"Irreproachable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forms a part of the problem of life in all complicated societies. Thus in A Chance Acquaintance the heroine is a bright and pretty Western girl, who becomes engaged during a pleasure tour to an irreproachable but offensively priggish young gentleman from Boston, and the engagement is broken by her in consequence of an unintended slight—the betrayal on the hero's part of a shade of mortification when he and his betrothed are suddenly brought into the presence of some fashionable ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... to Malacca, where he was invested in form with the important post he aspired to. But this sacrifice of his independence proved an unfortunate measure to him; for although he conducted himself in such a manner as should have given the amplest satisfaction, and appears to have been irreproachable in the execution of his trust, yet in the following year the king of Bintang found means to inspire the governor with diffidence of his fidelity, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... thousand years, the most enduring and the strongest of superstitions. It was on these roofs, too, that the planets were first maligned as wanderers, celestial tramps; and this gossip continued until recent years when at last it appeared that they are bodies of regular and irreproachable habits, eccentric in appearance only, doing a cosmic beat with a time-clock at each end, which they have never failed to punch ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... or Congreve's phrase concerning music and the savage breast. We know that there are many people otherwise finely equipped and alert in matters of art who have no taste in or for music; that there are some of irreproachable judgment in literature or painting who, like the officer in the story, recognize no tune save "God Save the King," and that only because people stand up when it is played. Also we are aware that some musicians are utter Philistines ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... not fail us, my dear daughter, because we perform our promises. Thus, an interesting workwoman—such as you, for example—is placed with persons that we suppose irreproachable. Should she, however, perceive, on the part of her employers, or on that of the persons who frequent the house, any irregularity of morals, any tendency to what would offend her modesty, or shock her religious principles, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... between the author and his friend M.G. sat cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a piece—the protasis—should do. The cue of the spectators was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... death would be the consequence. Cromwell obtained, and we may add, maintained his ascendency over the people of England, by his earnest and continually directed efforts towards these two important ends. His court was a rare example of irreproachable conduct, from which all debauchery and immorality were banished; while such was his deep and intimate, though mysterious, acquaintance with every occurrence throughout the Commonwealth, its subjects had ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... with that society, and cannot long be joined without in some degree assimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest, manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... always taken an honourable and philanthropic view of the rights of the native and the claim which he has to the protection of the law. We hold, and rightly, that British justice, if not blind, should at least be colour-blind. The view is irreproachable in theory and incontestable in argument, but it is apt to be irritating when urged by a Boston moralist or a London philanthropist upon men whose whole society has been built upon the assumption that the black is the inferior race. Such a people like to find the ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... deceased, was making great havoc amongst his kin; for note well, that it is only in their family and amongst their own relations that these blood-suckers delight in destroying our species. This deputation was composed of men and persons well known for their morality and even their information, of irreproachable character; and there were even some learned men amongst the two orders: they were put to the oath, and accompanied by a lieutenant of the grenadiers of the regiment of Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg, and by twenty-four grenadiers ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... say—unless the answer is that she was a ridiculous ninny. Would Anne Elliot have made such an inexplicable fool of herself? Why does Diana Mallory "go to" her preposterous Radical ex-M.P.? Simply because she is tiresomely absurd. Oh, those men with strong chins and irreproachable wristbands! Oh, those cultured conversations! Oh, those pure English maids! That skittishness! ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... of saint-making is extremely curious. There are three grades of saintship: the first, for which I forget the name, requires irreproachable moral conduct; the second (beatification), two well-proved miracles; the third (sanctification), three. It costs an immense sum of money to effect the whole, in some cases as much as 100,000 piastres. The process begins by an application to the Pope, on the part of the relatives of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... entirely upon circumstantial evidence; and is not the solution I offer less repugnant to the canons of credibility, and infinitely less revolting to every instinct of honor able manhood, than the horrible hypothesis that a refined, cultivated, noble Christian woman, a devoted daughter, irreproachable in antecedent life, bearing the fiery ordeal of the past four months with a noble heroism that commands the involuntary admiration of all who have watched her—that such a perfect type of beautiful womanhood as the prisoner presents, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... collation was interspersed with highly intelligent affabilities. Constant streams of sparkling repartee rippled across the table, jocund anecdotes and refined civilities of every variety abounded, the festivities in every way being characterized by vivacity, suavity, chivalry, and irreproachable respectability. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... perfectly fair one, and ought not to have brought down upon him any abuse whatever. There are more ways than one of dealing with religion. It may be approached as a mystery or as a series of events supported by testimony. If the evidence is trustworthy, if the witnesses are irreproachable, if they submit successfully to examination and cross-examination, then, however remarkable or out of the way may be the facts to which they depose, they are entitled to be believed. This is a mode of treatment with which we are all familiar, whether as ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... think," she whispered to Dorothy, "that you picked out me, when you could have any one in 19—. I can't realize it!" She glanced at her shabby coat, made over from Babe's discarded golf cape, and then at Eleanor Watson's irreproachable blue walking suit and braided toque to match. "Here all girls are really created free and equal, aren't they, ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the country, damp and mild. The abbe called again some days later and hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes and understand and lend ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Horace seem to have enjoyed from nature, and cultivated by reflection, as generous and friendly dispositions as any disciple of the austerer schools. And among the modern, Hobbes and Locke, who maintained the selfish system of morals, lived irreproachable lives; though the former lay not under any restraint of religion which might supply the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... few moments the door was thrown open, and a spruce, dapper looking gentleman, clothed in sombre colored garments, irreproachable linen, and carrying a small merino bag in his hand, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... home from the country she wrote to Lucy telling her privately that for the upkeep of the home it was necessary that she should seek employment. This prospect caused Lucy much anxiety. Her own experience of earning her living in so seemingly irreproachable a business as photography returned to her with horror. The manager of the firm for which she had worked had been a dissolute man. Much of his conversation in the presence of the girl employees was incomprehensible to Lucy, who did her work faithfully, was ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... irreproachable," said Max "He's not very rich, but he's no slacker. If he doesn't break his neck ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... young Washington was tall,—over six feet and two inches,—his manners easy and dignified, his countenance urbane and intelligent, his health perfect, his habits temperate, his morals irreproachable, and his sentiments lofty. He was a model in all athletic exercises and all manly sports,—strong, muscular, and inured to exposure and fatigue. He was quick and impetuous in temper, a tendency ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... whom the reader has just passed through the ceremony of introduction, is a maiden of some thirty-five summers, attired in a sober-looking dress, of irreproachable neatness, but most formal cut. She is the only occupant of the house, of which likewise she is proprietor. Her father, who was the village physician, died some ten years since, leaving to Hetty, or perhaps I should give her full ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... of Peru, a city abounding with convents, and celebrated for the wealth and power of its secular clergy, Dr Vigil, a priest of irreproachable conduct and profound learning, has published a voluminous work, in which he attacks and pulverises the pretensions of the Roman Court, defends the independence of the bishops, and demonstrates, in the most luminous manner, the necessity of an ecclesiastical reformation, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... possible disadvantage. The woman whom you are visiting, then, is dressed in the best taste. A beautiful lace cap covers her light hair; she wears a soft figured Gros do Naples; her stockings are of exquisite fineness; her shoes irreproachable (we doubt not they bear the mark of either Gros or Mueller); her Valenciennes cuffs are irresistible: everything betokens care and fastidious nicety. The freshness of her appearance is a satire on the negligence ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... office was new to him, the dignity of Mason's demeanour was irreproachable. It was clear that the blood of flunkeys was in his veins. As a matter of fact, one hundred years before, his grandfather had done much escort duty, with a band on his hat and a cane in his hand. Though Mason did not know it, the manner had ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... earlier poems. The exact phrases eluded him; perhaps, indeed, it was the underlying sentiment of nearly ALL of Tennyson's earlier poems of which she reminded him—those lyrics which are at once so romantic and so irreproachable morally. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... predecessor that no material pressure would ever be exerted on the Allied forces, he replied that the Hellenic Government nowise proposed to go back on those assurances, and hoped that the Powers, taking into consideration the irreproachable attitude of Greece, would be pleased to relieve her of complications and find a solution safeguarding ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... Why should you be miserable? No woman should be unhappy who is married to a good man. My dear, this matter admits of no discussion. Frangipani is young, handsome, of irreproachable moral character, heir to a great fortune and to a great name. You desire to be in love. Good. Love will come, the reward of having chosen wisely. It will be time enough then to think of your sentiments. Dear me! if we all began life by thinking of sentiment, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... operations, he had, during a sixteen months' warfare, gained several not unimportant advantages over the Spanish generals. Report represented him as a man of grave and earnest character—quite the converse of the hasty and unreflecting Hidalgo—of sound judgment, irreproachable morals, and far more liberal and extended views than could have been expected from the confined education of a Mexican priest. The influence he possessed over the Indians was said ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... neither desire nor expect any other recompense. Not that it would appear in any way inconsistent, however there exists among men of rank a kind of conspiracy against authors, if a prelate so eminently conspicuous for his virtues, for his abilities, both natural and acquired, for irreproachable morals, and for munificence, should distinguish himself likewise by becoming the generous and sole patron of literature. To comprise your merits in a few words, the lines of Martial addressed to Trajan, whilst serving under Dioclesian, may ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... imprudent or vindictive groom, I forget which, having introduced a mare into the yard, Hans the Pure, who till then had led an austere and monkish existence, vowed to celibacy, science and the chaste delights of figures, Hans the Irreproachable incontinently lost his head and cut himself open on the hanging-rail of his stall. They had to force back his intestines and sew up his belly. He is now rusticating miserably in a meadow outside the town. So true it is that a life cannot be ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... best of the rulers of his age. According to his ideas of religion, he was a religious man. According to his ideas of honesty and of honor, he was both an honest and an honorable man. According to his idea of what is called moral conduct, he was irreproachable, being addicted to no ungenteel vices, or any sins which would be condemned by his associates. His ambition was not to secure for himself ease or luxury, but to extend his imperial power, and to aggrandize his family. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... we might say that it regarded physical impurity as identical with moral impurity, and intolerable to the gods. It has [146] always been, and still remains, a religion of ablutions. The Japanese love of cleanliness—indicated by the universal practice of daily bathing, and by the irreproachable condition of their homes has been maintained, and was probably initiated, by their religion. Spotless cleanliness being required by the rites of ancestor-worship,—in the temple, in the person of the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... assentation, in order to get a better. In all the presbyterian churches, where the rights of patronage are thoroughly established, it is by nobler and better arts, that the established clergy in general endeavour to gain the favour of their superiors; by their learning, by the irreproachable regularity of their life, and by the faithful and diligent discharge of their duty. Their patrons even frequently complain of the independency of their spirit, which they are apt to construe into ingratitude for past favours, but which, at worse, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... athletic men in rough field uniform and bristling beards. Those who best know the —th will be quicker to recognize old friends in this guise than when in the glitter of parade uniform or the accurate and irreproachable evening dress of civilization. There is not a man in the group who is not quite at his ease in ball-room attire; most of them have held acquaintance time and again with the white tie and stiff "choker" of conventionality, but the average gallant of ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... entered upon a mercantile life. He was not successful as a merchant. Thus early, however, he evinced the untiring industry that marked his whole career. He had a decided political turn, and, with uncommon natural talent, had the capacity and the ambition for public life. An irreproachable private character, pleasing manners, common-sense views of things, and politics rather adroit than high-toned, secured him a run of popular favor and executive confidence so long that he had now (1769) been thirty-three years uninterruptedly engaged in public affairs; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... privileges, does not admit that the errors of youth are susceptible of atonement. This condemnation is the more absurd, because, for what is called the World, it is hypocritical. It is not only women of really irreproachable life, nor matrons truly respected, who are called upon to decide upon the merits of their misled sisters. It is not the company of the excellent of the earth who make opinion. That is all a dream. The great majority of women of the world is really a majority of lost women." We must understand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... those thoroughly irreproachable young noblemen whom the upper classes of Britain give to civilisation. He bore everywhere with him the disdainful sense of security which comes from great hereditary wealth, a historic name inscribed ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... taken place in the standard of morality among the higher classes of Indian officials, particularly among the judiciary. This is due in a great measure to the fact that their salaries have been sufficient to remove them from temptation, but a still greater influence has been the example of the irreproachable integrity of the Englishmen who have served with them and have created an ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... mother had come to the shocking effrontery with which her niece and Rafael were rousing the whole city; flaunting their wrong-doing in the face of the public; and turning her home, the respectable, irreproachable home of dona Pepa, into a den of vice, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... situation and her character ought to have been respected by me. I do not mean to justify myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have nothing to urge—that because she was injured she was irreproachable, and because I was a libertine, she must be a saint. If the violence of her passions, the weakness of her understanding—I do not mean, however, to defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better treatment, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... his parents, Demetrius was irreproachable. Antony gave up his mother's brother, in order that he might have leave to kill Cicero, this itself being so cruel and shocking an act, that Antony would hardly be forgiven if Cicero's death had been ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... natural enough, the poor and miserable alone were involved; but presently, when such evidence was admitted as incontrovertible, the afflicted began to see the spectral appearances of persons of higher condition and of irreproachable lives, some of whom were arrested, some made their escape, while several were executed. The more that suffered the greater became the number of afflicted persons, and the wider and the more numerous were the denunciations ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... congratulated himself, however, that by reserving one room for his own use he could be still safe from interruption, and, turning to a leading article, read the first few paragraphs with leisurely enjoyment. The writing was excellent, the views irreproachable, in that they exactly coincided with his own. He turned with anticipatory pleasure to the article next in order, when the sound of a light tap-tap came to the door, and Ruth appeared upon the threshold, ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Carolina after the revocation of the edict of Nantz. They lived in Orange-quarter and though in low circumstances, always maintained an honest character, and were esteemed by their neighbours persons of blameless and irreproachable lives. But at this time a strolling Moravian preacher happening to come to that quarter where they lived, insinuated himself into their family, and partly by conversation, and partly by the writings of Jacob Behman, which he put into their hands, filled their heads with wild and fantastic ideas. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... life. In the following five years she had succeeded in burying all remembrance well out of sight. No one knew if she were satisfied or not; her world was charitable to her and she lived a gay and quite irreproachable life. She wished that she had not come to the races. It was such an irritating encounter. She opened her eyes wearily; the dusty track, the flying horses, the gay dresses of the women on the grandstand, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... saw anybody take to the wild life as eagerly as the Honourable Timothy Clare. He wanted to attempt everything. With him it was no sooner see than try, and he had such an abundance of enthusiasm that he generally succeeded. The balloon pants soon went. In a month his outfit was irreproachable. He used to study us by the hour, taking in every detail of our equipment, from the smallest to the most important. Then he asked questions. For all his desire to be one of the country, he was never ashamed ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... young exile,' said Le Nord, 'on the soil of France, not as a pretender or with political ideas, but simply as a Frenchman coming to establish his moral rights as a citizen by claiming to be allowed to perform his civic duties, and this with a rare combination of youthful dash, irreproachable modesty, and skilful self-possession was admirably fitted to awaken, and it has awakened, the sympathy of all who ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the influential either to make unjust gains or to concern themselves with blackmail: and let no one be complained of for 'having influence', even if he is otherwise irreproachable. Defend the masses vigorously when they are wronged and do not attend too easily to accusations against them. Examine every deed on its merits, not being suspicious of every one who is prominent ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... has been irreproachable. But you erred greatly in the choice of your parents. There are far too many Hume-Frazers ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... vrai type de colosse bon enfant, d'une tenue irreprochable—a perfect image of a good-natured colossus, of irreproachable bearing. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a late dinner our men came home, sunburned and hungry. Seeing guests upon the porch they made for their rooms, and reappeared presently in that irreproachable trim which the dustiest and most disreputable-looking of them seems able to achieve, being given plenty of water, in the ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... Stephen Porcari, as daring and eloquent as Rienzi in his best days. The violent deeds of his followers have been imputed to him, and brought him to his end; but it was his great adversary, Saint Bernard, who expressed a regretful wish 'that his teachings might have been as irreproachable as his life.' The doctrine for which he died at last was political, rather than spiritual, human rather than theological. In all but his monk's habit he was a layman in his later years, as he had been when he first wandered to France and sat ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the rage of the insurgents was felt more was in Bolinao. Malong regarded its minister, father Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, with irreproachable hatred, for he was not unaware of his great labor in restraining the Zambals. They are so warlike a nation that they have always caused themselves to be respected not only in Pangasinan, which province they glorify ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... be denied that at first sight the conclusion looks irreproachable. But on analysis it will be found to involve two assumptions, both of which are highly questionable. The first is, that the vulnerability of a sea Power through its maritime trade is as the volume of that trade. The second is, that the ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... the bygone dames who haunt the grand Chateau, the only one I detest is probably the most irreproachable of all—Madame de Maintenon. There is something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect, something so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak of religion, she wormed her way into high places, ousting—always in the name of propriety—those who had helped her. Her stepping-stone ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... see the Doctor, and promised so faithfully to retire if I suffered too much, that Mrs. Badger yielded, like an angel, and I carried my point. The Doctor! We looked in vain at each other; I for my dandy friend in irreproachable broadcloth, immaculate shirt bosoms and perfect boots; he for the brusque, impulsive girl who in ordinary circumstances would have run dancing into the parlor, would have given him half-glad, half-indifferent greeting, and then found either ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... been what the world calls irreproachable; but then I know his heart is still unchanged; and I know that spring is approaching, and deeply dread ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... was still a boy of twenty he was deservedly noted for the gravity and stillness of his youth, and during a political career of one-and-thirty years, if he showed neither commanding eloquence nor commanding statesmanship, he did honor to the Whig party by his sincere patriotism and irreproachable uprightness of character. If heaven had denied Rockingham the resplendent gifts that immortalize a Chatham, it had given him in full measure of the virtues of patriotism, honesty, integrity, and zeal. The purity of his life, the probity of his actions, and the excellence of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the piece, a vicious old man, that from the beginning Vane had wanted me to play. I had disliked the part and had refused, choosing instead to act a high-souled countryman, in the portrayal of whose irreproachable emotions I had taken pleasure. Vane now renewed his arguments, and my power of resistance seeming to have departed from me, I accepted the exchange. Certainly the old gentleman's scenes went with more snap, but at a cost of further ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... inferred that I still was in the criminal dock before this lady Chief Justice. I smiled at the airs the little woman gave herself now that I was no longer the impeccable and irreproachable dictator of the family. Mine was the experience of every fallen tyrant ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... control of a convent. As abbess, she enjoyed the friendship and respect of some of the saintliest and greatest characters of the age, even of such a man as Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny. And it is impossible that she should have won the friendship of such a man, if she herself had not been irreproachable in her own character. The error in judging Heloise is, that she, as nun, had no right to love. But the love existed long before she took the veil, and was consecrated by marriage, even though private. By the mediaeval and conventional ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... by a close calculation of time she could not have been far from Dark Hollow at the instant of the crime, yet neither on direct or cross-examination could anything more be elicited from her than what has been mentioned above. Nevertheless, we feel obliged to state that, irreproachable as her conduct was on the stand, the impression she made was, on the whole, whether intentionally or ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... sufficing at once to his amiable wife, to his hearth, to the Constitutionnel, to his office, to the National Guard, to the opera, and to God; but, only in order that the Constitutionnel, his office, the National Guard, the opera, his wife, and God may be changed into coin. In fine, hail to an irreproachable pluralist. Up every day at five o'clock, he traverses like a bird the space which separates his dwelling from the Rue Montmartre. Let it blow or thunder, rain or snow, he is at the Constitutionnel, and waits there for the load of newspapers which he has undertaken to distribute. He receives this ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... was managed by Mademoiselle Constant, Ida's waiting-maid. It was this woman who gave her mistress the addresses of the tradespeople, who guided her inexperience through the mazes of life in Paris; for Ida's pet dream and hope was to be taken for a woman of irreproachable character, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... executive council to Normandy to oversee a requisition of 60,000 men. Returning from this mission, he pronounced an eloquent discourse in favour of the republic. His simple manners, easy speech, ardent temperament and irreproachable private life gave him great influence in Paris, and he was elected president of the Commune, defending the municipality in that capacity at the bar of the Convention on the 31st of October 1792. Re-elected in the municipal elections of the 2nd of December 1792, he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... hate to see the way things are going with you, and I'm bound to tell you so. You are losing your spirit, tying your hands, and throwing all your manly independence to the winds. If you live two years with that irreproachable mummy, you won't be worth knowing. Do you dare go into town with me and have ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... fitted with a pair of stout leathern breeches, a cloth waistcoat, and a pair of riding boots adorned with silver spurs. A riding switch was put in his hand, and he stood flicking his boots at the top of the staircase till Lord Claud joined him, dressed in a quiet and most irreproachable riding suit, which became the elegance of his figure almost better than the frippery of ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... had read in or thought about that book raced through her mind as all his past life does not race through the soul of a drowning man. It was horrible, most horrible. Then rose a fierce wave of rage and indignation that she, a sister of irreproachable life and demeanour (the book had been an indiscretion, long since bitterly repented of), should be singled out for these humiliating exercises. There were other nuns of her acquaintance, proud, haughty and overbearing (her foot slipped here as ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "courtesan," because, yielding to the confidence of her woman's heart, she had been the adored of two previous lovers? Never did Lord Petersham, afterwards the Earl of Harrington, take a more sensible course than when he elevated in a holy and irreproachable love—a love that strangled scandal in its bloated fullness—the fascinating Maria Foote to the position she was made to adorn, being twin sister in beauty as well as in law to the charming Miss Green, whose ripe red lips and long dark-lashed ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... asked Miss Pringle, to whom any new topic of conversation was of interest. She had so little opportunity for conversation at the irreproachable Mrs. Hubbard's, that lady having apparently inherited a limited set of ideas from her late husband, 'as Mr. Hubbard used to say' being her favorite introduction to any topic. Miss Pringle saw herself making quite a little success at dinner that night—there was to be ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... withdraw his wife like some unsuccessful dish, as if its taste would not remain in the mouth. I shall be chided for questioning him further about his wife, but, though doubtless an unusual step, it was only bad form superficially, for my motive was irreproachable. I inquired for his wife, not because I was interested in her welfare, but in the hope of allaying my irritation. So I am entitled to invite the wayfarer who has bespattered me with mud to ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... be difficult to select an example of a more lofty and irreproachable character among the great statesmen of England than Edmund Burke. He is not a puzzle, like Oliver Cromwell, although there are inconsistencies in the opinions he advanced from time to time. He takes very much the same ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... at that time, and both spoke and wrote her own language not only correctly, but with more than ordinary elegance,—a taste she inherited from her father. As to her person, she dressed simply, but always with irreproachable neatness, and a scrupulous cleanliness that richer women might sometimes imitate with advantage. These were the plain facts; what my aunt ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... a tone of conviction: "Oh, Mme. Walter is irreproachable. Her husband you know as well as I. But she is different. Still she has suffered a great deal in having married a Jew, though she has been true to him; she is a ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... you recollect that I had the honour of being your fellow-student at College, and that your Holiness has done me the honour of playing duos with me on the Violin; and that the execution of them was not always irreproachable, at least on my part, which so displeased your Holiness at the time that you deigned to apply certain corrections to my fingers. I have taken the liberty of revealing myself to your recollection, and to pray you to take under your protection one who can never cease ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... was talked of unfavorably not through any fault of her own, but on account of the too-free-lived young ladies who filled her court. Giulia Gonzaga Colonna, Ippolita Sforza married to a Bentivoglio, Bianca Rangona, Cecilia Gallerana, Camilla Scarampa, and others, were either altogether irreproachable, or their social fame threw into the shade whatever they may have done amiss. The most famous woman of Italy, Vittoria Colonna (b. 1490, d. 1547), the friend of Castiglioni and Michelangelo, enjoyed the reputation of a saint. It is ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... of the warrior-pope. At all events, in this statue is centred the principal, we may say the unique, interest of the tomb. This prodigious work must be in the memory of all. Amid the masterpieces of ancient and modern sculpture the "Moses" remains ever unparalleled, a type, not irreproachable, but the most striking, of a new art. I do not speak of the consummate science which Michelangelo displays in the modelling of this statue; the Greeks were learned in another fashion, but were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... deny that he was right, that he was a hero and cavalier, outdoing romance itself in faithfulness, not so easy; and Cary, in the first impulse, wished him at the bottom of the bay for shaming him. Of course, his own plan of letting ill alone was the rational, prudent, irreproachable plan, and just what any gentleman in his senses would have done; but here was a vulgar, fat curate, out of his senses, determined not to let ill alone, but to do something, as Cary felt in his heart, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Tacchinardi, a tenor in whom nature had combined the most opposing characteristics. The figure of a dwarf, a head sunk beneath the shoulders, hunchbacked, and repulsive, he was hardly a man fitted by nature for a stage hero. Yet his exquisite voice and irreproachable taste as a musician gave him a long reign in the very front rank of his profession. He was so morbidly conscious of his own stage defects that he would beg composers to write for him with a view to his singing at the side scenes before entering on the stage, that the public might ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... their arrest he hurried to Rouen to be near his mother and brother in prison. The letters he exchanged with Bonnoeil, as soon as it was permitted, show a strong sense of the situation on the part of both, irreproachable honesty and profound friendship. This family, whom it suited Licquet to represent as consisting of spiteful, dissolute or misguided people, appears in a very different light in this correspondence. The two brothers were full of respect ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Schiller, and Goethe. Gray inherited, almost complete, his kind and loving nature from his mother, while his father was harsh and unamiable. Gray was, in fact, a feminine man—shy, reserved, and wanting in energy,—but thoroughly irreproachable in life and character. The poet's mother maintained the family, after her unworthy husband had deserted her; and, at her death, Gray placed on her grave, in Stoke Pogis, an epitaph describing her as "the careful tender ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... however, they have no history out of the records of martyrdom. We know their sufferings better than any peculiar ideas which they advocated. We have testimony to their blameless lives, to their irreproachable morals, to their good citizenship, and to their Christian graces, rather than to any doctrines which stand out as especial marks for discussion or conflict, like those which agitated the councils of Nice or Ephesus. But if we were asked what was the first principle ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... are people of good character and irreproachable intellectual capacity, who, far from admitting the few little weaknesses they have, conceal them with care, and show themselves very sensitive to any suggestion of their existence; and this, just because their whole merit consists in being free from error and infirmity. ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Felicie is here alone with Josette and Martha, I need not tell you that she ought to see no one, not even an old friend or the most devoted of relatives. Under the circumstances in which we are placed, our conduct must be irreproachable. We are vowed to toil and solitude for a ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... of Italy," said Napoleon, "rendered it necessary that I should evince great reserve of manners and the utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable to enable me to sustain authority over men so greatly my superiors in age and experience. I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and exemplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, and must have appeared such to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. My supremacy could be retained only by proving myself a better man than any other man in the army. Had I yielded to human weakness, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... one of those historical novels once about a chap—a buck he would have been, no doubt, or a macaroni or some such bird as that—who, when people said the wrong thing, merely laughed down from lazy eyelids and flicked a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at his wrists. This was practically what I did now. At least, I straightened my tie and smiled one of those inscrutable smiles of mine. I then withdrew and went out for a ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... and this naturally caused his master to ask him, remembering the correction the young aide-decamp had superintended, if he could not find some fault in this model of perfection that might counterbalance so many good qualities. Gregory replied that with the exception of pride he thought Foedor irreproachable. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... these laudable scruples, and resolved to sacrifice my love to duty and reputation, my lord was almost every day employed in riding post to my father, with complaints of my conduct, which was hitherto irreproachable; though the greatest grievance which he pretended to have suffered was my refusing to comply with his desire, when he entreated me to lie, a whole hour every morning, with my neck uncovered, that, by gazing, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... disappeared at the moment when his testimony was wanted. Why and how he disappeared, I cannot tell. He has not yet been found. All due diligence has been exercised to discover him, but without success. I make no charges of foul play, but it is impossible for me, knowing what I know about him—his irreproachable character, his faithfulness to my client, and his perfect memory of every event connected with the execution of the paper in question—to avoid the suspicion that he is by some means, and against his will, detained from appearing here this ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Valence, drew a startling contrast between the means that had been taken to propagate the new doctrines, and those by which the attempt had been made to eradicate them. For thirty years, three or four hundred ministers of irreproachable morals, indomitable courage, and notable diligence in the study of the Holy Scriptures, had been attracting disciples by the sweet name of Jesus continually upon their lips, and had easily gained over a ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... canon, and by his plenitude of power, ordered the deputies of Canterbury to proceed to a new election. At the same time he recommended to their choice Stephen Langton, their countryman,—a person already distinguished for his learning, of irreproachable morals, and free from every canonical impediment. This authoritative request the monks had not the courage to oppose in the Pope's presence and in his own city. They ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... lamb seem to have parted safely!" the latter exclaimed. "Now sit by my side and I will show you interesting things. Those four irreproachable young men over there in tennis flannels are all from the German Embassy. The two elder ones behind are Austrians. All those women are the wives of Senators who sympathise with Germany. Their husbands look like it, don't they? To-day they have an addition ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "no worse than others of his age." Pitiful apology! since, being the ablest man of his day, and therefore bound to be before it, he was in reality behind it, his plays excelling all contemporary productions in wickedness as well as in wit. But his own "conduct was latterly irreproachable." This we doubt, and Scott doubts so too. But even though it were true, it were damaging, because it would deprive him of the plea of passion, and reduce him from the warm human painter to the cold demon-like sculptor of unclean and abominable ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... so far as I have observed, his conduct since he has been a candidate for the office of President has been irreproachable. I hear no intrigue imputed to him, no contumelious treatment of rivals. I do not find him making promises or holding out hopes to any men or any party. I do not find him putting forth any pretensions of his own, and therefore ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... know perfectly well that you can't last out the long journey, and yet they put you here. Supposing you get as far as the Indian Ocean, what then? It's horrible to think of it.... And that's their gratitude for your faithful, irreproachable service!" ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Foyle had spoiled one of the greatest coups that ever a crook had been on the verge of bringing off. Fred, immaculately clad, and with irreproachable references, had approached Greenfields, the Bond Street jewellers, with a formula for manufacturing gold. He had discovered the philosopher's stone. "Of course, I don't want you to go into this until I've proved that it can actually be done," he said airily. "See there. I made ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... vindication of right, a war for the preservation of our nation and of all that it has held dear of principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves doubly constrained to propose for its outcome only that which is righteous and of irreproachable intention, for our foes as well as for ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... to support a candidate, be his nomination irreproachable, his sense of mine and thine otherwise undulled, whose legislative record is tainted by traffickings peculiar to the Black Horse Cavalry—wanton blackmailers of corporate rights. It is of common knowledge ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... after his repairs. But the workmen had stopped work and gone home to supper, and the doctor and his late dinner sat together. Luxuriously enough, on the doctor's part, for the dinner was good and well cooked, the bottles of wine irreproachable (as wine) in their silver stands, the little group of different coloured glasses shining in the firelight. The doctor's fingerbowl and napkin stood at hand, (at this stage of the proceeding) his half-pared ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the adjustment of his tie, the brushing of his tall hat, the drawing on of the dogskin gloves he wore in his office. It was not easy for Mr. Ransome to exceed the professional dignity of his frock coat and gray trousers, and yet every Sunday, by some miracle, he did exceed it. Each minute irreproachable detail of his dress accentuated, reiterated, the suggestion of ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... an irreproachable butler. Tuppence felt a little nervous. After all, perhaps it WAS colossal cheek on her part. She had decided not to ask if Sir James was "at home," but to adopt a ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... from her afternoon's absence, she stood for a minute or two on the little flight of steep steps, whitened to a snowy whiteness; the aspect of the whole house partook of the same character of irreproachable cleanliness. It was wedged up into a space which necessitated all sorts of odd projections and irregularities in order to obtain sufficient light for the interior; and if ever the being situated in a dusky, confined corner might have been made an excuse for dirt, Alice Rose's house ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... certainly not for rugged pine trees standing tall and grim in rocky soil. If, in its present stage of development, it gravitated toward anything in particular, it would have been a well-dressed white birch growing on an irreproachable lawn. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... went to the "Frivolity," to see the latest rays of the lamp of burlesque. That scene, at any rate, was familiar. There, in all their spotless panoply of expressionless face, and irreproachable shirt-front, sat the golden lads of the Metropolis in their rows, images of bored stupidity, stiffly cased in black and white. There too, were to be seen the snowy shoulders and the sparkling jewels of the ladies both of the smart and of the higher half world, with here and there an extensive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... irreproachable as he stood with the ponies at the hotel door and helped their riders to mount. There was an almost sad gravity in his demeanor that suggested a mind preoccupied with solemn and unworldly thoughts with which the doctor and his affairs had ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... moment when he begged that we might go together and verify the excellent aim of our first shot through the forward part of his ship, which he told me had nearly grazed his ear. I consented to go on his lifeboat and admire with him, to our mutual enjoyment, the irreproachable marksmanship of my gunner, although I did not accept a drink of whisky one of the English ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... particular, indeed, the sexes seem to have usurped the other's rights. Young Spanish swells, in colored velvet breeches and tastefully embroidered leggings, scarlet silk sash around the loins, and irreproachable linen, with, here and there, one with the far-famed guitar, improvising amorous nothings for the ear of some susceptible damsel, abandon themselves to the luxury of the hour in true ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... more teachers who hesitate to open their doors in any such way as this; who are afraid that the opportunities offered will be misused or that the activities so sheltered will be misjudged by the public. It has shocked some persons that a young people's dancing-class has been held, under irreproachable auspices, in one of our branch libraries; others have been grieved to see that political ward meetings have taken place in them, and that some rather radical political theories have been debated ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... 1804, he repaired to the famous Law School at Litchfield in Connecticut, where he remained a year and a half, and won general esteem. Tradition reports him a diligent student and an admirable debater there. As to his moral conduct, that was always irreproachable. That is to say, he was at every period of his life continent, temperate, orderly, and out of debt. In 1806, being then twenty-four years of age, he returned to South Carolina, and, after studying ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... The irony of life, and of his own position, was a subject of inexhaustible amusement to him. There was nothing in his nature low, sordid, or petty. It was not money, nor rank, but power which he coveted, and at which he aimed. Irreproachable in domestic life, faithful in friendship, a placable enemy, undaunted by failure, accepting final defeat with philosophic calm, he played with political passions which he did not share, and made use of prejudices ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul |
