"Unexceptionable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss Austin's works may safely be recommended, not only as among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct effort at the former, of which we have complained, as sometimes defeating its object. For those who cannot, or will ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... and Mr. Sandford was preparing to go out. His full and handsome face was serene as usual, and a general air of neatness pervaded his dress. He was, in fact, unexceptionable in appearance, wearing the look that gets credit in State Street, gives respectability to a public platform, and seems to bring a blessing into the abodes of poverty. Nothing but broad and liberal views, generous sentiments, and a noble self-forgetfulness would seem to belong to a man with such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your choice of a song is unexceptionable." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... Paris, or New York think exclusively appropriate to the most public occasions. Till now, while still enjoying the liberty allowed to maidens in this respect, Eveena, by the arrangement of her veil, had always given to her costume a reserve wholly unexceptionable, even according to the rules enforced by the customs of Western Europe on young girls not yet presented in the marriage market of society. A new expression, or one, at least, which I had never before seen there, gave to her face a strange and novel beauty; the beauty, I wish to think, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... was manufactured, he replied, 'Of course.' Just as he said the word, there came tripping up, from her seat at the stern of the vessel, a young lady in a puce-coloured silk cloak, and boots of the same; with long black ringlets, large black eyes, brief petticoats, and unexceptionable ankles. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... delights especially in his dogs, giant black-and-tan terriers for the most part, of indefatigable perseverance in their one line of activity. Their bark is high-pitched and querulous rather than deep and defiant, but for continuity it has no rival upon earth. Our hotel—in all other respects unexceptionable—possesses two large bulldogs which have long ago lost their British phlegm, and acquired the agitated yelp of their Gallic neighbours. They could not be quiet if they wanted to, for heavy sleigh-bells (unique decorations ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... to Tanty, there lives not owl any more than lunatic. A polished gentleman, with white, exquisite hands, who, when he is discovered by the most unexpected of visitors, is shaven as smooth as Rupert himself; has the most unexceptionable of snowy linen and old-fashioned, it is true, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... that turn back." He remained in the cabin two whole hours, and peremptorily refused to comply with the repeated requests made to him by the more timid of his passengers to return to Liverpool; observing that if they knew him, they would not make the request. Before dinner, his behavior had been unexceptionable; but, after he had dined, a very striking difference was observed in his conduct. He became violent in his manner, and abusive in his language to the men. When anxiously questioned by the passengers, as to the progress the vessel was making, and the time at which she ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... friend Dr. Griffith, who, in his report on the tea plant of Assam, says—"I now come to the consideration of the steps which, in my opinion, must be followed if any degree of success in the cultivation of tea is to be expected; of these the most important is the importation of Chinese seeds of unexceptionable quality, and of small numbers of their sorts."[11] Dr. Royle, too, who was the first person to point out that the Himalayas were well adapted to tea cultivation, and to whom the credit of recommending to government the introduction ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... direct experiment of friction of a fluid is dependent on no hypothesis, and appears to be wholly unexceptionable, it was used by Mr. Joule repeatedly in modified forms. The stirring of mercury, of oil, and of water with a paddle, which was turned by a falling weight, was compared, and solid friction, the friction of iron on iron under mercury, was tried; but the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... banking companies, with which purchases and payments of all kinds are commonly made. Silver very seldom appears, except in the change of a twenty shilling bank note, and gold still seldomer. But though the conduct of all those different companies has not been unexceptionable, and has accordingly required an act of parliament to regulate it, the country, notwithstanding, has evidently derived great benefit from their trade. I have heard it asserted, that the trade of the city of Glasgow doubled in about fifteen years after the first erection of the banks there; ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... is that detailed by a no less unexceptionable authority than Reaumur in his "Art de faire eclore les Poulets." A Maltese couple, named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were constructed upon the ordinary human model, had born to them a son, Gratio, who ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... severally fulfilled the two functions of a sound philosophy, as respected the moral nature of man. One of these schemes presented us with a just ideal of moral excellence, a standard sufficiently exalted: this was the Stoic philosophy; and thus far its pretensions were unexceptionable and perfect. But unfortunately, whilst contemplating this pure ideal of man as he ought to be, the Stoic totally forgot the frail nature of man as he is; and by refusing all compromises and all condescensions to human infirmity, this ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... not cultivation enough for any pursuit to interest her. She was not musical, could not draw; and when Mrs. Poynsett had, by way of experiment, asked her to read aloud an hour a day, and selected the Lives of the Lindsays, as an unexceptionable and improving book, full of Scottish history, and even with African interest, she dutifully did her task as an attention to her invalid mother-in-law, but in a droning husky tone, finding it apparently as severe a penance as it was ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the remains for the grave, those of a man are usually "clad in his habit as he lived." For a woman, tastes differ: a white robe and cap, not necessarily shroudlike, are decidedly unexceptionable. For young persons and children white cashmere robes and flowers are ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... recognizing his blunder, gives the three blows with his right hoof, followed by the four blows with his left, which represent the most unexceptionable F ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Wharton had long known and esteemed these estimable ladies, and though, in many respects, opposed to boarding-schools in general, yet, as there seemed, at present, no other means for the girls to acquire an education, but by sending them from home, they thought that a more unexceptionable place could not be provided for ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... attributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, and infinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, "very good," a creation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall short of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely unexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom undiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in other phrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that is, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of a purity so spotless ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... still retained the good looks which had distinguished Miss Calthorpe at nineteen. She was small and slim, with a delicate complexion. She had large soft eyes of a limpid innocent azure, regular features, rosebud lips, hands after Velasquez, and an unexceptionable taste in dress, the selection of which formed one of the most onerous occupations of her life. To attire herself becomingly, and to give the Squire the dinners he best liked, in an order of succession so dexterously arranged as never to provoke satiety, were Mrs. Tempest's cardinal duties. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... an admirably clear type and good paper, and the binding is unexceptionable.... May be selected as the most desirable cheap edition of the immortal 'Papers' that has ever ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... generally 50 cents, he gave to multitudes who would otherwise have had no such opportunity that education in art which is to be had only from the performances of a great artist. In purity of style he was unexceptionable. He lacked only a little higher finish, a little more brilliancy of voice and impressiveness of manner to take a position among tenors of the very first rank. Of these, however, there are never two in the world at the same time, scarcely two in the same generation; ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Rolla, but the feebleness of his voice was severely felt by the audience in the celebrated speech of the Peruvian to his soldiers. That speech has been the stumbling block of most actors we have seen. Hodgkinson, who in other respects was unexceptionable, rather failed in it. Throughout the whole character, Mr. Wood preserved a very equable tenor of acting. He had neither the rich beauties nor the striking defects of others. He evinced considerable judgment, but at ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall than the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and their inhabitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people were often to be found ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... an unexceptionable article of diet. The best is made of unbolted wheat flour. A mixture of wheat and rye flour, or of corn meal with either, makes excellent bread. The meal and flour should be freshly ground; they deteriorate by being kept long. If raised or fermented bread is required, ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... design, where I may not be able to give an unexceptionable demonstration, I hope always to be provided with a practical proof, which ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... the journals and ledgers of all the Inspectors-General from the days of Davenant. It is such as cannot carry with it any sort of fallacy. It comes, not from one set, but from many opposite sets of witnesses, who all agree in nothing else: witnesses of the gravest and most unexceptionable character, and who confirm what they say, in the surest manner, by their conduct. Two different bills have been brought in for improving the port of London. I have it from very good intelligence, that, when the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Lisbon, and built the royal monastery of the Cross of regular canons of St. Austin, in which he most religiously deposited this treasure, rendered more famous by miracles, in the year 1148. This account is recorded by contemporary unexceptionable vouchers in Bollandus, p. 406. Mariana, and especially Thomas ab Incarnatione, a regular canon, in his Historia Ecclesiae Lusitanae, printed at Lisbon, A.D. 1759, Saec. 4, c. 6, t. 1, p. 215. The Portuguese, ever since the year 1173, keep ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... cant or slang phrases.—To give an example of what is not very clear in the general statement, I should say that the phrase To cut with a knife, or To cut a piece of wood, is perfectly free from vulgarity, because it is perfectly common; but to cut an acquaintance is not quite unexceptionable, because it is not perfectly common or intelligible, and has hardly yet escaped out of the limits of slang phraseology. I should hardly, therefore, use the word in this sense without putting it in italics as a license ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the deportment of the females was strictly unexceptionable. They were modest, distant, and silent. They never uttered a word during the day. At night they would occupy themselves in procuring wood, which they carried to the lodge, and then, restoring the implements exactly where they had found them, resume their places without speaking. They were ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... Tocqueville possesses one most important quality, in addition to his calm judgment and discriminating sagacity. His moral and religious principles are not only unexceptionable, but they are founded on the soundest and most enlightened basis. Humane without being sentimental—moral but not uncharitable—religious but not fanatical—he surveys society, its actors and its crimes, with the eve of enlightened philanthropy, experienced reason, and Christian charity. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... tone of the book throughout is excellent. The delusive character of sin is plainly pointed out. The devices of Satan are laid bare with unsparing hand. The abominations of vice are not concealed. All this is done in language well chosen and unexceptionable. The Christian life is pictured without cant or exaggeration. The beauty and blessedness of a devoted life are eloquently portrayed. True religion with its present comforts and its great rewards ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... the work to the fair readers of America, trusting that it will be found a useful and unexceptionable "Young Lady's Mentor." ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... however, did not satisfy the Doctors of the Jerusalem Chamber. They voted the Collects too short and too dry: and Patrick was intrusted with the duty of expanding and ornamenting them. In one respect, at least, the choice seems to have been unexceptionable; for, if we judge by the way in which Patrick paraphrased the most sublime Hebrew poetry, we shall probably be of opinion that, whether he was or was not qualified to make the collects better, no man that ever lived was more competent ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... earlier physiologists and chemists, as Carpenter, Liebig, and Paget, had resulted in the classification of nutritive substances under different heads, according to the purposes they served in the physical economy. Perhaps the most convenient, though not an unexceptionable division, is into the Saccharine, Oleaginous, Albuminous, and Gelatinous groups. The first includes those substances analogous in composition to sugar, being chemically composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Such are starch, gum, cellulose, and so forth, which are almost identical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... life he was the close intimate of Richard Henry Wild, and was a great admirer of his genius, and especially his great and interesting conversational powers. Unexceptionable in his morals, he was severe upon those whose lives were deformed by the petty vices which society condemns yet practises in so many instances and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... of service. She was a thin, voluble lady, as old as the Squire, to whom she looked up as a god amongst mankind; her educational methods were of an older generation and included the use of the globes and the blackboard, but she was most conscientious in her duties, her religious principles were unexceptionable, and she filled a niche at Kencote which would have ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... deviated from his first resolution; no temptations could excite him to temporise, or to barter his honour for advantage; nor did he ever once presume to partake of the spoils of his ruined country. Such qualities as these are great in themselves, and whoever possesses them, has an unexceptionable claim to rank with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... said they are authentic, O Indra.' And incited by Untruth, he touched me on my head with his foot. At this, O lord of Sachi, he became divested of power and of good looks. Then, as he was agitated and overpowered with fear, I spoke to him, 'Since thou hast pronounced as spurious the unexceptionable hymns of the Veda which have been recited by Brahmarsis (Brahmana saints), and since thou hast touched my head with thy foot, and since thou, O ignorant wretch, hast turned these unapproachable saints, equal to Brahma, into animals for carrying thee, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... me. He is a member of the Society of Methodists, and I really believe he is a reformed man. It is now more than four years and a half since he was released from Sing Sing; and his conduct has ever since been unexceptionable." ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... authority, without contracting those peculiarities of character which the master-spirits,—our Scots, Lambs, and Goldsmiths,—have embalmed with such exquisite truth in our literature, and which have hitherto militated against the practical realization of those unexceptionable abstractions in behalf of the status and standing of the teacher of youth which have been originated by men less in the habit of looking about them than the poets. It is worth while remarking how invariably the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... very respectful. So it was to his father. For Hiram did not forget the statement of his Sunday-school teacher, which was made when he was a very young child, about the 'commandment with promise.' Thus his conduct toward his parents was, like his conduct generally, unexceptionable. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lions, heedless of all consequences, and in defiance of every warning. He had now met, poor fellow, with an appalling chastisement, but could any one pretend that he had not brought it, to a great extent, upon himself? He (Reckage), however, had behaved, from first to last, in an unexceptionable manner. He had studiously avoided the one girl of whom he was inclined to be immoderately fond. It was true that he had practised this restraint less in her interest than his own. But this was because he ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... the account we are favoured with of the life and writings of Mr. Pomfret: A man not destitute either of erudition or genius, of unexceptionable morals, though exposed to the malice of antagonists. As he was a prudent man, and educated to a profession, he was not subject to the usual necessities of the poets, but his sphere being somewhat obscure, and his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... himself the appropriate terms for characterizing that state of the people, in point of sense and civilization, to say nothing of religion, which could admit such a fact as this to stand in their history—namely, that, in a vast number of instances and places, where some person unexceptionable in character as far as known, and sometimes well known as a worthy man, has attempted to address a number of the inhabitants, under a roof or under the sky, on what it imported them beyond all things in the world to know ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... rebellion of his prisoner troubled M. Daburon a great deal. He was further extremely surprised to find the discernment of the old detective at fault; just as though Tabaret were infallible. Tabaret had predicted an unexceptionable alibi; and this alibi was not forthcoming. Why? Had this subtle villain something better than that? What artful defence had he to fall back upon? Doubtless he kept in reserve ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... fatigues of the night, to a supper, which was to be the "finish." It was to take place in one of the men's rooms which happened to be on the same staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties, who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right merry party we were—all sitting down in character, Mrs Hardcastle at the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom, with the "young ladies" on each side. It was the best tableau of the evening; pity there was neither artist to sketch, nor spectators ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... nearly unexceptionable. Seven of them are from pictures by Lawrence; Newton's Gentle Student has supplied the Frontispiece; and Wilkie's Theft of the Cap, one of the most pleasing of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... during the reading of which my companions behaved in a most unexceptionable manner, sitting down and rising up when other people sat down and rose, and holding in their hands prayer-books which they found in the pew, into which they stared intently, though I observed that, with the exception of Mrs. Petulengro, who knew how to read a ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... by Smith," who was thereupon committed for trial. But jealousy arising in the breasts of many, that the inquest was not so fair as it should have been, William Deny, (the coroner of Bedford county) thought proper to re-examine the matter; and summoning a jury of unexceptionable men, out of three townships—men whose candour, probity, and honesty are unquestionable, and having raised the corpse, held a solemn inquest over ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... All was love and unexceptionable respect on my part. Ease and complaisance on her's. She was concerned for my disorder. So sudden!—Just as we parted! But it was nothing. I should be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... offered for the acceptance of the House of Commons. Mr. Fox declared that he had not had time to read it, and felt unwilling to express an opinion upon its merits. On a motion by Mr. Hussey, "that the Bill be recommitted," Mr. Fox, however, remarked, that many clauses were unexceptionable. The number of representatives, in his opinion, were not sufficient. An assembly to consist of 16 or 30 members seemed to him to give a free constitution in appearance, while, in fact, such a constitution was withheld. The goodness of a bill, making the duration of Parliaments seven years, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... other documents extant, giving accounts of the exploits of Saint George's three sons, and of the sons of some of the other Champions of Christendom; but as I do not consider that they emanated from sources so reliable and unexceptionable as those chronicles from which I have quoted, I have not thought it advisable to introduce them in ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... Pigeon, let me introduce our other guests— Senor Don Bruno, who is on your right side, and Monsieur de Querkerie, whom you will find on your left. Manners makes the man, and as their manners are unexceptionable, I hope that you will consider them as men, and treat them, as men should ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... was a young man of unexceptionable character, and of a disposition mild, serious and benignant: his principles and blameless conduct obtained the universal esteem of the world, but his manners, which were rather too precise, joined to an uncommon gravity of countenance and demeanour, made his society rather permitted ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... two statements would give us unexceptionable evidence in favour of the Belgae being Germans, and the south-eastern Britons being Belgae, in case they stood with no conflicting assertions to set against them, and no presumptions in favour of an opposite doctrine; in which case the inference that Kent was German would be ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... 1745. Carlyle played the title role, and another divinity student, already mentioned as a college friend of Smith's, Dr. Maclaine of the Hague, played a minor part. But an amateur representation of an unexceptionable play under the eye of the professors was one thing, the erection of a public playhouse, catering like other public playhouses for the too licentious taste of the period, was another, and the project ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... settlements along the river. It will also be a large lumber market, for the pine forests begin here and extend along the river banks for hundreds of miles, while the facility of getting the logs down is unexceptionable. The territory north of Crow Wing is now open for settlers to a great distance, the Indian title having been extinguished. Two land districts have also been established, which will be an inducement for fresh emigration. There is no other place ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... attraction does not consist in freshness of complexion so much as in fine features, which are often full of character and lighted up by eyes as brilliant as they are soft. Their figures are good, and their feet and ankles quite unexceptionable, being generally very much more neatly turned than those of my ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... have an irreproachable repose of manner. There are no improper wrinkles in your cravat; your shirt-bosom does not bulge; the trowsers are accurate about your admirable boot. But you look very stiff and brittle. You are a little bullied by your unexceptionable shirt-collar, which interdicts perfect freedom of movement in your head. You are elegant, undoubtedly, but it seems as if you might break and fall to pieces, like a porcelain vase, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... 'Centipede'—nothing but that stanch little boat presented me by that generous fisherman, who, I fear, is drowned by this time. Well, let us enjoy ourselves! Excellent real snapper this! Sausage rather too much garlic perhaps; but the brown bread and the aguardiente unexceptionable. Blaze away, my little fire; your sticks cost me much labor to dig out of my once comfortable house, but you are better ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... intended to take in,—to say nothing of its quality. Yet one would think, that, in the present high prices of other food, you would make the most of the only thing you can put into your mouth gratis. Here is Nature constantly urging on us an unexceptionable atmosphere forty miles high,—for if a pressure of fourteen pounds to the square inch is not to be called urging, what is?—and yet we not only neglect, but resist the favor. Our children commonly learn to spell much better than they ever learn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... for ingratitude or treachery, that your announcement almost deprived me of speech; the person in question, however, has one excuse, her mind is, as I told you before, unsettled. You should have remembered that, and hesitated to receive as unexceptionable evidence against the honour of your husband, the ravings of a lunatic. I now tell you that this is the last time I shall speak to you upon this subject, and, in the presence of the God who is to judge me, and as I hope for mercy in the day of judgment, I swear that the charge ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... "that it may be overrated; I know that we cannot give to those who apply offices equal to their expectations; and I also know that with one bone I can call five hundred dogs." The Democratic motto, that "To the victors belong the spoils," was adopted by the Taylor Administration. Unexceptionable men were removed from office, that their places might be filled with officers of Rough and Ready clubs or partisan orators. Veterans like General Armstrong and even the gifted Hawthorne, were "rotated" without mercy from the offices which they held. In the Post-Office ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... reason or other which is not revealed, he puts a feather in his cap, and immediately he begins to act irrationally and to use language so absurd that the reading itself has become doubtful. What is the meaning of this? A man whose conduct has always been reasonable and unexceptionable, suddenly adopts the language of a lunatic. What does it mean? You have sung this verse for a century and more, and you have never taken the trouble ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... the most fashionable circular game in the haut ton in exclusion of melancholy Whist, and to prevent a company being cantoned into separate parties, a gentleman of unexceptionable character will, on invitation, do himself the honour to attend the rout of any lady, nobleman, or gentleman, with a Faro Bank and Fund, adequate to the style of play, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... but much thought-of one of finding her other self, like her, astray, was to keep watch and ward over the affairs of the occupants of neighboring flats, and see that they conducted themselves with the propriety becoming the neighbors of so very genteel and unexceptionable a person as Miss Betsey Kling. In pursuit of this occupation she was addicted to sudden and silent appearances, much after the manner of materialized spirits, at windows opening into the hall, and doors carelessly left ajar. ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... natives. It is in comparison with Pizarro and Cortes that the colonists of all other nations in America appear to an advantage; but the fame of William Penn stands, and ever will stand, preeminent for unexceptionable justice and peace in his relations ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... was the entertainment for the mind, that for the body was unexceptionable. The dinner was excellent; our host performed his duties with admirable tact and grace; and somehow speedily put every body at his ease. Relieved, according to the judicious modern mode, of the care of supplying the plates of his guests, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... called, was thenceforth exercised by the English themselves upon their fellow-citizens, or by Lombards and other foreigners. It is very much to be questioned, whether the dealings of these new usurers were equally open and unexceptionable with those of the old. By a law of Richard, it was enacted, that three copies should be made of every bond given to a Jew; one to be put into the hands of a public magistrate, another into those of a man of credit, and a third to remain ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... toutes les loix d'une morale exacte et sensee; son application (that is what I like) a tout ce qui s'appelle etude serieuse, et Belles Lettres,—"Notwithstanding his great youth, his manners are regulated by the most unexceptionable rules of sense and of morality. His application THAT IS WHAT I LIKE to every kind of serious study, as well as to polite literature, without even the least appearance of ostentatious pedantry, render him worthy of your most tender affection; and I have the ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... admit the fact. But in the earlier centuries no such reproach rested upon us. Although perhaps, then as now, the Scotch intelligence had a special leaning towards philosophy, there was still many a learned Scot whose reputation was in all the universities, whose Latinity was unexceptionable, and his erudition immense, and to whom verses were addressed and books dedicated in every centre of letters. One of the most distinguished of these scholars was George Buchanan, and there could be no better type of the man of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... domestic institutions in their own way? Is that the mode in which I am called upon to carry out the principle of self-government and popular sovereignty in the Territories?" It is no answer, he argued, that the constitution is unobjectionable. "You have no right to force an unexceptionable constitution on a people." The pro-slavery clause was not the offense in the constitution, to his mind. "If Kansas wants a slave-State constitution she has a right to it, if she wants a free-State constitution she has a right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery clause ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... own. So don't let this consideration trouble you, if the other objections can be got over, and I hope you will give these your most careful attention. For, as in everything else, so too in the matter of investments, your experience and shrewdness are unexceptionable. Farewell. ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... old established house of Meunier, which has existed ever since 1800, now conducted by Messrs. Debonnelle et Guiard; I have myself long dealt there, as also my friends, and have ever found their prices the most reasonable, and the qualities unexceptionable; their tarif comprehends all descriptions of wine, and the charges in proportion, commencing on so moderate a scale that they are attainable to the most modest purse, and as there is no description ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... child (about a year and a half old) her maternal care and affection, together with the strictest attention to mental training. Terms, including every possible expense except medical attendance, 100l. per annum. If required, the most unexceptionable references ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... their "caounty" who knew very well how to say "Make ready!" "Take aim!" "Fire!"—in the face of a line of grenadiers with bullets in their guns and bayonets on them. And though a rustic uniform is not always unexceptionable in its cut and trimmings, yet there was many an ill-made coat in those old times that was good enough to be shown to the enemy's front rank too often to be left on the field with a round hole in its left lapel that matched another going right through the brave heart of the plain country captain ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... defence, and to those times may be referred the general prejudice entertained among our people, even at the present day, against that species of testimony. A jury of western men will hardly credit an alibi, though established by unexceptionable witnesses; and the announcement that the accused depends upon that for his defence, will create a strong prejudice against him in advance. Injustice may sometimes be done in this way, but it is a feeling of which our people came honestly in possession. They established a habit, in early days, of ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... chevelure, with a natural curl, is now represented by a few dozen perfectly white hairs, and its place—a smooth, bald, pink head—knows it no more. But let us forget these mortifications. It was then rich, thick, and dark-brown. I was making a very careful toilet. I took my unexceptionable hat from its case, and placed it lightly on my wise head, as nearly as memory and practice enabled me to do so, at that very slight inclination which the immortal person I have mentioned was wont to give to his. A pair of light French ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... physicians of that time, thought he did a service to science by making them the subject of a dissertation. He repeats all the observations of Ferdinando, and supports his own assertions by the experience of his father, a physician at Lecce, whose testimony, as an eye-witness, may be admitted as unexceptionable. ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... To obtain unexceptionable preparations cover-slips of particular quality are necessary. They should not be thicker than 0.08 to 0.10 mm., the glass must not be brittle or faulty, and must in this thickness easily allow of considerable bending, without breaking. Every unevenness of the slip renders it useless for our ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... made within the last twelve months in a very important agency for good—the publication of cheap, and, at the same time, unexceptionable and attractive reading matter. For a long time the want has been seriously felt for something more than mere denunciation to overcome the growing evil of the demoralizing literature—cheap and vile—that has been scattered broadcast over the land. That want has been measurably supplied, in part, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... we trace, by the most unexceptionable evidence, the history of the bottle and inscription; the leaving of which was, no doubt, one of the requisite formalities observed by Monsieur de Rochegude on this occasion. And though he did not land till the 6th of January 1774, yet, as Kerguelen's ships arrived upon the coast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... seal; that there is a hope of nine states; that if the treaty would become null, if not ratified in time, it would not be saved by an imperfect ratification; but that, in fact, it would not be null, and would be placed on better ground, going in unexceptionable form, though a few days too late, and rested on the small importance of this circumstance, and the physical impossibilities which had prevented a punctual compliance in point of time; that this would be approved by all nations, and by Great Britain herself, if not determined to renew ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... notoriously they had, were much worse qualified than other people. We cannot possibly allow a man to argue upon the meaning or tendency of his own book, as against the evidence of the book itself. The book is unexceptionable authority: and, as against that, the author has no locus standi. Both Horace and Pope, however little they might be aware of it, were secretly governed by the same moving principle—viz., not to teach (which was impossible for two reasons)—but to use this very impossibility, this very ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... expressed either surprise or dislike that a more proper jury had not been summoned. Nay, though I objected against them, yet, as Patrick Henry, one of the defendants' lawyers, insisted they were honest men, and, therefore, unexceptionable, they were immediately called to the ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... educational superintendent of the whole, something of the uncertainty hanging over the result has been removed, and all matters have greatly improved. Inasmuch as the character of women is of more delicate texture than that of men, so are the managers of the Night-Light School more careful to secure an unexceptionable set of girls in the school, that prudent parents may send their children there without alarm, and without more danger of contamination than must always arise where a number of human beings, adults or youths, are ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... flustered; he found one day here, staying with me, a somewhat rare species of visitor, a man of high political distinction, who came down to get a quiet Sunday to talk over an important article which I happened to be entrusted with. Meyrick's behaviour was unexceptionable: he was neither abrupt nor deferential; he was simply his unaffected, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the first place, no two observers have obtained exactly the same results. Writing in 1886, Sir Morell Mackenzie says: "Direct observation with the laryngoscope is, of course, the best method at our disposal, but that even its testimony is far from unexceptionable is obvious from the marvelous differences as to matters of fact that exist among observers. It is hardly too much to say that no two of them quite agree as to what is seen." (The Hygiene of the Vocal ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... leaf which contained the obnoxious passage, and returned them to the booksellers with a new paragraph supplied by Lord Bolingbroke; so that when the pamphlet was produced before the House, and the passage referred to, it was found unexceptionable. He added greatly to his wealth by the South Sea Scheme, which he had prudence enough to secure in time, and purchased an estate at East Sheen with part of his gain. In principles he was a Jacobite; and in his travels to Italy, whither he went for the recovery of his health, he was introduced ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... note of alarm is raised by affrighted theologians. We predict for science in this department a rich and rapid progress of discovery. And we are profoundly gratified that the subject has been broken to the popular mind in such a cautious and unexceptionable manner as to the tone and spirit of the work—the author holding with philosophic steadfastness to the subject matter in hand, and, in the true scientific spirit, eschewing all side issues, and exhibiting throughout a candor, impartiality, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... his unwarranted conceit. Those passages in which he was at most pains to contrast his ethical philosophy with Tasso's imaginative Utopia are those in which he most clearly betrayed his own insufferable pedantry; while critics even in his own day saw through the unexceptionable morality of his frigid declamations and ruthlessly exposed the sentimental corruption that lay beneath. When we compare his parody in the fourth chorus of the Pastor fido with Tasso's great ode; his sententious ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... first treated with great coolness by Mr Combermere; the latter gentleman did not like strangers, and always looked on a moustache with suspicion. But Mr Newton was so deferential, so unexceptionable in deportment, and prudent in his general sentiments, warmly advocating Mr Combermere's political opinions, that he had at last won the good opinion even of the father of the family. Besides, he paid no particular attention to the Misses Combermere: there was no danger ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... glad you like it answered she; To be sure there was a great deal of Taste in it. And are you in love with her, Cousin? said I. I am very sorry for it, for unexceptionable as you are in every respect, with a pretty Estate capable of Great improvements, and an excellent House tho' somewhat out of repair, yet who can hope to aspire with success to the adorable Henrietta who has had an offer from a Colonel and been toasted by a Baronet"—"THAT ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... you—you do well enough, my good fellow, as the world goes; and I am sure there are, as you say, five hundred young women to choose from. In that point a man has the best of it; young girls of a certain class, if not angels, are at least generally unexceptionable; but there are many men, unhappily, whose moral reputations are, and should be obstacles ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... to the manager of the Grotto. Mr Jones was so plausible, and gave such unexceptionable references, that it is no disparagement to the penetration of the superintendent of that day to say that he was deceived. The result was, as we have shown, that Billy ere long found his way ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the opium-farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of commerce, or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had stranded on the beach of Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was formally presented; by all (since he was a man of pleasing exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk, whether in French or English) he was excellently well received; and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a table at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centrepiece of a voluble group ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... collect such anecdotes of Aram's life and manners as tradition and hearsay still kept afloat. These anecdotes were so far uniform that they all concurred in representing him as a person who, till the detection of the crime for which he was sentenced, had appeared of the mildest character and the most unexceptionable morals. An invariable gentleness and patience in his mode of tuition—qualities then very uncommon at school—had made him so beloved by his pupils at Lynn that, in after life, there was scarcely one of them who did not persist in the belief ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... own master; there was nothing between him and his inclination save her inclination and her father and mother's will. And there was little doubt about father and mother's will with respect to a man so worthy, so unexceptionable, and so well endowed ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... ma'am. Daniel Barnett has been speaking to me about help, and there is one of Admiral Morgan's men wants to leave to better himself. I know the young man well. An excellent gardener, who would thoroughly suit. His character is unexceptionable, and he is ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... hundred Women before. When I consider the other, I see myself approached with so much Modesty and Respect, and such a Doubt of himself, as betrays methinks an Affection within, and a Belief at the same time that he himself would be the only Gainer by my Consent. What an unexceptionable Husband could I make out of both! but since that's impossible, I beg to be concluded by your Opinion; it is absolutely in your Power to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... said Mrs. Elliott, "almost as old as Ella was when first you were engaged, and how can we tell how often she has thought of matrimony? Mr. Trevors is a man of unexceptionable character, and though old enough to be her father, he is immensely wealthy, and this, you know, makes a vast ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... his own." In 1813, Mr. Moore's fame was materially increased by the appearance of his exquisite songs to Sir John Stevenson's selection of Irish Melodies. Some of these songs are among the finest specimens of poetry in our language, and the morality of the whole of them is unexceptionable. They have since been collected into one volume. In 1816, he published "A Series of Sacred Songs, Duets, and Trios," the music to which was composed and selected by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 12, No. 349, Supplement to Volume 12. • Various
... leprosy, confirmed lunacy—all these were as well known in their outward symptoms eighteen hundred years ago as they are to-day. Persons could not be afflicted with such maladies in a corner. The neighbors must have known then, as they do now, the particulars of such cases, and have been unexceptionable witnesses to their reality. Persons may feign blindness and other infirmities among strangers, but no man can pass himself off as palsied, deaf and dumb, blind, (especially blind from birth,) halt, withered, in his own community. The reality ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... such a court as this, without some little thinking beforehand. However, he is a fine fellow,—a very fine fellow! and though, in his private life, guilty of so many inaccuracies, in his public capacity I really hold him to be unexceptionable." ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... doth." His idea was to raise money, when necessary, on the land registered, by giving security thereon after a form which he suggested. He would, in fact, have made land, as gold now is, the basis of an extended currency; and he rightly held that the value of land as a security must always be unexceptionable, and superior to any metallic basis that ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... ruled otherwise. There were two persons who suggested themselves as suitable mates for my sister; one was the reigning king of a country which I need not name, the other was Prince William Adolphus of Alt-Gronenstahl, a prince of considerable wealth and unexceptionable descent but not in the direct succession to a throne, not likely to occupy a prominent position in Europe. Victoria had never quite forgiven fortune (or perhaps me either) for not making her a queen in the first instance; she was eager to repair ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... from such a demand, for however precarious was her own chance with young Delvile, Miss Belfield she was sure could not have any: neither her birth nor education fitted her for his rank in life, and even were both unexceptionable, the smallness of her fortune, as Mr Monckton had instructed her, would be ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Britain has recently made in order to secure a system of free commercial enterprise throughout the world. Let us now enquire what return she has met with for these concessions; and the recent occurrences in this respect are detailed in the same unexceptionable authority. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... may be as certainly attained in each by the proper pains. Indeed so far as my observation has extended, I am not certain that there is not as large a proportion of extempore speakers, whose diction is exact and unexceptionable, as of writers—always taking into view their education, which equally affects the one and the other. And it is a consideration of great weight, that the faults in question are far less offensive in ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... chagrined at the unmanliness of their conduct, now gladly joined their approval of what betokened, in fact, a happy family meeting. As the clock on old South Church tower pealed out eleven, a pretty, smiling young mother, in plain, but unexceptionable, neat attire, ascended the large stone steps of the Newschool mansion, with a light and graceful step, bearing a sleeping ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. W.'s muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse, strong, and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary sonneteers. The last sonnet in the first volume, p. 152., is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... him one of our leading authors of fiction. Just now, however, we must protest against his taste in subject and technique. His models are obviously not of the classical order, and his ideas of probability are far from unexceptionable. In developing the power of narration, it is generally best, as one of our leading amateurs lately reiterated, to discard the thought of elaborate plots and thrilling climaxes, and to begin instead with the plain and simple description of actual incidents with ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... He said, "He thought both the gentlemen had a very unexceptionable character. As for Squire Allworthy himself," says he, "I never had the happiness to see him; but all the world talks of his goodness. And, indeed, as to the young gentleman, I never saw him but once, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... seriousness than the report deserved—yet talking to one's dearest friend is neither wrong nor out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I have always contented myself with your being perfect, or, if your modesty demands a mitigated term, I will say, unexceptionable. It is comical, to be sure, to have always been more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about one's own; yet, I repeat it, you are my apology—though I never was so unreasonable as to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... remind me of Clarinda. Can I forget you, Clarinda? I would detest myself as a tasteless, unfeeling, insipid, infamous blockhead! I have loved women of ordinary merit whom I could have loved for ever. You are the first, the only unexceptionable individual of the beauteous sex that I ever met with: and never woman more entirely possessed my soul. I know myself, and how far I can depend on passions, well. It ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... something more thoroughly artless and feminine—for the masculine understanding of Lady Carbery in some way communicated its commanding expression to her deportment. I reported to Lord Massey, in terms of unexceptionable decorum, those flattering expressions of homage, which sometimes from the lips of young men, partially under the influence of wine, had taken a form somewhat too enthusiastic for a literal repetition to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... instance of a broad and liberal bequest narrowly bestowed. The spirit which animated the respectable testator in attempting to exclude the larger part of modern literature from the library which his money was to benefit may have been unexceptionable enough. Doubtless there are evils connected with a public supply of frivolous and trifling literature; and perhaps our periodicals may be justly chargeable with devoting an undue proportion of their columns to topics of merely ephemeral interest. But it should never be forgotten ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... who has no passion, but is not devoid of sensibility, has a way of his own of telling and saying things; he has a turn of his own; he is, in a word, the agreeable man, the gentleman-like man, who is bound to be pleasant and amusing, and who discharges his duty with an easy air and unexceptionable gallantry." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the fleet continued to drop in, in this and the two succeeding months. The state of the convicts whom they brought out, though infinitely preferable to what the fleet of last year had landed, was not unexceptionable. Three of the ships had naval agents on board to control them. Consequently, if complaint had existed there, it would have been immediately redressed. Exclusive of these, the 'Salamander', (Captain Nichols) who, of 155 men lost only five; and the 'William and Anne' (Captain ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... she played upon the lyre, and understood geometry; and she had made considerable improvements by the precepts of philosophy. What is more, she had nothing of that petulance and affectation which such studies are apt to produce in women of her age. And her father's family and reputation were unexceptionable. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... however, a highly fashionable bit of pasteboard, as became the representative of a personage who returned to New York, claiming the honours of fashion himself. This was no less a person than the Son of Mr. Pompey Taylor. But the T. Tallman Taylor, whose whole appearance was pronounced unexceptionable by the New York belles, from the points of his boots to the cut of his moustaches, was a very different individual from the good-looking, but awkward, ungainly youth, introduced to the reader two or three years since, at Wyllys-Roof. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the credibility of these accounts; for as much as that the historical testimony in attestation of supernatural events, ought, because such events are out of the common course of nature, to be strong and unexceptionable. ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... the reader will blame Mrs. Bennet for taking her story so far back, and relating so much of her life in which Amelia had no concern; but, in truth, she was desirous of inculcating a good opinion of herself, from recounting those transactions where her conduct was unexceptionable, before she came to the more dangerous and suspicious part of her character. This I really suppose to have been her intention; for to sacrifice the time and patience of Amelia at such a season to the mere love of talking of herself would have been as unpardonable in ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... they had diverging lines of operation. Napoleon's idea was to strike suddenly at their point of junction before they could concentrate, push in between them, drive them apart, and then defeat each separately. The plan was unexceptionable, resembling that of his first campaign in 1796, and the opening moves were successfully carried out. Napoleon left Paris on June 12th, his army being then echeloned between Paris and the Belgian frontier, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... or other, it certainly is not in favour of the Germans, whose derelictions in those respects are more solemn, and apparently sincere, than their flippant and superficial rivals. Many authors there are, of course, in both countries, whose works are unexceptionable in spirit and intention; but as to the assertion, that one literature is of a higher tone of morals than the other, it is a mistake. The great majority of the entertaining works in both are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... rebellion, in candor it should be mentioned, that the royal army was composed chiefly of militia regiments. Not that militia, or regiments composed chiefly of men who had but just before volunteered for the line, have not often made unexceptionable soldiers; but in this case there was no reasonable proportion of veterans, or men who had seen any service. The Bishop of Killala was assured by an intelligent officer of the king's army that the victors were within a trifle of being beaten. I was myself told by a gentlemen who rode as a volunteer ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... her. An examination of the qualifications of each applicant was made. A woman must be mature in years, plain almost to homeliness in dress, and by no means liberally endowed with personal attractions, if she hoped to meet the approval of Miss Dix. Good health and an unexceptionable moral character were always insisted on. As the war progressed, the applications were numerous, and the need of this kind of service great, but the rigid scrutiny first adopted by Miss Dix continued, and many ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... speaker had(8) before in his mind." This simple definition of a name, as a word (or set of words) serving the double purpose of a mark to recall to ourselves the likeness of a former thought, and a sign to make it known to others, appears unexceptionable. Names, indeed, do much more than this; but whatever else they do, grows out of, and is the result of this: as will appear in ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... often need of strength and prudence wherewith to oppose the exigencies of most of our friends who make a claim on our confidence, and seek to know all about us. We should never allow them to acquire this unexceptionable right. There are accidents and circumstances which do not fall in their cognizance; if they complain, we should endure their complaints and excuse ourselves with gentleness, but if they are still unreasonable, we should sacrifice their friendship to our duty, and choose between ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... The binding was unexceptionable; and Lillie assigned it a proper place of honor among her wedding-gear. Alas! she had not looked into it, nor seen what dangers to her power were ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... who was copying a picture in the National Gallery, and whom he found, to his great relief, to be no wild Bohemian, but a simple painstaking business- like man, who had married a German hausfrau, and lodged a few art students with unexceptionable references. Knowing Edgar already, he had measured his powers, and assured Felix that his talent was undoubted, though whether that talent amounted to genius could only be decided when the preliminary studies were accomplished; but ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but never dared approach it again. Sir Walter spurned the idea of its being offered in any manner; forbad the slightest hint being dropped of his having such an intention; and it was only on the supposition of his being spontaneously solicited by some most unexceptionable applicant, on his own terms, and as a great favour, that he ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... have exhausted my catalogue. There is not one I have mentioned who is not unexceptionable, and whom I would gladly embrace as a daughter-in-law. You are now turned of forty, my dear son, and must make up your mind to have heirs to the title and estates. I am however afraid that your admiration is so general, that you will be ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... world of letters what had hitherto been only the subject of social mirth. These tales have in their turn been repeated anew in almost every language of Europe, and have afforded reputations to numerous imitators. One of the most beautiful and unexceptionable tales in the Decameron is that of "Griselda," the last in the collection. It is to be regretted that the author did not prescribe to himself the same purity in his images that he did in his phraseology. Many of these tales are not only immoral but grossly indecent, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... more than made up for his lack of law knowledge. Honester people said, if his mind was not exactly Websterian, there could not be a doubt that nature had intended him for the profession of diplomacy rather than one requiring more profound thought. His make-up was unexceptionable, his smile exquisite. Then he had dark moustaches, which he would gracefully finger into such an exact curve; and he had his small whiskers so neatly combed, and every hair on his head lay in unexceptional smoothness. The legation was not a little proud ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... dinner at all. Phyllis, with the potatoes, cannot reach us till our mutton is devoured, or in a lukewarm state past our power of managing; and Ganymede, the greengrocer, though we admire the skill of his necktie and the whiteness of his unexceptionable gloves, fails to keep us going in sherry. Seeing a lady the other day in this strait, left without a small modicum of stimulus which was no doubt necessary for her good digestion, I ventured to ask her to drink wine ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... altered, and was scarcely less of a child than when Graham had brought her to the convent. She had learned a variety of things, it is true; she could have named all the principal cities in Europe now; and though she still stumbled over the kings of France, her multiplication- table was unexceptionable; but her education had been one of acquisition rather than of development. Her mind had not yet had time to assimilate itself with those around her, nor to become reconciled to the life that was so at variance with all her old traditions; and she maintained a nucleus, as it were, of independent ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... India or from Persia. A Mahomedan traveller of the tenth century, Al Isthakhri, mentions several parts of India as being occupied by the Guebres: that is the name given by Mahomedan writers to the Parsis. An unexceptionable testimony of their presence at Dehra-Dun (1079) is furnished to us in the attack of Ibrahim the Ghaznevid against a colony of fire-worshippers living in that place. Similarly we find the Parsis in the Panjaub ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... you, my lord, said I, if I should directly apply to Sir Charles Grandison, to know his intentions; and whether he has any hopes of obtaining her favour? He is said to be the most unreserved of men. He knows our characters to be as unexceptionable as his own; and that our alliance cannot be thought a discredit to the first family in the kingdom. It is a free question, I own; as I am unacquainted with him by person: but he is such a man, that methinks I can take pleasure ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... to a hall over the "corridor" and to the drawing-rooms over the store. They liked it! Aurora would find out at once what sort of an establishment was likely to be opened below, and if that proved unexceptionable she would lease the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... "There is but one, I know; but that one is unexceptionable: it is the precipitate marriage of the widow of the assassinated with the chief assassin, and the letters which have been handed over to us by James Balfour, which prove that the guilty persons had united their adulterous ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... inn," or that "travellers would find every accommodation at Mrs Price's of the Wynnstay Arms." Knowing that Hanmer was to be found at Glyndewi, Mr Plympton left his friend at B——, where the salmon was unexceptionable, and had completed the most arduous day's walk in his journal, nearly thirteen miles, in a state of dust and heat far from agreeable to a stoutish gentleman of forty, who usually looked as spruce as if he came out of a band-box. Hanmer and he seemed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... authors. He was twenty-five; she forty, though still beautiful. He seems to have lived in a most affectionate, peaceable, wholesome way with this wedded benefactress; loving her truly, and her alone. It goes greatly against the impostor theory, the fact that he lived in this entirely unexceptionable, entirely quiet and commonplace way, till the heat of his years was done. He was forty before he talked of any mission from Heaven. All his irregularities, real and supposed, date from after his fiftieth year, when the good Kadijah died. All his "ambition," ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... to a spirit accustomed to the habitual stimulants of war and adventure. His uneducated mind had no relish for more refined, intellectual recreation. The deserted foundling had neither been taught to read nor write. This has been disputed by some, but it is attested by unexceptionable authorities. *26 Montesinos says, indeed, that Pizarro, on his first voyage, tried to learn to read; but the impatience of his temper prevented it, and he contented himself with learning to sign his name. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... fix their thoughts on worldly comfort, as the greatest of goods, and who labour to place themselves in easy circumstances, under the notion that, when they can retire from the business of their temporal calling, then they may (in a quiet, unexceptionable way of course) consult their own tastes and likings, take their pleasure, and indulge themselves in self-importance and self-satisfaction, in the enjoyment of wealth, power, distinction, popularity, and credit? I am not at this moment asking whether such indulgences are in themselves allowable or ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... occupy it with cattle—in other words, whether Christians or cattle will pay more rent and taxes. I omit all higher considerations, because some of the most philanthropic and enlightened defenders of the present land system have defended it on this low ground. In order to make the test complete and unexceptionable, I have selected a comparatively poor district for tillage, and one of the richest I could find for grazing, giving all possible natural advantages to Scullyism. But the test would not be fair unless the occupiers of the poorer land had a tolerably secure tenure so long as they paid ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... man, to whom I paid quarterly a small annuity charged on some property of mine, came on the quarter-day to receive it. He was a dry, sad, quiet man, who had known better days, and had always maintained an unexceptionable character. No better authority could be ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... enduring rebuffs, or avoided, as one infected with the plague of treachery. He offered the king, in his own justification, to take the sacrament, that whatever he had laid to Rawleigh's charge was true, and would produce two unexceptionable witnesses to do the like. "Why, then," replied his majesty, "the more malicious was Sir Walter to utter these speeches at his death." Sir Thomas Badger, who stood by, observed, "Let the king take off Stucley's head, as Stucley has done Sir Walter's, and let him at his death ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... stares you in the face. References. Unexceptionable references; people will expect them ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... in court, should be competent and unexceptionable. Both these qualifications are indispensable to secure the confidence of his reader, and the success of ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... us dining with Balencourt that evening at his chambers in the Argyle—Estes, Crawfurd, and myself; and as usual we had had an excellent dinner, for Balencourt knew how to live. Who was Balencourt? Well, nobody could answer that precisely, but his letters of introduction had been unexceptionable and his checks were always honored at Brown Brothers. Moreover, Crawfurd had met him frequently at the Jockey Club in Paris, and there was his name on White's books for any one to read. A man of forty-five perhaps, clean-shaven, well set up, an inveterate globe-trotter, a prince ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... myriad whims and necessities. Among his multifarious functions, perhaps the most respectable and permanent was that of clerk to the English chapel. He was by no means a very religious man, nor were his morals quite unexceptionable, but he had completely identified himself with the fortunes and interests of that modest building. A sneer at its capabilities or a doubt as to its prospects would exasperate him at any time far more than a direct ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence |
