her rightful heir; Not that I married Aimee for wealth, but I thought it just as sure, That grand estate, to think of it all, and I lying here so poor. Ah, I want some brandy! ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... He excelled all the whites in popularity as a preacher; sharing with them in their public services, not only in Colored but also in white congregations. When they were sick or otherwise disabled they could trust the pulpit to Harry without fear of unfavorably disappointing the people. Mr. Asbury acknowledges that the best way to obtain a large congregation was to announce that Harry would preach. The multitude preferred him to the Bishop himself. Though he withstood for years the temptations of extraordinary popularity, he fell, nevertheless, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... third movement, in structure, much resembles the first; the music is broad and vigorous. The closing bars suggest the stringendo passage and presto bars in the coda of the Scherzo of the "Choral Symphony." Of course it is disappointing to have only the bass parts for each instrument. The volume, as we have already stated, was for the use of Ricordati, and probably the uncle and nephew performed these sonatas together. Musicians will be able to write out the figured basses, and thus form some idea of the music. The figures are an ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... explorer of resource, while superior persons, like this learned clerk, know him as an effective dilettante in the realms of art. In The Sport of Collecting (FISHER UNWIN), with a general candour, but a specific, canny (and of course rather tiresome and disappointing) reticence as to prices, he gives us, in effect, a treatise on the craft of curio-hunting, gaily illustrated by anecdotes of the bagging of bronze cats in Egypt, Foppas and Giorgiones in Italian byways, Inca jewellery in Peru, and heaven ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... entrance into the lagoon; but, from the surf breaking on either side of it, Harry considered that it would be dangerous to attempt passing through. We already knew that, however beautiful a coral island looks at a distance, the landing on it is very disappointing. In order to obtain cocoanuts we pulled for the shore on the lee side, where it seemed possible to land. As we approached the beach, however, we saw a large number of natives collected, and as we ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... has been written in praise of the frescoes in the Spanish chapel of S. Maria Novella, where Eleonora of Toledo, the wife of Grand Duke Cosimo, used to hear Mass; yet how disappointing they are. In so simple a building, some great artist, you might think, in listening to Ruskin, had really expressed himself, his thoughts about Faith and the triumph of the Church. But the work which we find ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... a poetic recording of the facts of life, an interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart. It involves a free, poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the law of mental growth; ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... 'It's disappointing,' said Charteris, 'to find a chap who can crack a crib as neatly as you can doubling up like this. Think how Charles Peace would have behaved under the circs. Don't disgrace him, ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... and sometimes disappointing surprises in encountering the interiors of books. The title-page is not always a distinct intimation of what is to follow. Whoever dips into the Novellae of Leo, or the Extravagantes, as edited by ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... pursued Jonah, beginning to wish he was over his task, "my assistant-master is disappointing me. I took him on half in charity six months ago, but lately he has been having a bad influence in the school, and I thought ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... disappointing, not very interesting. He had never read his father's books, and he couldn't tell Peter very much about the great man; he was proud of him but rather reserved. He had not many ideas about anything and indeed when he went for a walk with ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... Most are. Of all relations in life, it is the least disappointing: where parents do not so treat their daughters as to alienate their affections, which unhappily ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... built here on the iron frame brought all the way from Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The frame was covered with dressed skins of buffalo and elk, the seams being coated with a composition of powdered charcoal and beeswax, in default of tar or pitch. This craft was well named the "Experiment," and a disappointing experiment it proved to be. Here is Captain ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... nervously; when, in fact, they were seen to be, at least in outward semblance, much as other men; some regard had to be paid to statements that could be checked by observation; and the Papist's disappointing ordinariness had to be attributed to dissimulation or to be otherwise interpreted into accord with the preposterous principles by which their lives were thought ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... when the thick tone is forbidden and the attempt made to substitute the use of the voice in the thin or head register may be disappointing. It will seem to take away all life and vigor from the singing. Teachers who enjoy hearty singing will get nervous; they will doubt the value of the innovation. In those grades where children range in age from twelve to fourteen years, ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... sought, but it will be vain to seek them, if we have no Christianity to apply. The tendency in our missions to put the main stress upon physical and social agencies, to the detriment of simple gospel preaching, is sure to be disappointing in its results. It is like trying to light a coal-fire by putting your kindlings on top. It is like beginning at the roof, and building down to the foundation; or like first purifying the stream, and afterwards the fountain. Society ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... I cannot tell you a remedy for this state of things—it is one of the conditions of the craft; you must find by experience what pigment, and what glass, and what style of using them, and what amount of fire give the least of these disappointing results, and then make the best of it; and make up your mind to do without certain effects in glass, which you find ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... to hear that," said Miss Earle; "if I had known I was disappointing anybody I should ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... disappointing: very flat and tame. Mrs. Day got up and kissed her daughter, and Deleah ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... comfort came to him. His aunt, Fabia, had always seen in him her hero. With no children of her own, with very little knowledge of the world, she had centred all her hopes and ambitions on her sister's son; and he was not disappointing her. She dreamed of him as consul, triumphator, and dictator. She told him her hopes. She applauded his sacrifice. She told him of the worthies of old, of Camillus, of the Scipios, of Marcellus, the "Sword ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... function of a magistrate; he has not taken the oath," etc. All this renewing the fight of the first day, for the Castle, too, wants the mayor on the bench to brand him as its own and alienate him from the old flag. It puts on the pressure by suppressing his privileges, weakening his influence, and disappointing his "supporters." All this is silently done. Still, the mayor holds fast, but he has not counted on this, and is beginning to be baffled and worried. Meanwhile a sort of guerilla attack is being maintained: invitations ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... is very disappointing; we find the Government again having recourse to the same means for checking and guiding opinion which Metternich had used fifty years before. Not indeed that the Socialists themselves had any ground for complaint; their avowed ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... circles, should have been a charming companion. It must, however, be admitted that the accounts which have come down to us do not confirm such preconceived impressions. Like his great rival, Addison, though for other reasons, he was generally disappointing in society. Pope, as may be guessed from Spence's reports, had a large fund of interesting literary talk, such as youthful aspirants to fame would be delighted to receive with reverence; he had the reputation for ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... comes back to find it already nearly melted, and no longer beautiful: at the same time, the grandfather has just remembered and taken out a bundle of love-letters, which he too had stored away in years gone by, and then long neglected; and, behold! the letters are as faded and sorrowfully disappointing as the icicle. This is merely a simile poetically worked out; and yet it is in such as these, and some others, to be mentioned further on, that the author seems at his best. Wherever he has really written after the old model, there is something to be deprecated: in spite of all the spirit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man who had suddenly risen to what was then great wealth, that, having taken a lady to the opera, he was met by the disappointing assurance that there were no ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... judges from being false or verdicts from being iniquitous. Have a care; have a care! The Trappist may start the cowled pack on his own track and throw them off by disappearing at the right point and leading them on yours. Remember that you have wounded many an amour propre by disappointing the pretensions of the dowry-hunters. One of the most incensed of them, and at the same time one of the most malicious, is a near relative of a magistrate who is all-powerful in the province. De la Marche has ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... and four magazines, with superlatively good-looking, well-groomed young men and divinely lovely girls for the heroes and heroines. The story I was most interested in had a hero like Mr. Brett; but it was disappointing in the end, because he married a short plump girl with black eyes, and somehow it spoiled the realism, as I couldn't fancy he would really have cared so dreadfully for a girl like that. Anyway, it put me out of the mood for reading any more stories and ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... It was most disappointing. But— 'Very well, then,' I muttered to myself, 'she must stay with her mother. I can't ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... usual. He has here dictated his extempore thoughts, without premeditation or revision, so that we have here a record of Milton's habitual mind. Having watched him gradually emancipating himself from the contracted Calvinistic mould of the Bread-street home, it is disappointing to see that, at sixty-five, his development has proceeded no further than we here find. He is now willing to extend toleration to all sects who make the Scriptures their sole rule of faith. Sects may misunderstand Scripture, but to err is the condition of humanity, and will ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison |
