"Unpardonable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... performance; he limited the edition to fifty copies and published it privately—so the book is rarely met with. Curiously enough, however, this author had nothing to say in the book about the smells of books, which I regard as a most unpardonable error, unless, properly estimating the subject to be worthy of a separate treatise, he has postponed its consideration and treatment to a time when he can devote the requisite study ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were placed in the front of the battle; [67] and the hostile army was devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder. [68] In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies of his countrymen. Some tribes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... first time a Musgrave has figured in an entanglement of the sort. A lecherous race! proverbial flutterers of petticoats! His surname convicts the man unheard and almost excuses him. All of us feel that. And, moreover, it is not as if the idiots had committed any unpardonable sin, for they have kept out of ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the Venetian Republic were now at hand. It was in vain that Venice had maintained its neutrality when all the rest of Italy joined the enemies of France; its refusal of a French alliance was made an unpardonable crime. So long as the war with Austria lasted, Bonaparte exhausted the Venetian territory with requisitions: when peace came within view, it was necessary that he should have some pretext for seizing it ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; howbeit I obtained mercy." "I am a wretched captive of sin," cries Samuel Rutherford, "yet my Lord can hew heaven out of worse timber." There is no unpardonable sin—none, at least, save the sin of refusing the pardon which avails for all sin. "'Mine iniquity is greater than can be forgiven.'[37] No, Cain, thou errest; God's mercy is far greater, couldst thou ask mercy. Men cannot be more sinful than God is merciful if, with penitent hearts, they ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... He hated to think of a customer going to somebody else. In fact, this was, for a debtor, an unpardonable offense. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... bring the charge, grandfather," Harry said quietly, "I only state the alternative. That one of your nephews took this note seems to me to be clear; the crime would be infinitely greater, infinitely more unpardonable in the one case than the other, but the incentive, too, was enormously greater. In the one case the only object for the theft would be to avoid the consequence of a foolish, but, after all, not a serious freak; in ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... questions? The office was usurped. It might have become a stranger; in a son - there was no blinking it - in a son, it was disloyal. And now, between these two natures so antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there was depending an unpardonable affront: and the providence of God alone might foresee the manner in which it would ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... establishment of the reign of Reason in France under Louis XIV, and in England a little later, the full day had come, and literary sins of omission and commission that might be winked at in such an untutored genius as Shakespeare were now unpardonable. This last dogma explains the fact that in the brief sketch of the history of criticism which concludes the 'Essay', Pope does not condescend to name an English poet or critic prior to the reign ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... am going to ask," he continued presently, "is one which you may consider unpardonable. Let me first express an opinion. You have not told all that you ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the Spectator? Or to that where Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and Reynolds, and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most admiring among all admirers, met together? Was there any great harm in the fact that the Irvings and Paulding wrote in company? or any unpardonable cabal in the literary union of Verplanck and Bryant and Sands, and as many more as they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... (though you don't deserve half a one, as your silence is unpardonable) to say I have just heard from Albert, who, I am glad to say, consents to my choosing his people; so one essential point is gained, and we have only the Treasurer to carry now. I am sure, as you are so anxious Albert should be thoroughly English, you will see how necessary ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... a text for the second part of our sermon—the duty of editors and publishers of correspondence. There is much to be said for the view that publication, as it has been put, "is an unpardonable sin," that is to say, that no author (or rather no author's ghost) can justly complain if what he once deliberately published is, when all but the control of the dead hand is off, republished. Il l'a voulu, as the famous tag from Moliere has it. But letters in the stricter ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... tear of water and salt, falling from the eyes, instead of a drop of ink, falling from the pen! This is crime! this is shame! this is immodesty, for you! That is to say, that whatever is cold and artificial is innocent in the artist, but what is warm and natural is unpardonable in the man. That is to say, modesty in a writer consists in exposing what is false, immodesty in setting forth what is true. If you have talent, show it, but not your soul, carrying mine ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... a refusal stand in his way: "It would be unpardonable," he wrote in answer, "to leave these vessels unutilized whilst German submarines, heedless of the neutrality of Greece, came and sank her merchant ships in her waters, thus stopping maritime traffic and seriously prejudicing the life ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... up to?" demanded Belle. "You have been acting mysteriously ever since you met on the train. Freda, it is really unpardonable not to take the initial trip with us, ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... with indignation, and was apt to bring on sickness. In Corsica still prevailed the custom of severe discipline for children, and in all the classes of the school the rod was applied as a means of punishment and reformation. To beat one's wife was considered in Corsica, as everywhere else, an unpardonable brutality; but parents as well as teachers whipped children to mould them into ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... says that she is. I am very much displeased with Justin. It is really unpardonable that Bettina should be subjected ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... zeal, which is the life of thy righteousness, is preposterous in many things? What else means thy madness, and the rage thereof, against men as good as thyself. True, thy being ignorant that they are good, may save thee from the commission of the sin that is unpardonable; but it will never keep thee from spot in God's sight, but will make both thee ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... said the major, who had remained standing, "you have put upon me an unpardonable insult. You have burlesqued my person, grossly betrayed my confidence, and misused my hospitality. If I thought you possessed the faintest conception of what is the sign manual of a gentleman, or what is due one, I would call you out, ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... was late in the afternoon when Sophy returned to her home, and her rest had so refreshed her that she was more than usually able to hold her own with Madame. Many unpardonable words were said on both sides; and the quarrel, thus early inaugurated, raged from day to-day, either in open recrimination, or in a still more distressing interference with all Sophy's personal desires and occupations. The servants were, in a measure, compelled to take part in the ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... thyself also them that injure thee, because forgiveness is repaid by forgiveness, and by making peace with our fellow-servants we are ourselves delivered from the wrath of our Master. Again, a lack of compassion towards them that trespass against us maketh our own trespasses unpardonable, even as thou hast heard what befell the man that owed ten thousand talents, how, through his want of pity on his fellow-servant, he was again required to pay all that mighty debt. So we must take good heed lest a like fate betide us. But let us ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... war into the enemy's country proved as disconcerting as unexpected, while to mention the sex of an animal was, in Reginald Sawyer's opinion, to be guilty of unpardonable coarseness. The atmosphere of a Protestant middle-class home clung to him yet, begetting in him a squeamishness, not to say prudery, almost worthy of his hostesses, the Miss Minetts. He shook the culprits again, with a will. He ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... remained a serious matter, because for every killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the law exonerated the man who killed another, if he paid a certain blood-price; murder was not legally considered an unpardonable crime. But the family of the dead man would very seldom be satisfied with a payment; they would want blood for blood. Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, however brave they might ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... the money which Delilah received from the Philistine lords as the price of Samson's secret, she gave to her son Micah, and he used it to make an idol for himself. (125) This sin was the more unpardonable as Micah owed his life to a miracle performed by Moses. During the times of the Egyptian oppression, if the prescribed number of bricks was not furnished by the Israelites, their children were used as building material. ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... that nice little man introduced la paperasserie into the September massacres. But as emotional tenderness leads to fury, he becomes all at once furious against the victims. There was no help for it. It is the sentimentality of the age. The assassin is pitied, but the victim is considered quite unpardonable. In his later manner Michelet is more Michelet than ever before. There is no common sense in it; it is simply wonderful! Neither art nor science, neither criticism nor narrative; only furies and fainting-spells and epileptic fits over matters which he never deigns to explain. Childish ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... "I suddenly saw the unpardonable wrong that I have done you —the imperative duty of cutting it short." He spoke very slowly, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... were stoicism and bitterness in this answer, there was not deliberate cruelty. Raoul loved his lugger, next to Ghita, before all things on earth; and, in his eyes, the fault of wrecking her in a calm was to be classed among the unpardonable sins. Still, it was by no means a rare occurrence. Ships, like men, are often cast away by an excess of confidence; and our own coast, one of the safest in the known world for the prudent mariner to approach, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... take my hand and my fortune and my whole life, and do what you liked with them! I know I forgot myself. I took an unwarrantable liberty. I hate myself for having done it. But I repented immediately; I've been repenting ever since. You ought not to think it unpardonable; a man who loves with his whole soul, as I do you, is liable to be mastered by his feelings for a moment; but you know—you must believe—that the worst pain I could have is to have pained you; that I would give the world ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... press my plan of giving Edward for a time to the service of the King. He, I am bound to say, was eager to take up a Commission; but the tears and entreaties of my Daughter, who thinks War the wickedest of crimes, and the shedding of human blood a wholly Unpardonable Thing, prevailed. So they were Married, and are Happy; and I am sure, now, that were I to lose either of them, it would break the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... lost sight of by the son. Mr. Sharp in his Life of Browning records some words uttered by Mr. Browning a week or two before his death, which show how permanent was his sense of indebtedness to his father. "It would have been quite unpardonable in my case," he said, "not to have done my best. My dear father put me in a condition most favorable for the best work I was capable of. When I think of the many authors who have had to fight their way through all sorts of difficulties, I have no reason to be proud ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of paradise. Yes, and they were not human, those spectators who, in the intense glow of the sunset, stood in their still ranks and stared at him with wide and eager eyes. Surely they were fiends red with the blood of men, fiends gathered from the Pit to bear everlasting witness to the unpardonable ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... his part—unpardonable!" said Herbert, speaking with an angry spot on his face, and with more energy than was usual ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... in the best regulated families, whether these be composed of red men or white. Just as the last canoe was disappearing behind its leafy screen, one of the young braves, who was guilty of the unpardonable offence of carrying his gun on full-cock, chanced to touch the trigger, and the piece exploded with, in the circumstances, an appalling report, which, not satisfied with sounding in the ears of his exasperated comrades ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... put aside rather petulantly, and she took her seat out of the whirl with submission. Thinking she certainly was not Browny, whom he would have known among a million, he tried to quit the hall, and he twirled afresh, necessarily not alone; it is the unpardonable offence both to the Graces and the Great Mother for man to valse alone. She twirled on his arm, uninvited; accepted, as in the course of nature; hugged, under dictate of the nature of the man steeled against her by the counting of gain, and going now at desperation's pace, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ceased, Lady Angelica approached the table. "Ten millions of pardons!" said she, drawing some cards from beneath Miss Caroline Percy's elbow, which rested on them. "Unpardonable wretch that I am, to have disturbed such a reverie—and such an attitude! Mr. Barclay," continued her ladyship, "now if you have leisure to think of me, may I trouble you for some of your little cards for the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... a ridiculous oration said to be made by Perkin to the king of Scotland, in which this silly tale is told. Nothing can be depended upon less than such orations, almost always forged by the writer, and unpardonable, if they pass the bounds of truth. Perkin, in the passage in question, uses these words: "And farther to the entent that my life might be in a suretie he (the murderer of my elder brother) appointed one to convey me into some straunge countrie, ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... subjects as the jokes in a halfpenny comic paper. Only they happen to be good jokes. He does make jokes about drunkenness, jokes about mothers-in-law, jokes about henpecked husbands, jokes (which is much more really unpardonable) about spinsters, jokes about physical cowardice, jokes about fatness, jokes about sitting down on one's hat. He does make fun of all these things; and the reason is not very far to seek. He makes fun of all these things because all these ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... are not about to commit the unpardonable folly of differing from me, my daughter," answered Montevarchi, with a sudden change of tone indicative of rising displeasure. "It is for me to decide, for ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... narrative of this Indian, Captain Thorn, by his abrupt manner and passionate temper, was the primary cause of his own death and that of all on board his vessel. What appears certain at least, is, that he was guilty of unpardonable negligence and imprudence, in not causing the boarding netting to be rigged, as is the custom of all the navigators who frequent this coast, and in suffering (contrary to his instructions) too great a number of Indians to come on board ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... is next to godliness, here you will learn that punctuality is next to godliness. As you hope for fame here and life hereafter, never be late to rehearsal. That is the theatrical unpardonable sin! You will attend rehearsal at any hour of the day the manager chooses to call you, but that is rarely, if ever, before 10 A.M. Your legitimate means of attracting the attention of the management are extreme punctuality and quick studying of your part. If you can come ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... of Death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floated before him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ran through stench and fire, close to the mouth of the bottomless pit. He began to be haunted by a strange curiosity about the unpardonable sin, and by a morbid longing to commit it. But the most frightful of all the forms which his disease took was a propensity to utter blasphemy, and especially to renounce his share in the benefits of the redemption. Night and day, in ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the theological view of physical science was, even long after the close of the Middle Ages, exceedingly perilous. We have seen how one of Roger Bacon's unpardonable offences was his argument against the efficacy of magic, and how, centuries afterward, Cornelius Agrippa, Weyer, Flade, Loos, Bekker, and a multitude of other investigators and thinkers, suffered confiscation of property, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... in almost all cases, to have entered into a confederacy to exterminate American poetry. If an individual has the temerity to jingle a couplet, and to avow himself descended from Americans, the offence is absolutely unpardonable." When Fenimore Cooper published his first novel, he suppressed his name and wrote ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... a certain party in the Church that persons who had committed certain heinous sins should never again be readmitted to ecclesiastical fellowship. [631:1] Those who held this principle did not pretend to say that these transgressions were unpardonable; it was admitted that the offenders might obtain forgiveness from God, but it was alleged that the Church on earth could never feel warranted to receive them to communion. Cornelius, who was then the bishop of Rome, supported a milder system ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... is something worse. [Rallying himself.] But that is not what I want to say. Do you really find that very unpardonable? Come, let me put you a case. Never mind about whether it is our case. A man spends his time incessantly in going about in third-class carriages to fifth-rate lodgings. He has to make up new tricks, new ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... would have stayed on the ground, but in obedience to a whim, the lad climbed to the perch where his friends held themselves a short time before. He carried his gun with him, for though it would have been much more convenient to leave it below, the act would have been a piece of remissness unpardonable in his situation. When, however, he was half-way to the top, he carefully shelved it among some branches, where it could not fall. He continued to climb until the limbs bent with his weight. Cautious at all times, Jack then softly pushed aside the branches in front of his face and found he was ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... inquired if we had seen Mrs. Lincoln. "No," said the general, "I did not ask for her;" and I added that I did not even know that she was on board. Mrs. Grant then exclaimed, "Well, you are a pretty pair!" and added that our neglect was unpardonable; when the general said we would call again the next day, and make amends ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... has never yet had such jobs to manage. We have never yet made a demand from a foreign power that we have not believed just. Intrigue is unpardonable in American diplomacy, for it is gratuitous; a man need not resort to it, unless his own taste inclines him that way. It is an honourable distinction of our government, AS A GOVERNMENT, that it has never committed a single ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Faerie Queene! and yet this is what he wrote in a review of Southey's edition of the Pilgrim's Progress: "Nay, even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. . . . One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first Canto, not one in ten ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... high determined spirit, that moral energy, with which Helena is portrayed. Pride is the only obstacle opposed to her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared to the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted her ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... popular in society without regular bathing. A bath should be taken at least once a week, and if the feet perspire they should be washed several times a week, as the case may require. It is not unfrequent that young men are seen with dirty ears and neck. This is unpardonable and boorish, and shows gross neglect. Occasionally a young lady will be called upon unexpectedly when her neck and smiling face are not emblems of cleanliness. Every lady owes it to herself to be fascinating; every gentleman is bound, for his own sake, to be presentable; but beyond ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... brought upon him the greatest odium, and was thought an unpardonable insult, was his receiving the whole body of the conscript fathers sitting, before the temple of Venus Genitrix, when they waited upon him with a number of decrees, conferring on him the highest dignities. Some ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... All the rest is a mere record of upholstery: how this saloon was finished to-day, and that window on the next day, with no fresh incident whatever, except the single and transient misfortune arising out of the advantage given to the magician by the unpardonable stupidity of Aladdin in regard to the lamp. But, whilst my sister and I agreed in despising Aladdin so much as almost to be on the verge of despising the queen of all the bluestockings for so ill-directed a preference, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the question whether we should meet England's efforts for rehabilitation of her world dominion in warlike, or, as I take it, in peaceful ways; but it would be an unpardonable piece of stupidity for us to rock ourselves to sleep in the mad delusion that those efforts would not be exerted. Even were England forced to her knees, she would not immediately give up her claim for world domination. We must ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Seysen, many were the exhortations of both the good old men to Amine, who, at times, would listen without reply, and at others, argue boldly against them. It appeared to them that she rejected their religion with an obstinacy as unpardonable as it was incomprehensible. But to her the case was more simple: she refused to believe, she said, that which she could not understand. She went so far as to acknowledge the beauty of the principles, the purity ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... suppose they are only women in boy's clothes. Now a sensible man carefully avoids all this, or any other affectation. He dresses as fashionable and well as persons of the best families and best sense; if he exceeds them, he is a coxcomb; if he dresses worse, he is unpardonable. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... insisted, smitten with a queer inspiration. "He sinned—the unpardonable sin, if you like. But he expiated it. He's expiating it now. And you love him. And it's for his sake, not yours, that you shrink from public disgrace. You were so irrevocably wrapped up in him"—I pursued my advantage—"that ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... and charity; and who says, "the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be. Charity means pardoning what is unpardonable or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible or it is no virtue at all." If you say this is a paradox I reply: it must be so, since ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... moments he would consider his position as adjutant-general, the enactment against duelling, the irregularity of the meeting arranged, and, consequently, the danger in which he stood on every score; at others he could think of nothing but the unpardonable affront that had been offered him and the venomously insulting manner in which it had been offered, and his rage welled up to blot out every consideration other than that ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... looked all round the room. I was vastly amused. Then we came to explanations. I put the case before him, that you were in love with his daughter, without my consent, but with perfectly honorable intentions; that I had guessed it from your letters, from your unpardonable neglect of your duties to your family, and that I hurried hither from Bourges to take in the situation. With that I concluded, and waited for him to develop. There are occasions when you must let people develop. I could not jump down his throat with, 'Sir, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... constantly renewed." Excitement is too strong a word to describe any emotion which "The Castle of Otranto" is now capable of arousing. But the same cleverness which makes Walpole's correspondence always readable saves his romance from the unpardonable sin—in literature—of tediousness. It does go along and may still be read without ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... that abuse of the savage north is unpardonable,' said Theodora. 'Sluggish torpid minds, indeed, frozen by skies bound in mist belts! If he would stay at home and mind his own business, he would not have ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there is anything vulgar and unpardonable, it is this, children—that, being a hostess, you are ashamed of anything belonging to a guest. From the moment a guest enters your door he or she is sacred, and no true lady or gentlemen ever criticises, much less apologizes for, the dress of a visitor. Mrs. Dean was sorry to observe the ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... where they are best qualified to excel. Though often present at good men's feasts, I remember only a single dinner, which, while lamentably conscious that many of its higher excellences were thrown away upon me, I yet could feel to be a perfect work of art. It could not, without unpardonable coarseness, be styled a matter of animal enjoyment, because, out of the very perfection of that lower bliss, there had arisen a dream-like development of spiritual happiness. As in the masterpieces of painting and poetry, there was a something intangible, a final deliciousness ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Unless esceptinte ke. Unlikely neversxajna. Unlimited senlima. Unload sensxargxi. Unman malkuragxigi. Unmask senmaskigi. Unnatural kontrauxnatura. Unnerve malkuragxigi. Unoccupied neokupata, senokupa. Unpack elpaki. Unpardonable nepardonebla. Unpleasant malplacxa. Unpolished (surface) malglata. Unpretending neafektema, simpla. Unprincipled malhonesta, senprincipa. Unproductive senfrukta. Unpublished neeldonita. Unquiet ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... crushed to splinters. Life was extinct when he was discovered. His watch had stopped at five minutes past seven o'clock. It so happened that he was not immediately identified, though our reporter could not learn the reason of this extraordinary mischance. By some unpardonable blunder, the body of the distinguished and favourite physician ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... shallow water, and therefore was composed, very properly, of cruisers, and of ships of the line of the smaller classes; there being several fifties, and nothing larger than a sixty-four. When war with France threatened, the Ministry, having long warning, committed an unpardonable fault in allowing such a force to be confronted by one so superior as that which sailed from Toulon, in April, 1778. This should have been stopped on its way, or, failing that, its arrival in America should have been preceded by a British reinforcement. As it was, the government ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... through her mind that they must be people from the neighborhood, come to gratify an idle and unpardonable curiosity. Her first impulse was to summon the butler; her second, to ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in all the faith of the Teutonic race. The chief virtue of man was courage, his unpardonable sin was cowardice. "To fight a good fight," this was the way to Valhalla. Odin sent his Choosers to every battlefield to select the brave dead to become his companions ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... exhibit qualities of statesmanship in the beginning of the war with Spain, and in the discussion of the treaty of Paris; he missed both. So far as the war was concerned, he never had an idea beyond a little cheap renown as a paper colonel of volunteers; so far as the treaty was concerned, he made the unpardonable blunder of playing into the hands of his opponents, and leaving the sound and conservative sentiment of the country ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... it carefully, word by word. She could not help seeing the insult contained in every line, could not help realising that Judge Bolitho regarded Paul's request as an unpardonable ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... possible horrors, which have been accumulating for years," and his Majesty, after reading the report, wrote upon it with his own hand: "Unheard-of disgrace! The carelessness of the authority immediately concerned is incredible and unpardonable. I feel ashamed and sad that such disorder could exist almost under my eyes and remain unknown to me." Unfortunately the outburst of Imperial indignation did not last long enough to produce any desirable consequences. The only result was that ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... he declined to admit that Little was dead, and said his conduct was unpardonable, and, indeed, so nearly resembled madness, that, considering the young man's father had committed suicide, he was determined never to admit him into his house again—at all events ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... you ought to provide comfortably for the girl whom you have taught to rely upon your bounty. It would be cruel and unpardonable to foster hopes that ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... after asking my consent, and seeing more of Evelyn, you have changed your mind! Can't you understand that it's an unpardonable confession—one which I never fancied a man born and brought up in your station could have brought himself ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... by the landing-stairs, and the Customs' officer demands our passport in English. We answer him cheerily that we need none, and to his smiling welcome we step on the soil of British Spain; but it would be unpardonable to begin describing it at ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... most unpardonable ignorance or wilful prejudice in regard to the Sounder, now so-called. The possibility of reading by sound was among the earliest modes noticed in the first instrument of 1835, and it was in consequence of observing this ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Tresidders were greatly puzzled, especially Richard Tresidder's mother, whose bright old eyes went searchingly from face to face. Although I had kept my time to the minute, I was the last to arrive. The Tresidders did not speak to me, and seemed to regard my presence as an unpardonable intrusion, and yet they said nothing. Lawyer Trefy nodded to me, but his face revealed no more than a sealed book. There were many strange men there, too, and among them was Jonathan Cowling, the old man who had acted as my gaoler ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... name of the country is mentioned; just as when I was away the mere mention of the word "home" brought a vision of Bessmoor and its mysterious purple distance. But here I am letting my tongue run away with me, and making long speeches in the most unpardonable way. Forgive me. You must excuse a hermit who lives a solitary life. And here we are almost in the village. I ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... themselves, who were not greatly altered, excepting that Elise's whole appearance exhibited much more health and strength than formerly. The energetic countenance of the Judge had more wrinkles, but it had, besides, an expression of much greater gentleness. A slight, but perhaps not wholly unpardonable, weakness might be observed in him. He was completely captivated with his daughters. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... of some object of terror. The young man was often upon the point of awakening his brother, but was as often restrained by the fear of incurring ridicule and the reproach of timidity, at that time an unpardonable blemish in the character of a Kentuckian. At length hasty steps were heard in the yard, and quickly afterward, several loud knocks at the door, accompanied by the usual exclamation, 'Who keeps house?' in very good English. The young ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... Kadisha ("Holy Brotherhood"), the all- powerful society, organized primarily to perform the last rites and ceremonies for the dead, to which the best Jews of a town belong. He got possession of all the dainty morsels, and made away with them. It was an unpardonable crime, high treason against saintliness. An inquiry was ordered, but the culprit ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... unpardonable trespass on that useful part of your publication in which books and odd volumes are asked for, I will go on to say that I should be glad to have a copy of the volume of Whichcot's Sermons (1698) which the third Lord Shaftesbury ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... the next day, the chief returned, carrying in his hand a small bag made of bark, and filled with something they did not attempt to ascertain, well knowing the chief would look on such an act as unpardonable profanity. He had gone into the forest without supper, and had taken no breakfast, yet he refused anything to eat. They did not urge him, for they had never seen such an expression of humility and meekness on the chief's features before as they wore then; and Jane and Edward felt rebuked ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... tied a veil round her small hat and set forth. Although the dust was flying she dared not lower her veil until she reached the environs, knowing that if she did she would be followed; or if recognized, accused of the unpardonable sin. The heavy veil in the San Francisco of that day, save when driving in aggressively respectable company, was almost an interchangeable term for assignation. It was as inconvenient for the virtuous ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... probably something more than a desire to make himself and his past impressive. The man's story in several places reminds me of Borrow, where, for instance, after he has realised his unpardonable sin, he runs wild through Wales, "climbing mountains and wading streams, burnt by the sun, drenched by the rain," so that for three years he hardly knew what befel him, living with robbers and Gypsies, and once about to fling himself into the sea ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... They had been long biding their time and watching for their opportunity, when suddenly it presented itself. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Childers, in presenting the Annual Budget, "ran a tilt" against the "beer and spirit" interest—a sin unpardonable, for any minister in England. The Budget was defeated, and ministers accepted the hint, rejoicing that, for a time at ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... harshness or less kindness? She did not live in the present. Her waking hours were passed in an innocent ecstasy that wore her away without suffering. She did not know that this was love. Had she known it, no amount of prayers or tears would have been enough to expiate her unpardonable sin. She loved just as flowers blossom; her ideal was exalted, her dream pure, and she lived upon them. One less chaste would have died. As for the young count, he had no idea of ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville
... the steep hillside at a run. In her decalogue of manners to refuse an apology was an unpardonable sin. How differently Val would have behaved! Val never lost his temper over trifles, and if anything happened to make him look ridiculous he was the first to laugh at himself. At this time in her life Isabel compared Val with all the other men she met and ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... But indeed my tale's Not getting on at all. They lay and browned Till Boruck (who long since his teeth had ground Away and spoke Gum Arabic and made Stump speeches even in praying) looked around And said to Bob's incinerated shade: "Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on The inventors of the unpardonable pardon." ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... look at Bibl. Pearson, no. 2544; where, however, he will find only the 7th edition of 1587: the first being of the date of 1557. The eighth and last edition was published by Tonson, in 1717, 8vo. It will be unpardonable not to add that the Rev. Mr. Conybeare is in possession of a perfect copy of Lord Surrey's Translation of a part of the Aeneid, which is the third only known copy in existence. Turn to the animating pages of Warton, Hist. Engl. Poetry; vol. iii., ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... accept his excuses, however, when his general opinions on the subject of religion are remembered. He was most bigoted in precept and practice. Religious liberty he regarded as the most detestable and baleful of doctrines; heresy he denounced as the most unpardonable of crimes. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The crowd was eager for vengeance upon Cockney. He had committed the unpardonable sin, he had betrayed his mates. Blackie wanted to slit his throat, and drop him over the side; and the men voted an emphatic aye to the suggestion. Sentence would have been executed as soon as Cockney came forward ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... broadened in its scope as to the Misery of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, that she missed step with Billy Watts, with whom she was dancing, entirely. She then stepped squarely on his foot, and missed the time again. And it was not only once or twice she did this most unpardonable thing, but three distinct ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... shown herself to the chief criminal, guilty of the unpardonable offence of selling Testaments at Oxford, and therefore hunted down as a mad dog, and a common enemy of mankind. He escaped for the present the heaviest consequences, for Wolsey persuaded him to abjure. A few years ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... their wings, he rushed out with his gun and knocked over two or three of them. He was a good shot, and could nearly always get them in range. When he brought them back, it seemed to my boy that he had committed the unpardonable sin, and that something awful would surely happen to him. But he just kept on rolling the forms of type and exchanging insults with the pressman; and at the first faint twitter of doves' wings he would be ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... It was on this subject that she and Geraldine differed most. No amount of spoken wisdom could make Audrey see that she was neglecting her opportunities to a culpable degree; that while other forms of eccentricity might be forgiven, the one unpardonable sin in Geraldine's code was Audrey's refusal to make the ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... together. She will hear him sing. She has never heard him sing. If this does not cure her, nothing will, though he has a nice voice. I hope it will be a fine night, so that we may take the garden. I did not thank you half enough for the exceedingly kind way in which you received my really unpardonable visit the ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... hardly weill manadged on the English syde, and they committed errors most unpardonable in good policie: as first in that battell that was given on the 17 June 1665, wheir Admirall Obdan and his ship ware blowen up, being fired (as was supposed) by the English bullets levelled at it, they contented themselves with the simple wictorie and honor of commanding ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... has made the most stupid and unpardonable mess at Cambridge ever made by man. He wrote to Lord Liverpool, who answered him that he thought his situation created much difficulty, and advised his consulting Lord Sidmouth and Lord Colchester, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... sympathized with Antony. "To leave such a bit o' property as Hallam to a lass!" was against every popular tradition and feeling. Antony was regarded as a wronged man; and Richard as a plotting interloper, who added to all his other faults the unpardonable one of being a foreigner, "with a name that no Yorkshireman iver did hev?" This public sympathy, which he could see in every face and feel in every hand-shake, somewhat consoled Antony for the indifference his ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... it would be extremely unfair were we to use unnecessarily harsh language with regard to those to whom they have happened. It is perfectly true that at present, after the progress that has been made in an accurate and critical study of Sanskrit, it would be unpardonable if any Sanskrit scholar accepted such passages as those translated by Sir W. Jones as genuine. Yet it is by no means certain that a further study of Sanskrit will not lead to similar disenchantments, and deprive ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... some days apart on her behalf, he at last came again to her; but finding her no better, still rejecting all comfort, still crying out, That she had no interest in the mercy of God, or merits of Christ, but had sinned the unpardonable sin; he, looking in her face for a considerable time, took out his Bible, and naming her, said, "I have this day a commission from my Lord and Master, to renew the marriage contract betwixt you and him; ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... was seeing now the other side of that awful cloud which darkens the horizon of the South—the brute beast mob-vengeance that follows swiftly upon the heels of the unpardonable sin. There must be justice. But what was happening now wasn't justice. It was stark ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... visited on our race as a condign punishment, from the days of the deservedly devoted Absalom, down to the present time; in short, it lost heaven forever to some of the most glorious of its angels, and there is much reason to believe that it is the one unpardonable sin ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... before the council, where the emperor was present on his throne. Many of the judges were Huss's bitter personal enemies, for as he had assailed the measureless corruptions of their order, that was an unpardonable sin. Besides, history is careful to tell that bribery was largely employed to make sure of his destruction—and now the last act of the dark tragedy has arrived. No further defence was permitted to Huss, yet he uttered one solemn appeal. Once and again he prayed for his enemies. Being clothed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... that at some times I could, for days together, feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God, that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin. I felt also such clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, that I was, especially at some times, as if my breast-bone would have split asunder.... Thus did I wind, and twine, and shrink, under the burden ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... humdrum life, and since that memorable night in 1884, nothing has befallen me worthy of a polite reader's attention. I have endured the drudgery incident to earning a living; I have enjoyed the relaxations every wise man makes for himself. But I should be guilty of unpardonable egotism if I supposed that I myself was the only, or the most, interesting subject presented in the foregoing pages, and I feel I shall merely be doing my duty in briefly recording the facts in my possession concerning the other persons ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... a retreat in a disarray of nerves, a whistling and clamour of his own arteries, and in short in such a final bodily disorder as made him alike incapable of speech or hearing. And in the midst of all this turmoil, a sense of unpardonable injustice ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... consented to become the godfather and godmother of the poor little creature who had been brought thus disagreeably into this disagreeable world. But the conduct of the prince was regarded as unpardonable, and he was banished by Royal letter from the King's palace, whether at Hampton Court or St. James's. The prince's own party, Pulteney and his colleagues, utterly refused to give their sanction to the extraordinary ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... of force; whereas the stronger force, if handled with sagacity and strength, constrains the weaker in its orbit as the earth governs the moon. Placed in an extremely false position by the fault, militarily unpardonable, of his Government, Admiral Cervera doubtless did the best he could. That in so doing he caused the United States authorities to pass through some moments of perplexity is certain, but it was the perplexity of interest rather ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... standing the greatest of disgraces. For, granting that a young commander might by clamor and outcry be deprived of his fortitude and strength of mind, and weakly forsake his better judgment, and the thing be neither strange nor altogether unpardonable, yet for Pompey the Great, whose camp the Romans called their country, and his tent the senate, styling the consuls, praetors, and all other magistrates who were conducting, the government at Rome, by no better title than that of rebels and traitors, for him, whom they well knew never to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... comforting to your vanity to think that," she said coldly. For his words had recalled similar ones spoken by him twenty-four hours earlier, which in turn had recalled his unpardonable sin. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... by the appropriation of one-third of those taxes to government expenses. To be sure the Legislature had refused to provide for the emission of any more paper money, and this, in the opinion of many, was unpardonable but it had shown a disposition to make up in some degree for this failure by passing a law to establish a mint in Boston. These concessions practically cut the ground out from under the rebellion, and the practical minded people of the state, reckoning up what they had gained, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... promised to her, in the longest of my two last letters, on the subject of my health, I do and will, to the utmost of my power, observe. I have engaged, Sir, (to Mr. Goddard,) I have engaged, Sir, (to me,) to Miss Howe, to avoid all wilful neglects. It would be an unpardonable fault, and very ill become the character I would be glad to deserve, or the temper of mind I wish my friends hereafter to think me mistress of, if ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... but friendly. Thiers, it seems, means to put up Odillon Barrot (Guizot's favourite aversion) for the presidency of the Chamber, and, it is said, to resign if he is beaten. This, Guizot told me, was an inconceivable faiblesse, or an unpardonable legerete; but that whichever it was, he should oppose it, and had written to tell the Duke de Broglie so, in order that he might not be accused of taking the Government by surprise. He said to me, "Donnez-moi quelque chose a dire, let ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... I will go into the house, and if their relatives, as I suppose, have approved of the marriage, I will endeavour to persuade the young lady that a fault like this, on the repentance of her lover, is not unpardonable. But first, is Amadeo a ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... defensive subterfuges; confess that you are but uttering excuses, and acknowledge that you have conducted this affair with a clumsiness unpardonable in one equipped with your advantages of ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini |
