"Questionable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... November, he made the following entry in his diary: "Received an Invitation to attend the funeral of Mrs. Roosevelt (the wife of a senator of this state), but declined complying with it—first, because the propriety of accepting any invitation of this sort appeared very questionable; and, secondly (though to do it in this instance might not be improper), because it might be difficult to discriminate in ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... these extracts somewhat more at length than may, perhaps, be to the point in question, because they contain much that is highly interesting as to the apparently questionable mode in which the Hospitallers obtained the protection of the courts (and probably they were not singular in their proceedings); annual pensions to judges, besides other largesses, and much of this "pro favore habendo," contrasts painfully with the "spotless purity of the ermine" which dignifies ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... been the reasons which induced your dissent, I am persuaded they were such as you deemed sufficient. Permit me to submit to your consideration whether on occasions where the propriety of nominations appear questionable to you it would not be expedient to communicate that circumstance to me, and thereby avail yourselves of the information which led me to make them, and which I would with pleasure lay before you. Probably my reasons for nominating Mr. Fishbourn may tend to show that such a mode of proceeding ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... Through long stretches of "for sure country" they picked their way, until they came, hot but happy, to a green and shady summer house on a hill. There they halted to rest, and there Ignatius Aloysius, with questionable delicacy, began to insist once more upon the full measure of ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... trollop," replied the rector,—"a woman of questionable morals, a writer for the stage; frequenting theatres and actors; squandering her fortune among pamphleteers, painters, musicians, a devilish society, in short. She writes books herself, and has taken a false name by which she is better known, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... infidel, whom (in 1796) this changeful politician had branded as "base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous." During the Queen Caroline trial Cobbett worked heart and soul for that questionable martyr. He went out to Shooter's Hill to welcome her to London, and boasted of having waved a laurel bough ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was to be seen dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle and by the dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what he feared was trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of every ancient physician who might chance to be passing ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Houstonia to be supposed thereby to indorse the Texan President? Or are the deluded damsels who chew Cassia-buds to be regarded as swallowing the late Secretary of State? The names have long since been made over to the flowers, and every questionable aroma has vanished. When the godfather happens to be a botanist, there is a peculiar fitness in the association; the Linaea, at least, would not smell so sweet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... recommendation, in June, 1791, young Adams entered the lists against Paine and his pamphlet, which was in truth an encomium on the National Assembly of France, and a commentary on the rights of man, inferring questionable deductions from unquestionable principles. In a series of essays, signed Publicola, published in the Columbian Centinel, he states and controverts successively the fundamental doctrines of Paine's work; denies that "whatever a whole nation chooses to do it has ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... set foot inside this station while I'm in charge," retorted the officer. "If you knew as much about old Dardus as I do, you wouldn't be so keen to champion this boy. The old man has been mixed up in many a questionable transaction, and I shouldn't be surprised if it turned out that he was in league with these fellows who got that country bumpkin's seven hundred and fifty dollars, and that he put the boy up to ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... which was duly heightened by a strong and thick shading of sable all round it—the artist, in this way, calculating no doubt to afford the object so encircled its legitimate relief. Lest, however, his design in the painting itself should be at all questionable, he had taken the wise precaution of showing what was meant by printing the words "Golden Egg" in huge Roman letters, beneath it; these, in turn, being placed above another inscription, promising "Entertainment for ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... management. These are the usual conditions of success in most affairs; but a coffee-estate is not unfrequently abused for not paying when it is worked with borrowed capital at a high rate of interest under questionable superintendence. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... childhood, and a proof that the object of such caressing tenderness, so public and avowed, must be regarded in the light of a baby—not to mention that the very foundation of all this distinction, a beautiful face, is as a male distinction regarded in a very questionable light by multitudes, and often by those most who are the possessors of that distinction. Certainly that was the fact in my brother's case. Not one of us could feel so pointedly as himself the ridicule of his situation; nor did he cease, when increasing years had liberated ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... collection of books I had ever seen,—four thousand volumes,—embracing a mass of literature from "The Pirate's Own Book'' to the works of Lord Bacon. In this paradise I reveled, browsing through it at my will. This privilege was of questionable value, since it drew me somewhat from closer study; but it was not without its uses. One day I discovered in it Huber and Newman's book on the English universities. What a new world it opened! My mind was sensitive to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... themselves to their present extent, namely, in inserting such an advertisement in the newspapers, and, above all, going so far in their disclosures to Titmouse. Their prudence in the latter step, however, was very questionable to themselves even; and they immediately afterwards deplored together the precipitation with which Mr. Quirk had communicated to Titmouse the nature and extent of his possible good fortune. It was Mr. Quirk's ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... travelling, we found it impossible to attend divine service, which was (of course) very grievous to us both. In the evening, however, I went to a Bible class with a very polite and agreeable gentleman, whom I afterward discovered to be a strolling tailor of very questionable habits.... We are now at Deerfield (though I believe my letter is dated Greenfield) ... with our faces northward; nor shall I marvel much if your Uncle Sam pushes on to Canada, unless we should meet with two or ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... upon what principles I have devoted myself to the public for the last nine years, and as those motives would be questionable if after the war I did not return to a private station, I hope the propriety of my resolution to resign will appear manifest, especially when to these considerations are added the circumstances of certain individuals of my family, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... facts Ellis knew. It would put the merchant to no inconvenience whatever to continue the accommodation for ten days longer; but the policy of asking this was felt to be a very questionable one, as it would be most likely to create in his mind a doubt of Ellis's standing, and a doubt in that quarter would be injurious. Still, the case was so pressing, that Ellis determined to see him. So, assuming a pleasant, partly unconcerned air, ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... desks and a fine old oak inlaid desk, a capital inlaid bureau, manufactured by a Russian in Teheran, and some Sultanabad carpets not more than fifty years old. On the shelves and wherever else a place could be found stood glass decorations of questionable artistic taste, and many a vase with stiff bunches ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... definition, which seems to me the less questionable from the fact that, however much they may dispute over the word, all agree upon the thing, because it contains the germ of the greatest revolution yet to be accomplished in the world,—I mean the subordination of the unproductive functions to the productive functions, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Schwaningen, or some Widow's-Mansion "WITTWENSITZ" of her own; [Lived, finally at Schwaningen, in sight of such vicissitudes and follies round her, till "4th February, 1784" (Rodenbeck, iii. 304).] reigning Son, with his French-Actress equipments, being of questionable figure],— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would have tended to heighten the ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... full of petty conceit, can recover from any wounds upon their vanity, but proud and large-minded men have a self-respect, even though based upon questionable foundation. It is essential to them, and losing it they are inwardly wretched. As soldiers carry the painful scars of some wounds through life, so Mr. Goulden would find that Laura's words had left a sore place while ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... can be washed and dried again speedily; next there is a butter keg (as in the coolest place), and a box of biscuits, and a flask of rum—the "Storm supply"—only to be drawn upon when things of air and sea are in such a state that to open the main hatch would be questionable prudence. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... indulging his baser nature among the questionable attractions of the Inferno, she'd shot three hundred of her Precol credits on a formal black gown ... on what, yesterday, she would have considered a rather unbelievable gown. Even at an Ermetyne dinner she ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... the present patent laws, it is more than questionable whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... melancholy of hopeless love; but somewhere, back in his mind, there was probably the habit of hope. He had always had everything he wanted, so why should not fate be kind now?—of course without any questionable step on his part. "I will never tell her," he assured himself; the words stabbed him, but he meant them. He only wished, irrationally enough, that Mrs. Richie might know ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... has that been questionable? Yet what stead has either your prudence or your duty stood you in, with people so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the inverse and questionable method of arguing that the high profits distributed by a Trust are themselves proof that prices have not fallen as they would have fallen under free competition, it is not possible to build a very convincing condemnation of the Trust from statistics of price. And even when profits ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... it well open, before her head was pointed towards the passage. By this time, the two bergs had drawn so near each other as actually to form an arch across its mouth; and this, too, at a part so low as to render it questionable whether there was sufficient elevation to permit the Walrus to pass beneath. But retreat was impossible, the gale urging the ship furiously onwards. The width of the passage was now but little more than a hundred feet, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... into a hundred homes and see how they were furnished, it added a hundred thousand copies to the circulation. There was nothing new in publishing pictures of rooms and, had it merely done this, it is questionable whether success would have followed the effort. It was the way in which it was done. The note struck entered into the feminine desire, reflected it, piqued ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... all. In all you find the hall, the tablinum, and the peristyle, communicating with each other; in all you find the walls richly painted; and all the evidence of a people fond of the refining elegancies of life. The purity of the taste of the Pompeians in decoration is, however, questionable: they were fond of the gaudiest colors, of fantastic designs; they often painted the lower half of their columns a bright red, leaving the rest uncolored; and where the garden was small, its wall was frequently tinted to deceive the eye as to its extent, imitating trees, birds, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... that," he said, "it is questionable, according to Mrs. Ostermaier, that nothing was taken from you, and that as soon as the attack was over you basely deserted her and followed the bandits. A full description of you, which I was able to correct in one or ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... perhaps I may be permitted to ask whether any reader of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" can throw light on the following questionable statement made by a correspondent of the Morning Herald, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... let your Jew[1] say what he pleases of them—and the Wednesday's flowers are as fresh and beautiful, I must explain, as the new ones. They were quite supererogatory ... the new ones ... in the sense of being flowers. Now, the sense of what I am writing seems questionable, does it not?—at least, more so, than the nonsense ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... even to the unchallenged autonomy, of her sex cannot be questioned, attested as it is by a lifetime of splendid work. The present controversy in Great Britain would be profoundly modified in its course and in its character if either party were aware of Ellen Key's work. The most questionable doctrines of the English feminists would be already abandoned by themselves if either the wisest among them, or their opponents, were able to cite the evidence of this great Swedish feminist, who is certainly at this moment the most powerful and the wisest living protagonist of her sex. From ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... permitted the change to be enjoyed. About noon, on that day, the wind came with such power, and the seas poured down against the bows of the ship with a violence so tremendous, that it got to be questionable whether she could any longer remain with safety in her present condition. Several times in the course of the morning, the waves had forced her bows off, and before the ship could recover her position, the succeeding billow would break against her broadside, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... ossifications such as you and me. They are for the lusty coloured lads who work the world with steam and sail: men whose lives lie literally in their great hands, who go down to the sea in ships and sometimes have questionable business in great waters. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... calls out passionate sympathy and loyalty, sometimes in a dangerous degree. In the labor movement almost any fault is forgiven to a man who has been in prison for the cause of labor, and death for a popular cause will idealize the memory of very ordinary or questionable characters. But if the character of a leader is pure, suffering accredits him and gives him power. The cross had an incomparable value in putting the cause of Christianity before the world. It placed Jesus ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... however, find a witness among the writers of his period in Gawain Douglas, who died Bishop of Dunkeld in 1522. He, in a prologue to one of his AEneids, applies not only the word 'merry' to our bird, but one of less questionable signification—'mirthful.' If we come down to more modern times, we shall find Wordsworth, who seems above all others, except Burns, to have had a catholic ear for the whole multitude of natural sounds, not only refusing the character of melancholy to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... be concealed, that the present journal has a very questionable appearance in regard to its entire authenticity, as it has obviously borrowed liberally from that of Cesar Frederick, already inserted in this work, Vol. VII. p. 142-244. It seems therefore highly probable, that the journal ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Tzu are similar to those of the Massive Destruction and the Blitzkreig examples. It is questionable that a decision to employ American force this ruthlessly in quasi- or real assassination will ever be made by the U.S. Further, the standard to maintain the ability to perform these missions is high and dependent on both resources and on supporting intelligence, especially human intelligence-not ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in Bellula's love, and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Allies could be pictured as refusing all terms and determined upon the destruction of Germany, the people would doubtless agree to the unrestricted use of the submarine as purely defensive in character, even if it brought to the Allies the questionable assistance of America. The German note itself contained no definite terms. But its boastful tone permitted the interpretation that Germany would consider no peace which did not leave Central and Southeastern Europe under Teuton domination; the specific terms later communicated to the American Government ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... twenty-three representations on the following eighth plate" (in which is included the early German Fiddle) "are from a manuscript a little more recent." Whether the period of three centuries named by M. Fetis can be considered recent is at least questionable. The information taken from this manuscript is of paramount importance, with reference to the Asiatic and Northern views of the origin of the Violin. The view taken by some authorities, that the Europeans received their earliest instructions in infantile Fiddling from the Moors, when they ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... d'Orleans, and come around with his crowd of elegant friends; and through the long sweet hours of the ball she had danced, and laughed, and coquetted under her satin mask, even to the baffling and tormenting of that prince of gentlemen, dear Monsieur John himself. No man of questionable blood dare set his foot within the door. Many noble gentlemen were pleased to dance with her. Colonel De —— and General La ——: city councilmen and officers from the Government House. There were no paid dancers then. Every ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... present in the coffee, and particularly caffein, will be lost. Both Freund[121] and Harnack[122] hold briefs for the product produced by this method, and the latter endeavors analytically to prove its merits; but as his experimental data are questionable, his conclusions do not ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... these darker shades of the Irish character, I feel that, consistently with that love of truth and impartiality which has guided, and I trust ever shall guide, my pen, I could not pass them over without further notice. I know that it is a very questionable defence to say that some, if not principally all, of their crimes originate in agrarian or political vengeance. Indeed, I believe that, so far from this circumstance being looked upon as a defence, it ought to be considered as an aggravation of the guilt; inasmuch ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... a base tool of Cromwell, and a miserable exponent of the reform movement. He joined Gardiner in burning heretics, was convicted of adultery at Oxford, was pilloried for perjury and died in jail. The other royal agents were also questionable characters. Dean Layton wrote the most disgusting letters to Cromwell. Once he informed his patron that he prayed regularly for him, prefacing this information with the remark, "I will now tell you something to ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that questionable companionship? ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... instrument with all the deliberation of a proprietor of the premises. He is pretty sure to begin his performance in the middle of a tune, with a hiccoughing kind of sound, as though the pipes were gasping for breath. He puts a sudden period to his questionable harmony the very instant he gets his penny, having a notion, which is tolerably correct, that you pay him for his silence and not for his sounds. In spite of his discordant gurglings and squealings, he is welcomed by the nursery-maids and their infant tribes ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... philosophy is doubtless one commence-of the most interesting and instructive subjects Grecian in the whole history of mind. In all probability it originated with the Ionian Sophoi, though many suppose it was derived from the East. It is questionable whether the oriental nations had any philosophy distinct from religion. The Germans are fond of tracing resemblances in the early speculations of the Greeks to the systems which prevailed in Asia from a very remote antiquity. Gladish sees in the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... exaggerated and over- emphasised. Of course, I am quite ready to admit that Life very often commits the same error. She produces her false Renes and her sham Vautrins, just as Nature gives us, on one day a doubtful Cuyp, and on another a more than questionable Rousseau. Still, Nature irritates one more when she does things of that kind. It seems so stupid, so obvious, so unnecessary. A false Vautrin might be delightful. A doubtful Cuyp is unbearable. However, I ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... of Sir Walter Raleigh to Spencer at Kilcolman increase the interest attached to the place, and are not in the slightest degree questionable.[3] To the advice of Raleigh the publication of the first books of the Fairy Queen has been ascribed; and the existence of a poetical intercourse between such minds, and in such distracting scenes, is a delightful recollection that almost warms ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... axe-bearing Sandan, or Teshup, or Hadad, whose sway we have noted far west in Lydia, and also a Great Mother, the patron of peaceful increase, as he was of warlike conquest. But whether this uniformity of civilization implies any general overlord, such as the Mushki king, is very questionable. The past supremacy of the Hatti is enough to account for large community of social features in 1000 B.C. over all ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... always healthy again,—it would seem as if, in recompense for it all, that we have a still undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand—alas! that nothing will now ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... elapsed since then, he has won a fortune which is variously estimated at from twenty-five to forty millions of dollars. He has gained all this wealth fairly, not by trickery and deceit, or even by a questionable honesty, but by a series of mercantile transactions the minutest of which bears the impress of his sterling integrity, and by a patience, energy, tact, and genius of which few men are possessed. Surely, then, it must be a proud thought to him that he has done all this himself, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... conclusion, that the wisdom of the Teacher will consist in taking advantage of the principle which has been here exhibited. He should not speculate nor theorize, nor go forward inconsiderately in using exercises, the benefits of which are at least questionable; but he ought implicitly to follow Nature in the path which she has thus pointed out to him. One chief object with him should be, the cultivation of the minds of his pupils; and the only method ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... exceeded the proper mark; he suspected there was nothing brought to his own table of liquors, fruit, or other things, that had not been used as profusely at the steward's; that if his suspicions were unfounded he should be sorry for having entertained them; and if not, it was at least questionable whether any successor of ****** might not do the same thing, in which case there might be a change without a benefit. He leaves it with Mr. Lear whether to retain him or not, provided he thought him honest, of which he would be better able to judge on comparing his accounts with those of his former ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... knew all the ways of it—had doubtless been used to bogs in her own country, and her mother before her! Like a small elephant, she would put out her little foot, and tap, and sound, to see if the surface would bear her—if the questionable spot was what it looked to her mistress, or what she herself doubted it. When she had once made up her mind in the negative, no foolish attempt of mine could overpersuade her—could make her trust our weight on it a hair's-breadth. In a ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... masters drank to each other's success, and many a conventional remark was made between them on the subject of sea-lions, sea-elephants, and the modes of capturing such animals. Even Watson, semi-deserter as he was, was shaken cordially by the hand, and his questionable conduct overlooked. The ocean has many of the aspects of eternity, and often disposes mariners to regard their fellow-creatures with an expansiveness of feeling suited to their common situations. Its vastness reminds them of the time that has neither beginning nor ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... fingers, some of which were knotted with toil; they glowed on shirt bosoms and morning as well as evening gowns; on necks and ears which should have been spared the emphasis of jewels. They were the accepted badge and token of success. People who wore them not were either new arrivals or those of questionable wealth and taste. So far had this singular vanity progressed that a certain rich man, who had lost a finger in a saw mill, wore an immense solitaire next to the stub, it may be presumed, as a ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... disgust of gentlemen like Major Belwether; "club" men, in the commoner and more sinister interpretation of the word; unfit men, who had managed to slip into good clubs; men, once fit, who had deteriorated to the verge of ostracism; heavy, over-fed, idle, insolent men in questionable financial situation, hard card players, hard drinkers, hard riders, negative in their virtues, merciless in their vices, and whose cynical misconduct formed the sources of the stock of stories told where such ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... Caesar's merit was so eminent, that, according to the general belief, had he found time to cultivate this department of civil exertion, the precise supremacy of Cicero would have been made questionable, or the honors would have been divided. Cicero himself was of that opinion; and on different occasions applied the epithet Splendidus to Caesar, as though in some exclusive sense, or with a peculiar emphasis, due to him. His taste ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... differ vastly from those of instrumental music and chanted speech. The measures of spoken verse are elastic and full of changefulness, while those of music and the chant maintain a very decided constancy of relations. The latter present determinable types of grouping and succession, while it is questionable whether the forms of relationship in spoken verse can ever be considered apart from the emotion of the moment. In so far as the rhythmic form which these differing modes of expression embody are to be made the subject of experimental ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... was nourished from potent springs. But, indeed, avarice in itself is one of the most powerful of motives. In the teaching of the pulpit it may seldom be noticed, but both in Scripture and in history it occupies a prominent place. It is questionable if anything else makes so many ill deeds to be done. Avarice breaks all the commandments. Often has it put the weapon into the hand of the murderer; in most countries of the world it has in every age made the ordinary ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... and without doubt greatly blessed because they were the servants of God and were principal in the Holy Temple, to do His work therein, . . . their name, their garb, and work, did so intoxicate and bewitch me." If it is questionable whether the Act forbidding the use of the Book of Common Prayer was strictly observed at Elstow, it is certain that the prohibition of Sunday sports was not. Bunyan's narrative shows that the aspect of a village green in Bedfordshire during the Protectorate ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... always been given to crying. The child—she did not look more than a child—had no beauty of any kind; yet a certain gentleness of look redeemed the poor little face from absolute ugliness. She was queerly dressed, too. Her gown was of good, even rich material, but in questionable taste, and cut in a fashion that might have suited her grandmother. Peggy's own ideas of dress were primitive, and she was not very observant, but she did feel that blue poplin stamped with large ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield a scamp of an adventurer—an unknown, questionable character. He has followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without the slightest compunction, if he can. It's most infamous, outrageous, and when I find him I'm going to thrash him within an inch of his life before I ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... said during the meal. They were a reserved household, inclined to the small nobilities of silence. (It is questionable whether talkative families ever have much to say.) This morning each had especial reason ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... factory workers, it is questionable if their wages will support sanitary day-nurseries, with intelligent nurses for small groups of children, and at the same time pay some one to cook and scrub at home. If the mother must still cook and care for her house, in addition to her factory ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... fishing-tackle and one or two horses which he let out; while back of his place was a small lake which afforded good fishing in the summer and excellent skating in the winter. His house was not a gambling or drinking place, at least not avowedly so; but some rather questionable doings had taken place there, and the spot was one absolutely forbidden to the scholars of Dr. Leacraft's school. Nevertheless, some of the wilder spirits were in the habit of going there when they could do so without risk of discovery; and ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Frontispiece Portrait of Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, by Charles Heath, is one of the most exquisite ever engraved; and two plates illustrating Sir Walter Scott's House of Aspen have the effect of beautiful pictures on a blank wall. Two views of Virginia Water are, perhaps, questionable in the same volume; but they are admirably engraved. Wilkie's "beautiful, though," as Lord Normanby says, "somewhat slight cabinet picture of the Princess Doria and the Pilgrims[1]" has been finely executed by Heath; and a View of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... in those two hours he had not been able to extract much of comfort out of the document. It was, as he felt, a stubborn, stiff-necked, disobedient, almost rebellious letter. It contained a manifest defiance of his mother, and exhibited doctrines of most questionable morality. It had become to him a matter of doubt whether he could possibly marry a woman who could entertain such ideas and write such a letter. If the doubt was to be decided in his own mind against Clara, he had better show the letter ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... Quite so, quite so! At any rate, not in such a questionable Leonina Societas. Remember, also, JOSEPH, what an awful example you have in young GRANDOLPH, with whom, at one time, you seemed a little intimate. You have only to reflect upon his fiasco, "to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... It is questionable if we would have turned this stampede before daybreak, had not the nature of the country come to our assistance. Something over two miles below the camp of the last herd was a deep creek, the banks of which were steep and the passages few and narrow. Here we succeeded in turning ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... that, "There is scarcely an English idiom which Milton has not violated, or a foreign one which he has not borrowed." Now, in answer to this extravagant assertion, I will venture to say that the two following are the sole cases of questionable idiom throughout Milton:—1st, "Yet virgin of Proserpine from Jove;" and, in this case, the same thing might be urged in apology which Aristotle urges in another argument, namely, that anonymon to pathos, the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... struck, hung for a moment, while the water dashed over her decks and around her manhole, then washed loose and went onward safely to still water. The Fritz, solid as the Pyramids, beckoned the Hattie to come on without awaiting the questionable time of the latter's release; so the namesake of the hazel-eyed and brown-haired Indiana girl came into the boil and bubble, sailed gayly by the troubles of the others, was gliding on toward quiet seas under her skipper's gleeful whoops, when, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... were firm and unbending in our determination to go. Whenever we suggested any plan, there was shrinking—the odds were fearful. Our path was beset with the greatest obstacles; and if we succeeded in gaining the end of it, our right to be free was yet questionable—we were yet liable to be returned to bondage. We could see no spot, this side of the ocean, where we could be free. We knew nothing about Canada. Our knowledge of the north did not extend farther than ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... would say if, in some of these moments of unnecessary intermingling with questionable things and doubtful people, you were brought suddenly to this, that you had to formulate into some kind of plausibility your reason for being there? I am afraid it would be a very lame and ragged set of reasons that many of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... crude realism. The physicist appears to me, both from the first essays in Greek "nature-philosophy," as also from the not infrequent confusion even to-day between a perfectly safe "scientific materialism" and a highly questionable philosophic materialism, to share in this tendency to take separate consideration for separate existence. Each new stage of abstraction in physical science gives birth to a new attempt to find an independent reality, a thing-in-itself, hidden further ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... The same questionable authority has given to the perverse widow the name of Mrs. Catharine Bovey, or Boevey, of Flaxley Abbey, Gloucestershire, to whom Steele dedicated the second volume of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... farther; when their reason is taxed, they fail, and consequently appear to be destitute of those finer qualifications and principles on which both moral feeling and social order are based. It is however questionable with me whether this is not too severe a construction to put on their intellect, and whether, if the effect of ancient habits were counteracted, we should find the ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... to us from the Confucian "Book of History," which goes on with questionable stories of many later emperors. They were not all good and wise, like most of those named. Some of the descendants of Yu became tyrants and pleasure-seekers, their palaces the seats of scenes of cruelty and debauchery surpassing the deeds of Nero. Two emperors in particular, Kee and Chow, are ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 17, committed some most ludicrous errors."—Cobbett's Gram., Let. XIX, 251. To insert points needlessly, is as bad a fault as to omit them when they are requisite. In Wm. Day's "Punctuation Reduced to a System," (London, 1847,) we have the following obscure and questionable RULE: "Besides denoting a grammatical pause, the full point is used to mark contractions, and is requisite after every abbreviated word, as well as after numeral letters."—Page 102. This seems to suggest that both a pause and a contraction may be ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... figures issued from the house and circled about the clotheslines, inspecting their contents critically. Miss Theodosia saw one of them—it was the child of her doorstep—lay questionable hold (it must be questionable!) upon a delicate garment and examine a portion of it excitedly. She saw the child dart back to the house and again issue forth, dragging the slender young washerwoman. ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... conceded that Theodosia Burr Alston must have been acquainted with her father's most intimate ambitions, and with at least part of the questionable plans by which he purposed to further them. Her blind and unswerving loyalty to him, passing all ordinary filial affection, was a predominant trait of her singular and by no means weak or hesitant character, in which masculine resolution ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... death. The advent of Father Holt, the Jesuit, to Scotland in 1583 was a signal for a new outburst of Catholic feeling, which manifested itself not only in greater devotion to Religion, but, among the ill-instructed and impatient, in very questionable proceedings. In fact, from this time onward the Catholic cause suffered greatly from the division of its supporters into two groups; the religious and the political, as they may be named. The former entirely ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... rate, as anyone with half an eye could see—even if everything stood the strain, which was very questionable—would place us on the chart pretty well where we were the day before; and, then, we should have all our work to do over again, without having a cable's length to boast of to the good so far as our onward progress ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... vigilance, many victims have escaped from the hand of the oppressor, whose title to freedom, according to the laws of this commonwealth, was undoubted, and many others, whose enslavement was at least questionable. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... better, but one thinks nothing of the toothache when it is past. The mineral waters became too hot to drink, and not quite near enough the boiling-point to make good tea of, whilst, as for the provisions, such as got not too high, were so swathed in layers of questionable dust and grit as to be repulsive. Keeping even passably tidy was impossible, and in personal cleanliness a London scavenger could give a traveller by rail from Cairo to Assouan many points. It was at Wady Halfa that I got booked in the way-bill for Dakhala, or ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... night-watch for the bridegroom their store of oil had become exhausted? Surely tropes and parables are a highly insecure foundation whereon to build such a momentous teaching. Certainly, it is gravely questionable whether any direct statement in the Hebrew or Christian writings can be adduced to support the common notion that bodily dissolution is a spiritual reagent, and ipso facto seals the destiny of a spiritual essence. Vast numbers of even Anglicans repudiate the notion in the name of ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... of home Spaniards who have emigrated to Cuba has always been of a questionable character. The description of them by Cervantes in his time will apply in our own day with equal force. He says: "The island is the refuge of the profligates of Spain, a sanctuary for homicides, a skulking-place ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... attitude to indicate that its business was not to hunt, but to keep watch and ward at its master's gate. The fourth dog, who bears the name of Tekal, and walks between his master's legs, has ears that seem to have been cropped. He has been said to resemble "the Dalmatian hound": but this is questionable. His peculiarities are not marked; but, on the whole, it seems most probable that he is "a pet house-dog"[9] of the terrier class, the special favourite of his master. Antefaa's dogs had their appointed keeper, the master of ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... that his whole object was to get them to go. Sometimes I think that he must have a peculiar sense of humour, which it gives him great gratification to indulge, as others do good, by stealth. He makes questionable jests for himself only, and enjoys them alone. But apart from this eccentricity, he is a kind and generous man, always ready to help with time and money when there is ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... extreme in its severity was partly dictated by policy. The state of the country was critical; and the danger from questionable persons traversing it unexamined and uncontrolled was greater than at ordinary times. But in point of justice, as well as of prudence, it harmonised with the iron temper of the age, and it answered well for the government of a fierce and powerful people, in whose hearts lay ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... to the proprietors of the Bohn Libraries for various literary enterprises, but it is questionable indeed if they have issued lately a work more acceptable, or likely to become more popular, than 'The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift.' No better edition of it could be desired. Mr. Temple Scott is editing the volumes with the greatest ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... recalls the most obvious facts of Irish history, or notes the depth of ignorance as to all things Irish which prevails even among our educated classes, to be open to reasonable question. What is not questionable is that the assertion, in whatever form it be made, that three millions of Irishmen do not understand what is good for themselves must arouse in their hearts deep and natural anger. If indeed the claim of Great Britain to look in this matter of Home Rule solely to the effect of Home ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... out a hook baited with fame. An ambitious youth let go all he had and seized the baited hook with singular avidity. It inspired him with inward hope, and he became so engaged in thinking of his golden future that he followed whither the gentle drawing led him, until he also reached the questionable ground of the World. There he became still further entangled until he was utterly under the sway ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... conducted by persons enjoying their confidence. It is not wonderful that a privilege of this kind should be exercised at first with some degree of recklessness, and that while no great principles of policy are at stake, methods of a more questionable character for winning and retaining the confidence of these arbiters of ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... hand: but not for the real hard work of life; not for times of ambition and struggle, any more than of distress and anxiety, or of danger and difficulty. In such times, if a man may not lie a little, cheat a little, do a questionable stroke of business now and then; how is he to live? So it is in the world, so it always was; and so it always will be. From statesmen ruling nations, and men of business "conducting great financial operations," as the saying is now, down to the beggar- woman who comes ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... fit subject for regret, did not the concentration of the outlook upon material success tend to the neglect of 'things which are more excellent.' Writing many years ago J.S. Mill remarked that "hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... There was a choice of risks: the risk of behaving with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand. The story seemed false; but then the money was undeniable. The whole circumstances were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming, and had the speech and manners of society. While he still hung in the wind, a recollection returned upon his mind with some of the dignity of prophecy. Had he not promised Somerset to break with the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... from an elder will always be listened to. But perhaps your have already settled in your own mind the calling to be followed, and you mean simply to call on the youngster to accept and register your decree on the opening pages of his autobiography. This is, indeed a questionable proceeding, unless you are perfectly assured of what the young man's ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... of personal injury. He had been hardly used. For a few hours his life had been lightened by the ineffable glamor of Romance; mystery and adventure had engaged him, exorcising for the time the Shade of Care; he had served a fair woman and been associated with men whose ways, however questionable, were the ways of courage, hedged thickly ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... house, a dilapidated, gloomy building with musty, dirty corners. It had formerly been owned by a butcher, and pigs were still kept in the yard. It was a house of assignation and was visited nightly by soldiers, smugglers, and questionable-looking girls; now and then, too, heavily veiled ladies and aristocratic-looking men slipped in and out. On the ground floor there lived, beside the Bancal couple, a former soldier, Colard, and his sweetheart, the wench Bedos, and ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... not one of those who possess the rather questionable and at times unenviable accomplishment of pleasing every one. He was wise enough to distrust those astonishing personages who are always praising everybody. In looking about us, we often see men of success and reputation, who are simply dolts, without any merit except their perfect insignificance. ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... if it were a questionable sovereign, but on second thoughts he wonderfully smiled. "Do you think that after you've let me have it you can tell? You could, of course, if you hadn't." He appeared to work it out for Mr. Cashmore's benefit. "But I don't mind," ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... sounding-board. The old song this: but to-day, O Heavens! has the sounding-board ceased to act? There is not resonance in this Convention; there is, so to speak, a gasp of silence; nay a certain grating of one knows not what!—Lecointre, our old Draper of Versailles, in these questionable circumstances, sees nothing he can do so safe as rise, 'insidiously' or not insidiously, and move, according to established wont, that the Robespierre Speech be 'printed and sent to the Departments.' ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... his attack, using the initiative permitted him by the advantage of the wind and the disorder of the French rear. It will be observed that, though it was desirable to lose no time in assailing the latter while in confusion, it is questionable whether Barrington's three ships should have been allowed to separate as far as they seem to have done from the rest of the fleet. A general chase is permissible and proper when, from superiority of numbers, original or acquired, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... discuss the legality of contingent fees; though it be clear that if the British statutes of champerty were in force here, such fees would be prohibited by them. But a contract of the sort is certainly not to be encouraged by implication, from a questionable usage, nor established by less than a positive stipulation."[49] A contract to allow a compensation for services in procuring the passage of a private Act of Assembly, has been held to be unlawful and void, as against public policy.[50] "The practice," said Judge Rogers, in delivering ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... is said Queen Elizabeth visited her favourite, the Earl of Essex, here in August, 1575, and was entertained by him in a half-timbered house which formerly stood near the Castle, but was long since destroyed by fire. It is questionable whether Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in this house, or in a portion of the old Castle. Certain, however, it is that the unfortunate queen was brought to Chartley from Tutbury on Christmas day, 1585. The exact date at which she left Chartley is uncertain, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... appropriateness of the conception should entice us to receive it on insufficient evidence. The fact that some plants in certain adverse circumstances tend to degenerate, and in certain favourable circumstances to attain a higher type, is well known in natural history; but it seems questionable whether these changes ever take place to such an extent, and in such a uniform method, as must be assumed if we take darnel for degenerated wheat. Agriculturists in Palestine believe and declare, that, when the season is wet, the wheat which they sow in certain fields in spring grows as ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... beings went below the ground in order to survive. But before we could continue the war, it was necessary to analyze it to determine what its purpose was. We did this, and we found that it had no purpose, except, perhaps, in terms of human needs. Even this was questionable. ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... a share of the confidence and devotion of his party. No other equaled him in the art of giving a velvety touch to its coarsest and most dangerous blows, or of presenting the work of its adversaries in the most questionable guise. It was his habit to thread the mazes of economic and fiscal discussion, and he was never so eloquent or apparently so contented as when he was painting a vivid picture of the burdens under which he ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... groped about, as drowning people clutch at sticks and straws, still without being able to get rid of their apprehensions. Even should Don Ignacio agree to the deception they thought of—he would, no doubt, when made aware of their danger—it was questionable whether it would serve them. For there was a file too—a small matter, but a most conspicuous link in the chain of circumstantial evidence against them. They in the carriage would have been using it, before being taken—if they should be taken. Finally, the worst of all, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... a few shillings left. I had not the satisfaction of feeling that I had done any good with it. How it all went I don't know. I believe that I was robbed of a large portion. I was so disgusted with my folly, that I was ready to engage in any enterprise, of however questionable a character, where I had the prospect of gaining more, which I resolved ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the same authority, that the loyalty which the Duke of Athole professed towards King William was of a very questionable description. It becomes, indeed, very difficult to ascertain what were really the Duke of Athole's political tenets. Under these conflicting and unsettled opinions the young Marquis of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... these pretensions, however, a Beckett was conscious of the powerful assistance he was receiving from the artist; and we find him, after his own peculiar fashion and more than questionable taste, constantly alluding to the fact; describing him at various times as "that highly gifted and popular artist, Mr. Seymour;" "our illustrious artist Seymour;" and so on. In the preface to his ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... and heroical acts of David. From that time forth—I speak with all diffidence, and merely as it seems to me—he is a broken man. His attitude in Absalom's rebellion is all but imbecile. No act is recorded of him to the day of his death but what is questionable, if not mean and crafty. The one sudden flash of the old nobleness which he has shewn in pardoning Shimei, he himself stultifies with his dying lips by a mean command to Solomon to entrap and slay the man whom he has too rashly forgiven. The ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... passed midshipmen. The last of such appointees was graduated in 1856, and the sometime hinted contaminating influence of the "oldsters" upon the "youngsters" was a thing to be known no more forever, albeit the hint of contamination always seemed, to the writer, questionable, as, in his experience, the habit and propensity of the youngsters for mischief appeared to require neither promotion nor encouragement. Indeed, their methods and ingenuity in evading rules and regulations and defying discipline were ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... with very questionable taste, I thought: "Oh, no; nothing like that!"—because we didn't want to make the least bit of trouble. The woman is dense at times. What else had we come there for? But Aunt Mollie said, then, how about some prime young pork tenderline? And Ma Pettengill said ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... town which were less openly engaged in business, legitimate, questionable, or beyond question, Harris inquired at many doors for lodgings for himself and wife, or for his wife alone. The response ranged from curt announcements that the inmates "ain't takin' boarders" to sympathetic assurances that if it were possible to ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... scientific specialists, is the result of a separation which is unavoidable when one begins with technically organized subject matter. Even if all students were embryonic scientific specialists, it is questionable whether this is the most effective procedure. Considering that the great majority are concerned with the study of sciences only for its effect upon their mental habits—in making them more alert, more open-minded, more inclined to tentative acceptance and to ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the baggy reverse of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at the price of a robe of beaver-skin, or a hundred francs. [ "Nos plats, quoyque de bois, nous cotent plus cher que Les vtres; ils sont de la valeur d'une robe de castor, c'est dire cent francs."—Lettre du P. Du Peron son Frre, 27 Avril, 1639.—The Father's appraisement seems a little questionable. ] Their food consisted of sagamite, or "mush," made of pounded Indian-corn, boiled with scraps of smoked fish. Chaumonot compares it to the paste used for papering the walls of houses. The repast was occasionally varied by a pumpkin or squash baked in the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... "and that means yellow." Nettie made a gesture of distaste. "They seem to get along well enough. Of course, it's ridiculous to call it a marriage, and it seems to me very questionable to impose it on the Ammidons as that. The thing is—how long will it last, how soon will he get tired of her and send her ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... during the week, of trials that have perplexed them, and of joys which have blessed them. He takes the clerk and the merchant to task for their conduct in the walks of business, and warns them of the snares and pitfalls which lie along their paths. He strips the thin guise of honesty from the questionable transactions of Wall Street, and holds them up to public scorn. He startles many a one by his sudden penetration and denunciation of what that one supposes to be the secrets of his heart. His dramatic power is extraordinary. He can hardly be responsible ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs: Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd, Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell, Be thy euents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape That I will speake to thee. Ile call thee Hamlet, King, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me, Let me not burst in Ignorance; but tell Why thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed in death, Haue burst their cerments, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the twins externally are counter-balanced by diversities that are internal, so that the possibilities of confusion may be said to be only skin deep. Does this add to the improbableness of the plot sufficiently to make it a questionable quality of the plot that the characters are so much differentiated, or does it serve rather to enrich the Play and make it far more interesting? Are there signs of character in Adriana and her husband going to show that they are destined to be happier in their ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... (printed on a slip that is pasted in at the conclusion of Cowley's first preface). The edition of 1669 substitutes 'immediately' in the text. The alteration must be accepted on Sprat's authority, but it is questionable if it ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... an acquired asset of questionable value. With him were a lot of followers but it was plain to be seen that he was the leader of the gang; which was, for all the world, like a typical street gang in an ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... decent resort on shore. I don't understand Mr. Benson's conduct. I remember his mishap at Dunhaven. I remember the plight he got into at Annapolis; and now he and Mr. Hastings are found in this questionable shape. I am very much afraid these young men do not conduct themselves, on shore, in the careful manner that must be expected of ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... more untrue. The prejudice existing here is amusing. They seem to take it for granted that every American raises cotton, sugar, and tobacco, and, therefore, is a slaveholder. However, I find most persons of candor ready to acknowledge that it is questionable whether any good can possibly result from sending English agents to agitate the slavery question in the ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various |
