"Indiscretion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... described as "another London almost for beauty and fairness," he is said so far to have forgotten himself as to declare that his family had—in the person of Lady Jane Grey, his father, and brother—been unjustly deprived of the crown of England; an indiscretion which caused a shudder in all who heard him. It was also very dangerous for the Lieutenant-General to exceed the bounds of becoming modesty at that momentous epoch. His power, as we shall soon have occasion to observe, was anomalous, and he was surrounded ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Hudig's insults that lingered in his ears grew fainter by the lapse of time, the feeling of shame was replaced slowly by a passion of anger against himself and still more against the stupid concourse of circumstances that had driven him into his idiotic indiscretion. Idiotic indiscretion; that is how he defined his guilt to himself. Could there be anything worse from the point of view of his undeniable cleverness? What a fatal aberration of an acute mind! He did not recognize himself there. He must have been mad. That's it. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... with McGee he had been convinced that Safie had been clandestinely visited by some one. Whether it was the thoughtless and momentary indiscretion of a willful woman, or the sequel to some deliberately planned intrigue, did not concern him so much as the falsity of his own position, and the conniving lie by which he had saved her and her lover. That at this crucial moment he had failed to "testify" to ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... wife's behavior toward a husband when laboring under disappointment or vexatious accidents; sleeping in different beds; how a woman should act when finding that her husband harbors unjust suspicions of her virtue; the great indiscretion of taking too much notice of the unmeaning or transient gallantries of a husband; the methods which a wife is justified to take after supporting for a long time a complication of all manner of ill-usage from a husband; and other causes or effects of marital infelicity. Though ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... not blame my Government for the indiscretion of one of its officers. I personally am responsible for the act of firing upon your ship, which I now acknowledge to have been a quite unjustifiable act, for which I beg to tender you my most sincere and profound apologies; although I must be allowed to say that I fired ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... only with him, but with Diderot and Madame d'Epinay as well. Diderot, like many other men of energetic nature unchastened by worldly wisdom, was too interested in everything that attracted his attention to keep silence over the indiscretion of a friend. He threw as much tenacity and zeal into a trifle, if it had once struck him, as he did into the Encyclopaedia. We have already seen how warmly he rated Jean Jacques for missing the court pension. Then he scolded and laughed at him for turning hermit. With still more seriousness ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... might not thank her for the introduction. She was quite confounded; but she did not abate her kindness in the least, although my reservation of confidence in only giving her a hint of the truth, checked her advances. You may think this an insane indiscretion on my part; but if you knew how often I have longed to stand up before everybody and proclaim who I am, and so get rid of the incubus of a perpetual falsehood, you would not be so much surprised. There ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... did not speak, nor the governor either. But there are certain secrets which leak out without any indiscretion having been committed, and the public suddenly learnt that Arsene Lupin had had the pluck to send number 514, series 23, back to M. Gerbois! The news was received with a sort of stupefied admiration. What a bold player he must be, to fling so important a trump as the precious ticket upon ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... there, Mrs. Ross?" uneasily inquired the heiress. And then she instantly perceived the indiscretion of her question, and regretted ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... my dear fellow. I did not see Maurice,' the President went on. 'Serizy and I, after being the witnesses to your marriage, became your accomplices; I did not think I was committing an indiscretion in the presence of ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... the most important factors in such a problem, the American race possess by training, and nature—patience scarcely second to that of the Esquimau. The probabilities were that the Shawanoe would wait until the youth was led into some fatal indiscretion. ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... Affairs, the Duke of Vicenza, to include that which specified the conditions on which the Allied Powers were prepared to treat, not wishing to pledge himself to any recognized basis. His Minister of Police, the Duke of Rovigo, took upon himself to carry to extremity the indiscretion of his anger. "Your words are most imprudent," said he to the members of the Commission, "when there is a Bourbon in the field." Thus, in the very crisis of his difficulties, under the most emphatic warnings from heaven and man, the despot at bay made an empty parade of absolute power; the vanquished ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... could see, of irreproachable character; this must plead my excuse for tolerating his visits, without instituting further inquiries respecting him, and allowing your attachment to proceed without ascertaining how far it had yet extended. I was awakened to a sense of my indiscretion by an inquiry which Mr. Linden's popularity rendered general; namely, if Mr. Talbot was his uncle, who was his father? who his more immediate relations? and at that time Lord Borodaile informed us of the falsehood he had either asserted or allowed ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... recently heard my Overture must, indeed, have wondered how I ever wrote this sonata, which has been published through the indiscretion of Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel (to reward me for my abstemiousness, Weinlich induced them to publish this poor composition). From that moment he gave me a free hand. To begin with I was allowed to compose a Fantasia ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... be looked into. Such indiscretion is not to be tolerated. But how comes it that you were able to discover the knock of admittance; how comes it that you have a mask exactly like ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your servants which you had been pleased to commit particularly to my charge. You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might have delegated ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and she gasped in her affright at this ruinous indiscretion, "I beg that you will stand aside." His voice was low and threatening, but his words ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... was herself the daughter of a Canon, and she had lived all her life in a cathedral close, and the atmosphere of a cathedral close may foster innocence, but I cannot think it could have been entirely responsible for the kind of indiscretion Mrs. Thesiger was guilty of. Neither do I think Mrs. Thesiger was entirely responsible herself. She is a nice woman, and I am sure she couldn't have written as she did unless my friend the General had led her to believe ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... disagreeable for him to be blown upon by a wind from Lymport. Moreover she was the mother of a son. The Major pointed out to her the duty she owed her offspring. Certainly the protecting aegis of his rank and title would be over the lad, but she might depend upon it any indiscretion of hers would damage him in his future career, the Major assured her. Young Maxwell must ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... him lift his han' afore," said the laird, as if he would fain mitigate judgment on youthful indiscretion,—"excep' it was to the Kirkmalloch bull, when he ran at him an' me as gien he wad hae pitcht 's ower the wa' ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... secret, but she could not help observing that it had already been betrayed, as plainly as looks could speak, by Mr. Hervey himself. Clarence in vain endeavoured to exculpate himself from this charge: Mrs. Ormond brought to his recollection so many instances of his indiscretion, that it was substantiated even in his own judgment, and he was amazed to find that all the time he had put so much constraint upon his inclinations, he had, nevertheless, so obviously betrayed them. His surprise, however, was at this time unmixed with any painful regret; he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... exclaimed the old detective. "I really shouldn't have said that. But we detectives are used to all sorts of complications, and, more than once, they have to do with women. Often enough there is nothing more serious than a little indiscretion, but I can see where outsiders might make trouble—particularly husbands. I take it then that you and the lady were out together ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... indiscreet,—if, for instance, Colonel Osborne should show himself at Nuncombe Putney,—then, for the sake of the family, Miss Stanbury would speak out, and would speak out very loudly. All this Dorothy understood, and she could perceive that her aunt had strong suspicion that there would be indiscretion. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... original rawness by the additions of the barman, the draught was without special bite or pungency in its passage down his throat, and Dennis was aware of his indiscretion only by an increasing glow in the pit of his stomach and a disposition to credit the barman with a degree of amiability beyond that ordinarily manifested by ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... Khartum, in order to spend the time with a relative who was seriously ill in Constantinople. That instead of remaining at his relative's bedside, he had used his leave for a dash to the Balkans. That this indiscretion might have been kept a secret had he not capped it with another: a flight with a Greek officer in an army aeroplane which had ended by crashing down in the midst of ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... as to what is compatible with the public interest is in his hands. It is a wholly one-sided and tricky relationship, which sometimes reaches such heights of absurdity, that Congress, in order to secure an important document has to thank the enterprise of a Chicago newspaper, or the calculated indiscretion of a subordinate official. So bad is the contact of legislators with necessary facts that they are forced to rely either on private tips or on that legalized atrocity, the Congressional investigation, where Congressmen, starved of their legitimate food for thought, go on a wild ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... colour of her skin, and though the recent vigils had somewhat deadened the brilliance of her eyes, they still flashed with a dignity and independence that were a warning to any one who might have thoughts of perpetrating an indiscretion in her presence. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... we meet, also, with sympathy of a different kind. Novelists, depending wholly on the favour of their patrons, tell us the love stories of the prince, even before his death, in a way which, to later times, would seem the height of indiscretion, but which then passed simply as an innocent compliment. Lyrical poets even went so far as to sing the illicit flames of their lawfully married lords, e.g. Angelo Poliziano, those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Gioviano Pontano, with ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... name of Herbert Courtland, yet he had never had occasion to couple their names together except during the previous half hour, so that it could not be Mr. Linton's intention to take him to task, so to speak, for his indiscretion—his slander, Phyllis might be disposed ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... a matter, do it without passion and indiscretion, however mean the person may be ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... again, as she intended, he had disbelieved her. She was so incomparably his intellectual superior that she could make him believe or disbelieve precisely as she chose. She made him think that she had come to Brighton for companionship, and as a proof of her kindly forgiveness of a grave indiscretion. He believed; for never was Rust, even Rust, so idiotic as to suppose that she had succumbed before his charms and had come to ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... these hot-smoke chariots and the Unseen Forces. To a person whose chief object in life is to avoid giving offence to any of the innumerable demons which are ever on the watch to revenge themselves upon our slightest indiscretion, this uncertainty opens an unending vista of intolerable possibilities. As if to emphasise the perils of this overhanging doubt the surroundings are ingeniously arranged so as to represent as nearly as practicable the terrors of the Beneath World. Both by day and night a funereal gloom envelops ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... generally sleeps well, and is untroubled by dreams, unless he has been indulging in some indiscretion in the way of diet, but the stirring scenes of the last few days were so impressed upon the mind of Fred that they reappeared in his visions of night, as he lived them all over again. He was again standing in the silent wood ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... reticent about his father. From this he gathered that for some reason his father was under a cloud. Yet he did not shrink from trying to learn from them all they knew about him, and for what reason they spoke as if to even mention his name was an indiscretion. It was really little they knew, only that he had gravely displeased their nephew, Peter Craigmile, who had brought Richard up, and who ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the contrary, ready to take off his own cloak, and with it shelter articles of small value; this man, who had been for many days so silent and gloomy, gave, on the contrary, many proofs of his gayety—almost of his indiscretion, speaking, at all the inns, in terms of praise of his master and mistress. The waiter at the inn at Dauphin, says he was a tall young fellow, mild and good-natured; 'we talked for some time about horses, and such things; he seemed to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Noltitz, Ephrinell, Miss Bluett, Monsieur Caterna, the Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, and seven or eight other passengers. I am careful not to let the American into the secret of the case. He would be guilty of some indiscretion, and then ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... there has been an occasional riot with some destruction of property. But all the foreigners who have been killed can be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and in the majority of these cases it can hardly be denied that it was the indiscretion of the white man which was the exciting cause of his murder. In the same time how many hundreds of unoffending Chinese have been murdered in civilised foreign countries? An anti-foreign riot in China—and at what rare intervals do anti-foreign riots occur in its vast empire—may cause ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Winch, the loud-mouthed, ostentatiously jovial, and really cold-hearted cheese-buyer. She was particularly interested in hearing about this man. The personality of Winch seemed to have impressed her, and she brought the talk back to him more than once, and prompted Theron to the very threshold of indiscretion in his confidences on ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... course he should pursue. But he should determine that to-night. At present there seemed no chance of talking to her alone—she was unconcernedly conversing with Milly and Mrs. Woods, and already the visitors who had been invited to this hurried levee in his honor were arriving. In view of his late indiscretion, he nervously exerted his fullest powers, and in a very few minutes was surrounded by a breathless and admiring group of worshipers. A ludicrous resemblance to the scene in the Golden Gate Hotel passed through his mind; he involuntarily turned ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... disease is almost always laid in some indiscretion by means of which disease of the uterus is induced, and the most careful attention to this part of the organism is required. It should not be treated as a trivial matter which is wholly the result of a diseased imagination, and requires ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... reality it makes nothing for you. I do not altogether disapprove the manner of interweaving texts of scripture through the style of your sermons, wherein however, I have sometimes observed great instances of indiscretion and impropriety, against which I therefore venture ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... to save the country from the results of your Majesty's indiscretion in calling the Ambassador to your palace without consulting your Ministers. If we do not strike now we lose our prestige as a great nation, our national honor is dragged in the dust. We have to fight. We cannot afford ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... an indiscretion, madame," said Godefroid, "to ask the names of these gentlemen? I am ready to explain my life; can I know as much of theirs as ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Old Devil at Temple-bar, as a place sacred to mirth tempered with discretion, where Ben Jonson and his sons used to make their liberal meetings." The mirth of that assembly was threatened by the indiscretion of that double-meaning speaker who is usually in evidence at such gatherings to the confusion of the bride, but happily his career was cut short by the plain sense of the soldier and sailor, as may be read in the ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... motives, and he was very sternly judged. If the supposed message to Cobham, which formed one of the most damaging charges in 1603 against Ralegh, were a gloss of his own, concocted from casual talk, he paid for his indiscretion by enduring imprisonment, and braving threats of torture, with a noble fidelity. He suffered yet more cruel penalties for having vaunted the mineral riches of Guiana to enhance the merit of its discovery, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... reported—addresses and deputations are being prepared, not to extol the victor in the electoral contest, but to express to his opponent the general reverence and respect of which never a man was more worthy than he."—That is open assassination! That is a fearful indiscretion of Oldendorf's, that is the revenge of a journalist, so fine and pointed! Oh, it is just like him! No, it is not like him! It is revolting, it is inhuman! What am I to do! Deputations and addresses to me? To Oldendorf's friend? Bah, it is all mere gossip, newspaper-babble ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... been childish and illiberal. Two or three young riotous students at Oxford, trained up in prejudice, and heated with intemperance, uttered some expressions over their cups, implying their attachment to the family of the pretender. The report of this indiscretion was industriously circulated by certain worthless individuals, who, having no reliance on their own intrinsic merit, hoped to distinguish themselves as the tools of party, and to obtain favour with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... correspondence of so many men whose business was literature, such delightful reading for the idler hour of an industrious day. It is perhaps worth adding that the asterisks denoting an omitted passage hide no piquant hit, no personality, no indiscretion; the omission is in every case due to consideration of space. Without these asterisks and, other omissions, nothing would have been easier than to expand these three volumes into a hundred. I think nothing relevant is lost. Nobody ever had fewer secrets, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... plutt quelque indiscrtion que l'ombre d'un crime. Tous ceux que j'ai consults par la suite m'ont cependant assur qu'elle tait coupable.' Voyage en Sibrie, i. 227. Lord Kames says:—'Of whatever indiscretion she might have been guilty, the sweetness of her countenance and her composure left not in the spectators the slightest suspicion of guilt.' She was cruelly knouted, her tongue was cut out, and she was banished to Siberia. Kames's ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... John Quincy Adams, and the Federalists of Boston, once saved me, and helped me to escape from a position in which I found myself by an indiscretion in debate. In 1843 the office of Attorney-General was abolished, by the active efforts of the Democrats aided by the passiveness of the Whigs. The Democrats thought the office unnecessary, the Whigs were content to have it abolished, that the party might get ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... thus the citizens of other States be injured, and animosities be kindled among the States themselves. The subjects of foreign powers might suffer from the same cause, and hence the Union be discredited and embroiled by the indiscretion of a single member. No one of these mischiefs is less incident to a power in the States to emit paper money, than to coin gold or silver. The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, is withdrawn ...
— The Federalist Papers
... mariner's compass; a third was the invention of paper; a fourth, the printing-press; a fifth was the discovery that the earth goes round the sun once a year, and whirls on its own axis once a day; a sixth was that indiscretion of Christopher Columbus, whereby instead of over-populated India he opened up a way to the vast and ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... curing of the indiscretion of pious people and Ministers, whereby godlinesse hath gotten a deep wound, and profanitie hath lifted up the head, contrary to that wise and gracious order set foorth in the Generall Assembly holden ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... alluding to the prominent part Cosy Moments had played in the affair, when a rough thrust from Windsor's elbow brought home to him his indiscretion. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... not as sharp as usual, and it even softened before she finished speaking. She made Theo sit down, and gave her a glass of water to steady her nervousness. She could not be angry even at such indiscretion as this—in the face of the tremulous ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... famous saying of Mohammed is recorded when an indiscretion of his young wife Ayishah was reported to him, "There be no adultress without an adulterer (of a husband)." Fatimah the Apostle's daughter is supposed to have remained a virgin after bearing many children: this coarse symbolism of purity was known to the classics (Pausanias), who made ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... I had not suffered by my indiscretion, I got bolder, took the run of the road, and must have had a dozen girls at a shilling a tail. One night as I fumbled a girl, she frigged me vigorously. "I will do it this way," said she, "you will like it ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... this marvellous indiscretion. But I am amused by the bolder defiance of all consistency which is exhibited by his prime Adviser, who, while he prompts his Chief to trample Rubrics, Canons, Statutes, under his feet, commands His own Clergy to observe ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... am sure you know by this time that I never resent the exclusion of my articles as such. I should always trust your literary judgment, if it were a matter of literature only: and I daresay you have often saved me from an indiscretion and your readers from a bore. Unfortunately this matter of the party funds is not one of that sort. My conscience does not often bother you, but just now the animal is awake and roaring. Your paper has always championed the rights of conscience, so mine naturally goes to you. If ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... families, so likewise in government, the mild, indulgent parent who would consult the greatest good of the greatest number, is rewarded with agreeable and honorable children; while the one who is unjust, partial, and severe, is proportionably recompensed for his indiscretion. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... another of his children tugged at his coat to make him tip over the cradle; the mother revelling in the spectacle. She fled in dismay at seeing the stranger, who stood at the door, enjoying the scene himself. The young prince made himself known, begged pardon for his indiscretion, and said with feeling, 'I am charmed to see that so great a man has so much simplicity, and that the author of "The Good Daughter" [one of his most successful operas] can ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... left the country for ever. Brougham was burned in effigy at Quebec. The lucky eight, already in Bermuda, were speedily released. Never did leaders of an unsuccessful rebellion suffer less for their indiscretion. From Bermuda they proceeded to New York to renew their agitation. On the first of November Durham left Quebec, as he had entered that city, with all the pomp of military pageantry and in a universal display ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... injured, but that was the result of an accident; they had Dr. Goldberg's word for it. It was then that the younger wiseacres smiled. Baron Petrescu was an easy lover, and had been punished for some indiscretion. Some townsman, perhaps, with the luck on his side, had got the better of the master of fence. No wonder the Baron wished to keep the matter quiet. Lord Cloverton knew the true story. Captain Ward had sent to him directly Dr. Goldberg ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... themselves. The time was, when every paragraph of this harangue, which the reader will perceive is not remarkable for its elegance and propriety, would have been canvassed and impugned by the country party in the house of commons. They would have imputed the bad success of the war to the indiscretion of the ministry, in taking preposterous measures, and appointing commanders unequal to the service. They would have inquired in what manner the protestant religion was endangered; and, if it was, how it could be preserved or promoted by adhering ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... him. Lucilla had chosen to absent herself from home every evening; she had been seen, the last night on the Corso,—crowded as that street was with the young, the profligate, and the idle. They could not but reprove "the dear girl" for this indiscretion (Italians, indifferent as to the conduct of the married, are generally attentive to that of their single, women); and she announced her resolution to ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not have been surprised if Solomon had been led away by youthful passion or indiscretion, but we are shocked to find that it was when he ought to have been venerable that he became vicious—"When Solomon was old." We should have expected history would have told us of the power he exerted over the people; how the nation saw in his silver locks the crown of glory ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... by my indiscretion. I hastened to tide over the awkward moment by saying that if I could read hands I wouldn't, for fear of the awful things ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... be indiscreet!" implored the girl, with clasped hands. "I admire indiscretion in others, and cultivate ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fiery Protestant, and was engaged with his relative La Renaudie in the conspiracy against the Guises. He had been employed constantly from that time, as a spy it is said, by the chiefs of the Reformers—a vocation for which, it would seem, he was but little adapted, for the indiscretion of his language must have continually revealed his true sentiments. When he heard, in 1562, of the death of Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, "That," said he, "is not what will put an end to the war; what is wanted is the dog with the big collar." "Whom do you mean?" asked somebody. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves [65] were stationed in the vestibule and porticos, to announce the death of the tyrant, and to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from the sanctuary. [66] Pressed by remorse, or tempted by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... he continued: "It seems that Rocdiane surprised his wife in a criminal situation, and has made her pay dearly for her indiscretion." ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... preparation for an attack upon our unsuspecting corps, when about noon General Warren's Second Corps, which was still behind, and bringing up the rear, made its appearance on the tapis, and materially changed the programme of the scene. Hill, finding himself nicely sandwiched or trapped by his own indiscretion, turned away from the retreating Third Corps, to fight, and, if possible, drive back the advancing Second. Warren's surprise in finding an enemy in force before him was not less than Hill's in finding one behind ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... belief that she could read, write, and cast accompts to perfection, and was skilled in needleworks and household management. Her expectations of payment did not run high, and 'tis but reasonable I should consider of this. So was I tempted into what you may censure as an indiscretion, and said I was in need of one to overlook my family of servants, and be about myself and my girl, who hath picked up some little grossnesses from Pratt that I like not. Not that I would dismiss Pratt, but put this one somewhat above her as her training deserves. 'Twas charity ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Duke is that the Punishment on Sunday was a great impropriety and indiscretion upon the part of Lord Cardigan, but not a Military offence, nor a breach of the Mutiny Act or of the Articles of War; that it called for the censure of the Commander-in-Chief, which censure was pronounced by the General Order upon which the Duke was consulted before it was ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... most true. Never in her life had her ladyship allowed herself the indiscretion of appearing a person in whom confidences might be reposed. She had always had confidences enough of her own to take care of, without ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... blush passed over his cheek as he thought of his concession to Sir Miles's wishes, and his overtures to Lucretia Clavering. Still, that fault had been fairly acknowledged to his wife, and she felt, the moment she had spoken, that she had committed an indiscretion; nevertheless, with an arch touch of womanly malice ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... use, which was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees of his indiscretion, and made sufficient reparation for his folly and error by regaining those he had injured. Besides, I am very confident that if his education had not been different from the usual education of such nobles as I have seen in France, he could not so easily ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... "to ask you to take me in. I cannot eat my dinner alone at the hotel. You have taken my only acquaintance (pointing to me) from me, and if Mr. Forbes will forgive my indiscretion of this ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... Mr. Oldfield so terrified a native by shouting out the name of a deceased person, that the man fairly took to his heels and did not venture to show himself again for several days. At their next meeting he bitterly reproached the rash white man for his indiscretion; "nor could I," adds Mr. Oldfield, "induce him by any means to utter the awful sound of a dead man's name, for by so doing he would have placed himself in the power of the malign spirits." Among the aborigines of Victoria the dead were very rarely spoken ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... vehement storm of passion which her indiscretion had raised; and being quite unable to speak a word of comfort to her brother, she crept out of the cottage, feeling more unhappy than when ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... 'Yes, sir,' I answered, astonished that he did not address me familiarly as usual. 'It is very plain,' added he, 'it is in consequence of your situation; but notwithstanding your lies, your bad conduct, and your indiscretion of yesterday,' added he, in a softened tone, 'I have pity on you. Although I have treated you as you deserved before the cure of the parish, such an affair as this will be a scandal to my house; and, moreover, your family will be in despair. I consent, under these circumstances ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and jumped into the river, your—madam. In any event, I think I may safely find my way out. I shall not trouble you to go any farther. Thank you for overlooking my indiscretion. Thank you, my dear little Prince, for the happiest experience of my life. I shall never forget this hour." He looked boldly into her eyes, and not at the Prince. "Have you ever been in ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... pipes, and gossiping about the events that had happened during the day in the cabin. And sometimes Mr. Thompson would take down his Bible, and read a chapter for the edification of Lavender, whom he knew to be a sad profligate and gay deceiver ashore; addicted to every youthful indiscretion. He would read over to him the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife; and hold Joseph up to him as a young man of excellent principles, whom he ought to imitate, and not be guilty of his indiscretion any more. And Lavender would look serious, and say that he knew it was all true-he was a wicked youth, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... I particularly needed your help? You must understand that it is highly improper for a young girl to tramp about over this French country alone. Even if Polly Burton has permitted you Camp Fire girls the most extraordinary amount of freedom, she surely has realized this and warned you against such indiscretion. There is no way of guessing into what difficulty you may have already ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... the tiger stroll gossiping together. The unicorn walks alone, very stiff and proud. Two rats and two mice are closely followed by two sleek cats, who keep them well covered, and plainly await the time when Eve's amiable indiscretion shall assign them their natural prey. In the third tapestry the deed has been done, the apple had been eaten. The beasts are ravening in the background. Adam, already clad, is engaged in fastening a picturesque girdle of leaves ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... then, seem to have declared there can be no happiness for one who is under constant apprehensions? But it was not now in his power to return to justice, and restore his citizens their rights and privileges; for, by the indiscretion of youth, he had engaged in so many wrong steps, and committed such extravagances, that had he attempted to have returned to a right way of thinking he must ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... with this alphabet it is only possible to represent approximatively the pronunciation of foreign words. In the absence, however, of even such an alphabet, the translators of the Buddhist literature seem to have used their own discretion—or rather indiscretion—in appropriating, without any system, whatever Chinese characters seemed to them to come nearest to the sound of Sanskrit words. Now the whole Chinese language consists in reality of about four hundred words, or significative sounds, all monosyllabic. Each of these monosyllabic sounds ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... surge of pride almost as perverse as his humility, O'Moy had adopted her suggestion, and thereafter—in the past-three months, that is to say—the unreasonable devil of O'Moy's jealousy had slept, almost forgotten. Now, by a chance remark whose indiscretion Tremayne could not realise, since he did not so much as suspect the existence of that devil, he had suddenly prodded him into wakefulness. That Tremayne should show himself tender of Lady O'Moy's feelings in a matter in which O'Moy himself must ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... inhabitants and the government authorities, and between one part of the population and another. They were said to have originated in the desire of the white population to evade some requirements of the law for the emancipation of the negroes, and were believed to have been aggravated on the one side by indiscretion, and on the other by the honest determination of the colonial judges. More than one judge had been recalled; and the consequence was, that their successors, who did not pursue the same course, and the governors of the island were denounced as being guilty of abusing their powers to prevent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... forgot the rash words of encouragement which the Captain had entrapped me into speaking to him. When I think of it now, I am ashamed to repeat the language in which I resented this man's presumptuous assertion of authority over me. Having committed one act of indiscretion already, my anxiety to assert my freedom of action hurried me into committing another. I bade Mr. Varleigh welcome whenever he chose to visit me, in terms which made his face flush under the emotions of pleasure and surprise which ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... voiced by men. We have heard that belief in women is a symptom of youth or of inexperience of the sex, which a riper mind and wider knowledge will invariably tend to dissipate. So woman has come to regard herself as almost an indiscretion on the part of the Creator, necessary indeed to man, but something which he must try to hide and hush up. We have, in fact, put into practice Milton's ideal: "He, for God only, she, for God in him." Some such arguments from the lips of disillusioned ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... performance, which many years previous had resulted in Jed's long banishment, might have caused her to commit almost any unheard-of act of spite as an outlet for her jealous anger. But only the few remaining garden flowers were witness to the lovers' indiscretion, and they kept their own counsel after the manner of flowers, so Selena's feelings were ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I am seized quite MAL-A-PROPOS with desire to write a story, THE BLOODY WEDDING, founded on fact - very possibly true, being an attempt to read a murder case - not yet months old, in this very place and house where I now write. The indiscretion is what stops me; but if I keep on feeling as I feel just now it will have to be written. Three Star Nettison, Kit Nettison, Field the Sailor, these are the main characters: old Nettison, and the captain of the man of war, the ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a laugh, "You must blame your son's indiscretion, and not applaud me!" Thus saved from a formal and unsatisfactory conversation, the knight remounted his horse and led the way ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... to think he really loved her, and to fancy his affection for her something more than common; and his sister still said that he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been some marked display of attentions to her cousin, there must have been some strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not of a sort to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... lie with the King, no one would dare suggest that you had had the slightest sympathy for a rebel, or that Aylingford had ever willingly opened its gates to a fugitive from Monmouth's rabble army. Martin's indiscretion puts you in danger. If by some careless word you are responsible for that indiscretion, which may very likely be the case, you are in grave danger. Rosmore is not here alone, and though he may be silent, other tongues will wag. Is ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... Sauvage Epiphany The Mustache Madame Baptiste The Question of Latin A Meeting The Blind Man Indiscretion A ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... of the harvest which he has already reaped from the indiscretion into which you led ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... follows a kind of menace, "And who but a very rash, indiscreet person will affirm that God has not made choice of this?"—when every one must perceive that the bare propounding of the question concerning evil calls upon us to exercise this temerity and commit this indiscretion.—Chap. iv. s. I, div. 7. He then goes into more detail as to particular cases of natural evil; but all are handled in the same way. Thus death is explained by saying that the bodies of animals are a kind of vessels which contain fluids in motion, and being broken, ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... of the Gospel, an enemy to Papistry, and a married man." This dislike is easily accounted for. Exeter was very far from London, the new ideas travelled slowly, and the west was staunchly conservative. As with many reformers, too, his zeal was spoilt by indiscretion; the sternness of the Puritan militated against his success, and people preferred the old errors more becomingly supported. His successor, Turberville, was a man quite after the heart of the people, and he won praise ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... the evils of which one error is the parent. My conduct towards the poor Jessy appears to your mother a more enormous wickedness than this imputed injustice to Talbot. The frantic indiscretion of my correspondence with Thomson has ruined me; for he that will commit the greater crime will not be ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... easy way, and while so doing she tripped herself up. She had begun to tell him about the men she had been going with; and before she knew what she was doing, she had fallen into the tone she used when she talked with her Uncle Carovius. Becoming suddenly aware of her indiscretion, she stopped, embarrassed. Daniel's serious questions caused her to make some confessions she would otherwise never have thought of making. She told a goodly number of rather murky and ugly stories, and it was very hard for her to act as though she were innocent or the victim of circumstances. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... servant understood them. "His excellency the Count of Monte Cristo had," he said, "given positive orders that the carriage was to remain at their lordships' orders all day, and they could therefore dispose of it without fear of indiscretion." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the throne of England as JAMES I.; was at first popular, but soon forfeited all confidence by his favouritism; he governed through creatures like Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the infamous Buckingham, whose indiscretion brought about a war with Spain in 1624; James died immediately afterwards; he has been described by Sully as "the wisest fool in Christendom"; his conduct was certainly much less creditable than his conversation; he held absurdly high views of the royal prerogative; but he sold patents of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... letter for you. Will you commit the indiscretion of sending it on to Mr. A.B. if you see ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... his administration. A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than might have been expected from the years and experience of Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Indiscretion have you seen in me, shou'd make ye think I would choose a Witty man for a Lover, who perhaps loves out his Month in pure good Husbandry, and in that time does more Mischief than a hundred Fools. You conquer without Resistance, you treat without Pity, and triumph ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... ominous sound: but it must be considered—that if the leader cannot wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own, and plainly he cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action from the indiscretion of his opponents, but on the contrary must be ruined—cause and leader, party and partisan chief, by the very 'lock' (or as in America is said, the 'fix') into which he has brought himself, by the pledge which he cannot redeem—far less can that organization be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... of the same year, with the approval of his father he started for Ireland as the adviser of the Catholic Association. He made a wretched emissary, and there was no limit to his arrogance, noisiness and indiscretion. The Irish agitators were glad to give him two thousand guineas and to send him home. The mission is associated with a more important thing, his father's Letters to Sir Hercules Langrishe, advocating the admission ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the edge of his bunk. He had awakened with a terrible headache and a sense of some hideous indiscretion. It was not until he had examined every paper in his pocket and all his money that he had begun to feel more comfortable. And in the meantime he had forgotten altogether to ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his eyes as the accused made their way through the crowd, two by two, their wrists tied with ropes; for the duke every minute expected to hear the queen's name spoken. But the chief-justice, a man of experience, had prevented indiscretion of any kind by fixing a hook in the tongue of each one. The poor creatures were tortured on a ship, so that nobody should hear the terrible confessions their sufferings ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... making any reply, though his eyes softened into a slight smile of welcome. Then he let his chin drop on to the knob of his cane again, and looked at Florent over his beer. Florent had made Gavard swear to keep his story a secret for fear of some dangerous indiscretion; and he was not displeased to observe a touch of distrust in the discreet demeanour of the gentleman with the heavy beard. However, he was really mistaken in this, for Robine never talked more than he did now. He was always the first ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... were Julia's that evening; though all the time by means of symbols, since it was thought wiser that Herbert and Florence should not yet be told of Julia's engagement; and Florence's parents were not present to confess their indiscretion. Julia was referred to as "the traveller"; other makeshifts were employed with the most knowing caution, and all the while Florence merely ate inscrutably. The more sincere Herbert was placid; the foods absorbing ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... less creditable in that her companion was now communing chiefly with himself. She felt, indeed, that she had already been guilty of a certain disloyalty to one to whom she owed some manner of allegiance; but that was the extent of Miss Bouverie's indiscretion in her own eyes. It caused her no qualms to entertain an anonymous gentleman whom she had never seen before. A colder course had commended itself to the young lady fresh from London; but to a Colonial ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... "My indiscretion will avail you little, cardinal," replied Wyat sternly. "A hasty word proves nothing. I will perish on the rack sooner than accuse Anne Boleyn. I am a desperate man, but not so desperate as you suppose me. A moment ago I might have been led on, by the murderous ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... but my opinion is that 'tis possible there may be, and tis probable there is another habitable world in that Planet. And this was that I undertooke to prove. In the pursuit whereof, if I have shewed much weaknesse or indiscretion; I shall willingly submit my selfe to the reason and censure ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... taking any measures to find out whether his life really was threatened in California, and trying to help him out of a scrape if necessary? Of course, if it was all straight he'd be furious to have a watch set on his actions, and would never forgive me the indiscretion. Still, I haven't heard from him, as I said, since the day of his arrival, and neither my mind nor my conscience is very easy, Mr. Stanton. The question is, What would you do if you were in ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... self-contained bearing which always had marked him as a man of large affairs. It was his uncle's strict rule, he recalled, never to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable Milton's that the second drink drew the cork on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That something had happened which must have disturbed him greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction as simple as the evidence that he had ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... was some danger of its being knocked to pieces against the railing or upon the persons of those who stood too close to escape the whirling consequences. So unexpected had been her reception of what he considered a calamitous indiscretion that he was to be pardoned for the ebullition of relief and joy that followed. Had she drawn a revolver and fired angrily at him he could not have been more astounded. But, to actually throw a kiss to him—to meet his imprudence in the same spirit that had inspired ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... do essentially appertain; as the knowledge of this diversity of grounds and moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of complexions and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... to again see—the daughter?" he questioned, as though half regretting the indiscretion ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... was, Champlain had too much philosophy in his composition to commit an indiscretion at such a moment as this. He accordingly restrained the Savages and his own anger, bore his insult and disappointment with exemplary patience, giving up all hope of seeing the salt sea in this direction, as he humorously added, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... to gentlemen in my profession," he soliloquized, "that Canada is so conveniently near. Here the minions of the law cannot touch us for any little indiscretion committed under the stars and stripes. I hear people talking of annexing Canada to the States, but to that I am unalterably opposed. I should have to retire from business, and I am not able to do ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... of mine, as I have heard. But you will pardon an indiscretion that arises in the interest I feel in yourself. The eldest of three brothers—is the lieutenant, then, a ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Chamberlain, slid round the wine sun-wise for a Highlander's notion of luck; the young advocates, who bleared somewhat at the eyes when they forgot themselves, felt the menacing sleepiness and glowing content of potations carried to the verge of indiscretion; Kilkerran hummed, Petullo hawed, the Provost humbly ventured a sculduddery tale, the Duke politely listening the while to some argument of Elchies upon the right of any one who had been attacked by the Macfarlanes to use arms ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... tip of the tongue of every one of us to ask him instantly why, but that would have been too rank indiscretion. It never pays to seem curious about a native's personal reasons, and it was many weeks before we knew why he had made up his mind in advance to choose Fred and not either of us ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... (literally sheet), that the person is entirely concealed from head to foot; there are two eyelet holes in that part of the sheet which covers the face, admitting air and light, and affording to the fair one, herself unseen, a tolerable view of external objects. I trust I may be permitted without indiscretion to remove this shroud and give some slight description of ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... had cleared and tilled and the site of his residence were transferred to the hands of the first English settlers on the river, the Maugerville colony of 1763. His widow, Madame Louise Guyon, went to Port Royal, where her indiscretion created a sensation that resulted in voluminous correspondence on the part of the authorities and finally led to her removal ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... which, I am told, may even affect his life? and how can I find means to warn him of his danger? Then poor Lucy's ill-concealed grief, occasioned by her lover's wound, is another source of distress to me, and everything round me appears to bear witness against that indiscretion ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... if they had any marriage ceremony, but they are very jealous of their wives, and visit with great severity any indiscretion ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... ways, and make him get down on his knees and wag his tail when they fed him out of a pail! Beppo always got on his knees to eat, and showed his love and humility before he grew his horns and reached the age of indiscretion; then he became awfully wicked, and it took three stout priests to lead him away and sacrifice him to the gods for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... words were uttered, for all felt that it was a bad omen thus to turn back, when they were so near the land they were seeking. There was another fact which was equally apparent, and which caused them no very pleasant reflection. They had very likely betrayed themselves by their own indiscretion, in talking in tones that reached the ears of those who were watching for them. No one was to blame, therefore, but themselves for the unfortunate situation in which ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... character of ambassador he bore the general's commission to them, and thrown into chains: then after the battle was fought, they sent him back, and in suing for peace cast the blame of that act upon the common people, and entreated that it might be pardoned on account of their indiscretion. Caesar, complaining that after they had sued for peace, and had voluntarily sent ambassadors into the continent for that purpose, they had made war without a reason, said that he would pardon their indiscretion, and imposed hostages, a part of whom they ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... author to a university, by another to a ship, was a republic, whose liberty extended only so far as its iron door. While there was no liberty without, there was licence within; and if the culprit, who paid for the smallest indiscretion with his neck, understood the etiquette of the place, he spent his last weeks in an orgie of rollicking lawlessness. He drank, he ate, he diced; he received his friends, or chaffed the Ordinary; he attempted, through the well-paid cunning of the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Bishop; I've only spoken to him once," exclaimed J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of one who realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange Bishops. Miss Huddle was the first to rally; she disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did, but the womanly instinct in her told her ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... had an attack of fever, from which he recovered so as to make a visit to the house of his son, Major Nathan Boone. Soon after, from an indiscretion in his diet, he had a relapse; and after a confinement to the house of only three days, he expired on the 26th of September, in the eighty-sixth year of ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... twins and Connie grew restless, and finally Connie blurted out, "Say, Prue, don't you think we've upheld the parsonage long enough? I want to get some fresh air." The twins would never have been guilty of such social indiscretion as this, but they gladly availed themselves of Connie's "break," and followed her out-of-doors. Then Fairy got up, laughing. "I have done my share, too. I think we'll leave the parsonage in your hands now, Prue. I want ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the hedgerow bordering the wood, and was brooding over them in proud anticipation of one day leading home a healthy family, thus causing an agreeable surprise to the farmer's wife. The fox almost brushed against her as he sprang over the hedge, and she paid to the utmost the penalty of indiscretion. ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... same day, sometimes on the very same action, they are utterly inconsistent and irreconcilable with themselves. Look at the man in one light, and he shall seem wise, penetrating, discreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you see a creature all over folly and indiscretion, weak and timorous as cowardice and indiscretion can make him. A man shall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind; follow him into his own house, maybe you see a tyrant morose and savage to all whose happiness depends upon his ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... petitioner's wife, the said Sarah A. Terry, first arose from her seat, and before she uttered a word, your petitioner used every effort in his power to cause her to resume her seat and remain quiet, and he did nothing to encourage her in her acts of indiscretion; when this court made the order that petitioner's wife be removed from the court-room your petitioner arose from his seat with the intention and purpose of himself removing her from the court-room quietly ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... face. So do we all, for the matter of that, I hope. You are young and good-looking yourself, too; Smoothbore will make something of that, you may depend upon it. 'Gracious Heavens, is the iron arm of the law to sunder these happy lovers for a mere indiscretion, and make their bright young lives a blank forever?' He'll give them something like that, Sir, in a voice broken by emotion, and bring you ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... social experience it is always a question of how far one may pardonably err on the side of indiscretion; and if I remember here a dinner in the basement of the House of Commons—in a small room of the architectural effect of a chapel in a cathedral crypt—it is with the sufficiently meek hope of keeping well within bounds which only ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... apparently taken himself off; for that he had not been visible since the first communication made to Marr by the watchman. There is little doubt that Williams had observed the watchman's visit to Marr, and had thus had his attention seasonably drawn to the indiscretion of his own demeanor; so that the warning, given unavailingly to Marr, had been turned to account by Williams. There can be still less doubt, that the bloodhound had commenced his work within one minute of the watchman's assisting Marr to put up his shutters. And on the following consideration:—that ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... more and more displeased with the persistence of the other. "I came very near being arrested as a deserter just now, though I have a pass in my pocket; and I don't care about exposing myself to any further annoyance by my own indiscretion." ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... of its being so distant from other dwellings, might have been called a rural retreat, although situated in the limits of the city. There the stranger, who was understood to be a prisoner of state, lived in the greatest seclusion; and although neither he nor his attendant could be guilty of indiscretion, because none understood their language, and although Governor Perier severely rebuked the slightest inquiry, yet it seemed to be the settled conviction in Louisiana, that the mysterious stranger was ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Patrick (to whom both ladies had opened their hearts, at separate interviews) that his sister-in-law, in one way, and his niece in another, were equally likely—if not duly restrained—to plunge headlong into acts of indiscretion which might lead to very undesirable results. A man in authority was sorely needed at Windygates that afternoon—and Sir Patrick was fain to acknowledge that he was ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... situation by smiling. He was an aristocratic footman who had always lived in the best of noble families, and he had never smiled; indeed, he would have felt himself a disgraced and vulgar footman if he had allowed himself to be led by any circumstance whatever into such an indiscretion as a smile. But he had a very narrow escape. He only just saved himself by staring straight over the Earl's head at a ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Perhaps I have no excuse even for being here at all. My duty as a soldier is certainly elsewhere, but I could not rest content until I knew you were in a position of safety. Believe me, Mrs. Brennan, I have intended no indiscretion, but I was informed by a soldier that you were being held here under fire. It would have been useless for me to appeal to the Major for information, and I felt I must know the truth. If I have erred in this I can ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... inasmuch as they are appointed to the possession of man they are riches, and in this way they are full of imperfection; which is not an unbecoming or impossible thing, considered from different points of view, to be perfect and imperfect. I say that their imperfection firstly may be observed in the indiscretion, or unwisdom, or folly, of their arrival, in which no distributive Justice shines forth, but complete iniquity almost always; which iniquity is the proper effect of imperfection. For if the methods or ways by which they come are considered, all may be gathered together in three methods, ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... farmer, he obtained through friends the place of exciseman for the surrounding region. This position obliged him to ride more than two hundred miles a week, collecting government taxes. In 1791 he moved to the town of Dumfries. The following year he came near losing his place through an act of indiscretion which proved him to be more poet than exciseman. He bought four guns which had come into the possession of the government through the seizure of a smuggling vessel, and sent them with expressions of admiration ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might have been—a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any indiscretion, especially a romantic one—any indiscretion except treachery. There might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du Laurier, ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... Savaron de Savarus, the natural son of the Comte de Savarus—pray keep the secret of my indiscretion—if he is returned deputy, will be our advocate in the suit about les Rouxey. Les Rouxey, my father tells me, will be my property; I intend to live there, it is a lovely place! I should be broken-hearted at seeing that fine piece of the great de ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... called the Liturgy. July 23, 1637, was the day appointed for its introduction. An attempt to force a mode of worship upon Scotch Presbyterians! No experiment could be more perilous to the king; it was indiscretion bordering on insanity. The very announcement produced an underground swell such as precedes a moral earthquake. Murmurings, groanings, threatenings, dark forebodings swayed the nation. These were gusts fore-running ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... a very strong revulsion of feeling about him, so strong in England that we are told that the subscriptions for a proposed memorial to him have almost if not entirely ceased. The censure which Carlyle's friends are visiting on Mr. Froude for his indiscretion in printing the book, though deserved, has done but little to mitigate the severity of the judgment passed on the writer himself. In fact, we are inclined to believe that Mr. Froude's want of judgment rather helps to deepen the surprise and disappointment with which the book has been received, as ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... freely forgave me an indiscretion natural to my youth and position, whose consequences, moreover, could not have been foreseen by either of us. She said that she was about to return to her husband, who would probably come to Florence to meet her—and she added that she hoped I should resume my studies ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... in which the King learned how dangerous it was to risk his person in night-frolics; and could not but severely reprove Rochester for acting such a part towards him; however he sincerely resolved never again to be guilty of the like indiscretion. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... smells sweet. Here also the instinct of the populace cries, "Freedom from all masters!" and after science has, with the happiest results, resisted theology, whose "hand-maid" it had been too long, it now proposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for philosophy, and in its turn to play the "master"—what am I saying! to play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account. My memory—the memory of a scientific man, if you please!—teems with the naivetes of insolence which I have heard about philosophy ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... it is made public or answered, that it may be ascertained whether some exceptionable expressions are to be taken as the result of a settled purpose in that Government or as the mere ebullition of the minister's indiscretion. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... Jack, and surely, surely we'd think of a plan. Within my heart I vowed, and with far more earnestness, to rescue Larry's daughter also. The very fact that Pat didn't confess to sacrificing herself, however, warned me from indiscretion. I repeated that I would consult Jack; and a little snake of an idea wriggled into my head at the same instant. I let it curl up and get warm. It ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... It is an indiscretion ever to say of a bird that he has only such and such notes. You may have been his friend for years, but the next time you go into the woods he will likely enough put you to shame by singing something not so much as hinted at in your description. I thought I knew the song of the yellow-rumped ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... prefecture presses, but again, for still greater security, the bureau of public worship is constantly advising them what they must say. First and foremost, they must laud the Emperor. But in what terms, and with what epithets, without indiscretion or mistake, in order not to meddle with politics, not to appear as a party managed from above, not to pass for megaphones, is not explained, and is therefore a difficult matter. "You must praise the Emperor more in your pastoral letters," said Real, prefect of police, to a new bishop. "Tell me ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine |
