"Scruple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and his man. He stated the case: Chester was in urgent need of taking his vacation without delay, but was not willing to ask the favour of his office associate. He, Burns, his friend's physician, did not scruple to ask it if it would not interfere too seriously with Mr. Stillinger's plans. No diplomat could re quest a favour more courteously than R. P. Burns, M.D. The reply was the one to be expected of Stillinger, bachelor and amiable fellow, who was fond of Chester and hoped it ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... designed for such high dames as the one now looking on me from the canvas, had fallen to baser uses, wearing country clothes, sitting on the shaft and holding the reins of a mule cart, to bring home a lodger. Perhaps an actual link subsisted; perhaps some scruple of the delicate flesh that was once clothed upon with the satin and brocade of the dead lady, now winced at the rude contact of ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quiet, the same life of active benevolence. But in all else how different from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical costume, no ceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A liturgy they have, to be sure, which does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manuals of devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... stowed, and when the negotiations had concluded amicably, I begged the Doctor to jump into the boat, as this apparent peace was simply a lull before a storm; besides, said I, there are two or three cowardly creatures in the boat, who, in case of another disturbance, would not scruple to leave ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... myself, certainly; but as it is done, I may as well make the best of it. If I gain by it, I need not be so very sharp in looking into the matter.' And so you see men who really wish to be honest and kindly themselves, making no scruple of profiting by other people's dishonesty and cruelty. Now the law punishes the receiver of stolen goods almost as severely as the thief himself: but there are many receivers of stolen goods, my friends, whom the law cannot ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... Cross.—At the Ministration of Baptism the Church directs that the sign of the Cross shall be made upon the forehead of the baptized person, and declares that it knows "no worthy cause of scruple concerning the same." In this it follows the mind of the primitive Church, in which there was, "even in apostolic times, a reverend estimation of the sign of the Cross, which the Christians shortly after used ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... evening when a small party of us had assembled in a private room, between a fiery young Prussian count and a sturdy, unbending Swiss. The dispute grew warm, and was about to proceed to extremities, when we who were by-standers made no scruple to terminate it in our own way. We pounced upon the disputants without warning, carried them off, each to his own room, on our shoulders, and there, with a hearty laugh at their folly, set them down to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... apology which some late scruple had ground out of Thane seemed to command Daphne's deepest attention. She gave it a moment's silence, then she said, "There is nothing that hurts one, I think, like being unable to feel as people take for granted one must and ought to feel." ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... of mind that I should not have had the least scruple in upsetting the coach and risking the lives of all upon it, my own included; but I know not what imp of evil prompted me to turn round and call to my ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... not want that I should slide down the road to hell, which I am told I am on, with all the delight of a child on a toboggan slide. Yes, I would. I surely would, Kate. I'm a drunkard, I know. A drunkard by nature. I have not the smallest desire to be otherwise, from any moral scruple. It's you that makes me want to straighten up, and you only. When I'm sober I'd be glad if I weren't. And when I'm not sober I'd hate being otherwise. Why should I be sober, when in such moments I suffer agonies of craving? Is it worth it? What does it matter if drink eases the craving, and lends ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... myself, I may think him dishonourable, if I also think that he knows better. But what I do not think that any of us has a right to do is to call a man dishonourable if he has more scruples than oneself. He may be over-scrupulous, but the chances are that any man who sacrifices his convenience to a scruple has a higher sense of honour than the man who throws over a scruple for the sake of his convenience. That is why I think honour is a dangerous word to play with, because it is so often used to frighten people who don't fall in with what is for the ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dispositions a man should have when dying. I said, I did not see why a man should act differently with respect to those of whom he thought ill when in health, merely because he was dying. JOHNSON. 'I should not scruple to speak against a party, when dying; but should not do it against an individual. It is told of Sixtus Quintus, that on his death-bed, in the intervals of his last pangs, he signed death-warrants.' ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Charles did not scruple to use bribery, and he hoped to win Henry of England by flattery and by appealing to him as a kinsman; for his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, was Henry's Queen at that time. The Tudor King had boldly taken for his motto, "Whom I defend is master," but he had secret designs on ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... of Indian orators, was lost in air. Who, at the distance of fifty-seven years, would attempt, upon memory, to give even a sketch of it? Some of the heads are remembered, out of which Livy or Sallust would not scruple to compose an oration for history. I shall not essay an analysis or a sketch of it at present. I shall only say, and I do say in the most solemn manner, that Mr. Otis's oration against "writs of assistance" breathed into this nation the breath ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... to Franklin, that he could not think of undertaking the mission without him; that if he effected any thing valuable, it must be owing to the advice Franklin would afford him; and that he should make no scruple of giving him the full honor of it. He assured him that the ministry did not expect his assistance without a proper consideration; that they wished to make generous and ample appointments for those who aided ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... I rejoin, do others understand it? If, with exception of the passages already excepted, namely, the recorded words of God—concerning which no Christian can have doubt or scruple,—the tenet in this sense be inapplicable to the Scripture, destructive of its noblest purposes, and contradictory to its own express declarations,—again and again I ask:- What am I to substitute? What other sense is conceivable that does not destroy the doctrine which it professes to ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... agreeable attributes and conversational powers he adds such a mirthfulness of fancy, and genuine heartiness of good-humour, to all men, women, and children who have the good fortune to make his acquaintance, that I should have no scruple—if it were not too great a liberty—in naming him as the person I have been most pleased with in all my ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... child's scruple about not kneeling; but at last he was satisfied, if Aunt Ethel would give him his little book out of the drawer—that little delicately-illuminated book with the pointed writing and the twisted cipher, Meta's hand in every touch. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the only mitigation the same as in the case of other animals—that of simple humanity. Soldiers to whose feelings half or three fourths of the subjects of the same government are foreigners will have no more scruple in mowing them down, and no more desire to ask the reason why, than they would have in doing the same thing against declared enemies. An army composed of various nationalities has no other patriotism than devotion to the flag. Such armies have been the executioners of liberty ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... and enmity subsists, Dino Vasari loves you with his whole soul. If you stood in your old position, even I could not persuade him to dispossess you; but you have voluntarily given it up. Your property has gone to your cousin, and Dino has now no scruple about claiming his rights. Now that Vincenza Vasari's evidence has been obtained, it is thought well that he should make the story public, and try to get his position acknowledged. Therefore he is starting ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a stipend of one hundred and fifty pounds for merely doing the duty—a curate would have only had the half of that sum, as she sometimes said to herself—and seeing also that he had his fellowship, she had no scruple in making him pay fairly for whatever extra accommodation he received at home—exactly as she would have done had poor dear old Mr. Wilkinson not been out of the way. Considering all these comfortable circumstances, poor dear old Mr. Wilkinson was perhaps not regretted quite so much ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... that," said Carlos. "I should like to go too, for the sake of keeping my eye on him; but Uncle Michael says he won't allow me. He has the right to permit you to run any risk, but he has to answer for my safety to my father. Still, I advise you to watch him narrowly; and do not scruple to shoot the fellow should he show any inclination to play you a ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... profound misery, and yet with a firm resolution. Clara turned pale and stared at him with anxious eyes, her lips parted as though to speak, but saying nothing. Knowing his fastidious sense of honor, she guessed the full force with which this scruple weighed upon him, and she did not know how to ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... help of the confraternity: and it would have been an action worthy of us all.—But Joseph's conscience, as he called it, stood in my way; for he thought it must have been known to be done by his connivance. I could, I dare say, have overcome this scruple, as easily as I did many of the others, had I not depended at one time upon her meeting me at midnight or late hour [and, if she had, she never would have gone back]; at other times, upon the cunning family's doing my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... You never scruple to use the power which his love has placed in your hand. Your position of vantage may be read in a gesture, a look, a tone. Oh! darling, how truly are you the mad wanton your mother called you! You do not question, I fancy, that I am greatly Louis' ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... had no scruple in robbing Christians, their delight was to prove the reality of their mission as soldiers of the cross by plundering, torturing, and slaying Jews. The crusade against the Turk was interpreted as a crusade directed not less explicitly against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... stones of sacrifice and service to a dignified usefulness. Her fresh young beauty and enthusiasm, her golden virginity and unself-consciousness, her unaffected joy in being alive, her superb health and vitality had shattered his conceit and self-obsession, broken down his aloofness and lack of scruple and filled the empty frame that he had hung in his best thoughts ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age,—which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of these typical views, Hamlet was restrained by conscience or a moral scruple; he could not satisfy himself that it was right to avenge ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... quantities; the drink must be lukewarm, consisting chiefly of toast and water, mixed with a little white wine. If the cough be attended with feverish symptoms, a gentle emetic must be taken, of camomile flowers, and afterwards the following liniment applied to the pit of the stomach. Dissolve one scruple of tartar emetic in two ounces of spring water, and add half an ounce of the tincture of cantharides: rub a tea-spoonful of it every hour on the lower region of the stomach with a warm piece of flannel, and let the wetted part be kept warm with ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... men. They made it without motive as well as without prevision, in a transport of feeling or for the sake of pastime, to display their strength or to escape from listlessness; and, whilst making it, they abandoned themselves without scruple to all those deeds of violence, vengeance, brutal anger, or fierce delight, which war provokes. At the same time, however, the generous impulses of feudal chivalry, the sympathies of Christian piety, tender affections, faithful devotion, noble tastes, were fermenting in their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... think that a few words from him might weaken Brant's steadfast loyalty. Furthermore, like too many frontiersmen of his day, he held the Indian race in little esteem and, as we shall see, he did not scruple to treat them with the basest kind of treachery. The plea may be made that he was apprehensive of duplicity on the part of the Mohawk chief, but this does not ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... Hardwicke race were not guarded in temper or language, and Mary burst into passionate tears and exclamations that Bess's brat should not have her lost George's cradle, and flounced away to get before the servants and lock it up. Lady Shrewsbury would have sprung after her, and have made no scruple of using her fists and nails even on her married daughter, but that she was impeded by a heavy table, and this gave time for Susan to throw herself before her, and entreat her ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scruple to refuse me," she said, "if you do not approve. I hardly venture to hope that you will give your consent. If you do, I will thank you for it. If you should think it best to refuse it, I submit humbly as I submit now. Let me ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... government make no difference between one party or the other, with the exception that some may be honoured with the axe instead of the gibbet, you will observe what we do: and as our lives are already forfeited by attainder, we make no scruple of putting out of the way any one whom we may even suspect of betraying us. Nay, more; we can furnish the government with sufficient proofs against you without any risk to ourselves, for we have many partisans who are still in office. Weigh now well all you have ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... instruction should migrate northwards. But the Kailouees have little pride in this respect; although boasting of the name of Tuaricks, and accounting themselves white people, or allied with the whites, they do not scruple to receive education from the negroes of Bornou, whilst certainly it would be very easy to ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... the simple life more thoroughly than ever. That is only a scruple, you are afraid you shouldn't enjoy anything but Dalton. You know perfectly well you would rather dig Jacks-in-the-pulpit out by our back wall, than snatch those honeysuckles ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... recorded the names of Trentwith and Robinson, after which it rebelled and insisted on taking precedence of Mr. May. This Teage business caused a deal of trouble, and many witnesses were carried to Launceston as evidence against him, at great expense; yet the borough did not scruple, shortly afterwards, to expend a shilling "for poynts to whip the boyes veiweinge the parish bounds," and another shilling for the drummer on that occasion. In 1681 there was trouble with the vicar who served the three parishes of St. Ives, Towednack, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... conceited wriggle, what could be the merits of a country, where gentlemanly, gliding, thin-skinned creatures like himself were unable to move about without personal annoyance? Whereupon the amiable 'SOMETHING' made no scruple of telling the lob-worm that his BETTERS found no fault with the place, and instanced its friend and ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... endangering Chirac's reputation and situation—as a sort of reward to Chirac for the kindness! And, further, no sooner had he got hold of the money than it had intoxicated him, and he had yielded to the first fatuous temptation. He had no sense of responsibility, no scruple. And as for common prudence—had he not risked permanent disgrace and even prison for a paltry sum which he would certainly squander in two or three days? Yes, it was indubitable that he would stop at nothing, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... his ultimate purpose was she had no means of determining. She knew that he was totally without scruple and had thought in her first moments of terror that he meant to take her far back into the woods—and there kill her as he had done her father, thus again destroying all claim. But as the moments passed and ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... cruelly! I will forsake anything, everything, for you! I have nothing to dream of day or night but your face. You have served your thirty years in the Temple, and can quit its service. Why entertain any superstitious scruple against doing what the law allows? Come with me to Egypt; to Spain; to Parthia; anywhere! Only do not reject me and my entreaties! I will do anything for ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... in England; and the captain, who came from the neighborhood where Gerald's father dwelt, reported that the family had long mourned him as dead. He himself was bent, not upon a buccaneering voyage—although, no doubt, if a rich ship had fallen into his hands he would have made no scruple in taking it—but his object was to trade with the natives, and to gather a store of such goods as the islands furnished, in exchange for those of English make. He had, too, fetched slaves from the western coast of ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... slides with the enemies of Grecian freedom—with the Persians, with Amyntas of Macedon, and with Dionysius of Syracuse. But she had now reached the turning-point of her fortunes, and her successes, which had been earned without scruple, were soon to be followed by misfortunes and disgrace. The first blow came from Thebes, where she had ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... perhaps, for demanding one, can very hardly avoid being perswaded that there is much appearance of Truth in this; whence she will soon come to conclude, that she has hitherto been in the wrong, if upon any scruple of Religion, she has not gratify'd her Inclination, in whatever she imagines might tend to make her Life more pleasing to her. And should a young Lady, thus dispos'd, find a Lover whom she thinks has a just value for all her good Qualities, which at best, ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... Adumbration, symbolically, perhaps significantly enough, shadowing-forth the same! Our theory begins to be that, in receiving as literally authentic what was but hieroglyphically so, Hofrath Heuschrecke, whom in that case we scruple not to name Hofrath Nose-of-Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others. Could it be expected, indeed, that a man so known for impenetrable reticence as Teufelsdroeckh, would all at once frankly unlock his private citadel to an English Editor and a German Hofrath; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... hesitated to place myself on a moral level with those with whom I had to deal. I may occasionally even have left the other party to make this needful adjustment, and I have never known him fail to do so. I felt, therefore, very little scruple in making use of the one weak spot discoverable in the defenses of our redoubtable opponent, his Excellency the President of Aureataland. No doubt the reader's eye has before now detected the joint in that great man's armor at which we directed our missile. As a lover, I grudged ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... Petersburg, marked him out as a politician and diplomatist of the first rank. A certain stateliness and formality of character appears, however, to have made him many enemies in England, and they did not scruple to gratify their dislike or jealousy during his mission to Canada. Their enmity is echoed in a trivial paragraph in The Times, describing an incident which happened ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... a normal man; but apart from their indirect and negative effect in this way, the individual fares better under the regime of competition in proportion as he has less of these gifts. Freedom from scruple, from sympathy, honesty and regard for life, may, within fairly wide limits, be said to further the success of the individual in the pecuniary culture. The highly successful men of all times have commonly been of this type; except those ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... have kindled the zeal of princes and their subjects, and made them take up arms for opinions, represented to them as essential to the glory of the Deity. In all parts of our globe, fanatics have cut each other's throats, publicly burnt each other, committed without a scruple and even as a duty, the greatest crimes, and shed torrents of blood. For what? To strengthen, support, or propagate the impertinent conjectures of some enthusiasts, or to give validity to the cheats of impostors, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... died out, and the age had become eminently satisfied with itself. Wits, philosophers, and poets, alike were full of the present time. While the wits complimented each other on their superiority to the weaknesses of mankind, they made no scruple of indulging those weaknesses in their own persons. It was part of their business to do so, for it was part of "life." The only difference between them and other men was that they were weak and laughed over it, while others were ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf, gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. They transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding on all others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is to beauty. His youth and graceful appearance insensibly made an impression on Astarte, which she did not at first perceive. Her passion grew and flourished in the bosom of innocence. Without fear or scruple, she indulged the pleasing satisfaction of seeing and hearing a man who was so dear to her husband and to the empire in general. She was continually praising him to the king. She talked of him to her women, who were always sure to improve on her praises. And thus everything ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... senses, which were completely bewildered by the jolting I had undergone. I can compare it to nothing but the butt of Regulus, without the nails. When the lash and butt-end of the whip fail him, he does not scruple to use his foot, as the situation of his seat allows the application of it to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... may witness for Thee and for the Gospel, and that his labours may be blessed and the harvest thereof indeed be great." He paused, his eyes opening on the white wilderness of the Fall. Knowing that the roar of its foaming waters would drown his voice he did not scruple to use his fine, sonorous tones to the full, and went on again: "Strip from Thy servant, O God Most High, all that savours of self. Strike at sin if it lodgeth in him; cause him to remember now his Creator in the days of his youth. Grant him wisdom in dealing with the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... last was especially exerted for the introduction of meritorious young persons into useful and respectable situations; and it was usually efficient, as it never relaxed while they justified his patronage. He did not, indeed, scruple, while it was in his power, to entrust them with large sums, when there appeared a prospect of their future ability for repayment; but as this prospect not seldom failed, either through death or unavoidable impediments, his property was greatly ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... presently, "I have reason to believe that Mr. Blondin would be a very bad husband for Nina. I had no scruple in—in diverting his thoughts. But if he was the only man in the world"—and to his surprise, she slowly got to her feet, and spoke as if to herself, her eyes fixed far away—"I would sooner kill him than ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... resolved not to license any public exhibition of the kind; and it was interesting to attend to the consultations whether it were feasible to overcome the objections, and what might be the best means. Orrin S——— and the chance passers-by took part in the discussion. The scruple is that the factory-girls, having ready money by them, spend it for these nonsenses, quitting their work; whereas, were it a mere farming-town, the caravan would take little in proportion to their spendings. The ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... then the long service deserved its time of harvest. Her surging look of reproach in submission pointed to the golden time, and as he was a man of honour, pledged to her for life, he had no remorse, and no scruple in determining to exact her dated promise, on this occasion deliberately. She was the woman to be his wife; she was his mind's mate: they had hung apart in deference to mere scruples too long. During the fierce battle of the Session she would be his help, his fountain of counsel; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was not because life held out any promise to Hollister that he lived, nor was it a physical, fear of death, nor any moral scruple against self-destruction. He clung to life because instinct was stronger than reason, stronger than any of the appalling facts he encountered and knew he must go on encountering. He had to live, with ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "He did not scruple to say that, looking at the papers which he had perused, it was to the West Coast of Africa that we must look for that large increase in our supply of cotton which was now becoming absolutely necessary, and without which he and others who had studied this subject foresaw grave ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... me—eh? now don't say you wouldn't.' He rambled on, turning about the room again, partly like a person whose sequences were naturally slow but also a little as if, though he knew what he had in mind, there were still a scruple attached to it that he ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... considerations, I began this worke, of which I haue here sent thee but a small tast, which if I finde accepted, according to mine intent, I will not cease (God permitting mee life) to passe through all manner of English Husbandry and Huswifery whatsoeuer, without omission of the least scruple that can any way belong to either of their knowledges. Now gentle reader whereas you may be driuen to some amazement, at two titles which insue in the booke, namely, a former part before the first, and the first part, ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... young men in similar circumstances who have such an opportunity given them. I hope you will be guided to use both means and opportunity for the best possible end. I shall be glad to be of any service to you at any time. Do not scruple to ask me. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... once a mind to have gone to the Brazils and have settled myself there, for I was, as it were, naturalised to the place; but I had some little scruple in my mind about religion, which insensibly drew me back. However, it was not religion that kept me from going there for the present; and as I had made no scruple of being openly of the religion ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... a little private hankering after Athens, though he ridicules it. He had no scruple about annexing Athens, although not yet taken. I said I thought Polignac would be disposed to hold our language to Russia, if we would make some concession on the subject of Greece, and enable him to settle that question with eclat. He would ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her. It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... day was occupied by one of the Sunday-observing sects on the first, and the preachers of one often officiated for the other. But the worldly advantage enjoyed by the Sunday keeper was so considerable that all who did not hold to the finest scruple of conscience in their conduct passed over to the majority, and were excluded from the communion as a precaution against the Sunday keepers becoming a majority in the church and taking it away from the Sabbath keepers, as did actually occur with one of their ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... Provinces and of the House of Austria, on the other hand, extolled the wisdom and virtue of the discarded statesman in a manner which gave great offence at Whitehall. James was particularly angry with the secretary of the imperial legation, who did not scruple to say that the eminent service which Halifax had performed in the debate on the Exclusion Bill had been requited ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the sacred writers, but all the ancient Chaldean, Egyptian, and Chinese authors speak of the great ages of such as lived in early times, and this with such confidence that Xenophon, Pliny, and other judicious persons receive their testimony without scruple. But to come down to later times, Attila, King of the Huns, who reigned in the fifth century, lived to 124, and then died of excess, the first night of his second nuptials with one of the most beautiful princesses of that age. Piastus, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... That concluding stroke of the shears severed the very last lock, and left me—morally speaking—as bald as a billiard ball. Henceforth I was at her mercy and would have divulged, without a scruple, the uttermost secrets of my principal, but that that astute gentleman had placed me beyond the reach ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Empress Marie Louise, generally so yielding to her husband, on this occasion manifested great opposition. Whether through womanly kindness or through her pride as a sovereign, possibly through some superstitious scruple as a second wife, she insisted on the retention in this post of the Count of Beauharnais; she was unwilling on any terms to seem to exclude, in the person of this relative of Josephine, the first name of the Princess whom she succeeded on the French throne. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Rodney felt that he need not scruple to use the money. He knew that he had rendered Mrs. Harvey a great service, and that she could well afford to pay him the sum ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... been raised by the same monarch at Ur, Calneh or Nipur, and Larancha or Larsa, which is perhaps Ellasar. It is evident, from the size and number of these works, that their erector had the command of a vast amount of "naked human strength," and did not scruple to employ that strength in constructions from which no material benefit was derivable, but which were probably designed chiefly to extend his own fame and perpetuate his glory. We may gather from this that he was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... new a plane that the accepted arguments apply no longer; he attacks it in a new dialect where there are no catch-words ready made for the defender; after you have been boxing for years on a polite, gladiatorial convention, here is an assailant who does not scruple to hit below ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dared to fill the sees of Liege and Milan may not scruple to dishonor the see of Cologne! But let us pray and hope; for suffer what we ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... shifting, blinky eyes are turned towards me in his sidelong fashion, until I find myself sitting up and holding out my hand into empty space, half expecting to feel another thin sinewy hand close round it. A bad man he was in many ways, my dears, cunning and wily, with little scruple or conscience; and yet so strange a thing is human nature, and so difficult is it for us to control our feelings, that my heart warms when I think of him, and that fifty years have increased rather than weakened the kindliness which ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scruple far into the shade. If Barbara had kept her troth to him, he would reward her. Wherever he might build his nest with her, he would be sure of the richest happiness. Therefore he persisted in making his decision for the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... assent to anything the Huggermuggers proposed. In fact, except in matter of size, they could see very little difference between the giants and themselves. All Zebedee Nabbum's warlike and elephant-trapping schemes melted away entirely, and he even began to have a sort of conscientious scruple against enticing away the big fellow who proved to be such a jolly good-humored giant. He was prepared for resistance. He would have even liked the fun of throwing a noose over his head, and pulling him down and harpooning him, but this good-humored, merry ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... entered the cavern, which afforded small appearance of accommodation. The cell was divided into two parts, in the outward of which were an altar of stone and a crucifix made of reeds: this served the anchorite for his chapel. On one side of this outward cave the Christian knight, though not without scruple, arising from religious reverence to the objects around, fastened up his horse, and arranged him for the night, in imitation of the Saracen, who gave him to understand that such was the custom of the place. The ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... to making love to ladies, and did so without scruple of conscience, or any idea that such a practice was amiss. He had no heart to touch himself, and was literally unaware that humanity was subject to such infliction. He had not thought much about it; but, had he been asked, would have said, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... attracted by the hope of "something turning up" to their advantage, though afflicted, most of them, with an intense objection to take the trouble of turning up anything for themselves. Dangerous fellows, too, who would not scruple to appropriate the turnings up of other people when safe ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... Partly from a scruple of delicacy—which I daresay came too late—partly from the pleasure of startling an acquaintance, I desired to make my presence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I of course could hardly expect that people should die off and require epitaphs merely to accommodate me. That demand of employment as a right in all cases and circumstances, which the more extreme "claims-of-labour men" do not scruple to urge, is the result of a sort of indignant reaction on this feeling—a feeling which became poetry in Burns and nonsense in the Communists; but which I experienced neither as nonsense nor poetry, but simply as a depressing conviction that ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... soldier trusted in his star without scruple and without fear, and imagined that he could dominate fate as the gambler fancies that he ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... matter made immortally famous by the wit and genius of Pascal, the matter of "directing the intention." There is nothing in the "Provincial Letters" better suited than this at the same time to interest the general reader, and to display the quality of these renowned productions. (We do not scruple to change our chosen translation a little, at points where it seems to us susceptible of some easy improvement.) Remember it is an imaginary Parisian gentleman who now writes to a friend of his ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... of myself (the only person of whom I can speak with certainty), my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... honest. In cases of this kind Frank persevered in making some excuse for not joining in the festivity: he put it to himself as being a matter of pride; but it is hard to understand that it was simply that in a young man who made no scruple of begging in cases of necessity. However, there it was, and even the Major, who began by protesting, ended ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... still loitering about the Courts, civil and criminal. San Francisco is not the only city in the United States in which defendants in grave criminal cases have recourse to every conceivable and possible means, without scruple, to procure their own acquittal, or the utmost modification of the penalty, by proving extenuating circumstances, or that the indictment magnifies the crimes. This was true of 1856; here, as elsewhere in the land; it is equally true now. Had the merchants ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... other famous female politician, of a grade still higher, as beautiful and as gallant, of a less gracious, perhaps, but yet stronger disposition, more capable still of grand enterprises, and never suffering herself to be stayed by any danger or any scruple—the widow of the Constable de Luynes, Marie de Rohan, Duchess de Chevreuse, who formerly had lent a hand to every plot concocted against Mazarin, and in concert with the Palatine had proposed, as we have seen, the sole measure ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... character—the summary, no doubt, of British military opinion. "The People here," he wrote home, "are the most designing, Artfull Villains in the World. They have not the least Idea of either Religion or Morality. Nor have they the least Scruple of taking the most solemn Oath on any Matter that can assist their Purpose, tho' they know the direct contrary can be clearly & evidently ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... question is not impertinent, but kind. God knows that I require an adviser. I would, if possible, conceal the facts from Captain Drawlock. It is not for a daughter to publish a father's errors; but you know all, and I can therefore have no scruple in consulting with you: I do not see why I should. My resolution is, at best a hasty one; but it is, never to enter the house of my relation, under such humiliating circumstances—that is decided: but how to act, or what to do, is where I require advice. I am ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and I'm just ready to begin here in the office with you. Don't you think it would be a good time for me to give up the law? Wait a moment!" he said, arresting in Atherton an impulse to speak. "We will take the decent surprise, the friendly demur, the conscientious scruple, for granted. Now, honestly, do you believe I've got the making ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... always that of the English against the French, should chance to be defeated, there would be trouble in Baxter's Place. For these opinions he may almost be said to have suffered. Baptised and brought up in the Church of Scotland, he had, upon some conscientious scruple, joined the communion of the Baptists. Like other Nonconformists, these were inclined to the Liberal side in politics, and, at least in the beginning, regarded Buonaparte as a deliverer. From the time of his joining the Spearmen, ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves, for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor— Both thanks and use."—Measure ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... of that time was concerning the rights of popes over kings—a question which, having been intensified by the Reformation, naturally came to a crisis after the Gunpowder Plot. James I. then instituted an oath of allegiance as a test of Catholic loyalty, and many Catholics took the oath without scruple, including the Archpriest Blackwell. Cardinal Bellarmine thereupon wrote a letter of rebuke to the latter, and Pope Paul V. sent a brief forbidding Catholics either to take the oath or to attend Protestant churches (October 1606). But it is remarkable that, so little ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... made into brute animals, lions, tigers, cats, dogs, monkeys, etc. This is what the ancients called Metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls; a doctrine which is still held by the natives of India, who scruple to destroy the life, even of the most insignificant animal, not knowing but it may be one of their relations in an ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... offered me a seat in her carriage, on the understanding that I was going to Lausanne, where she intended to stop a day or two. An offer of the kind made by so elegant and fascinating a woman you may be assured I did not scruple to accept, and I was in hopes of improving on this acquaintance and renewing it at Milan. Indeed, did not business oblige me to remain some weeks at Lausanne, I should certainly offer my services to escort her all the way to Milan. She had letters ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from one work to another; and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long ...
— The Republic • Plato
... look and extended hand needed no interpretation, and the greeting between them was warm enough to bring smiles into the faces of all the Indians, who had no scruple soon afterwards about finishing the ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... were merely killing time were perhaps flattered at the thought that they were at the same time learning the modes of statecraft. Then, as now, the teachers of morality felt that a song might reach him who a sermon flies, and they did not scruple to use in the pulpit whatever aids came handy. The popular stories, wise saws, and modern instances, were common enough on the lips of the preachers, and such collections as the "Gesta Romanorum show what a pitch of ingenuity in unnatural interpretation they had reached. An appropriate ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... informations hitherto taken had proceeded upon oath. Khan Jehan Khan had previously declared to General Clavering his readiness to be so examined; but when called upon by the board, he changed his mind, and alleged a delicacy, relative to his rank, with regard to the oath. In this scruple he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings. He and Mr. Barwell went further: they contended that the Council had no right to administer an oath. They must have been very clear in that opinion, when they resisted the examination ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... be struck. The overthrow of the Directory was a foregone conclusion. But with the Legislature it was far otherwise, for its life was still whole and vigorous. Yet, while amputating a moribund limb, the plotters did not scruple to paralyze the brain of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a contemporary of Madame de Sevigne, did not scruple to write, in 1686, that the deposition of three women was only equal to that of two men. At Berne, so late as 1821, in the Canton of Vaud, so late as 1824, the testimony of two women was required to counterbalance that of one man.... A virgin was entitled to greater credit than a widow.... ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... almost terrible love. Now that she was alone with Madame Sennier, enclosed as it were in that strong perfume, she felt almost afraid of her. She was conscious of being with someone far cleverer than herself. And she realized what an effective weapon in certain hands is an absolute lack of scruple. It seemed to her as she sat and talked, about Paris, America, London, art, music, that this woman must have divined her secret and intense ambition. Those yellow eyes had surely looked into her soul, and knew that she had brought Claude to Algeria in order that ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... was now nearly a year old, and the superfluous proximity of an angular and aquiline lady, to whom Sir Baldwin had not been introduced, but who was openly hanging upon his words, drove the good man's last scruple to ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... — N. care, solicitude, heed; heedfulness &c. adj.; scruple &c. (conscientiousness) 939. watchfulness &c. adj.; vigilance, surveillance, eyes of Argus[obs3], watch, vigil, look out, watch and ward, loeil du maitre[Fr]. alertness &c. (activity) 682; attention &c. 457; prudence &c., circumspection ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... man tells a woman that he is down and out financially and dare not ask her to marry him, do you think there is an end of it, dear reader? Do you think a Silenus would hesitate and stickle and scruple over a point of honor; though some of us have seen Silenus blunder into a paradise which he promptly transformed into a sty? And do you think the descendant of the Man of the Iron Hand thought anything less of her lover for refusing ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was standing behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each ample time and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and she made no scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for she stared me full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and thumb, and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and picked up my hand as ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... exposed in a crucible for about an hour to such a heat as is sufficient to melt copper. When taken out, it weighed three drams and one scruple, or had lost 7/12 of ...
— Experiments upon magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other Alcaline Substances • Joseph Black
... continued, "in order to lose no opportunity of familiarizing myself with these tongues, of saying my prayers in Spanish of a morning, and Portuguese at night. But a scruple of conscience deterred me from attempting, in prayer, to kill ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... complete estrangement from her was rendered additionally bitter to Diane by Catherine's complacent air of triumph. The latter knew that she had won, severed the tie which bound her brother to "the foreign dancing-woman," and she did not scruple to let Diane see that she openly rejoiced ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... a canoe came with 12 men to the caravel and they took them all, and brought them to the ship of the Admiral, and from them he chose six and sent the others to land. From this it appears that the Admiral did it without scruple as he did many other times in the first navigation, it not appearing to him that it was an injustice and an offence against God and his neighbor to take free men against their will, separating fathers from their sons and wives from their husbands and [not reflecting] that ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... upon his victory depended the honor of his betrothed and his own happiness; he believed that if the Count obtained the mastery, he would not scruple to kill him outright. He exerted all his strength and freed himself from the powerful clasp of his foe. Then he struck the Count so violent a blow as to render ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... cultivating castes of Kamma and Kapu and to be a mixed community recruited from these and other Telugu castes. Another proof of their mixed descent may be inferred from the fact that they will admit persons of other castes or the descendants of mixed marriages into the community without much scruple in Madras. [112] The name of Balija seems also to have been applied to a mixed caste started by Basava, the founder of the Lingayat sect of Sivites, these persons being known in ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... also entered the lists in opposition to Kotzebue and Merkel in the Freimthige (The Liberal), and the merits of the so-called modern school and its leaders, was the subject of a paper war, waged with the bitterest acrimony of controversy, which did not scruple to employ the sharpest weapons of personal ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... not unmusical for the first five minutes. Next in point of merit to Mr. Migott, came Bob Dobbs. His note was several octaves lower than my friend's, and his tone was a grunt—but I will do him justice; I will not scruple to admit that the sounds he produced were regular as clockwork. Very inferior was the performance of Sam Dobbs, who, as owner of the boat, ought, I think, to have set a good example. If an idle carpenter planed a board very quickly at one time, and very slowly at another, and if he groaned ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... little damaged by a failure in the case of the musician Paradies, Mesmer left Vienna, and the following year betook himself to Paris. The great success which he obtained there drew upon him the indignation and jealousy of the faculty, who did not scruple to brand him with the stigma of charlatanism. They averred that he threw difficulties in the way of a satisfactory examination of his method; but perhaps he had reason to suspect want of fairness in the proposed inquiry. He refused, from the government, an offer of twenty thousand ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... docility, but persisted in being told and retold all she wished to know. Since she observed that it was the foreman's eye and not good-will which constrained the cold, unsympathetic instruction received, she made no scruple in taxing the giver to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... disgrace and reproach, sorrow, and repentance upon the innocent as upon the guilty, he showed no sign as he came to meet them, and lifted the Service felt from his golden head, and held out an eager hand for Lynette's. She gave it shyly, and with the thrill of contact Beauvayse's last scruple fled. He turned his beautiful, flushed face and shining eyes upon the Mother, and asked with ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... that my hand was not ready to guarantee.-So, speak up, my pretty cousin, and tell me if it be your free will and unbiassed resolution to accept of this gallant knight for your lord and husband; for if you have the tenth part of a scruple upon the subject, fall back, fall edge, he ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... exterminate the Muscovites, and make their country a desert. God grant he may persist in this decision, rather than demand the restitution, as some assert, of the Protestant churches in Silesia! The Swedes in general are modest, but do not scruple to declare themselves invincible when the King is at their head."—General Grumbkow to Marlborough, Jan. 11 and 31, 1707. Coxe, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... engraved without loss of time. There is no such hurry about the Sonata, though I should like it to appear within two or three months. Never having received the previous letter to which you allude, I had no scruple in disposing of both works here; but for Germany only. It will be at any rate three months before the Sonata appears here, but you must make haste with the Quintet. As soon as you forward me a check for the money, I will send an authority to ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... scruple that irritated my enlightened friend and master so much as this. He could not endure it. And, the sentiments of our great covenanted reformers being on his side, there is not a doubt that I was wrong. He lost all patience on hearing what I advanced on this matter, and, taking ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... that, what a jolly home!"—so that, for his entertainment, she could offer to walk him about though she mentioned that she had just been, for her own purposes, in a general prowl, taking everything in more susceptibly than before. He embraced her offer without a scruple and seemed to rejoice that he was to ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... from the West-Saxon house, he was hailed by the natives as their lawfully-descended King; in accordance with Edward the Confessor's prophecy, that from the severed bough should spring up a new tree: they traced his descent without scruple back to Wodan. This King, moreover, has impressed his mark deeply on English life; to this day justice is administered in England under forms ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... fall into absurd and ridiculous Opinions, Habits, Forms, Figures and Grimaces; there will be those who will laugh, nay, cannot help laughing at them. Hence most Parties laugh at one another, without the least Scruple, and with great Applause of their own Parties; and the Leaders of the same Party laugh with one another, when they consider the absurd and ridiculous Opinions they profess, and how they cheat and govern their Followers; ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... fatal leap was not needed, but if either small men like the government whips, or great men like Peel and Aberdeen, could have known what was passing, they would have shaken grave heads over this spirit of unseasonable scruple at the very start of the race in a brilliant man with all his ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... passage with which Sterne's work closed shows increased perception and appreciation for the subtleness of Sterne's indecent suggestions, or, perhaps, agrowing lack of timidity or scruple in boldly repeating them. It is probable that the continuation by Eugenius, which had come into his hands during this period, had, with its resumption of the point, reminded Bode of the inadequacy and ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... capricious bosoms rise and fall, those feelings that they find so difficult themselves to understand, he drags them all into the light. The kind of delicate cruelty, that in others becomes something worse, refines itself in his magnetic genius into a cruelty of insight that knows no scruple. Nor is the reluctance of these gentle beings, so thrillingly betrayed, to yield their passionate secrets, unaccompanied by pleasure. They suffer to feel themselves so exposed, but it is an exquisite suffering. It may, indeed, be said that the ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... the things that are Caesars; and let every soul be subject to the higher powers;" is the language of Divine Inspiration. Mrs. Stowe belongs to that faction in the North, long known as the abolition party, and would not scruple to bring about the emancipation of the slaves by any means, regardless of consequences. She would not, I suppose, hesitate to force emancipation on the South, at the point of the bayonet, regardless of the murders, rapines, rapes—the indiscriminate butchery of unoffending women and children—the ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... tailless Tom, born in the Isle of Man, and now supposed to be keeping guard against the incursions of rats and mice into my chambers in London? Tom is, as you know, on pretty good terms with some of my friends, using their legs for rubbing-posts without scruple, and highly esteemed by them for his gravity of demeanour, and wise manner of winking his eyes. But could his fame have reached across the Channel? However, an answer must be returned to the inquiry, as monsieur's face was bent down to mine with ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... prating and impertinent woman as ever she was. After dinner my Lord took me alone and walked with me, giving me an account of the meeting of the Commissioners for Accounts, whereof he is one. How some of the gentlemen, Garraway, Littleton, and others, did scruple at their first coming there, being called thither to act, as Members of Parliament, which they could not do by any authority but that of Parliament, and therefore desired the King's direction in it, which was sent for ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... He did not disown his early enormities, and capped his visitor's tentative allusions by such flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his manuscript without a scruple. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... peoples of this time made commerce in slaves; sometimes they swooped down on a coast, threw themselves on the women and children and carried them off to be retained in their own cities or to be sold abroad; for on occasion they were pirates and did not scruple to ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... The readers there, among whom he is popular, both for his poetry and his love of freedom, crowded about him with affectionate zeal; and they gave him, what he did not dislike, a good dinner. Like many of the great men in Germany, Schiller, Wieland, and others, he did not scruple to become editor of a magazine; and his name alone gave it a recommendation of the greatest value, and such as made it a grace ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... might serve as the argument for a debate, whether Donatello did not do society a service in ridding the earth of such a human monstrosity. Hawthorne has adjusted the moral balance of his case so nicely, that a single scruple would turn ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... of her guilty lover. In short, we may fairly suppose that, in all the closing scenes of the tragedy, Cleonice would have still figured and acted as one of those supernatural agencies which my father, following the example of his great predecessor, Scott, did not scruple to introduce into the composition of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton |
