"Impropriety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confidentially advised her to remain single. This letter, however, was not sent, for the Comtesse de Listomere-Landon, aunt of Julie d'Aiglemont by marriage, having found out about it, discouraged such an impropriety on the part of her niece. Unlike her friend, Madame de Wimphen married happily. She retained the confidence of Madame d'Aiglemont, and was present, indeed, at the important interview between Julie and Lord Grenville. After M. de Wimphen's arrival ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... 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, here is ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to a strict recital of fact, not rumors," he interjected; and the downy-lipped representative of the Federal Government said nothing about the privileges of a witness, or the impropriety of a special pleader opening his mouth at ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... 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. He writes or reads ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... of the War Office, I am to exert over them (that's the government word) exert over them full authority; and if any one behaves towards me with the least impropriety, or neglects my orders, he is to be confined ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... make a party. It is easy for that party to heat themselves with imaginary grievances. It is easy for them to oppress a man poorer than themselves; and natural to assert the dignity of riches, by persisting in oppression. The argument which attempts to prove the impropriety of restoring him to the school, by alledging that he has lost the confidence of the people, is not the subject of juridical consideration; for he is to suffer, if he must suffer, not for their judgement, but for his own actions. It may ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... absurd action, that man is not only bound to render instant and unanswering obedience, but he would refuse at his peril. And if, having obeyed, he should then complain to the Captain, and the Captain, in his own mind, should be thoroughly convinced of the impropriety, perhaps of the illegality of the order, yet, in nine cases out of ten, he would not publicly reprimand the midshipman, nor by the slightest token admit before the complainant that, in this particular thing, the midshipman had ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... nothing but a conscientious devotion to abstract justice would induce me to touch upon. What law, or what precedent, can be cited to authorize a woman to appear as an advocate in a court of justice and usurp the offices and prerogatives of a man? I will not dwell upon the impropriety of such conduct; but on my honor, as a member of the bar, the behavior of Portia was outrageous. This young female, not content with 'cavorting' around the country in a loose and perspicuous style, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sustaining his master, with the other applied the cordial. Don Benito restored, the black withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but dutifully remaining within call of a whisper. Such discretion was here evinced as quite wiped away, in the visitor's eyes, any blemish of impropriety which might have attached to the attendant, from the indecorous conferences before mentioned; showing, too, that if the servant were to blame, it might be more the master's fault than his own, since, when left to himself, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... making 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, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 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 ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... with a pack; I have known her deal four honours, nine trumps to herself three times in the course of one rubber, and not cut a higher card to her adversary than a three during the whole evening. Sensible of her talents, and of the impropriety of hiding them in a napkin, she chose Bath, independence, and her own skill in preference to a country parsonage, conjugal control, and limited pin-money. Her caro sposo meanwhile retired to his living; and now blesses himself on his escape from false deals, odd tricks, and every honour but ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... looked up in some alarm. The term suggested anything from a court-martial to some vague impropriety. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... advances to Corbin as a youthful convert's religious zeal. But now that her girlish enthusiasm was spent, and the revival itself had proved as fleeting an excitement as the old "Tournament of Love and Beauty," which it had supplanted, she preferred to believe that she enjoyed the fascinating impropriety because it was the actual result of her religious freedom. Perhaps she had a vague idea that Corbin's conversion would expiate her present preference for dress and dancing. She had certainly never flirted with him; ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The weather proving calm, I was enabled to fulfil my engagement, and a merry time we had of it. So pleasant did I find this sort of life, that I began to persuade myself that there would be no outrageous impropriety in acceding to O'Driscoll's proposal to lengthen our voyage. Two days thus passed pleasantly away, during which we made but little progress in our voyage. We might possibly by carrying a greater press of sail have made more, but we were, as I have ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... meanwhile on which Mian had neglected to offer sacrifices to Chang-Chung, the deity interested in drugs and healing substances, nor had she wavered in her firm resolve to bring Ling back to an ordinary existence even when the attendants had protested that the person in question might without impropriety be sent to the Restoring Establishment of the Last Chance, so little did his hope of recovering rest upon the ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... impropriety inherent in the very nature of waltzing, there was not a word, look, or gesture of immorality or impropriety. The dresses were all decent; and if there was vice, it was vice masked under the guise ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... give but one Instance of this Impropriety of [Thought [12]] in Homer, and at the same time compare it with an Instance of the same Nature, both in Virgil and Milton. Sentiments which raise Laughter, can very seldom be admitted with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... theatre did not represent the street, but a front area belonging to the house, where the altar stood on which sacrifices were offered to the household gods. Here, therefore, the women, notwithstanding the retired life they led among the Greeks, even those who were unmarried, might appear without any impropriety. Neither was it impossible for them, if necessary, to give a view of the interior of the house; and this was effected, as we shall presently see; by ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... cricket—disregarding many other contributory factors. We did not play very much, but we "practised" sedulously at a net in the paddock with the gardener and the doctor's almost grown-up sons. I thought missing a possible catch was an impropriety. I studiously maintained the correct attitude, alert and elastic, while I was fielding. Moreover I had a shameful secret, that I did not really know where a ball ought to pitch. I wasn't clear about ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... 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 a friendship alike creditable to the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... table towards the offender, said in his shrillest tone—"Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" and rose from his chair. It was really a stroke of genius thus both to terminate and to rebuke the impropriety without violating the decorum due from host ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... not imagine that there was any impropriety in the Prince and Princess walking together in the palace garden, and because Giglio kissed Angelica's hand in a polite manner. In the first place they are cousins; next, the Queen is walking in the garden too (you cannot see her, for she happens to be ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to despair. He could not imagine how he had been so foolish as to trust this man. He only wanted one thing, and that was to get to Nastasia Philipovna's, even at the cost of a certain amount of impropriety. But now the scandal threatened to be more than he had bargained for. By this time Ardalion Alexandrovitch was quite intoxicated, and he kept his companion listening while he discoursed eloquently and pathetically on subjects of all kinds, interspersed ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Conti 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
... be forgotten. "Few writers have attained a larger share of temporary celebrity," he admits. "This was the triumph of wit and eloquence of style. To the age next succeeding it is probable that her name will be nearly unknown; for the calamities of her life so miserably prove the impropriety of her doctrines that it becomes a point of charity to close the volume treating of the Rights of Women with mingled ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... combine 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, in ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... commit so gross an impropriety as to linger with Mr. Rollin in "Grandma's kitchen," which we had reached, and through whose broad, uncurtained windows the moonlight was pouring in with ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... seemed to be good policy for Washington to make tours. The notes made by Washington in his diary indicate that the project was his own notion, but both Hamilton and Knox cordially approved it and Madison "saw no impropriety" in it. Therefore, shortly after the recess of the first session of Congress, Washington started on a trip through the Northern States, pointedly avoiding Rhode Island, then a foreign country. It was during this tour that a ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... severely, "I trust that the Countess de Laborde will see the impropriety of her presence here. Monsieur L'Abbe, will you give the countess ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... the unattainable. To glide reputably into a grey wig had been for years their dearest desire. As each saw herself getting older and older, saw her complexion fade and the crow's-feet gather, and her eyes grow hollow, and her teeth fall out and her cheeks fall in, so did the impropriety of her brown wig strike more and more humiliatingly to her soul. But how should a poor old woman ever accumulate enough for a new wig? One might as well cry for the moon—or a set of false teeth. Unless, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... commanding a corps, could take a pleasure in exposing such sentiments as he had heard from Colonel M. Colonel Kempt, who naturally feels much interested for his young cousin, (Mrs. Murray,) and who really deserves and merits it for her own sake, was much mortified and vexed at Murray's impropriety.[28] ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... conducted, and that not only no appearance of heavenly notification was presented to him, but that he was struck with lightning and burnt to ashes, together with his house, through the anger of Jupiter, exasperated at the impropriety of the ceremony. Tullus reigned two-and-thirty ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... who would shrink from being guilty of a great impropriety, should ever prolong his visits beyond ten o'clock, unless it be the common custom of the family to remain up and to entertain visitors to a later hour, and the visit paid is a family one and not a tete-a-tete. Two hours is quite long enough for a call; and the young man will give ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... under way, I once more cried and begged to be released; and now, being fortunately in the way of their hoisting the sails, they released me. When I was let down, I spoke to one Mr. Cox, a carpenter, whom I knew on board, on the impropriety of this conduct. He also knew the doctor, and the good opinion he ever had of me. This man then went to the captain, and told him not to carry me away in that manner; that I was the doctor's steward, who regarded me very highly, and would resent this usage when he should come to know ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... respect of his superiors and classfellows, but he now unexpectedly found himself in possession of a handsome sum of money, the fruit of the honest industry of his parents. The true Catholic training which Paul received from his very infancy taught him the impropriety of immoderate joy or gladness, and the severe trials of the last few years had chastened his naturally hilarious and pleasant mind to a temper of habitual calm and reserve bordering on melancholy. It must be confessed, in this ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... their education on this point is not yet completed. A slight indication of the same defect in education is the profusion of endearing pet names, which we find in the published catalogues of girl students. If the girls themselves do not realize the impropriety of thus publishing to a world of careless strangers, the names which family affection has bestowed upon them, should not the teachers who compile the catalogues, direct and overrule their uneducated taste? It is only necessary to imagine the catalogue ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... to them will be equally simple to their child-readers, and write as nearly as possible in the style of "The Rambler." Such a book is "The Percy Family," whose author is guilty of an additional impropriety in putting his ponderous sentences into the mouth of a child not ten years old. Another and more numerous class, evidently piquing themselves not a little upon avoiding this error, fall into another by fancying it necessary to write down to their young ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... against whatever is gained. In this case, not only the idea, but all the practical details came from the boy himself and the little band of enthusiasts that gathered round him. Indeed, one feels a sense of impropriety in describing what was essentially not our work, but his. However, it was the fine flower of political education, and as such may fitly close this chapter. "Houses," after all, and not "forms," are the natural social units that compose a public school, and a scheme ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... say I've behaved with shocking impropriety—immodestly and all that. You don't, do you? I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things. Perhaps I've gone too straight this time—but ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... people always there, too. There is the old lady who thinks the lecture improper; it doesn't matter how moral it is, she's out for impropriety and she can find it anywhere. Then there is another very terrible man against whom all American lecturers in England should be warned—the man who is leaving on the 9 P.M. train. English railways running into suburbs and near-by towns have a schedule which is expressly ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... in the greatest distress for money, was, in the course of that week, exulting in his success, boasting of the money he had earned by that which he had done; and on being expostulated with on the impropriety of that mode of getting money, said, "If I had not ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... he had, not seen the impropriety of those sittings to Marien? Oh, yes! No doubt he was an old friend of the family, but that did not prevent all these deceptions, all these disguises, and all the other follies which he had sanctioned—he—Jacqueline's ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... suspicion. It is curious how we reverse the fashions of our ancestors. We flaunt in shameless abandon what they veiled in blushing modesty; but we make up for it by hiding what they had no hesitation in displaying. Our teeth, for example. It is considered the depth of impropriety to show your teeth nowadays, except in the sense in which actresses show them on post cards. But our forefathers were not afraid of showing their teeth, and they made themselves feared and honoured and loved in consequence. Yes, feared and honoured and loved; for ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... silly of me having Oliver to dinner here alone—" said Mrs. Severance with the air of one ready to apologize for a very minor impropriety. "Silly and wrong—but Louise was coming too until she telephoned about Jane Ellen's little upset—and I thought we could have such fun getting supper together with Elizabeth away. I get a little tired of always entertaining my friends in restaurants, Sargent, especially when I ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... side, of the feeling of our moral power—of this superior faculty which fears no obstacle, no limit, and which subdues spiritually that even to which our physical forces give way. The object of the sublime thwarts, then, our physical power; and this contrariety (impropriety) must necessarily excite a displeasure in us. But it is, at the same time, an occasion to recall to our conscience another faculty which is in us—a faculty which is even superior to the objects before which our imagination ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... through mist. Here were colors of blood and fire, tints of morning haze and evening glow, noon-blue and starred night-purple, sea-gray and field-green,—most wonderful thing!... I suppose that the child of a military or naval officer might, without impropriety, be clad in such a robe. But then—the unspeakable ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... the bonnet to an infinitesimal fraction it will probably in the near future be dispensed with altogether. A lady in England made the experiment of going to the established church without her bonnet, but it created such an agitation in the congregation that the Bishop wrote her a letter on the impropriety and requested her to come with her head covered. She refused. He then called and labored with her as to the sinfulness of the proceedings, and at parting commanded her either to cover her bead or stay away ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... next 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
... France with a stock of Oriental ideas impeding circulation in her mind, as her nargileh, her ostrich eggs and all the rest of her Tunisian trash impeded it in her apartments, protested against what she called impropriety, cowardice, and declared that she would never step foot inside "that creature's" doors. Immediately a slight retrograde movement took place among Mesdames Guggenheim, Caraiscaki, and other bales of finery, as always happens in Paris whenever obstinate resistance from some ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... for females and children are always separate from the others, and are frequently in a building by itself. Here with no look-out from windows on the passing world, the news of which it would be an impropriety in a Circassian to question his wives about, they ply their tasks, spinning, weaving, embroidering, and knitting silver lace in an obscurity illumined by scanty rays of sunlight. The walls of these apartments are hung with dresses, not with arms. Strung also upon lines across the room are various ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... first distinction of family, rank, and personal virtues, is under such concern on account of Major Ackland, her husband, wounded and a prisoner in your hands, that I cannot refuse her request to commit her to your protection. Whatever general impropriety there may be in persons of my situation and yours to solicit favours, I cannot see the uncommon perseverance in every female grace, and the exaltation of character of this lady, and her very hard fortune, without testifying that your attentions ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... watch with more anxiety and carefulness than laymen do the relations that exist between pastors and the women of their flock. I do not understand this as a statement that there is any general looseness of conduct among the clergy at all; but as one which covers a kind of impropriety for which there is no name and no punishment. There are women whose affection for their husbands is uprooted through their intercourse with their pastors. There shall never be an improper word spoken; there shall never be a deed committed that would bring ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... 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
... acquaintance is purely professional. A fashionable and popular physician would be swamped with wedding-cards if that were the custom. If, however, one wishes to show gratitude and remembrance, there would be no impropriety in sending cards ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... come down from Heaven, to walk the streets in that garb." Every one laughed at the little girl's remark, and at Lady Tansi's hyperbole; and there lacked not back-biters, who thought his appearing in arms at the palace was an act of great impropriety; but others excused him, saying that it was a very natural and pardonable act of vanity on the part of a gallant ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nothing more said about the shoes, and I was soon again at my ease, although Miss O'Conor did say something about the impropriety of Larry walking about in his stocking feet. The ladies however soon withdrew,—to my sorrow, for I was getting on swimmingly with Fanny; and then we gentlemen gathered round the fire and filled ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... a scene, and, above all, her own emotions, might be, was highly endowed with that exquisite delicacy which is imprinted in the female heart, to give warning of the slightest approach to impropriety in a ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... men, between the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity of their motives. Polonius is not a fool, but he makes himself so. His folly, whether in his actions or speeches, comes under the head of impropriety of intention. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... 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
... realise the impropriety of the situation; and that very same evening he found an excellent place for her with friends on ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... writers on grammar, admitting the second-future tense into the indicative mood, reject it from the subjunctive."—Id. "After the same conjunction, to use both the indicative and the subjunctive mood in the same sentence, and under the same circumstances, seems to be a great impropriety."—Id. "The true distinction between the subjunctive and the indicative mood in this tense."—Id. "I doubt of his capacity to teach either the French or the English language."—Chazotte cor. "It is as necessary ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... dissension &c. 713; conflict &c. (opposition) 708; bickering, clashing, misunderstanding, wrangle. disparity, mismatch, disproportion; dissimilitude, inequality; disproportionateness &c. adj[obs3].; variance, divergence, repugnance. unfitness &c. adj.; inaptitude, impropriety; inapplicability &c. adj.; inconsistency, inconcinnity[obs3]; irrelevancy &c. (irrelation) 10[obs3]. misjoining[obs3], misjoinder[obs3]; syncretism[obs3], intrusion, interference; concordia discors[Lat]. fish out of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... most of the criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, without impropriety, by two sentinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window, without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is seasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... others the major-domo, a grave personage, already mentioned, whose gold chain and white wand intimated his authority. At the appearance of this dignitary, the strife was for the present appeased. He embraced, however, so favourable an opportunity, to read Roland Graeme a shrewd lecture on the impropriety of his deportment to his fellow-menials, and to assure him, that, should he communicate this fray to his master, (who, though now on one of his frequent expeditions, was speedily expected to return,) which but for respect to ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... himself was Adlerstein Wildschloss that all this did not stagger him; for, even if he had believed more than he did of the old lady's story, there would have been no sense of intrusion or impropriety in such a visit to the mother. Indeed, had Christina been living in the civilized world, her chamber would have been hung with black cloth, black velvet would have enveloped her up to the eyes, and the blackest of cradles would have stood ready for her ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discussed so extensively, that I deem it unnecessary to devote much space to it here. Nevertheless, as I have had frequent opportunities of noticing the disease under all circumstances; in all parts of the city, and in the country; among the wealthy and the poor, I may without much impropriety offer, in a few words, the result of my observations and reflections on this head. I must unhesitatingly declare, that, establishing my opinion on what I have seen, I am led to the conviction, that the yellow fever is not a contagious disease; that it never has been carried hither ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... lost all coolness of judgment and overlooked the numerous obstacles to his scheme. The rapid pace at which he rode, contributed perhaps to keep up the whirl and confusion of his ideas, and he arrived at the door of Cordova's quarters, without the impropriety and positive absurdity of his application at such a moment having once ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... place the character of Judge Barbour, now deceased, in a very bad and even ludicrous light, the events in mind are nevertheless a part of the history of our early days in California, and I see no impropriety in complying with your request. The facts are as follows: You and I were walking together along D street in the city of Marysville, when we met Judge Barbour, who, after using some offensive and insolent remarks, gave you a verbal challenge to meet him in the way resorted to by gentlemen ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... tedious to trace the steps and winding ways by which Abel Bones led his victim from one piece of impropriety to another—always concealing his real character, and playing the role of an unfortunate man, willing to work, but unable to find employment—until he almost had ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... many excellent Wits, as 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 good qualites, who hate, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... But I said nothing. None of us 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 - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... attempt were sanctioned for the one, the others must throw away their knapsacks and take their firelocks. As Mr. Pellew still clung to his proposal, the General took him aside, and having represented the impossibility of drawing off the army, convinced him of the impropriety of permitting the attempt by ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... regard which can alone bind together the parts of this great fabric. It ought to be our wish, as it is our duty, not only to forbear this style of outrage ourselves, but to make every one as sensible as we can of the impropriety and unworthiness of the tempers which give rise to it, and which designing men are laboring with such malignant industry to diffuse amongst us. It is our business to counteract them, if possible,—if possible, to awake ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... legislator must be acknowledged to have possessed great abilities and merit; yet his fine-spun system proved in effect useless and impracticable. Several attempts were afterwards made to amend these fundamental constitutions, but all to little purpose; the inhabitants, sensible of their impropriety, and how little they were applicable to their circumstances, neither by themselves, nor by their representatives in assembly, ever gave their assent to them as a body of laws, and therefore they obtained not the force of fundamental ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Chen, governor of the district of Wu, in a memorial praying that the erection of cremation furnaces might thenceforth be prohibited, dwelt upon the impropriety of burning the remains of the deceased, for whose obsequies a multitude of observances were prescribed by the religious rites. He further exposed the fallacy of the excuse alleged for the practice, to wit, that burning the dead ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... with eyes distended and panting breath, astonished Mr. Colquhoun and her mother by the unusual impropriety of bursting open the dining-room door at dinner-time. In a moment her father was on his feet and out of the door, followed by the butler and footman. A presentiment of how it had all happened flashed upon him ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... Miss Ethel's feats at the assembly, old Lady Kew went over to advise her granddaughter, and to give her a little timely warning about the impropriety of flirtations; above all, with such men as are to be found at watering-places, persons who are never seen elsewhere in society. "Remark the peculiarities of Kew's temper, who never flies into a passion like you and me, my dear," said the old lady ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there is more real greatness and genuine magnanimity in acknowledging an error, than in persisting in it. Miserable must that state be, whose rulers, rather than give up a little punctilio, would endanger the lives of thousands of its subjects in a quarrel, the injustice and impropriety of which is universally acknowledged. If the Americans wish for anything more than is set forth in the address of the last Congress to the King and people of Great Britain—if independence is their aim—by ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... been acquired. This circumstance would have mattered little if he had been accredited to some dissolute court, such as that in which the Marchioness of Montespan had lately been dominant. But there was an obvious impropriety in sending him on an embassy rather of a spiritual than of a secular nature to a pontiff of primitive austerity. The Protestants all over Europe sneered; and Innocent, already unfavourably disposed to the English government, considered the compliment which had been ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... words were quietly put forth in the darkness, without a notion of impropriety, Sophia was struck with the fact that they coincided with her own estimate of the state of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... by the importance of this question, he said many things which cannot be set before the eyes of a generation sensitive to plainness of speech, and only tolerant of it in suggestions of impropriety. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... he was aware of the brittleness, the unpleasantness, the profundity of what was immediately before him, how to deal with poor Winny and her innocent enormity; the impropriety, as it had been presented to him, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... ere they had got a dozen yards from the ship Captain Guy felt the impropriety of permitting them thus ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... 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, could only have been overcome by an irresistible desire, under existing circumstances, to contribute to the service ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... who, understanding that you do not come up till the 17th, returns to Bath, as he was waiting here only to see you. He pressed so much to know his successor, that I thought there could be no impropriety in telling him in confidence, especially as he will see Fitzherbert at Bath, and may there settle with him the variety of private arrangements which must be ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... you think so, it is. But not for these girls, who play the game with never a thought of impropriety and with no shock to their modesty. Much depends on how ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... should he not have said so? What object could he have in writing an elaborate work to support a theory which he knew all the time to be untenable? The impropriety of such a course, unless the work was, like Buffon's, transparently ironical, could only be matched by its fatuousness, or indeed by the folly of one who should assign action so motiveless to any one out of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... stage of revelation. But it was not disproportioned to the offence, and it was not the cruelty of a martinet who avenged ceremonial lapses with penalties which should have been kept for moral offences. The surface of the sin was ceremonial impropriety: the heart of it was flouting Jehovah and His law. It was better that two men should die, and the whole nation perish not, as it would have done if their example had been followed. It is mercy to trample out the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a moment, dimly conscious of the impropriety there was in the indulgence when so many poor devils were in such sore distress, but he was so knocked up with fatigue, so terribly hungry and thirsty! He said not a word, but suddenly making up his mind, gave one bound and landed in the room, pushing before him Pache, who, equally silent, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the McIntyre residence for the fifth time, and wondered what had become of the faithful Grimes; the butler was usually the soul of promptness, and to keep a caller waiting on the doorstep would, in his category, rank as the height of impropriety. As Kent again raised his hand toward the bell, the door swung open suddenly and Barbara beckoned ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... fear but everything to gain by accepting the interview; it was quite impossible he could descend from the pedestal on which madame de Cadignan had placed him. Neither Blondet nor Rastignac saw any impropriety in attributing this love to the princess; she whose past had given rise to so many anecdotes could very well stand that lesser calumny. Together they began to relate to d'Arthez the adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse: ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... slavery was agitated among them; many difficulties occurred, but they were all settled—and, they thought, effectually. They agreed then, on the propriety of giving up runaway slaves, unanimously. Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, "saw no more impropriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or servant than a horse!" (Madison's Papers.) This was then considered a compromise between the North and South. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster—the mantle of their illustrious fathers ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... 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 to drag everything themselves ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... latterly disapproved vehemently of his proceedings, and had therefore taken to snubbing his old friend Wildney, in whose favor Eric seemed to have an infatuation, and who was the means of involving him in every kind of impropriety and mischief. So that night Duncan, hearing of what was intended, sat in the next study, and Eric, with Bull, Wildney, Graham, and Pietrie, had the room to themselves. Several of them were lower boys still, but they came to the studies after bed-time, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... minutes to his dissertation on the impropriety of young ladies playing poker in the smoking-room, then she ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... and at the same time so thoroughly courteous, about the old gentleman's address that Miss Stansfield could not be offended with him; while his age and bearing prevented her feeling that there was any impropriety in her permitting him to be her companion on the public road till she should reach the drive-gate leading up to her home. She therefore bowed her assent, and the two ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... the impropriety of long continued suckling, it will, perhaps, be proper to state my opinion as to the period when this process should terminate. As a general rule, at nine months after birth the child ought to be entirely weaned; and in no instance should he ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... reform. In France to-day, the Republican party is made up of clans, each taking the name of its chief. There are Ferryists and Clementists, as there were Gambettists; and the Government of the day is putting forth all its strength to check the drift over of what I suppose I may without impropriety call the Republican residuum into Boulangism. Here in Amiens the tide seems to be too strong for the authorities at Paris, and for that matter throughout the department of the Somme. At the election nearly ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... took place, the coalition government was sustained, and the Liberals came into the assembly with a majority. Mr. Howe was elected speaker of the assembly, though an executive councillor—without salary; but he and others began to recognise the impropriety of one man occupying such positions, and in a later session a resolution was passed against the continuance of what was really an un-British and unconstitutional practice. It was also an illustration of the ignorance that ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... at every movement of the child in the pew, dreading some patent and open impropriety which should bring scandal on her government! This was the more to be feared, as the first effort to initiate the youthful neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had proved anything but a success,—insomuch ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... conscience. He was immediately deprived of a pension which his great age and his long services rendered due to him. The protege of the authorities failed; and, at the time, this result was attributed to the activity with which I enlightened the members of the Academy as to the impropriety ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... and forwards through the room with short quick steps. "It only wants five days to Christmas Day," continued Mrs Proudie, "and something must be done at once. I say nothing as to the propriety or impropriety of his being out on bail, as it is no affair of ours. When I heard that he had been bailed by a beneficed clergyman of this diocese, of course I knew where to look for the man who would act with so much impropriety. Of course I was not surprised when I found that the person belonged ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... express yourself more properly, my son," said Mrs. Preston. "I shall endeavor to impress upon his mind the impropriety of his conduct." ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... an 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 ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... path, if on foot, or alight, if on horseback, and remain standing until he has passed. He must at the same time take off his slippers. He also must take off his slippers when he enters a house. Should he fail to do this, it would be considered a great impropriety. ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... concealed in the place Faustina indicated. Malfi answered that he did not alight, but he looked over the wall and saw nobody. During the course of this conversation they had turned their horses' heads, and were riding back towards the church, Malfi talking about Ripa's affair, remarking on the impropriety of deferring his execution so long; Mendez more than usually silent and serious, and the servant riding beside them, when, as they approached the spot, they saw coming towards them on foot a man, whom they all three recognized as Antonio Guerra, the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... less pleased at the races in the Bois de Boulogne, which he visited the next day. No inconsiderable part of Mercy's disapproval of such gatherings had been founded on the impropriety of gentlemen appearing in the queen's presence in top-boots and leather breeches, instead of in court dress; and the emperor's displeasure appears to have been chiefly excited by the hurry and want of stately order which were inseparable from the excitement of a race-course, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Pickwick, my dear Sir, excuse me—I shall be happy to receive any private suggestions of yours, as AMICUS CURIAE, but you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this case, with such an AD CAPTANDUM argument as the offer of half a guinea. Really, my dear Sir, really;' and the little man took an argumentative pinch of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to say, my lord, that the fellow is as obstinate as a mule. I felt the impropriety of introducing him, personally, to your lordship; but as he insisted he had affairs that would deeply interest you, my lord, I could not take upon me to say, what would be agreeable to your lordship, or what not; and so I was bold ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... emotions, spoke with such candor, judgment and authority that the men present whispered together, and seemed almost inclined to think that they had committed a shameful indiscretion in suspecting so gallant an officer and so perfect a gentleman of any impropriety, on the mere word of a strange woman, who was certainly not ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... against in the matter. To be sure it was wrong—according to all rules of morals, it was necessary to admit this; but not more wrong, not so much wrong, as most other men had been. And, granting the impropriety of that first step, he had nothing to reproach himself with afterwards. In that respect he knew he had behaved both liberally and honourably, though he had been deceived. But how—how—good heavens!—explain this to Lucy? In the silence of her ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... this ogre, 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 she would have ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... that he would get caught in a trap, or killed by some cat, or fall into some great danger, 'And, (added she,) what should I do, Silket, left with these four helpless little mice to provide for?' Silket immediately saw the impropriety of his conduct, and he never spoiled any more of good Mrs. Ball's linen, though he often came in the way of it. The poor old lady was greatly disturbed at the misfortune which had befallen her best muslin apron, and threatened to have the ratcatcher's dogs and ferrets to hunt the garden and the ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill
... obviously 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 ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... between them. Maurice was hurt: she had shown too openly the small value she set on his opinion. In addition to this, he was disagreeably affected by her craving for excitement at any cost. To his mind, there was more than a touch of impropriety in the proceeding; it was just as if a mourner of a few months' standing should suddenly discard his mourning, and with it all the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... still esteem it an error in the accomplished Shakespeare that he introduced a game of billiards into his portrayal of Queen Cleopatra's court; and the impropriety had been equal had I linked the extreme of any passion with an age and circle wherein abandonment to the emotions was adjudged bucolic, nay, Madam, the Eumenides were very terrifying at Delphi, no doubt, but deck them with paint, patch, and panniers, send them howling among the beau monde ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of mathematicians. Marquess Scriso, who was the first person to discover this singular talent, is about, with several other persons of distinction in the city, to solicit the aid of Government in the education of the child, every one being fully aware of the impropriety of subjecting him to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... book is in the hands of the women God of chance leads them into temptation and adversity Historian, who is a kind of inferior realist I do not think any man ought to live by an art If he has not enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading Impropriety if not indecency promises literary success Literature beautiful only through the intelligence Literature has no objective value Literature is Business as well as Art Man is strange to himself as long as he lives Men read the newspapers, but our women read the books ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... July 3 is at hand. I regret the necessity of informing you that it is an impropriety for an officer of the Army to address the President through a printed circular.[452] Under the laws for ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... be the last, the very last, to reflect upon my mother's sister in general conversation; but Doctor Stedman being our family physician as well as our lifelong friend, and Cousin Homer one of the family, I may without impropriety, I trust, dwell on a point which distresses me in our venerable relation. Aunt Marcia is—I grieve to use a ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... from laughing at the comical figure John must have made when flying over Bob's head; and even Mr. Martin, though he tried to look grave, found it difficult to keep his countenance while he represented to him the impropriety and hazard of his late conduct. Little Marion, who had come out to the door to see the pony, was the only person that seemed to enter into John's feelings. She sidled up to him, and said, "never mind, John, Mr. Martin is not very angry, and you are not hurt; but," ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... her heart, and, as usual, when any violent emotion 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 of her behavior. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ought to conduct himself in the street, or indeed in life generally, than he was in a drawing-room; and he might be seen greeting passers-by, carriages, and anything that occurred with a malicious smile which absolved his subsequent behaviour of all impropriety, since it proved, if it should turn out unsuited to the occasion, that he was well aware of that, and that if he had assumed a smile, the jest was ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... come to a decision as to his title, and had told every one concerned that he meant to be as he always had been,—George Roden, a clerk in the Post Office. When spoken to, on this side and the other, as to the propriety,—or rather impropriety,—of his decision, he had smiled for the most part, and had said but little, but had been very confident in himself. To none of the arguments used against him would he yield in the least. As to his mother's name, he said, no one had doubted, and no one ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Santanu grew up into a youth, Pratipa addressed him and said, 'Some time ago, O Santanu, a celestial damsel came to me for thy good. If thou meetest that fair-complexioned one in secret and if she solicit thee for children, accept her as thy wife. And, O sinless one, judge not of the propriety or impropriety of her action and ask not who she is, or whose or whence, but accept her as thy wife at my command!'" Vaisampayana continued, 'Pratipa, having thus commanded his son Santanu and installed him on his throne, retired into the woods. And king Santanu endued with great intelligence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... contents of the documents found in his possession; that he had imagined—indeed he had been distinctly told—that they were innocent private letters relating to personal and domestic affairs; that he did not know there was any impropriety in conveying such letters; that if he had suspected their nature or known that they included official despatches he would never have ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... upon our initial plan of operations—for example, the impropriety of attempting simultaneous movements against Puerto Rico and Cuba, and the advisability or necessity, under the same conditions, of moving against both Cienfuegos and Havana by the measure of a blockade—were simply special applications of general principles ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... upon such occasions, its execution was generally suspended by temporary statutes, which permitted, for a limited time, the importation of foreign corn. The necessity of these temporary statutes sufficiently demonstrates the impropriety of this ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Judge, "you have committed an act of grievous impropriety. You have been guilty of one of the most reprehensible offences that any citizen of a Commonwealth founded upon order and justice could commit, an act of such flagrant culpability that the Court, in the maintenance of its dignity and in the interest ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... on the part of Mr. Roundjacket, an eloquent and animated remonstrance with Verty on the impropriety of that proceeding which he had just been guilty of. It was unfeeling, and barbarous, and unheard of, the poet observed, and but one thing induced him to pardon it—the wild bringing up of the young man, which ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... loves discrepancy for the sake of discrepancy. But a person who conscientiously believes that free inquiry is, on the whole, beneficial to the interests of truth, and that, from the imperfection of the human faculties, wherever there is much free inquiry there will be some discrepancy, may, without impropriety, consider such discrepancy, though in itself an evil, as a sign of good. That there are ten thousand thieves in London is a very melancholy fact. But, looked at in one point of view, it is a reason for exultation. For what other city could maintain ten thousand thieves? ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... persons, at some times, to be of a very dubious character; and if it shall appear that the fair tendency of those parts of your work which I refer to, is to render it still more so, then I am persuaded that you will allow that the publication is, without impropriety, ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... Darkness as the righteous king. The result was that a rigorous investigation was made into the whole affair; a great number of persons were tried for attempting the king's life by witchcraft; and that prince, undeterred by the apparent impropriety of being judge in what was, in reality, his own cause, presided at many of the trials, condescended to superintend the tortures applied to the accused in order to extort a confession, and even went so far in one case as to write a letter to ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... is no reason for you to fear that I shall impute any impropriety to you, if you attempt this refutation and proof; take heart, therefore, ...
— Sophist • Plato
... one of them, Wukotu, resolved to denounce the Empress Dowager for having adopted the late emperor as her son instead of making him her grandson. He accordingly immolated himself at the tomb of the late emperor by way of protesting against the impropriety of leaving him without a direct heir to worship his manes. It is doubtful whether the Western mind is capable of following Wukotu's subtle reasoning; but is it not plain that he felt that he was provoking an ignominious death, and chose rather to die as a hero—the champion ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... fault with me for using the phrase to make money. 'Don't you see (said he) the impropriety of it? To make money is to coin it: you should say get money.' The phrase, however, is, I think, pretty current[557]. But Johnson was at all times jealous of infractions upon the genuine English language, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Five weeks elapsed, during which he heard nothing from the Duke, and at the end of that time he received his letter of recall, conceived nearly in these words:—'My dear Lord Anglesey,—I am aware of the impropriety of having allowed your letter to remain so long unanswered, but I wished to consult my colleagues, who were out of town. I have now done so, and they concur with me that with such a difference of opinion between the King's Minister and the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland the government ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... governess, tutress, peeress, authoress, traytress, and perhaps othets. Of these variable terminations we have only a sufficient number to make us feel our want; for when we say of a woman that she is a philosopher, an astronomer, a builder, a weaver, a dancer, we perceive an impropriety in the termination which we cannot avoid; but we can say that she is an architect, a botanist, a student. because these terminations have not annexed to them the notion of sex. In words which the necessities of life are often requiring, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... speech the other day that you feel as I do in regard to such matters, I take the liberty of suggesting that it seems to me of very great importance that the management of this magnificent gift should be in proper hands. May I ask you without impropriety if you will protect Mr. Parsons so that captious or unenthusiastic persons, men or women, will be unable to control the policy of his hospital? He would wish it so, I am sure. I thought of mentioning the matter to him myself, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... 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
... may, without impropriety, say good night! to departing friends at any hour of darkness; but the Italians utter their Felicissima Notte only once. The arrival of candles marks the division between day and night, and when they are brought in, the Italians thus salute each other. How impossible ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... 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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ungrateful," said she. "La Rue is very kind to me; besides I can, when I see Montraville, inform him of the impropriety of our continuing to see or correspond with each other, and request him to ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson |
