"Indiscretion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Clayhanger business, and everybody breathed more freely; round, sound oaths were heard where never oaths had been heard before. The young man's name was Stifford, and he was addressed as 'Stiff.' He was a proof of the indiscretion of prophesying about human nature. He had been the paper boy, the minion of Edwin, and universally regarded as unreliable and almost worthless. But at sixteen a change had come over him; he parted his hair in ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Andrew would be to make him suspicious on every point. He would then doubtless find some other hiding place for his money, and if any accident did happen, her mother, and Sophy, and all Andrew loved, would suffer for her indiscretion. She took Sophy's reiterated promise, and then walked with the girl to her aunt's house. It was a neat stone dwelling, with some bonnets and caps in the front window, and when the door was opened, a bell ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... has been an occasional riot with some destruction of property. But all the foreigners who have been killed can be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and in the majority of these cases it can hardly be denied that it was the indiscretion of the white man which was the exciting cause of his murder. In the same time how many hundreds of unoffending Chinese have been murdered in civilised foreign countries? An anti-foreign riot in China—and at what ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Caius Sempronius Blaesus, having brought Cneius Fulvius to trial for the loss of the army in Apulia, harassed him with invectives in the public assemblies: "Many generals," he reiterated, "had by indiscretion and ignorance brought their armies into most perilous situations, but none, save Cneius Fulvius, had corrupted his legions by every species of excess before he betrayed them to the enemy; it might therefore with truth be ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... hand again, this time less to restrain him than herself. She was torn between an inclination to laugh at the daring or shiver at the indiscretion of taking to task a man whose one word could place them at the mercy of the priests of Siva, or the mob. But Duncan McClean, a little bowed about the shoulders, peered through his spectacles and waited—quite unawed by all the splendor—for ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... depend on this, sir—I have seen enough of the world's weakness, to forgive the casual faults of youthful indiscretion;—but I have a detestation for systematic vice; and though, as a general censor, my lash may be feeble, circumstances have put a scourge in my hand, which may fall heavily on this family, should any of its branches force me to ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... little white legs proudly and charmingly advanced. The elder girls in their longer skirts were more dignified, but when they caught sight of a favourite sister, they too ran forward, and then retreated timidly, as if afraid of committing an indiscretion. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... Society only founds its suspicions upon the mystery involved in the separation from her husband, and the doubtful character of her long residence in Europe. Society knows nothing of the birth of the child. The scandal leveled at her in Charleston, was only the result of her own indiscretion. "Yes," she whispers, attempting at the same time to soothe the feelings of the poor disconsolate woman, "I must go, and go quickly-I must drag her from the terrible life she is leading;—but, ah! I must do it so as to shield ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... almost without being aware of it. I have heard that a young man bearing the surname given to one of the rudest families in this book had to suffer many gibes while a student at an Indiana college. I here do public penance for my culpable indiscretion. ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... carried him to gross lengths, if Fox and Sheridan had not by main force pulled him down into his seat by the tails of his coat. The restoration of the clerks was an indefensible error of judgment, and its indiscretion was heightened by the kind of defence which Burke tried to set up. When we wonder at Burke's exclusion from great offices, this case of Powell and Bembridge should not ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the whole profession is not found fault with, but the individual is blamed and another one found who will do better, but it is not so in most cases where a nurse proves unsatisfactory. The whole profession suffers and every nurse sinks more or less if one of her sister nurses commits an indiscretion, or does any of the thousand things she ought not to do. I recollect very well, many years ago, a Brooklyn nurse, of about thirty-five years, married her patient, a boy nineteen years old. It made a great stir in the city, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... thus for her conduct, and making a young gentleman, with whom she was but just acquainted, the judge of her actions, might be deemed a still farther proof of her indiscretion, yet the condescension was so flattering, and it appeared such an instance of ingenuous disposition, that Godfrey was sensibly touched by it. He followed the fair Maria to her ottoman, from which she banished Pompey the Great, to make room ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the detective knew that much, it absolved him from any obligation to betray the daughter of his dead client. His feeling of relief unsealed his lips, and led him into an indiscretion. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... to leave the garden and hurry up the road, returning about five minutes later to dodge with great caution inside the gate. Such a proceeding was manifestly irregular and highly improper. Miss Poppleton, at first indignant at the very idea that one of her pupils could be guilty of so great an indiscretion, nevertheless felt it her solemn duty to investigate the matter thoroughly, and either expose the offender or deny the imputation. She was the more particularly annoyed because the hint came from a quarter which, if not ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... wife and toward me, had a somewhat curious effect on me. I will not say that I felt at liberty to fall in love with the duchess; but I felt the chain of honor, which had hitherto bound me from taking any advantage of her indiscretion, growing weaker; and I also perceived the possibility of my inclinations beginning to strain on the weakened chain. On this account, among others, I resolved, as I sat in the pantry drinking a glass of wine with which Suzanne kindly ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... Besides, that when a Friend is turned into an Enemy, and (as the Son of Sirach calls him) a Bewrayer of Secrets, the World is just enough to accuse the Perfidiousness of the Friend, rather than the Indiscretion of the Person ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... placing of its resources leaves that bank in a weak position to withstand so sudden a drain, and was therefore indirectly the cause, as most people think, of its beloved President's death. Mr. Flood desired to place this Nevada Bank upon so firm a foundation that neither the indiscretion of speculators or the ebb and flow of mercantile life could overthrow it. How well this has been accomplished can be seen from the fact, that it has a capital of nearly fifteen million dollars, and numbers among its directors, such ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... all those quantities of white wine, brandy and cider, that they were almost ready to carry him on their shoulders; though, with their racial prejudice, they would probably have repented of that indiscretion on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... discover if they had any marriage ceremony, but they are very jealous of their wives, and visit with great severity any indiscretion on ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... never," exclaimed Zulma with an earnest indiscretion which she tried to turn off by a laugh, but which the rapid wandering of her great blue eyes showed ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... on his wife, who looked another way. Whatever he thought proper to do, it was absolutely understood that she was to reveal nothing of what "came in," and was even carefully to conserve anything she heard outside with a view to bringing it in. Mrs Williams was too prone to indiscretion in the matter of letting news slip prematurely; and as to its capture, her husband would often confess, with private humour, that Minnie wasn't much ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... LADLE was a mother-in-law, and consequently a pretty old fowl in ferreting out things of this sort. She determined to discover the why and wherefore of ANN'S departure. If she could confront the Hon. MICHAEL with proofs of ANN'S indiscretion, it would be the loudest kind of feather in ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... between her love for him, which could not be concealed, and the fear that he would eventually win her consent to be his wife, her mind was in a constant state of anxiety and restlessness. The little indiscretion he had been guilty of with Fan she had forgiven in her heart: that he had actually conceived a fondness for this poor young girl she could not believe, for in that case he would have been very careful not to do anything to betray it to the woman he ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... words, conveyed an intimation that when the opportunity served he would trounce Furneaux for an indiscretion. Fenley ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... bad colds abounded. One day Newman ventured to remonstrate gently with the victims of catarrh—indeed, the noise was awful. But he had the indiscretion to add: 'Gentlemen, if you cannot wipe your noses, I must really ask you to blow them outside the door.' Of course the results were awful! The young imps rushed out incessantly into the passage, and made noises like motor-cars. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... admitted reluctantly. "Perhaps I have no excuse even for being here at all. My duty as a soldier is certainly elsewhere, but I could not rest content until I knew you were in a position of safety. Believe me, Mrs. Brennan, I have intended no indiscretion, but I was informed by a soldier that you were being held here under fire. It would have been useless for me to appeal to the Major for information, and I felt I must know the truth. If I have erred in this I can only plead the deep interest I have ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... that friend of youth, would beyond a doubt have amassed a colossal fortune but for a line on his bill of fare, a line which rival establishments are wont to print in capital letters, thus—BREAD AT DISCRETION, which, being interpreted, should read "indiscretion." ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... was then placed under the most rigorous interdict; and the alarming circumstance was, that this transfer was governed by no settled rules, but might take place at any hour, and would certainly be precipitated by the slightest violence on my part, the slightest indiscretion, or the slightest argument for suspicion. Hard indeed was the part I had to play, for it was indispensable that I should appear calm and tranquil, in order to disarm suspicions around me, whilst continually contemplating the possibility that I myself might be summoned to extremities ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... in which the girl forgot that she should be at home, because of the hurry and excitement in Miss Lucy's upper sitting-room. By the end of that time Sir Christopher had ceased to suffer the ills of age and indiscretion, and lay quite still upon the silken cushions of his basket where his mistress ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... flush. Trained with Dick Prescott at Gridley High School, Darrin was too old a hand to be taunted into indiscretion. ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... would also not like your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint, or a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few well-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you don't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race because there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise against negroes? Because the proportion of undesirables is higher ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... this." [17] This judicious magnanimity had its proper reward. Devonshire and Dorset became from that day more zealous than ever in the cause of the master who, in spite of calumny for which their own indiscretion had perhaps furnished some ground, had continued to repose confidence ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... boots again for a moment, and then, raising his face to hers with that humorous challenging look which he assumes when on the verge of some indiscretion, ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... all that had passed, for I had no other way to save myself from an imputation of favouring the visits and indiscretion of this ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... have been serving ten years for a mild indiscretion," said the old woman, sadly. "I am the gypsy who told your fortune ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... sex, younger, more attractive and known to be popular with the males of their acquaintance, Miss Pickett was quick to take the high ground of a tactful consideration of circumstances which Donna apparently had overlooked; circumstances which, while savoring slightly of girlish indiscretion, might, nevertheless, be construed as a distinct slip from virtue. An attack, whether by innuendo or direct assertion, on a sister's virtue is ever the first weapon of a mean and disappointed woman, and having no other charms to speak of, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... spoken. But the words were beyond recall, and she could only gaze stealthily at the listener, and, with a dull feeling of apprehension nestling at the bottom of her heart, endeavor to mark their effect, and to imagine the possible consequences of her indiscretion. But Leta sat bending over her embroidery, and apparently still thinking, with tearful eye, upon her own exile from home. Perhaps she had not even heard all that had been said to her; though, if the words had really caught her ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not been troubled in the slightest by the thought that Cortlandt might be told. He could not imagine Edith making him the confidant of her outraged feelings. Besides, would such a strangely impassive person resent any little indiscretion in which his wife might choose to indulge? Kirk did not know—the man ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... her again. She did not look the type to get into awkward situations. She colored slightly and said, "One indiscretion doesn't ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... He had not appreciated the anxiety of Benedict to escape discovery, or he would not have been so silly as to bruit his knowledge until he had left the woods. He felt ashamed of his indiscretion, but, as he knew that his motives were good, he could not but feel that he ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... and youthful as he looked, he was not a bachelor, but had a pretty, fragile-looking wife, to whom he was married when only nineteen years of age. Such a union could have been brought about only by what the world calls an indiscretion, or from an unreflecting, hasty impulse. Girl as Mrs. Fletcher seemed to be, she was not without prudence as a housekeeper; and as far as she could command her inconstant temper, she made home attractive to her husband. But neither of them had the weight of character to act as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... smuggler of war material. However, they had never arrested or expelled him, since he was there before my eyes. But how and why did he get so far from the scene of his sea adventure was an interesting question. And I put it to him with most naive indiscretion which did not shock him visibly. He told me that the ship being only stranded, not sunk, the contraband cargo aboard was doubtless in good condition. The French custom-house men were guarding the wreck. If their vigilance could ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... 'in any more serious matter; but anyway, if I am only afraid of an indiscretion, that fear is too much. And so, in the name of friendship, I beg you, set me completely at ease on that point by taking back what you have been kind enough to lend me so gracefully. Moreover, I repeat it, believe me, you will profit by it ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... when you left me alone on the balcony, and went in to confront Mrs. Dupont. I knew the woman and suspected that she would only be too glad to find some indiscretion she could use against me. It occurred to me that possibly she had seen me enter the parlor and was there herself to make sure. If so, she would hesitate at no trick to verify her suspicions. This thought so took possession of me that ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... young Chinaman, Major Noltitz, Ephrinell, Miss Bluett, Monsieur Caterna, the Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, and seven or eight other passengers. I am careful not to let the American into the secret of the case. He would be guilty of some indiscretion, and then good-by to my ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... makes nothing for you. I do not altogether disapprove the manner of interweaving texts of scripture through the style of your sermons, wherein however, I have sometimes observed great instances of indiscretion and impropriety, against which I therefore venture to give you ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... She was so incomparably his intellectual superior that she could make him believe or disbelieve precisely as she chose. She made him think that she had come to Brighton for companionship, and as a proof of her kindly forgiveness of a grave indiscretion. He believed; for never was Rust, even Rust, so idiotic as to suppose that she had succumbed before his charms and had come to throw ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... onward that was Sally's name among the girls—"Cocket," or "White-faced Cocket." Rose had coined the phrase which would stick. When Sally heard her name the next day, through Muriel's indiscretion, she looked over at Rose with pinched nostrils and a little dry smile. She was flattered. The name was the product of Rose's jealousy and injured vanity; but it was life to Sally, for it was a testimony—the first she had ever had—to ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... the charred sheets and vanished at the margins, and only the ashes of my inspiration remained. The ink was a lustrous black on the dull blackness of the burnt paper. I could still read this much of my indiscretion remaining, "He smiled at them ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... alone—nearly alone, inasmuch as Colbert, as soon as he perceived the young girl approaching, had stopped and drawn back a dozen paces—the king advanced towards La Valliere and took her by the hand. "Mademoiselle," he said to her, "should I be guilty of an indiscretion if I were to inquire if you were indisposed? for you seem to breathe as if you were oppressed by some secret cause of uneasiness, and your eyes ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... says much for the town that what between that and the foul business of the duel, my Lord Rotherby was receiving on every hand the condemnation he deserves, while for me there was once more—and with heavy interest for the lapse from it—the respect which my indiscretion had forfeited, and which would have continued to be denied me but for your noble ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Pendomer. "At my age and weight the first is an experiment and the fifth an amiable indiscretion of which I am invariably guilty. Sugar, please." She yawned, and reached a generously-proportioned arm toward the sugar-bowl. "Yes, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... so taken up with his passion, and so surprised at the conversation he had heard, that he fell into an indiscretion very common, which is, to speak one's own particular sentiments in general terms, and to relate one's proper adventures under borrowed names. As they were travelling he began to talk of love, and exaggerated the pleasure of being in love with a person ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... on her throbbing forehead. She remained standing, while her strange visitor continued to gaze at her with a perturbation in which the consciousness of indiscretion had ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... know what the journalist had said of her in the course of the dinner, which was copious, not to say splendid, and the lady took care not to talk too much while it was proceeding. This lack of conversation betrayed Gatien's indiscretion. Etienne tried to regain his footing, but all Dinah's advances ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... if it be accidental, may sometimes be a venial sin; for instance, when, through a slight indiscretion, a person either commits a venial sin, or does something that is not a sin in itself, but has some appearance of evil. On the other hand, it is sometimes a mortal sin, either because a person commits a mortal sin, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... going, and that the fate of his superiors had put him in command. Of the remaining lieutenants, also stationed on the gun deck, the fourth had been mortally wounded by the first broadside; while the third, who had heard the shout for boarders, committed the indiscretion, ruinous to his professional reputation, of accompanying those who, at the moment the ships came together, were ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... veteran continued, crossing one leg over the other and arguing the matter out in a confidential undertone— "what would you say if a young man came to you, and, on the assumption that you were a dishonest blackgaird, appealed to you to help him in a very shady sort of a scheme? It would argue indiscretion on ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... He hated her slang and he did not accept her conclusion, but this time he did not forbid her to mention his wife. He could hardly do that when her tact had saved him and Charity from the results of their double indiscretion and the shame of amusing that ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... although his monologue gave me an entirely new conception of life, no more of it lingers in my mind, save his last reflective criticism. "All the same, I don't see why you should always have dirty nails." He never confided in me again, and I would have died rather than have reminded him of his kindly indiscretion; but when he passed me in the playground he seemed to look at me with a kind of reticent interest, and it occurred to me that after all my queerness might not be such a bad thing, might even be something ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... stately lady, a few years younger than himself, did what she could to keep her lord quiet, and to save him from incurring by his indiscretion any further penalties beyond the enforced journeys before the Commission, and the fines inflicted on all who refused to attend their parish church. So the old man devoted himself to his estates and the further improvement of the house and gardens, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... in her eyes that made me suddenly realise my indiscretion. A light flashed in them, almost as if she would ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... information vouchsafed by these disembodied intelligences, in any language one pleased; and, although they at times displayed remarkable obstinacy, refusing to answer, or breaking off abruptly in the middle of a most interesting communication, as though they had been betrayed into indiscretion: yet, to speak generally, there was scarcely any topic on which they were not ready to discourse—past, present, or to come—and their remarks, whether accurate or not, were invariably logical, bearing an intelligible relation to the question. Even sporting ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... history by any accident they might not thank her for the introduction. She was quite confounded; but she did not abate her kindness in the least, although my reservation of confidence in only giving her a hint of the truth, checked her advances. You may think this an insane indiscretion on my part; but if you knew how often I have longed to stand up before everybody and proclaim who I am, and so get rid of the incubus of a perpetual falsehood, you would not be so much surprised. There ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... It was no business of his to mix himself up with matters that did not concern him. Above all, he must hold his tongue. Did he forget that Vaudrey was married? The least indiscretion— ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... have bitten out my tongue for such an indiscretion. He looked at me sharply, with a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... neighbor was an elderly man of a full habit, whom it would have been cruel to disturb till the rage of hunger was appeased, so I was fain to seek amusement in the conversation going on on my left. There was no indiscretion in this, for I knew Guy would never touch secrets of state ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... halted. I wondered whether I might speak of Lord Clarenceux, or whether to do so would be an indiscretion. She ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... ask her again if she were fond of reading; she could not read. Noticing a change in the expression of her face, he concluded that she was disappointed to hear that he liked Sarah and regretted his indiscretion. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... of the populace cries, "Freedom from all masters!" and after science has, with the happiest results, resisted theology, whose "hand-maid" it had been too long, it now proposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for philosophy, and in its turn to play the "master"—what am I saying! to play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account. My memory—the memory of a scientific man, if you please!—teems with the naivetes of insolence which ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... not have forbidden its renewal, than that he should have encouraged it, and even offered to receive a quarter of the sum proposed to be given him for prompt payment. I can attribute your conduct on this occasion, to nothing excepting the most inconsiderate indiscretion, and to a desire to benefit yourself, which got the better of your prudence. I desire, however, that you will refrain from the subject with the Rajah of Kittoor at all, and that if he should renew it, you will inform him, that ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... doubt," I said, "that everybody knows those trifles, and I do not think, dear Nanette, that you ought to reproach your sister with indiscretion ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... easily persuaded her husband to take her for awhile to France; where, assuming a cold and majestic demeanor, which she thought becoming her royal descent, she resided several years. Thus changed, she returned to Scotland. She found the suspicion of any former indiscretion faded from all minds, and passing her time in the stately hospitalities of her lord's castles, conducted herself with a matronly dignity, that made him the envy of all the married chieftains in his neighborhood. Soon after her arrival at Kildrumy ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... always had marked him as a man of large affairs. It was his uncle's strict rule, he recalled, never to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable Milton's that the second drink drew the cork on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That something had happened which must have disturbed him greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction as simple as the evidence that he ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... also she should speak about the excellent qualities of the man, especially of those qualities which she knows are pleasing to the girl. She should, moreover, speak with disparagement of the other lovers of the girl, and talk about the avarice and indiscretion of their parents, and the fickleness of their relations. She should also quote samples of many girls of ancient times, such as Sakuntala and others, who, having united themselves with lovers of their own caste and their ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... was to be present, brought me here to-day. It is so hard to avoid speaking of the great things, and for a man in my position," he added, dropping his voice a little, "so difficult to say anything worth listening to about them, without at any rate the semblance of indiscretion." ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... own and his country's business in a solid, common-sense way in one of those obscure and tight places into which the British officer frequently finds himself forced by the unwieldiness of the empire or the indiscretion of ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... was seized with a palpitation of the heart when Tom committed this appalling indiscretion, for she felt that if the dish turned out a failure, she never would be able to hold up her head before John Westlock again. Quite unconscious of her state of mind, John accepted the invitation with all imaginable heartiness; and after a ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... venture to tell you what it contains?" Mr. Cowl suggested. "There can be no indiscretion on my part, as all wills after probate are public property and can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... answered, "must be immaterial to me: yet, as I have once been your guardian by the nomination of the Dean your uncle, I cannot forbear making an effort towards preventing any indiscretion: and frequent ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... through the resistance offered by reality to his ideal. He calls the traditional Christ an abstract being who never was alive. He would bring the marvellous human figure before our eyes. He heightens the brilliancy of his delineation by the deep shadows of mistakes and indiscretion upon Jesus' part. In some respects an epic or an historical romance, without teaching us history in detail, may yet enable us by means of the artist's intuition to realise an event or period, or make presentation to ourselves of a personality, better than ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... in November Penrod's little old dog Duke returned to the ways of his youth and had trouble with a strange cat on the back porch. This indiscretion, so uncharacteristic, was due to the agitation of a surprised moment, for Duke's experience had inclined him to a peaceful pessimism, and he had no ambition for hazardous undertakings of any sort. He was given to musing but ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... and that the duel had not been fought with a member of the Embassy. Captain Ward had certainly been injured, but that was the result of an accident; they had Dr. Goldberg's word for it. It was then that the younger wiseacres smiled. Baron Petrescu was an easy lover, and had been punished for some indiscretion. Some townsman, perhaps, with the luck on his side, had got the better of the master of fence. No wonder the Baron wished to keep the matter quiet. Lord Cloverton knew the true story. Captain Ward had sent to him directly Dr. Goldberg had got him home, and the Ambassador shut himself in his ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... the authority of my guardian, drew me to the fore platform of the Pullman car. 'Miss Gould,' he said in my ear, 'is it possible that you suppose yourself in safety? Let me completely undeceive you. One more such indiscretion and you return to Utah. And, in the meanwhile, if this woman should again address you, you are to reply with these words: "Madam, I do not like you, and I will be obliged if you will suffer me ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... mother who taught him to revere all women and, judging from his words, her influence upon her husband and the son's desire still appears. "Whatever of good there is in me, I owe to women. The thought of my excellent mother restrained me from many an indiscretion, as also the teaching and the example of the wisest and best of men (the father). This gentle power which is so sweet to obey and at the same time so full of reward! In loving surrender it obeys the man, while its divine power rules the man without his knowing it. The imperceptible ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... "and will add a little water to it. I am very temperate by nature and habit, and mingle a certain devotion to the nymphs with my worship at the shrine of Bacchus, as the ancients had it. But it was not for feasting and drinking that I was guilty of the indiscretion of intruding upon you at this unseemly hour. Marquis, I have come to ask of you a service that one gentleman never refuses to another. Mlle. Zerbine has probably related to you something of what took place in the green-room ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... sure you know by this time that I never resent the exclusion of my articles as such. I should always trust your literary judgment, if it were a matter of literature only: and I daresay you have often saved me from an indiscretion and your readers from a bore. Unfortunately this matter of the party funds is not one of that sort. My conscience does not often bother you, but just now the animal is awake and roaring. Your paper has always championed the rights of conscience, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... again. On the other hand, he has had a fair price and no questions asked, so if he is in need of ready-money he will probably come back to Bovington's. I will give you a note to them, and they will let you wait in the shop. If the fellow comes you will follow him home. But no indiscretion, and, above all, no violence. I put you on your honour that you will take no step without ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his courtiers is not the only indiscretion, of which they laid hold, to charge him with imaginary faults. What will appear surprising is, that, with the character for negation and dissimulation ascribed to him, he was capable ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... made their way through the crowd, two by two, their wrists tied with ropes; for the duke every minute expected to hear the queen's name spoken. But the chief-justice, a man of experience, had prevented indiscretion of any kind by fixing a hook in the tongue of each one. The poor creatures were tortured on a ship, so that nobody should hear the terrible confessions ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... sympathy and to revolt. His chivalry had filled her with admiration, with a sense of confidence, of dependence, of touching and vital obligation; but there was, too, another overmastering feeling. He had seen her life naked, as it were, stripped of all independence, with the knowledge of a dangerous indiscretion which, to say the least, was a deformity; and she inwardly resented it, as one would resent the exposure of a long-hidden physical deformity, even by the surgeon who saved one's life. It was not a very lofty attitude of mind, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was wrong," returned Otto; "and for that I ask your pardon. You can scarce refuse it, for your own dignity, to one who is a plexus of weaknesses. Nor was the fault entirely mine. Had the papers been innocent, it would have been at most an indiscretion. Your own guilt is the sting of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... value might be made, and thus the citizens of other States be injured, and animosities be kindled among the States themselves. The subjects of foreign powers might suffer from the same cause, and hence the Union be discredited and embroiled by the indiscretion of a single member. No one of these mischiefs is less incident to a power in the States to emit paper money, than to coin gold or silver. The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, is withdrawn from the States, on the same principle with that of issuing a ...
— The Federalist Papers
... was evidently disagreeable to him, in spite of the company of his friends, Barrilli and Barbato. His friendship with the latter was for a moment overcast by an act of indiscretion on the part of Barbato, who, by dint of importunity, obtained from Petrarch thirty-four lines of his poem of Africa, under a promise that he would show them to nobody. On entering the library of another friend, the first thing that struck our poet's eyes was a copy of the same verses, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... wife's behavior toward a husband when laboring under disappointment or vexatious accidents; sleeping in different beds; how a woman should act when finding that her husband harbors unjust suspicions of her virtue; the great indiscretion of taking too much notice of the unmeaning or transient gallantries of a husband; the methods which a wife is justified to take after supporting for a long time a complication of all manner of ill-usage from a husband; and other causes or effects of marital infelicity. ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... be a thunderbolt, a plague, some frightful convulsion of Nature? He felt sure that Fakrash would hesitate at no means, however violent, of burying all traces of his blunder in oblivion, and very little hope that, whatever he did, it would prove anything but some worse indiscretion than his previous performances. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... I was accosted by two elderly sisters, who told me they had secreted a large quantity of bacon in a well on their estate, hard by. Federals had been in possession of the country, and, fearing the indiscretion of their slaves, they had done the work at night with their own hands, and now desired to give the meat to their people. Wives and daughters of millers, whose husbands and brothers were in arms, worked the mills night and day to furnish flour to their soldiers. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... a true Mallett. She has the Mallett ankle. Did you notice it, Caroline?' And Caroline answered harshly, 'Yes, the Mallett ankle, but not the foot. Her foot is square, like a block of wood. What could you expect?' Then the drawing-room door was closed softly on this indiscretion. ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... my state of mind, and such the suspense I suffered during two days, it may be imagined that M. Bassompierre was not more happy. Despairing of the King's favour unless he could clear up the matter, and by the event justify his indiscretion, he became for those two days the wonder, and almost the terror, of the Court. Ignorant of what he wanted, the courtiers found only insolence in his mysterious questions, and something prodigious in an activity which carried him in one day ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... blame my Government for the indiscretion of one of its officers. I personally am responsible for the act of firing upon your ship, which I now acknowledge to have been a quite unjustifiable act, for which I beg to tender you my most sincere ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... in his bold and familiar manner, appears to have been equally a favourite with James I. and Charles I. He behaved with singular indiscretion both at the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of hers, this audacious youth, though not of Washington Street; impecunious, and hence negligible; moreover somewhat notorious of late for a too vivid behavior: the distant bowing acquaintance of many years. This till the moment of indiscretion last May; when, encountering his dashing attractions in the boredom of a dull resort, far from her mother's restrictive eye, she had for an idle fortnight allowed the relation between them to become undeniably changed. Foolish indeed; but really ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... expressed himself unguardedly upon the subject of Italian nationality. "It happened some years ago, when I was in the other House. Then a very high official—a diplomatist of great eminence, a member of the Liberal party—had committed what was deemed a great indiscretion by several members of his own party; and the Government were asked in a formal manner, by a Liberal member, whether that distinguished diplomatist had been in consequence recalled. But the person who was then responsible for the conduct of public affairs in that House—the humble ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... a dreadful memory you have. I should expect Grant to make a burnt sacrifice of me if I had beguiled her into such an indiscretion. He won't even have her sit to himself since she ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... expiated by the murder of his son. That was the doctrine of vicarious atonement in all its pristine glory. So they adopted that style of justice in our religion, and condemned the whole lot of us to the eternal wrath of God on account of that little indiscretion attributed to Eve. It seems a very little thing for anybody to get so angry at us all about and stay angry so long! It doesn't seem to me that if one of you were to eat every apple I had in my orchard, I should want to murder and eternally damn all the folks that live in ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... principles he naturally disliked, and whose leaders he personally hated, as they did him. He became a thorough convert by a perfect trifle; taking fire at a nickname[26] delivered by Dr. Sacheverell, with great indiscretion, from the pulpit, which he applied to himself: and this is one among many instances given by his enemies, that magnanimity is none of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... stories by Mr. Anthony Hope, it occurs to me that combined they would make an excellent title for a third story yet to be written. For Mr. Hope's duchess, if by any chance she found herself travelling with a god in a car, would infallibly seize the occasion for a tour de force in charming indiscretion. That the car would travel for some part of the distance in that position of unstable equilibrium known to skaters as the "outside edge" may, I think, be taken for granted. But far be it from me to imagine bungling ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... instigation. It must be a powerful influence which would persuade him to reveal whatever self-questionings lay beneath his genial good breeding and long-established acquiescence in a practical philosophy. Godwin guarded himself against his eager emotions; one false note, one syllable of indiscretion, and his aims might ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing |
