"Impropriety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as many as possible—or as many as are necessary—of the general characteristics of the Indian, both good and bad—so as to give a fair view of the character, according to the principle intimated above. And I may, perhaps without impropriety, here state, that this may be taken as the key to all the sketches which are to follow. It is quite probable that many examples of each class treated, might be found, who are exceptions to the rules stated, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Proudie, returning; 'always the same—always equally adverse to the impropriety of conduct of every description;' and she stalked back through the room again, following Mr Slope ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... put it, there is no better way, or at any rate no more thorough way, of throwing young people together. Middle-aged people, too. But the observer receives no impression of moral disorder. High spirits are the rule, and impropriety is the exception. Even in the auditorium at Steeplechase Park, where the cognoscenti assemble to witness the discomfiture of the uninitiated, there is nothing but harmless laughter as the skirts fly up before the unsuspected blast. ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... promise. She uttered no reproof either on her niece's awkward greeting, her abrupt conversation and its tendency to pertness, nor on the loudness of the unlucky game and the impropriety of climbing; nor even on what had greatly annoyed her, the asking for the subscription to the church. There was neither blame nor punishment; but she could not help a certain cold restraint of manner, by which Kate knew that she was greatly displeased, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the 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 ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... I have given my opinion at some length upon the impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation of Congress—that the article in the Constitution making it the duty of the President to communicate information and authorizing him to recommend measures was not intended to make him the source in legislation, and, in particular, that ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... conscious of some impropriety in this domestic frankness before a third party, and Thorpe pounced through his well-mannered hesitation with the swiftness of ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... or in many together, we shall consider what they require separately and what in conjunction. Tho there is good reason for saying that perspicuity is best suited by proper words, and ornament by metaphorical, yet we should always know that an impropriety is never ornamental. But as many words very often signify the same thing, and therefore are called synonymous, some of these must be more sublime, more bright, more agreeable, and sweeter and fuller in pronunciation ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... affirmed of what is mentioned above as high-class Chinese literature, which is pure enough to satisfy the most strait-laced. Chinese poetry, of which there is in existence a huge mass, will be searched in vain for suggestions of impropriety, for sly innuendo, and for the other tricks of the unclean. This extraordinary purity of language is all the more remarkable from the fact that, until recent years, the education of women has not been at all general, though many particular instances are recorded ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... repeat the gossip and tattle of private society, but occurrences happened to Lord Byron which engaged both, and some of them cannot well be passed over unnoticed. One of these took place during the spring of this year, and having been a subject of newspaper remark, it may with less impropriety be mentioned than others which were more indecorously made the topics of general discussion. The incident alluded to was an extravagant scene enacted by a lady of high rank, at a rout given by Lady Heathcote; in which, in revenge, as it was reported, for ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... August he dined with the French consul-general, and there will now be no impropriety in printing his agreeable sketch of the dinner. "There was present, among other Genoese, the Marquis di Negri: a very fat and much older Jerdan, with the same thickness of speech and size of tongue. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... morning, with secret distaste and displeasure, of Evelyn's intended visit to the Mertons. He could scarcely make any open objection to it; but he did not refrain from many insinuations as to its impropriety. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whom Adelaide had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him, first a boy and then a girl. There was no question of marriage between them. Never had the Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. The stupefaction was so great, the idea of Macquart having found a young and wealthy mistress so completely upset the gossips, that they even spoke gently of Adelaide. "Poor thing! She's gone quite mad," they would say. "If she had any relatives ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... yourself, but as the nearest surviving relative of Sir Miles,—the most immediate descendant of the St. Johns; her mature years and decorum of life, her joint kindred to Helen and yourself, surely remove every appearance of impropriety." ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... think so. By going and snubbing her, it shows that you are conforming to all the laws of politeness without conceding anything to wanton impropriety. Don't you see?" ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... circumstance of a grocer's assistant noticing any act does not alter the character of the act to me. And in the next place, I see a great deal of difference between Miss Hale and Fanny. I can imagine that the one may have weighty reasons, which may and ought to make her overlook any seeming Impropriety in her conduct. I never knew Fanny have weighty reasons for anything. Other people must guard her. I believe Miss Hale is ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... towering above the triumphant and unrepentant Crosby, stood Mrs. Pemberton, a portentous figure of shocked matronly disapproval. And she promptly placed the blame where mothers of sons have placed it since the first similar impropriety ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... of impropriety had entered with Cynthia. Sandy was too fine and self-forgetful to be touched by worldliness. Cynthia had come to him; ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... his wife; for the dean, chagrined that his son was at length nephew, submitted to the temptation of punishing the latter, while he forgave the former. He sent for Henry, and having coldly congratulated him on his and Rebecca's innocence, represented to him the impropriety of marrying the daughter of a poor curate, and laid his commands on him, "never to harbour such an intention more." Henry found this restriction so severe that he would not promise obedience; but on his next attempt to visit Rebecca he met a positive repulse from her father, who ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... from the French language, (says Mr. Steevens, in a note to the Tempest,) it appears to have been spelt according to the pronunciation, and therefore wrongly; but ever since it has been spelt right, it has been uttered with equal impropriety. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... you mean to offer yourself," replied she, "I must say, no. My uncle is constantly dissuading the villagers from attending night-meetings, which, he says, though they may be innocent, yet give occasion for reproach; and we must be careful not to countenance impropriety, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Piers would have felt the impropriety of these loud remarks at such a moment. Even as it was, he would doubtless have regretted the incident had he turned his head to observe the two persons who had just alighted and were moving up the steps close behind him. A young, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... war. He also tried hard to have his own way in the appointment of a deputy to govern in Ireland. One day, while this question was in dispute, he hastily took offence, and turned his back upon the Queen; as a gentle reminder of which impropriety, the Queen gave him a tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to the devil. He went home instead, and did not reappear at Court for half a year or so, when he and the Queen were reconciled, though never ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... yawns for the person who always does the proper thing. Impropriety, in right proportion, relieves congestion, and thus are the unities preserved. And so here the great Law of Compensation, invented by Ralph Waldo Emerson, comes in: The sane, healthy man, who occasionally strips ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... was treated. Mehul, finding in whose presence he was, was ready to sink with confusion; but, in answer to Gluck's questions, he told him that he was a young musical student from the country, whose anxiety to be present at the performance of the opera had led him into the commission of an impropriety. Gluck, as may be supposed, was delighted with a piece of enthusiasm so flattering to himself, and not only gave his young admirer a ticket of admission, but desired his acquaintance." From this artistic contretemps, then, arose ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... voyage. He was vexed to see me quit the profession for which I had been educated; and he could not, without a severe struggle, relinquish his hopes of seeing me a bishop. But I argued that, as I had not yet been ordained, there could be no disgrace or impropriety in my avoiding a mode of life which was not suited to my genius. This word genius had now, as upon all other occasions, a mighty effect upon my father; and, observing this, I declared farther, in a high tone ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... visit to the Commissaire du Quartier. That formidable functionary received us with the customary French-polished veneer of urbanity which, as a rule, constitutes the suaviter in modo of the higher class of Gallic officials. He read us a severe lecture, however, upon the alleged impropriety of our conduct; and when I ventured to protest that it was not to us the blame ought to be imputed, but to the quatrieme, he mistook my meaning, and, ere I could explain myself, he cut me short with a polite remark that the ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... be remembered by all the employees, that their duties are peculiar and confidential, and that there is an obvious impropriety in disclosing the names, peculiarities, or acts of the inmates. It should never be forgotten that the most cruel wounds may, by imprudent disclosures, be inflicted on those whose conduct and language, during their misfortune, should be covered with ...
— Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California - Prescribed by the Resident Physician, August 1, 1861 • Stockton State Hospital
... this moral, Ralston says, "the conclusion at which an ordinary reader would arrive, if he were not dazzled by fairy-land glamor, would probably be that far better than either tact and industry on a master's part is the loyalty of an unscrupulous retainer of an imaginative turn of mind. The impropriety of this teaching is not balanced by any other form of instruction. What the story openly inculcates is not edifying, and it does not secretly convey any improving doctrine." But on the other hand it may be ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... these difficulties must come so slowly, there is no one to correct certain ecclesiastics. Their superiors sometimes pay very little attention to the complaints made against them, and hence there have existed and do exist serious acts of impropriety, especially among the religious. Since there is no one who has authority to investigate their cases or to write reports regarding these, matters are in a most lamentable condition, and mainly to the injury of the Indians. The religious make assessments on the natives under the name of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... not like to obtrude my aristocratic tendencies too much into this narrative, but when I found myself in the streets alone with Lena, I could not help feeling some secret qualms lest my conduct savored of impropriety. But the thought that I was working in the cause of truth and justice came to sustain me, and before I had gone two blocks, I felt as much at home under the midnight skies as if I were walking home from church on a ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... agitated her mind, she involuntarily sprang to her feet prompted by the force of her passion, and had almost reached the door, when the senator's voice brought her to a pause, and recalled her to the consciousness of the impropriety ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... land, that the Israelites might convince themselves of the destruction of their foes, and those of little faith might not say afterward that the Egyptians like the Israelites had reached dry land. The Angel of the Sea complained of the impropriety of withdrawing a gift. God mollified him with the promise of future compensation. The Kishon was offered as security that he would received half as many bodies again as he was now giving up. When Sisera's troops sought relief ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... who were always fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing should, and every welltailored man must, trying to make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to the original, there were on the other hand others ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... never made their appearance, except to a friend or two at most. Perhaps some of them may be no great entertainment to you, but of that I am far from being an adequate judge. The song to the tune of "Ettrick Banks" [The bonnie lass of Ballochmyle] you will easily see the impropriety of exposing much, even in manuscript. I think, myself, it has some merit: both as a tolerable description of one of nature's sweetest scenes, a July evening, and one of the finest pieces of nature's workmanship, the finest indeed we know anything of, an amiable, beautiful young woman;[161] but ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... contributed to this impropriety of style. He that wishes to become a philosopher at a cheap rate easily gratifies his ambition by submitting to poverty when he does not feel it, and by boasting his contempt of riches when he has already more than he enjoys. He ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... then:—as the abolition of the Jewish Sabbath, the unscripturalness of the doctrine of imputed righteousness (i.e. our Lord's active obedience)—the mistakes of the so-called Evangelical system, the independence of the Church; the genius of the Gospel as a Law of Liberty, and the impropriety of forming geological theories from Scripture. Of course every one changes in opinion between twenty and thirty; doubtless, I have changed; yet I am not conscious that I have so much changed, as made up my mind on points on ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... bedroom, scribbling as fast as pen could fly over paper. He had been guilty of a mistake—so ran the epistle; having decided to leave Whitelaw, he ought never to have requested a continuance of the pension. He begged Lady Whitelaw would forgive this thoughtless impropriety; she had made him understand the full extent of his error. Of course he could not accept anything more from her. As for the past, it would be idle for him to attempt an expression of his indebtedness. But for Sir Job's munificence, he must now have been struggling to ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... first century before Christ—first, eighth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, or even eighteenth century A.D.—it is still the same: no book whose subject-matter admits as possible of an impropriety according to current notions can be depended upon to fail of containing such impropriety,—can, if those notions are accepted as the canon, be placed with a sense of security in the hands of girls and youths, or read aloud to women; and this holds good ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... that in no respect would he have ventured to offend him. He saw, or thought he saw, in Colonel Mannering's general conduct, an approbation of his attachment to Miss Bertram. But then he saw still more plainly the impropriety of any attempt at a private correspondence, of which his parents could not be supposed to approve, and he respected this barrier interposed betwixt them both on Mannering's account and as he was ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shocked by the impropriety of the suggestion. She looked at Mrs. Gilson, who was breathing as though she was just going under the ether. Claire said doubtfully, "Well—— If you can get me right back to ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... startling on the midnight pillow than in the noonday walk. Our vices, which are the pastime of the drawing-room, become the bugbears of the silent bedchamber. Margaret, when she would have slept, was haunted by reproaches, which waited until then to agitate and frighten her. A sense of impropriety and sinfulness started in her bosom, and convicted her of an offence—unpardonable in her sight—against the blessed memory of Mildred. She could not deny it, Michael Allcraft had created on her heart a favourable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... other matters of Christian morality. In discipline, stress was laid on the propriety and duty of private admonition, in its successive scriptural steps, before public censure. On this point one brother said he had privately admonished a neighbor of the impropriety of taking articles to the camp on the Sabbath, and he had acknowledged his fault, and promised amendment. The duty of forgiving offenders, and undoing wrongs, was also insisted on. Several had been improperly excluded ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... a little aghast at the idea at first, but she too had something of the same feeling as Zaidie, and besides, there could hardly be any impropriety in accepting the invitation of one of the wealthiest and most distinguished noblemen in the British Peerage. So, after a little demur and a slight manifestation of ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... for as I stood regarding my two treasures, even as if my eyes had made her uncomfortable, she suddenly opened hers, and started to her feet, with the words, "I beg your pardon, papa," looking almost guiltily round her, and putting up her hair hurriedly, as if she had committed an impropriety in being caught untidy. This was fresh sign of a condition of mind ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... number was always few, for the invitations were rarely given, and the patients generally remained upon the sick list for an indefinite period. But there were few invitations more sought after. Something—perhaps the very slight spice of impropriety which certain prudes, who had not been asked, affected to see in such an arrangement—had made them the fashion; and, then, Sir Allan was undeniably clever. Altogether, the idea was ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... middle-class qualities. But perhaps there might [95] be a want of urbanity in singling out this or that personage as the representative of defect. Therefore I shall leave the defect of aristocracy unillustrated by any representative man. But with oneself one may always, without impropriety, deal quite freely; and, indeed, this sort of plain-dealing with oneself has in it, as all the moralists tell us, something very wholesome. So I will venture to humbly offer myself as an illustration ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... indeed, have produced a very startling effect on the recluse inhabitants of the place. Robert Stephenson used to tell a story of the clergyman of the parish waiting upon the foreman of one of the gangs to expostulate with him as to the shocking impropriety of his men working during Sunday. But the head navvy merely hitched up his trousers, and said, "Why, Soondays hain't cropt out here yet!" In short, the navvies were little better than heathens, and the village of Kilsby was not restored to its wonted quiet until ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... this place Hakluyt observes in a note, the great inconvenience of staying late on the coast of Guinea. He ought rather to have said, the impropriety of sailing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... one of the most immoral stories ever written, asked in a tone of surprise: "Have you read it in the original?" Evidently he never had! It is needless to add that translations never exceed the originals in impropriety and usually improve on them. The Rev. Rowland Smith, who prepared the English version for Bohn's Library, found himself obliged repeatedly to resort ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the Emperor, and of Queen Mary of Hungary, at the impropriety of his manners, had produced, however, some effect, so that on his wedding journey to England, he manifested much "gentleness and humanity, mingled with royal gravity." Upon this occasion, says another Venetian, accredited to him, "he had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... portion of the temporal bone, and that they are folded on themselves, and finally lost above the middle and inferior eminence of the brain. He appears to have been aware that at this point they communicate with the exterior or convoluted surface. He recognized the impropriety of the term corpus callosum, seems to have known the communication called afterwards foramen Monroianum, and describes the hippocampus more minutely than ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... please," said a second voice, but in so timid a tone that it seemed as if its owner felt the utter impropriety of such ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... present traces of ornament and stability of material evidently belonging to the remains of a prouder edifice. This is the case sometimes to such a degree as, in another country, would be disagreeable from its impropriety; but, in Italy, it corresponds with the general prominence of the features of a past age, and is always beautiful. Thus, the eye rests with delight on the broken moldings of the windows, and the ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... suppose that they originally sprang from a dog; and about five years ago a superstitious fanatic so strongly impressed upon their minds the impropriety of employing these animals, to which they were related, for purposes of labour that they universally resolved against using them any more and, strange as it may seem, destroyed them. They now have ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... confidence in the wisdom of his counsels, and announce their readiness to grant the necessary supplies. There were some who opposed the motion. They did not argue against a general vote of thanks, but intimated the impropriety, and, indeed, ill tendency of expressions which implied an unquestioning approbation of the measures of the ministry. In referring to this, Smollet[1] says, "Mr. Oglethorpe, a gentleman of unblemished ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... dared not hazard; and in this determination they were encouraged to persevere, not only by the results of emancipation, then wrought out at the North, but by the settled convictions which had long prevailed at the South, in relation to the impropriety of freeing the negroes. This opinion was one of long standing, and had been avowed by some of the ablest statesmen of the Revolution. Among these Mr. Jefferson stood prominent. He was inclined to consider the African inferior "in the endowments both of body and mind" to the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... be contrary to the truth, seeing that on several occasions he borrowed mine and read his hours in it. I also declare that I have never seen him close the doors of the church, and that whenever I have seen him speaking to women I have never noticed any impropriety; I have not ever seen him touch them in any way, they have only spoken together; and if anything is found in my deposition contrary to the above, it is without my knowledge, and was never read to me, for I would not have signed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Pennsylvania (February 14, 1907) took up the lie that Smoot had been "from his youth against polygamy," and he added to it a legal argument that the Senate could only expel a member, by a two-thirds vote, if he were guilty of crime, offensive immorality, disloyalty or gross impropriety during his term of service. Senator Tillman (February 15) accused President Roosevelt of protecting Smoot in return for a pledge of Mormon support given previous to the last campaign. Apostle Smoot (February 19) declared that cases of ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... It hath already been said, that Metaphors are Images of things which affect the Senses. An Image therefore, taken from what acts upon the Sight, cannot, without Violence, be applied to the Hearing; and so of the rest. It is no less an impropriety to make any Being in Nature or Art to do things in its Metaphorical State, which it could not do in its Original. I shall illustrate what I have said by an Instance which I have read more than once in Controversial Writers. The heavy Lashes, saith a celebrated Author, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... against this reproach; I should require more justification if I decided without a perfect knowledge of causes, for one side of the question, at the risk of embracing an error, and of falling into a still greater impropriety. There is wisdom in suspending one's judgment till we have succeeded ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... petitioners, and the refusals they meet with, perpetually irritate their temper. With respect to requests in general, we should either grant immediately what a child desires, or we should give a decided refusal. The state of suspense is not easily borne; the propriety or impropriety of the request should decide us either to grant, or to refuse it; and we should not set the example of caprice, or teach our pupils the arts of courtiers, who watch the humour of tyrants. If we happen to be busy, and a child comes with an eager request about some ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... beating high, and two little white lines marked the firm closing of her lips. Rose's brightly flung suggestion as to the impropriety of her going off for the day with Clifford, Teddy, and Ruth, was seething like a poison within her. But presently she was mechanically promising sandwiches, and Rose was so far encouraged that she could give Martie's arm ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... struggle; for here and there, all over Scotland, in the large towns as well as in rural and remote parishes, the practice prevailed, and was occasionally discovered— generally by accident. The Board long ago expressed decided opinions on the impropriety of the practice. Now in Shetland, it so happens that almost the only persons who are practically the administrators of the Poor Law are more or less directly or indirectly interested in the local trade — in the fish-curing, or in the shops, or in ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Central Australia, p. 581.) In the mysterious region of sex, this feeling easily takes root. In many parts of the world, men use among themselves, and women use among themselves, words and even languages which they may not use without impropriety in speaking to persons of the opposite sex, and it has been shown that exogamy, or the fact that the wife belongs to a different tribe, will not always account for this phenomenon. (Crawley, The Mystic Rose, p. 46.) A special vocabulary for the generative organs and functions is very widespread. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... father assumed an air of such fearlessness and calm authority, that the young lawyer, surprised and overawed, forbore, as he had intended, to snatch the letter from his hand, and confined himself to bitter complaints of the impropriety of his conduct, and of the light in which he himself must be placed to Redgauntlet should he present him a letter with ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... with an intense love of law and order; the kind of man who is the first to take that law and order into his own hands when he does not find it existing to please him. He had a Bostonian's respect for respectability, tradition, and propriety, but was willing to face irregularity and impropriety to create order elsewhere. He was fond of Nature with these limitations, never quite trusting her unguided instincts, and finding her as an instructress greatly inferior to Harvard University, though possibly not ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... place on Friday and the Senate adjourned until Monday. Meanwhile the obvious impropriety of Mr. Stockton's vote upon his own case had deeply impressed many senators, and on Monday, directly after the Journal was read, Mr. Sumner raised a question of privilege and moved that the Journal of Friday be amended by striking out the vote of Mr. Stockton on the question of his seat ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... contrivance of such plans as would best lead to the effectuation of the end each had proposed to himself. It is a curious fact, that on the very Sunday afternoon on which we have seen Mr. and Mrs. Larkin conversing about the danger and impropriety of Harriet Meadows keeping company with a man like Sanford, their own daughter was actually riding out with Hatfield. In this ride they passed the residence of Mr. Meadows, who, in turn, commented upon the fact with some severity of censure towards ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... the course of Mr. VOORHEES. For his part, he saw no impropriety in selling cadetships or any thing else. What do gentlemen suppose that cadetships exist for, if it is not for the emolument of congressmen? He considered his patronage as a part of his perquisites. This had been the guiding principle of his life, alike ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... we can offer a charmin' variety, Far renowned for larnin' and piety; Still, I'd advance ye, widout impropriety, Father O'Flynn as ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... possessive (genitive) of the neuter hit also—our it. But it came to be thought improper to employ his to denote inanimate things as well as animate. The literature of the 16th and 17th centuries shows a growing sense of this impropriety, and abounds with of it, thereof, her, it, the, and it own in place of his as the possessive of it. The first appearance of the new coinage its is placed in 1598. Long after its introduction many looked askance at its, because of the grammatical blunder it ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... thee not; yet hearken, for the whole truth must be revealed. I say that I have done all that man could do, and as the event proves, not in vain. As for Prudence, I will confess to one impropriety, if it be thy pleasure to call it so, though I meant it not, and whereof thou art in some sense the cause. Knowing thy regard for her, I did speak one day of my hopes for thee, whereat the tears did stand in her eyes, and I was so moved thereat, that I did salute her cheek, but only ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the necessity of drawing away the last drop of milk at every milking; and the better milker the cow, the more necessary this is. What has been said demonstrates, also, the impropriety of holding the milk in cows until the udder is distended much beyond its ordinary size, for the sake of showing its capacity for holding milk—a device to which many dealers in ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... thither, he chose some week-day. On Sunday he always spent a longer or shorter time with the Walthams, frequently having dinner at their house. He hesitated at first to invite the ladies to the Manor; in his uncertainty on social usages he feared lest there might be impropriety in a bachelor giving such an invitation. He appealed to Alfred, who naturally laughed the scruple to scorn, and accordingly Mrs. and Miss Waltham were begged to honour Mr. Mutimer with their company. Mrs. Waltham reflected a little, but accepted. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... have made a sacrifice of his or their personal interest to the interest of the whole. When it is on the part of a body of men or a multitude of individuals taken at random that any such sacrifice is reckoned upon, then it is that in speaking of the plan the term Utopian may without impropriety be applied.' And this is the very kind of sacrifice which must be anticipated by those who so misunderstand the doctrine of evolution as to believe that the world is improved by some mystic and self-acting social discipline, which dispenses with the necessity of ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... difficult to be ruled; on the contrary, the wives of Sherburn, in so doing, comply only with the prevailing custom of the island: the husbands, equally submissive to the ancient and respectable manners of their country, submit, without ever suspecting that there can be any impropriety.... The richest person now in the island owes all his present prosperity and success to the ingenuity of his wife: ... for while he was performing his first cruises, she traded with pins and needles, and kept a school. Afterward she purchased ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... hesitated to reply, lest there should be any impropriety in holding an interview with Mr. Bumble, with closed doors. Mr. Bumble taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold himself, shut it ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... of affairs when Lord Cochrane entered the port. Only five days afterwards, on the 14th of November, 1823, he wrote a bold letter to the Emperor. "My sense of the impropriety of intruding myself on the attention of your Imperial Majesty on any subject unconnected with the official position with which your Majesty has been pleased to honour me," he said, "could only have been overcome by an irresistible desire, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... instructions, upon a special mission to the Prince at Antwerp. That respectable functionary performed his task with credit, going through the usual formalities, and adducing the threadbare arguments in favor of the unlimited oath, with much adroitness and decorum. He mildly pointed out the impropriety of laying down such responsible posts as those which the Prince now occupied at such a juncture. He alluded to the distress which the step must occasion to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... contrary, they were fully convinced, that in case of a sudden war breaking out, the senate and people of Rome would not repose greater confidence in patrician than in plebeian commanders. "Which being the case," said he, "what god or man can deem it an impropriety, if those whom ye have honoured with curule chairs, with the purple bordered gown, with the palm-vest and embroidered robe, with the triumphal crown and laurel, whose houses ye have rendered conspicuous above others, by affixing to them the spoils of conquered enemies, should add to these ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... sandwiches. Sasine, in Scots law, the act of giving legal possession of feudal property, or, colloquially, the deed by which that possession is proved. Sclamber, to scramble. Sculduddery, impropriety, grossness. Session, the Court of Session, the supreme court of Scotland. Shauchling, shuffling, slipshod. Shoo, to chase gently. Siller, money. Sinsyne, since then. Skailing, dispersing. Skelp, slap. Skirling, screaming. Skriegh-o'day, daybreak. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Governor of Gibraltar, that I am informed and believe that the United States Consul, at this place, has, by means of his emissaries, tampered with, and seduced from their allegiance, several of the crew of my ship who have visited the shore on liberty. The impropriety and illegality of such conduct is so manifest that I take it for granted his Excellency will interpose his authority for my protection. Great Britain, having proclaimed a strict neutrality in the war now pending between the United States and Confederate ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... thoughts, no reason to be surprised at her departure. It was humiliating, he supposed, to be thus laying bare his discomfiture to his dependents—he could see that even Knowles was affected by the manifest impropriety of the situation—but no pretext presented itself to his mind, and after another interval of silence he turned slowly toward the door ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... himself for the practice of some particular branch of the healing art, the specialist sees no impropriety in acquainting the public with his ability to relieve certain forms of suffering. He believes that medical men should possess equal rights with other business men, and that any code of medical ethics which would deprive him of any of the sacred ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and Mademoiselle de Verneuil, the natural sister of the King; and while Louis was absorbed by visions of absolute empire, and meditating the destruction of his Protestant subjects, the private circle of the Queen was loud with revelry, and indulging in amusement to the very verge of impropriety. ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... may be referred to other departments, because your Excellency being the Minister for Foreign Affairs, we have understood that we have no right to apply in the first instance to any other. But if we have been misinformed and ill-advised in this, and there is no impropriety in our making immediate application to other Ministers, upon subjects we know to be in their departments, we request your Excellency to give us an intimation of it; and for the future we will avoid giving unnecessary trouble ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... we beheld them, Sarah was sitting in the cooling current of a gutter, with her heels upon the curb (alas! how much did she need a curb!) while Jack, having disposed of his basket, had obtained a post in a public situation, was holding forth on the impropriety of her conduct. ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Satterlee was not at all the ordinary kind of sea captain, to which the Beach (as Apia always alluded to itself) was more than well acquainted. Gin had no attractions for Captain Satterlee, nor did he surround himself with dusky impropriety. He played a straight social game, and lived up to the rules, even to party calls, and finger bowls on his cabin table. He was a tall, thin American of about forty-five, with floorwalker manners, grayish mutton-chop whiskers, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... have devoted themselves to Poetry, would ever have medled with it, if it had been so empty, idle, and frivolous, as some ridiculously morose imagine; who forsooth are better pleas'd with the severity of Philosophy, and her harsh, deform'd impropriety of Expressions. But the judgments of such men are the most contemptible in the world; for when by Poetry mens minds are fashioned to generous {49} Humors, Kindness, and the like: those must needs be strangers to all those ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... studies, and the performance of his duties. There is nothing Pindaric or Shandean here. In all the relations and charities of private life, he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We never heard a single impropriety laid to his charge; and if he has many enemies, few men can boast more numerous or stauncher friends.—The variety and piquancy of his writings form a striking contrast to the mode in which they are produced. He rises early, and writes or reads till breakfast-time. ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... same with that of the woman whom he harnesses to his plough? Is the interest of an Italian the same with that of the daughter whom he devotes to God? The interest of a respectable Englishman may be said, without any impropriety, to be identical with that of his wife. But why is it so? Because human nature is NOT what Mr Mill conceives it to be; because civilised men, pursuing their own happiness in a social state, are not Yahoos fighting ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... from Mutilations or Additions made to them. Hence we derive many Chasms and Incoherences in the Sense and Matter. Scenes were frequently transposed, and shuffled out of their true Place, to humour the Caprice, or suppos'd Convenience, of some particular Actor. Hence much Confusion and Impropriety has attended and embarrass'd the Business and Fable. To these obvious Causes of Corruption it must be added, That our Author has lain under the Disadvantage of having his Errors propagated and multiplied by Time: because, for near ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... appointments that ought to have been left to his successors. Among these appointments was that of John Marshall, his Secretary of State, to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,—one that reflected great credit upon his discernment, in spite of its impropriety, for Marshall's name is one of the greatest in the annals of our judiciary. On the following morning, before the sun had risen, the ex-president was on his way to Braintree, not waiting even for the inauguration ceremonies ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... of a story remote as possible from the occurrences of modern life, suddenly turn up remarks upon the apostolic origin of bishops, or the desirability of written prayers, and the need of a liturgy. The impropriety of their introduction, from a literary point of view, Cooper never had sufficient delicacy of taste to feel. Less excusable were the attacks he made upon those whose religious views differed from ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... a solar plexus, dear reader; and the solar plexus is a great nerve center which lies behind your stomach. I can't be accused of impropriety or untruth, because any book of science or medicine which deals with the nerve-system of the human body will show it to you quite plainly. So don't wriggle or try to look spiritual. Because, willy-nilly, you've got a solar plexus, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... made it the subject of several jests, all of which Miss Bloomer bore with good humour; but when Miss Hopper suggested that the ring might belong to some mean person, and hinted that it was an act of impropriety to wear it, the blood rushed to Miss Bloomer's cheeks; and she clenched her little fist, but for what purpose ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... temper than Lucy's, and once, in the Baths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue their tour. Lucy had said she would join the Vyses—Mrs. Vyse was an acquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and Miss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned suddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained, and, for Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as follows. It had been ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... the forenoon; and although Jack did not attempt to deny that he had seen the recall signal of Mr Sawbridge, yet, as his account went on, the captain became so interested, that at the end of it he quite forgot to point out to Jack the impropriety of not obeying orders. He gave Jack great credit for his conduct, and was also much pleased with that of Mesty. Jack took the opportunity of stating Mesty's aversion to his present employment, and his recommendation was graciously received. Jack also succeeded in obtaining the pardon ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... turn I told the story of the Yankee and the scarabaeus which I had heard that day. As I brought out with emphasis the "all-firedest, biggest bug," I noticed that a frost fell on the mirth, silence reigned for a moment interrupted only by gasps from the ladies. What impropriety had I committed? Presently a little man behind the coffee-urn at the far end of the table, whom I had heard was a bit of a scientist, piped up: "Perhaps the Professor doesn't know that in England, when we talk about bugs, we mean that cimex which makes intolerable even the most comfortable bed." ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Mannering, I wish I could stop, for I have incredible pain in telling the rest of my story; although I am sure I can warn you against any intentional impropriety on the part of my temporary ward, Julia Mannering. But I must still earn my college nickname of Downright Dunstable. In one word, then, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... matter to persuade grown persons of the impropriety of attending fairs, who have been accustomed to it when children; but children are easily persuaded from it; for if they are properly entertained at school, they will not have the least desire to go to ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... apparitors, or other attendants, to bring him pipes and tobacco, and some liquor into the vestry for his refreshment after the fatigue of confirmation. And this coming to Mr. Disney's ears, he forbad them being brought thither, and with a becoming spirit remonstrated with the Archbishop upon the impropriety of his conduct, at the same time telling his Grace that his vestry should not be converted ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... prohibiting its extension beyond the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, north latitude, in all the territory belonging to the republic. This great and important work has unquestionably been accomplished by the active labors of those who have exerted themselves to show the impropriety of continuing to tolerate the system, and the feasibility of its ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... said anything. We sat about that big round table as if assembled for a conference and looked at each other in a sort of fatuous consternation. I would have ended by laughing outright if I had not been saved from that impropriety ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... boldly forward, deterred by no feeling of impropriety, and looked over the little lady's shoulder at the ...
— Three People • Pansy
... that King Ferdinand of Spain, who esteemed it a good work to expatriate useful and profitable subjects—Jews, and even Moorish families—could much less be guilty of an impropriety in laying hands on the mischievous progeny of Gypsies. The edict for their extermination, was published in the year 1492. But instead of passing the boundaries, they only slunk into hiding-places, and shortly after appeared in as ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... a great deal of nonsense talked about the wickedness or at least the impropriety of Greenwich Village—and some of the talk is by people who ought to know better. The Village is, to be sure, entirely unconventional and incurably romantic and dramatic in its tastes. It is appallingly honest, dangerously young in spirit and it is rather too intense sometimes, ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... impropriety of habitual concealment may be further illustrated. An individual who endeavors to conceal the business in which he is engaged, or the place and mode of carrying it on, exposes himself to the suspicion of his fellow-men. ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... be confounded with the obstreperous conceit of ages of mannerism, for they, out of vanity, introduce the fleeting modes and fashion of the day into art, because to them everything like noble simplicity seems boorish and rude. The latter impropriety is now abolished: but, on the other hand, our poets and artists, if they would hope for our approbation, must, like servants, wear the livery of distant centuries and foreign nations. We are everywhere at home ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... appointment—shewed him into M. Derville's private business-rooms, and left him there. Bertrand seated himself, fell asleep after awhile, woke up about ten o'clock considerably sobered, and quite alive to the absurd impropriety of the application he had tipsily determined on, and was about to leave the place, when M. Derville arrived. The ship-broker's surprise and anger at finding Hector Bertrand in his house were extreme, and his only reply to the intruder's stammering explanation, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... because nobody wants to bother his head with thinking; or else it is a vehement discussion, in which dogmatic assertion does duty for argument and loudness for force. In either case it rests and stimulates the tired men, while the drink refreshes their throats, and it has no more necessary impropriety than the drawing-room talk of the well-to-do. In this intercourse men who do not read the papers get an inkling of the news of the day, those who have no books come into contact with other minds, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... up at the portrait of Dr. Flavel in gown and bands which hung over the fireplace, straightened her gown upon her knees, and pushed it forward over her feet so as to cover them altogether—a mute protest against the impropriety of the scene she had partly described. Mr. Broad inwardly would have liked her to go on; but he always wore his white neckerchief, except when he was in bed, and he was still the Reverend John Broad, although nobody but his wife was with him. He therefore refrained, but after ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... archdeacon; the modesty of the bride expressed by a veil of the most expensive Valenciennes, and the robes of the bridesmaids designed by the perfectest of Parisian artists, and looped up with stuffed robins or other such tender rarities;—think with what sense of hitherto unheard-of impropriety, the British public must have received a picture of a marriage, in which the bride was only crowned with flowers,—at which the bridesmaids danced barefoot,—and in which nothing was known, or even conjecturable, respecting the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... eternal values far above the victors of tomorrow or yesterday and which are beyond all the rest and throw light on the way above the smoke of battle. Clerambault had allowed himself to be too long blinded by this smoke; he could not plunge into a fresh fight; but in this short-sighted world it is an impropriety, almost a fault to see more clearly ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... prohibit its representatives from carrying away the Negro and to deliver Francis to Lott. Notifying Washington, June 14, 1783, of their progress, the commissioners reminded him that Sir Guy Carleton intimated an impropriety in the claim, as the property was not suggested to be in danger of being sent away. "This left room," said the commissioners, "for an idea that possibly property about to be sent away would be restored ... and we conceive it is now reduced to a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... much, to the word Inconvenience, because that though the Inconvenience of calling the distinct Substances, mention'd in the Proposition Elements or Principles, be not very great, yet that it is an Impropriety of Speech, and consequently in a matter of this moment not to be altogether overlook'd, You will perhaps think, as well as I, by that time you shall have heard the following part of my Discourse, by which you will best ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... the credit of Dickens that although he wrote so much and salted so freely, he never approached any kind of impropriety. The only weak point in his humour is that he borrows too much from his imagination, and too little ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... arose. Through a perfect control and sweetness of manner the most careless observer might have read displeasure. "Of course," she said, enunciating each word with smoothly modulated distinctness, "in America there could be no impropriety in a young girl's driving alone, but I am sorry you did not send for me. Your son left the room at the same time—he has ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... "I see no impropriety at all," cried Suwanee. "Yours and mamma's rooms are but a few yards away, and you can listen to all we say if you wish. If your colonel was sick and wounded at the North wouldn't you like some woman ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... a good deal of a slight matter, to tell the internal conflicts in the heart of a quiet person something more than juvenile and something less than senile, as to whether he should be guilty of an impropriety, and, if he were, whether he would get caught in his indiscretion. And yet the memory of the kiss that Margaret of Scotland gave to Alain Chartier has lasted four hundred years, and put it into the head of many an ill-favored poet, whether Victoria or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the eyes of holy women!—spying lest any impropriety occur! That's the proposal, I understand. Of all the vile and ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nothing but ribaldry, profanation,' and 'all licence of offence to God and man.' Their petulancy, he continues, 'hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore;' for by them 'the filth of the time is uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked metaphors, with brothelry able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy to turn the blood of ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... through the whole debate, which lasted several days, without uttering one uncharitable, scornful, or angry word, with the exception of a single phrase in his last speech; and even that he meekly and generously recalled, after I had satisfied him of its impropriety. I never forgot the conduct of that dear good man, and his Christian meekness and forbearance had a good effect on ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker |
