"Scruples" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so pale, and trembling, and amazed, If it be true he murdered Cenci, was 125 A sword in the right hand of justest God. Wherefore should I have wielded it? Unless The crimes which mortal tongue dare never name God therefore scruples ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... became the first Danish king of England. Having appointed three sub-kings, and taken charge himself of Wessex, Canute sent the two sons of Edmund to Olaf, requesting him to put them to death; but Olaf, the king of Sweden, had scruples, and instead of doing so sent the boys to Hungary, where they were educated. Edward afterwards married a daughter of ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... perseverance, which carried him triumphantly to the conclusions of his designs in a spirit of utter indifference to the ruin or bad faith that tracked his progress. Such a man alone, who was prepared to sacrifice the scruples of honor and the demands of justice, was fit to meet the difficulties by which the grand princedom of Moscow was surrounded. He saw them all clearly, resolved upon the course he should take; and throughout a long reign, in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... she admired; and an admiration that may not speak itself to the object present drops inward, stirs the founts; and if these are repressed, the tenderness which is not allowed to weep will drown self-pity, hardening the woman to summon scruples in relation to her unworthiness. He might choose to forget, but the more she admired, the less could her feminine conscience permit of an utter or of any forgetfulness that she was not the girl Browny, whom he once loved—perhaps loved now, under some illusion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that if Miss Clarissa Harlowe could be so indifferent about having this public justice done upon such a wretch for her own sake, she ought to overcome her scruples out of regard to her family, her acquaintance, and her sex, which are all highly injured and scandalized by his ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... unexpectedly from Old Forest. Her whole existence seemed so altered by his approach, his presence, or his absence. Why was this? Was there any thing wrong in it? She had nobody whose judgment she could consult—nobody to whom she could venture to describe her feelings, or lay open her doubts and scruples. Lady Cecilia would only laugh; and she could not quite trust either her judgment or her sincerity, though she knew her affection. Besides, after what Cecilia had said of her being safe; after all she had told her of ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... friend's needless scruples by this perfectly sincere expression of opinion, I ventured to approach the central figure in his domestic circle, by means of a question relating to his wife. How had that lady received the unfortunate little creature, for whose ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... up these conscientious scruples That well may cause a rightful heir's complaints. Don't take so much upon yourself, but let him Possess what's his, at his own risk and peril; Consider, it were better he misused it, Than you should be accused of robbing him. I am astounded that unblushingly You could allow such offers to be ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows. Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd is mad, and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping that at the next market-day there will be more soldiers and better precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violent outbreak,"[1118] they decide to take the wheat ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Acres, was to rob the wrong act of more than half of its apparent evil—and so I performed the cruel deed, small as it was, deliberately. From the moment I took the young bird in my hand, all my scruples were gone, and after that it was one of my greatest pleasures to rob birds' nests, and to kill the older birds with stones. My dog Rover, who is no doubt as well remembered as myself, was given me by Mr. Acres, and I was, moreover, encouraged ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... careful leech sits patient, Watching pulse, and hue, and breath, Weighing life's remaining scruples With the heavier ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... passed the marshy coast of Camareos,* (* Here the celebrated philanthropist Bartolomeo de las Casas obtained in 1514 from his friend Velasquez, the governor, a good repartimiente de Indios (grant of land so called). But this he renounced in the same year, from scruples of conscience, during a short stay at Jamaica.) we arrived (latitude 21 degrees 50 minutes) in the meridian of the entrance of the Bahia de Xagua. The longitude the chronometer gave me at this point was almost identical with that since published (in 1821) ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... luminous, so queenly, she dissipated his cloud of doubts and scruples, and the tremor of the boyish lover came back into his limbs as he turned to meet her. His voice all but failed him as he ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... heir, the King's brother, Charles Felix, who was absent at Modena, and who, with an honesty in strong contrast to the frauds of the Neapolitan Court, refused to temporise with rebels, or to make any compromise with the Constitution. The scruples of the Prince of Carignano, after he had gone some way with the military party of action, paralysed the movement of Northern Italy. Unsupported by Piedmontese troops, the conspirators of Milan failed to raise any open insurrection. Austrian soldiers thronged westwards from the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... go through with a purchase which he knew him to be desirous of making. Rowe might well scruple, as he did, the story of so large a gift,—equal to nearly $30,000 in our time; but the fact of his scruples being overruled shows that he had strong grounds for the statement. The sum may indeed have been exaggerated; but all we know of the Earl assures us that he could not but wish to make a handsome return for the Venus and Adonis; and that whatever ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... this appeal. The assurance that the verses would prove a blessing to many souls disarmed her scruples and she consented to their publication. The most of them, unfortunately, bore no date. But all, or nearly all of them, belong to the previous twenty years, and they depict some of the deepest experiences of her Christian life during that period; they are her tears of joy ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... English; which, having well secured in a pillow-case, she then lashed firmly to the raft. Now this, you know, though not flotsam, because it would not float, was certainly, by maritime law, 'jetsom.' It would be the idlest of scruples to fancy that the sea or a shark had a better right to it than a philosopher, or a splendid girl who showed herself capable of writing a very fair 8vo, to say nothing of her decapitating in battle several of the king's enemies, and recovering the king's banner. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Arab smiled meaningly at the Leading Gentleman, and the Tanga tout asked if all were to hunger for the silly scruples of one. "If the fair-faced Sheikh did not wish to eat of Moussa, none would urge it. Live and let live. The gentlemen were hungry; ..." but the fair young man unreasonably replied, "Then let them eat thee since they ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... yelped the puppy that had been Nora's special charge. This was not cubbing, and no one knew it better than Nora; but the sight of Carnage among the prophets—Carnage, whose noblest quarry hitherto had been the Mount Purcell turkey-cock—overthrew her scruples. The foxy mare, a ponderous creature, with a mane like a Nubian lion and a mouth like steel, required nearly as much room to turn in as a man-of-war, and while Nora, by vigorous use of her heel and a reliable ash plant, was getting ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... bottles of white wine in each arm, the sport, like a nurse with two pairs of twins. When he was spotted, they made him go back down to the wine-cellar, and serve out bottles for everybody. But Corporal Bertrand, who is a man of scruples, wouldn't have any. Ah, you ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Nightingale: "for I never shall find it in any other woman.—O, my dear friend! could you imagine what I have felt within these twelve hours for my poor girl, I am convinced she would not engross all your pity. Passion leads me only to her; and, if I had any foolish scruples of honour, you have fully satisfied them: could my father be induced to comply with my desires, nothing would be wanting to compleat my own happiness or that of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... concur with you in opinion that they are a very licentious people.[5] Indian traders, of whatever nation, are rarely models of virtue; and these, without doubt, were rough and lawless men, with abundant blackguardism and few scruples. Not all of them, however, are to be thus qualified. Some were of a better stamp; among whom were Christopher Gist, William Trent, and George Croghan. These and other chief traders hired men on the frontiers, crossed the Alleghanies with goods packed on the backs of horses, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... prove the female to my soul; My soul the father: and these two beget A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world, In humours like the people of this world, For no thought is contented. The better sort, As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word: As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again, 'It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a needle's eye.' Thoughts tending to ambition, ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the advocate, applied indiscriminately to the development of the specious shows of things as of their essences, wore all the semblance of sincerity; and, in one sense, deserved it. No fears, no doubts, no scruples shook him. Of the license which advocacy draws from sympathy with the feelings of those it represents, he made full use, with unhesitating power; for his reason, of 'large discourse,' was as pliable as the affections ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... seven feet of solid earth above him, and it couldn't make much difference what he said, even supposing he had enough tongue left to say anything, which he had not. However, the polite beast respected her scruples; so the only way in which he could testify his gratitude was by remaining to dinner. They had the housedog for dinner that day, though, from some false notion of hospitable etiquette, the woman and children did ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... ruin. My respect for marriage led to the discovery of my misconduct. The scandal must be expiated; I was arrested, suspended, and dismissed; I was the victim of my scruples rather than of my incontinence, and I had reason to believe, from the reproaches which accompanied my disgrace, that one can often escape punishment by being ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the people to have a convention, though most of those who staid away did so because they believed the whole procedure not only illegal, but dangerous. Your hungry demagogue, however, is not to be defeated by any scruples so delicate. To work these elites of the colony went, to organise an election for members of the convention. At this election about a third of the electors appeared, the candidates succeeding by handsome majorities, the rest staying away ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... agreed about this? On the Temperance question, against Catholicism,—have these topics never entered into our politics? The simple truth is that Slavery is the only subject about which the Publishing Committee have felt Constitutional scruples. Till this question arose, they were like men in perfect health, never suspecting that they had any constitution at all; but now, like hypochondriacs, they feel it in every pore, at the least ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... came up; so many things I didn't want to do, so many it didn't seem right to do. I was forever turning aside to wrestle with my feelings on those things, and forever hesitating. Half the time, after the opportunity was gone by, I discovered that my scruples had been foolish; but I always discovered afterward. I don't believe that success lies that way in ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... had changed, and spring bloomed in her soul, for love had come to warm her chilled heart with the sunbeam of happiness. She did not reproach herself, nor did she feel any scruples of conscience, that it was not her husband whom she loved. What respect could she have for marriage, when for her it had been only a matter of sale and purchase? She had been traded off like a slave, and with happy exultation she said to herself, "Love has come to make me free, and, as a free and ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... to "take things au grand serieux;" and this characteristic extends to matters of religion. The young fellow, for instance, who, for some reason or another, thinks it "worth his while" to conform to Christianity for a time, will have the very smallest scruples about doing so; and that, with a semblance of earnestness that will baffle, at any rate for some time, the careful scrutiny to which candidates are rightly subjected by most, if not all, of the missionary bodies. The missionaries, I fear, are often imposed ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... the principle of sacrifice must play havoc. Here the artist should expect to pay for his art scruples. Rembrandt was the first painter sacrificed to these instincts. When the order to paint the "Municipal Guard" came to him he saw in it an opportunity toward the pictorial. Knowing what this entailed he persevered, despite the mutterings of his sitters, the majority ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... highly important. Besides this, Mayne and Eustis want reform, progress, Demos-with-a-full-dinner-pail, all the wearisome rest of that uplift stuff? Inglesby will see that they get an undiluted dose of it. More yet: if you have any scruples about Mayne, Inglesby will get behind that young man and boost him until he can crow on the weathervane—when you are Mrs. Inglesby. A chap like Mayne would be valuable, properly expurgated. Come, Miss Eustis, that's fair enough. If you refuse—well, it's up to you to make ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... in with Hardwick at a gambling house uptown, and the two soon became firm friends. At that time Dick Ferris was a great admirer of Hardwick, who found the tall boy a fellow without scruples of any kind. ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... formed a part of the famous cancer cure of Mr. Plunkett in 1794. This cure comprised Crowfoot leaves, freshly gathered, and dog's-foot fennel leaves, of each an ounce, with one drachm of white arsenic levigated, and with five scruples of flowers of sulphur, all beaten together into a paste, and dried by the sun in balls, which were then powdered, and, being mixed with yolk of egg, were applied on pieces of pig's bladder. The juice of the common Buttercup (Bulbosus), known sometimes as "St. ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the old Duchess of Marlborough hoped to lure him into helping her with her decocted memoirs, until she found that he had scruples, when in a fury she snatched the papers out of his hands. 'I thought,' she cried, 'the man had sense; but I find him at bottom either ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... is that Sir Ferdinand suddenly quitted the Imperial service, and appeared at Constantinople in person. The man whom a point of honour prevented from becoming a Protestant in his native country had no scruples about his profession of faith at Stamboul: certain it is that the English baronet soon rose high in the favour of the Sultan, assumed the Turkish dress, conformed to the Turkish customs, and finally, led against ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... said, "that Prince Hohenhauer came up here to ask her to marry him. You can see for yourself what such a match would mean for him, for aside from that indisputable genius of hers—trained in later years by himself—she has great wealth and few scruples; and where he failed to win men to his purpose, she, with her superlative charm, and every feminine intuition sharpened by an uncommon experience of men and public life, would succeed. She may hate him, as Mr. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... will accept it. There are some kind hearts in the world. I felt very much depressed by the refusal I just received. It was a great sacrifice of pride for me to ask help of any one, but the thought of my little daughter removed all my scruples. I could bear privation and hunger myself, but I could not bear ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... Gladstone poring over his cheek (Connaught and Leinster), his jaw (Munster, with a pimple for Parnellite Cork), and his forehead (Ulster, with the eyes for Derry and Belfast). The G.O.M. would find the Kerry member invaluable. Like the rest he would probably be devoid of shame, untroubled by scruples, and a straight voter for his side, so long as he was not allowed to go "widout a male." Who knows but that, like the Prime Minister's chief Irish adviser, he may even have been reared on the savoury tripe and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Mrs. Hunter, at a distance, as an old acquaintance. Now he had audaciously outfaced her, and denied that he ever knew her. Could this be the man she had trusted with her all? Again her doubts and fears and scruples rose—rose instantly in full strength. The new impressions she had lately received of him vanished, and all the subtle suggestions of sordid lightness which the diplomacy of Brassfield, even, had not entirely kept from her mind, came back with multiplied distinctness. ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... to you; and, by a strange mixture of vengeance and conscientiousness, she is really tormented by the belief that she is committing a heinous sin in keeping the truth from him; and the only way which I could find of calming her scruples, was by informing her of the conditions under which I happen to know that your uncle has settled his property, and by solemnly assuring her that you ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... resumed, "that the Englishman and the Signorina di Orvieto could not marry, on account of some foolish religious scruples held by the young lady, but they entertained a very violent passion for each other, met clandestinely, and a female child was born, whose baptism is registered, under the name of Margarita di Orvieto, in the church of the village of La Scutillo here." (He tapped a tiny spired ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... They were acutely conscious of it. They approved of it with heartiness. They liked it so well that, when the time came to nominate and elect another President, they swept aside with a mighty rush not only the scruples and antagonisms of the Republican politicians and the "special interests" but party lines as well, and chose Roosevelt with a unanimous voice in the convention and a majority of two and a half million votes at ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... was a stout, masculine woman, brought up in the woods, and never fainted in her life, even in presence of an alligator or a panther. So she had no scruples in seizing Mr. Maxwell by the nape of the neck, and giving him a kind of double twist, which sent him reeling into the corner of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... did she watch his pranks with so indulgent an eye, and give herself trouble to enlarge the scope of his entertaining activity. She knew, however, that the man was not cast in heroic mould; that he was capable of scruples, inclined to indolence; that he did not, after all, sufficiently believe in himself to go very far in the subjugation of others. Therefore she had never entertained the thought of seriously devoting herself to his cause, but was ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... definitely apparent in the papers of 1527 is that Henry had determined to make Anne his wife. There is no hint of the conscientious scruples or the patriotic motives afterwards alleged, though that of course does not preclude their having been present. Those two alleged motives require to be examined merely as a ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Charlotte returned they found the young girl on her knees. The man raised some objections against opening the church at that hour of the night; but a piece of gold and Mademoiselle de Montrevel's name dispelled his scruples. A second gold piece decided him to light a little chapel. It was the one in which Amelie had made her first communion. There, kneeling before the altar, she implored them ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... be smitten suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the music of life, and from the voice of friendship, and love? How little do we realise the sufferings of others! Even your brutal Government, in the heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman, and to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so horrible a doom: not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from philanthropy, but ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Margaret Hall. Milly put on a fresh flowered muslin dress, apparently unworn, that she found hanging in one of the deep wall-cupboards of the old house, and a coarse burnt-straw hat, trimmed with roses and black ribbon, which became her marvellously well. All the scruples of an apostle of hygienic dress, all the uneasiness of an economist at the prospect of unpaid bills, disappeared before the pleasure of a young woman face to face with an extremely pretty reflection in a pier-glass. That glass, an ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... feel any great scruples with regard to the other Antarctic expeditions that were being planned at the time. I knew I should be able to inform Captain Scott of the extension of my plans before he left civilization, and therefore a few months sooner or later could be of no great importance. Scott's plan and equipment ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... exercising themselves. Being thus supplied with a general explanation of the world, they could put aside the question of its origin and end, and devote themselves freely and fully to the art of living, unhampered by scruples and doubts as to the nature of life. Consciousness similar to their own was the ultimate fact; and there was nothing therefore with which they might not form intelligible ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the world very little," he said, "if you have such scruples about a matter that would not weigh on any ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... of work necessary to the complete furtherance of Williams' ambitious schemes. But, as may be supposed, this plan, when put to a practical test, failed. Capture was not in all cases tamely submitted to—resistance was offered, blood was shed in the conflict. And when this had once happened all scruples vanished, and the further step of murdering such prisoners as proved contumacious or were inconvenient to keep was an easy one; the worst passions of the men asserted themselves, and breaking loose from all restraint speedily converted their ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... surprised at this refusal, naturally supposing from her life that Miss Maclaire's scruples would be easily overcome. This obstinacy of the girl ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... beautiful lady won the girl's heart before they were long together, that Rosamond herself proposed that George should accompany Lady Eversleigh to Allanbay. With pretty imperiousness she bore down Lady Eversleigh's grateful scruples, and the result was, that the two started that same evening, travelled as fast as post-horses could carry them, and arrived at Allanbay before even Lady Eversleigh's impatience could find the journey long. Susan Jernam had kept the child with her, and she it was who put little Gerty into her ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... them walking to and from church at all hours, in their hoods and long camblet cloaks, with a slow pace, demure aspect, and downcast eye. Those who are poor become very troublesome to the monks, with their scruples and cases of conscience: you may see them on their knees, at the confessional, every hour in the day. The rich devotee has her favourite confessor, whom she consults and regales in private, at her own house; and this spiritual director ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Worth nodded. No social scruples were his. I had by no means given up the belief that Skeels in jail at Tiajuana, would still turn out to be one ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,—in a word, ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... different types: the still stranger, still less creditable visionary, of whom much hereafter; the avowed friends of the principle of state rights; all those who distrusted the Government because of its anti-slavery sympathies; Quakers and others with moral scruples against war; and finally, sincere legalists to whom the Conscription Act appeared unconstitutional. In the spring of 1863 the issue of conscription drew the line fairly sharply between the two political coalitions, though each continued to fluctuate, more or less, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... truth the most contrary man that ever stood in neat's leather. You have ever some outlandish reason for jibbing and shying like a hot-blooded, half-broken colt. Yet I think that I can overcome these strange scruples of yours ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Dexter's guilty fears suggested to him that he might have been watched on the morning when he secretly entered the chamber in which the first Mrs. Eustace lay dead. Feeling no scruples himself to restrain him from listening at doors and looking through keyholes, he would be all the more ready to suspect other people of the same practices. With this dread in him, it would naturally occur to his mind that Mrs. Valeria might meet with the ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... gin, for the empty bottle was on the table. She may have been more than fuddled, I cannot say; for I was so excited that I recollect only the most prominent circumstances. I was in a funk, but my cock was stiff, and that overcame all scruples. The house had but two rooms: a kitchen I was standing in, the street-door opened on to it. An open door showed a neat bed in a clean white-washed bed-room. How I began I know not, but recollect telling what I had heard, and that for months he had not been a husband to her. That set her ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... provisions. The security of these caches (Figs. 98-111) is considered sacred in the wilds and they are not disturbed by savages or whites; but bears, foxes, husky dogs, porcupines, and wolverenes are devoid of any conscientious scruples and unless the cache is absolutely ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... got Fitz-Albini;[84] my father has bought it against my private wishes, for it does not quite satisfy my feelings that we should purchase the only one of Egerton's works of which his family are ashamed. That these scruples, however, do not at all interfere with my reading it, you will easily believe. We have neither of us yet finished the first volume. My father is disappointed—I am not, for I expected nothing better. Never did any ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... beauty and her talent for cooking; and as she saw her master's face grow more congested at each repast, she made her preparations for the future. Who could say but that M. Gaufre, a real devotee after all, would develop conscientious scruples some day, and end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sheltered spot, of something to break the remorseless wind, overcame his scruples, and he drew his bed inside the tent and rearranged ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... None of these scruples, to my knowledge, are entertained by colonizationists: their only aim and anxiety seem to be, 'to prune and nourish the system,'—not to overthrow it; to increase the avarice of the planters by rendering the labor of their bondmen more productive,—not to abridge and starve it; to remove ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... himself publish the book and give him a percentage three times as large. He said Grant seemed to doubt whether he could honorably withdraw from the negotiation at that point, but Clemens overbore his scruples, and it was his unparalleled privilege, his princely pleasure, to pay the author a far larger check for his work than had ever been paid to an author before. He valued even more than this splendid opportunity the sacred ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Bengal. Two converts expressed the strongest desire to profess Christ, before the missionaries should leave them. They were accordingly baptized. The ship being detained, the speculative, hesitating, but now sincere disciple, Moung Shwa-gnong, casting aside his fears and scruples, boldly avowed his faith, and desired baptism. Of course he was joyfully received. The scene at his baptism had such an effect upon Mah Meulah, the female who has been before mentioned, that she too could no longer delay a ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... pacified Mary, and kissed her, And tempted her into the room, And conquer'd her scruples and gloom; And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the warning of doom— By some words that were warning of doom. And I said, "What is written, sweet sister, At the opposite end of the room?" She ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... peace,—taking the credit themselves, or claiming it for their chief, of preventing an open insurrection,—murder, incendiarism, assault, and religious persecution were carried out in detail. When any were arraigned, no scruples were entertained as to the means by which conviction might be prevented; perjury, intimidation, and assassination were among these instrumentalities. When convicted, the criminal was regarded as suffering for his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... can be a statesman who gives way to such overstrained delicacy. Excess of conscientiousness degenerates into infirmity. Scruple is one-handed when a sceptre is to be seized, and a eunuch when fortune is to be wedded. Distrust scruples; they drag you too far. Unreasonable fidelity is like a ladder leading into a cavern—one step down, another, then another, and there you are in the dark. The clever reascend; fools remain in it. Conscience must not ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the fate of my mother and sister overcame my father's scruples, so, mounting our horses, Mr Laffan and I rode out through the eastern gate. Our steeds were accustomed to the road, and we put them ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... is some one in your rooms—I will leave them instantly if there is not," she exclaimed, surprised at scruples which never had troubled her hitherto. Forrest protested by all the gods that the very ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... now develop this unexpected susceptibility. And so the old question presented itself in another shape: if she had nothing to reproach herself for, why was it intolerable to her to live on Bessy's money? The fact that she was doing no actual service at Westmore did not account for her scruples—she would have been the last person to think that a sick servant should be docked of his pay. Her reluctance could come only from that hidden cause of compunction which had prompted her departure, and which now forced her to sever even the merely ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... the country. To please these obliging persons, the hangers-on of governments that he has passed a quarter of his life infighting against and whom he will call gravely, and upon certain occasions, very drolly, the hierarchy, he will betray without any scruples all those whose disinterested efforts and great sacrifices have brought about the triumph of the cause which ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... with you except on the old score of hiding the truth from me; and that I forgive you—as far as the evil of it affects me. As for your declaration of attachment to me personally, I have received many similar ones that have flattered me less. But there are certain scruples between us. You will not court a woman a hundred-fold richer than yourself; and I will not entertain a prize-fighter. My wealth frightens every man who is not a knave; and your profession frightens every woman who is ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... situation was a terrible one. Medical etiquette demanded his immediate retirement from the case, but the promptings of humanity and the thought of his client's important position in the world were too strong for him. Throwing his scruples to the winds, he assisted the aged peer on to a hastily improvised stretcher and ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... he did not see why the fact that Winifred was a Christian and had become uncommonly interested in that sort of thing should hinder her being the best of wives to a worldly man like himself. They need not quarrel about it. As to any scruples that might be entertained in her conscientious little head about all the gaiety he cared for, he inwardly credited himself with skill to overcome them when once she should be his. But Winifred made it clear to him at ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... most urgently on his mind. "Lois and I are to be married on one of the last days of February," he said, with his best attempt to speak casually. "She wants to work it in before Lent, which begins on the first day of March. Have scruples about marrying in Lent in their church. Quiet affair. No one but ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... at least, of such clamant enormities. "They have no partitions in their houses; but it may be affirmed, they have in many instances more refined ideas of decency than ourselves; and one long a resident, scruples not to declare, that he never saw any appetite, hunger and thirst excepted, gratified in public. It is too true, that for the sake of gaining our extraordinary curiosities, and to please our brutes, they have appeared immodest in the extreme. Yet they lay the charge wholly at our door, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Maximin or a Galerius. Isdigerd was a bitter and successful persecutor of Christianity, which he—for a time at any rate—stamped out, both from his own proper dominions, and from the newly-acquired province of Armenia. He would have preferred less violent means; but, when they failed, he felt no scruples in employing the extremest and severest coercion. He was determined on uniformity; and uniformity he secured, but at the cost of crushing a people, and so alienating them as to make it certain that they would, on the first ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Egremont at the time could have wished to have been more explicit. However in the excitement attendant on a first contest, and influenced by the person whose judgment always swayed, and, in the present case, was peculiarly entitled to sway him, he stifled his scruples, and persuaded himself that he was a candidate not only with the sanction, but at the instance, of his brother. "You were speaking of the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... difficult and complicated duties of his office in the Isle of Wight. Cromwell's letter, so occasioned, begins "Dear Robin," and is conceived throughout in terms of the most anxious affection, struggling with a half-expressed purpose. He reasons earnestly with Hammond on his doubts and scruples, sympathizing with them so far, but at the same time combating them, and suggesting such queries as these—"first, Whether Salus Populi be a sound position? secondly, Whether in the way in hand [i.e. the Parliamentary ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... it all that corroborates its essential idea. Yesterday the news came in of the sinking of the Japanese ironclads; and in the so-called higher circles of Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society they are, without the slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing at the destruction of a thousand human lives. Yet to-day I have received from a simple seaman, a man standing on the lowest plane of society, the ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... she followed that pair absorbed in one another. She went because there was no choice, she was impelled by her necessity to know and unhindered by any scruples, and when she had seen the two pass down the quiet road leading to his house, with his hand on her elbow and her face turned to his, Helen went back to the young man ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... that can't be touched by any living thing or dead thing either if you stick to it? Why, every man's got power enough in himself to ride heaven and earth and all eternity if he only believed he'd got it! Ride your scruples, man—ride 'em, drive 'em—send 'em scuttling. Believe in yourself and stick ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... further effusion of blood, to arrest the progress of expense, to forward the prevalent wish of the nation for peace has led to strenuous efforts through various channels to accomplish these desirable purposes; in making which efforts I consulted less my own anticipations of the event, or the scruples which some considerations were calculated to inspire, than the wish to find the object attainable, or if not attainable, to ascertain unequivocally that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... retail tradesman in the city. He was unfortunate; and when he died, my mother came down, and lived penuriously enough, I knew not how till I grew older, down in that same suburban street. She had been brought up an Independent. After my father's death she became a Baptist, from conscientious scruples. She considered the Baptists, as I do, as the only sect who thoroughly embody the Calvinistic doctrines. She held it, as I do, an absurd and impious thing for those who believe mankind to be children of the devil till they have been consciously "converted," ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... purpose. There were two white animals of the hog kind, a male and a female lama, three goats, besides several birds, about the size of a turkey, some tortoises, and other amphibious animals. He professed himself willing, in case I had any foolish scruples against mixing my blood with that of brutes, to purify my own, and put it back; but I obstinately declined both expedients; whereupon he opened a vein in my arm, and took from it about fourteen ounces of blood. Finding myself, weakened as well as relieved, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... wife, because in one of his ardent letters he had called her so to stifle the voice of remorse in her bosom. The conviction had grown upon her, till now, after a lapse of more than twenty years, she had forgotten all her former doubts and scruples, believed herself and her son to be injured and deprived of their just rights, and was ready to assert her marriage boldly, though she had at one time felt and acknowledged that there was no marriage at all, and that the words her seducer ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... retracted his promise. D'Anville was sorely perplexed; but Duperrier, captain of the "Northumberland," less considerate of the prisoner's feelings, told him that unless he kept his word he should be thrown into the sea, with a pair of cannon-balls made fast to his feet. At this his scruples gave way, and before night the "Northumberland" was safe in Chibucto Bay. D'Anville had hoped to find here the four ships of Conflans which were to have met him from the West Indies at this, the appointed ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... Yet I am no novice in my duties as dry-nurse. How many pupils have passed through my hands and have reached the final stage in my old sardine-boxes as well as in their native burrows! I shall draw no conclusions from this check, which my scruples may attribute to some unknown cause. Perhaps the atmosphere of my cabinet and the dryness of the sand serving them for a bed have been too much for my nurslings, whose tender skins are used to the warm moisture of the subsoil. Let us ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... gentleman well known as one of his earliest and latest friends. I had hoped that such a picture, as these letters must exhibit, of his feelings at that most interesting period of his private life, would not have been lost to the present work. But scruples—over-delicate, perhaps, but respectable, as founded upon a systematic objection to the exposure of any papers, received under the seal of private friendship—forbid the publication of these precious documents. The reader must, therefore, be satisfied with the few distant ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... ask if you are still of the same mind—still intent on destroying your friends." His laugh rang out mockingly. "Fine friends truly for a Princess Zairoff. I gave you till to-night—come, which is to be sacrificed—your womanly scruples, or the five hundred lives you ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... scruples against giving him a chance to kill you," Dick went on mercilessly. "You believe in a police force for preserving order in a community, ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... non-resistance, etc. We trust you will do us the justice to think that we are conscientious and not bigoted. The temptation is strong to severe, but we dare not hazard the cause we have espoused by yielding our scruples. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... his thick bushy brows. Those interested read tardy scruples in his countenance. A great silence followed, broken by no sound but the dealing of the cards. M. and Mme. Camusot, sensible of a decided chill in the atmosphere, took their departure to leave the conspirators ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... other boys, who had fallen in love with Ludlow at first sight, were more eager to go than they could tell. But Uncle Moses demurred. He felt afraid of giving trouble, and thought they had better get back to Naples. Ludlow, however, pooh-poohed his scruples, answered every objection, and would not take any refusal whatever; so that the result was, the final departure of the party ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... forbidden to the Jews, being, as they esteem themselves, under the bondage of the old law of Moses. We, Saracen, be it known to thee, have a better warrant for what we do—Ave Maria!—be we thankful." And, as if in defiance of his companion's scruples, he concluded a short Latin grace with a long draught ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... religionists, what were all the disputes of British Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, but battles of kites and crows? If her husband's kind of Protestant Church could have been retained, that of course would have been well; but, as things were, she had no patience with those scruples of conscience for which he would sacrifice the most substantial interests of himself and his family. His main object ought to be to retain as much of real kingly power as possible, to be enjoyed by himself and her, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of public money in his hands to meet calls at fixed periods. Holders of the office were wont to employ such sums for their own benefit. Pitt would not do so, and left the office a poor man. Fox had no such scruples. During the war the government often obtained ready money by issuing bills at 20 per cent discount. Fox bought these bills with the public money which lay in his hands. He also used the public money in operating in government stock and gained immense profits from the fluctuations of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... The man who has no conscience does what he wills; everything is fair to him in war; and there—in his unscrupulousness—lies his evil strength. The man who has a conscience dares not do what he likes. His scruples—in plain words, his fear of God—hamper him, and put him at a disadvantage, which will always defeat him, as often as he borrows the devil's tools to do ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... review of our political condition. It is obviously inconsistent with our national dignity that a remedy should not be immediately applied; but when we seek for such, only two courses of action are discernible, in the maze of political quibbles and constitutional scruples that at once suggest themselves. One is, to repeal the Organic Act and place the Territory under military control; the other is, to buy the Mormons out of Utah, offering them a reasonable compensation for the improvements they have made there, as also transportation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... aged poet's scruples; and he filled with silent dignity the post of Laureate till after seven years' space a ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... done odd things to him—thinking of Ringg, a Lhari, one of the freaks who had killed his father, as a friend! If they knew who he was, they would turn on him, hunt him down as they'd hunted Briscoe, as they'd hunted his father, as they'd hounded him from Earth to Procyon. He put his scruples aside. He'd made up ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... As for the woman, however, she did not laugh. On the contrary, she seemed to bristle with fury, which the mockery of the other women about only served to intensify. She stood there literally snarling and shaking with indignation, and, seeing her, I wished Job's scruples had been at Jericho, forming a shrewd guess that his admirable behaviour had endangered our throats. Nor, as the sequel shows, was ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... kindled into flame: Hope scattered scruples, and her doubts gave way, And loosed were all the lingering ties of shame. First to the fane the sisters haste away, And there for peace at every shrine they pray, And chosen ewes, as ancient rites ordain, To Sire Lyaeus, to the God of Day, And Ceres, giver of the law, are ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... evidently on the brink of bursting into laughter, "if we risk our lives, sure, it's our own business, and if you've no scruples on your own account, you ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... dinners ([Greek: dehipna]). Now, it happened not sometimes, but always, that he who gave a dinner had on the same day made a sacrifice at the Great Temple; nay, the dinner was always part of the sacrifice, and thus the following dilemma arose. Scruples of eating part of sacrifices were absolutely unintelligible, except as insults to Ephesus. To deny the existence of Diana had no meaning in the ears of an Ephesian. All that he did understand was, that if you happened to ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... woodpeckers hammering an old tin pan lying in the middle of the pasture. Rather small sport, I thought, for so large a bird. But that was a matter of opinion, merely, and evidently the performer himself had no such scruples. He may even have considered that his ability to play on this instrument of the tinsmith's went far to put him on an equality with some who boast themselves the only tool-using animals. True, the pan was battered and rusty; but it was resonant, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... were a little cold towards her after she refused the marriage which they had arranged for her: they too refused to see any justification for her. Madame Nathan had decided that the marriage should take place, and her vanity was hurt at its missing fire through Antoinette's fault. She thought her scruples certainly quite praiseworthy, but exaggerated and sentimental: and thereafter she lost interest in the silly little goose. It was necessary for her always to be helping people, with or without their consent, and she quickly found another protegee to absorb, for the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... chance of that," she told him. "I don't suppose that life even with the man you love is all happiness. But it is what I want. It's what I'm not going to let your scruples rob me of." ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... Assembly, or from any other office in the civil administration: That the said charter, being given soon after the happy restoration of King Charles II. and re-establishment of the church of England by the Act of Uniformity, many of the subjects of the kingdom who were so unhappy as to have some scruples about conforming to the rites of the said church, did transplant themselves and families into Carolina; by means whereof the greatest part of the inhabitants there were Protestant Dissenters from the church of England, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... United States so desired, the Samoan group would have been ceded to us years ago, but there is always vigorous opposition to this country acquiring territory outside of its present coast lines. No such scruples prevail in England or Germany, and, in consequence, both those powers are industriously engaged in annexing stray islands, whether the inhabitants desire protection ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... knights, we must lose no time in going to Ricord's assistance. The slaves have had a long row today, but they must start on another. Let them have a good meal to strengthen them, and a cup of wine each. Whatever their scruples at other times, they never refuse wine when there is heavy work to be done, knowing full well that a draught of it helps them mightily in their labours. Your men must have rowed well, Sir John, to have brought ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... him, while the other law officers addressed themselves to the three puisne judges. By Bacon's directions the proposal to the three judges to give their opinions separately was made suddenly and confidently, and any scruples they might have felt were easily overcome. The first step was thus gained, and it was hoped that if "infusion" could be avoided, if the papers bearing on the case were presented to the judges quickly, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... must be tolerant. I can conceive that a man might feel perfectly safe in the use of wine and have no scruples of any kind against it, and yet be sincere in urging people in general to totally abstain from it on account of the harm some might receive. This man must not be denied a place in the temperance ranks. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... equilibrium at once with the two possible solids, the dissolved body and the solvent solidified. The knowledge of this point explains the properties of refrigerating mixtures, and it is also one of the most useful for the theory of alloys. The scruples of physicists ought to have been removed on the memorable occasion when Professor Van t'Hoff demonstrated that solution can operate reversibly by reason of the phenomena of osmosis. But the experiment can only succeed in very rare cases; and, on the ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... meddle in matters which require genius, learning, strong comprehension, quickness of conception, magnanimity, generosity, sagacity, or any other superior gift of human minds. Because this sort of discretion is usually attended with a strong desire of money, and few scruples about the way of obtaining it; with servile flattery and submission; with a want of all public spirit or principle; with a perpetual wrong judgment, when the owners come into power and high place, how to dispose of favour and preferment; having no measures ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... If the composition be natural, affecting, or beautiful, it is all that is required. This, at least, was my view of the subject, or I should not have adopted that mode. However, in respect to your scruples, which I feel are both delicate and reasonable, I have altered the verses; and I have only to regret that the alteration is not more happily done. But I never found anything more difficult. I wished ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... glance at the earthen mug which he held, as he gradually bent it from its upright position, until it was evident that the process of absorption had been rapidly acting on its contents. Tim, who understood the freemasonry of the manoeuvre, removed all the latent scruples of Felix by adding—"There's more of that stuff—where you know; and by the crook of St. Patrick we'll have another drop of it to comfort us this blessed night. Whisht! do you hear how the wind comes sweeping over the hills? God help ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... up till 1870 had a certain sense of decent restraint, and took the trouble to disguise itself skilfully under Bismarck, no longer knows either limitations or scruples. It displays itself without shame, secure in the hesitancy of the Slav and the weakness of the Latin peoples. Who could fail to be roused to indignation by the display of German fanaticism which has taken place at Vienna? To think that in the capital of an ally ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Darwin from his childhood, as is usually the case in great naturalists, turned itself in the direction of Insects during his residence at Cambridge. In childhood it had been damped by the moral scruples of a sister, as to the propriety of catching and killing insects for the mere sake of possessing them, but now it broke out afresh, and Darwin became an enthusiastic beetle collector. Oddly enough he took no scientific interest in beetles, not even troubling himself ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... concluded, and the toast and cups having been duly handed, and occasionally upset, by Mr. Watkins Tottle, a rubber was proposed. They cut for partners—Mr. and Mrs. Parsons; and Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Mr. Timson having conscientious scruples on the subject of card-playing, drank brandy-and-water, and kept up a running spar with Mr. Watkins Tottle. The evening went off well; Mr. Watkins Tottle was in high spirits, having some reason to be gratified with his reception by Miss Lillerton; and before he left, a small party was made ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... not find in the more avowedly sensuous Venus of the Tribuna. This last is an avowed act of worship by the artist of the naked human body, and as such, in its noble frankness, free from all offence, except to those whose scruples in matters of art we are not here called upon to consider. From this Magdalen to that much later one of the Hermitage, which will be described farther on, is a great step upwards, and it is a step which, in passing ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... rink with one of the dark-skinned maids, passing the afternoons with her sporty friends of the new world. Together they ventilated their ideas under the glare of the easy life of Paris, freed from the scruples and conventions of their native land. They all thought themselves older than they were, delighting to discover in each other unsuspected charms. The change from the other hemisphere had altered their sense of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a little soap for the Simpsons, she at first replied decidedly in the negative. She was an indulgent parent, however, and really had little objection to Emma Jane amusing herself in this unusual way; it was only for Rebecca, as the niece of the difficult Miranda Sawyer, that she raised scruples; but when fully persuaded that the enterprise was a ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... but Wunpost met her gaze with a cold, unblinking stare. Her nice Scotch scruples were not for such as he, and if she crowded him too far he had an answer to her reproaches which would effectually reduce her to silence. But Billy knew that answer, and the reason for the gleam which played like heat-lightning in his eyes, and she hastened ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... was no want of piety, depth, force, or fervour. These were men refined by persecution, who had struggled to the light that had been darkened by the popular system, and, having once been forced into foregoing their scruples as to breaking the unity of the Church, regarded themselves even as apostles of the truth. Listening to them, Isaac Gardon felt himself rapt into the hopes of cleansing the aspirations of universal re-integration that had shone before ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... repress these arguments and scruples of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and ...
— Martin Luther's 95 Theses • Martin Luther
... falsification of life by those who insist that every good thing is free and fair and pleasant. And, even among those who recognize the vital necessity of discipline, morality is so narrowed to that component, that it commonly suggests only those scruples and inhibitions which destroy the spontaneity and whole-heartedness ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... Gonzales de Mendoza: Once more the weary business was gone through, but Columbus must have had some hopes of success, since he did not produce his forged Toscanelli correspondence. It was no scruple of conscience that held him back, we may be sure; the crafty Genoese knew nothing about such scruples in the attainment of a great object; he would not have hesitated to adopt any means to secure an end which he felt to be so desirable. So it is probable that either he was not quite sure of his ground and his courage failed him, or that he had hopes, owing to his ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... When the guilty, therefore, are not punished, the law has so far failed of its purpose; the safety of the innocent is so far endangered. Every unpunished murder takes away something from the security of every man's life. Whenever a jury, through whimsical and ill-founded scruples, suffer the guilty to escape, they make themselves answerable for the augmented ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... of death." This is a very fearful view of our natural state, and one which contradicts all the conclusions of our own vanity and self-complacency. Unconverted men believe that Christians are slaves, fettered by doubts, scruples, self-accusations; bound in the bands of moral routine, and able only to move in certain prescribed grooves; afraid to do as they list. According to their notion, true liberty consists in throwing off religious restraints, and following as much as may be "the devices and desires of our ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... characteristically complacent. A draft was prepared under the hands of Dethick, the Garter King, and of Camden, the Clarenceux King, granting the required 'exemplification' and authorising the required impalement and quartering. On one point only did Dethick and Camden betray conscientious scruples. Shakespeare and his father obviously desired the heralds to recognise the title of Mary Shakespeare (the poet's mother) to bear the arms of the great Warwickshire family of Arden, then seated at Park Hall. But the relationship, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... few days at Springfield, to fill a friend's pulpit, and had been consulted by Miss Hatchard as to young Harney's plan for ventilating the "Memorial." To lay hands on the Hatchard ark was a grave matter, and Miss Hatchard, always full of scruples about her scruples (it was Harney's phrase), wished to have Mr. Miles's opinion ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... have ensued. Had not both but only one of them been averse from taking or risking life, the other would surely have remained in Tilling, and spread disastrous reports about the bravery of the refugee; while if neither of them had had scruples on the sacredness of human existence there might have been one if not two corpses lying on the shining sands. Naturally the fact that they both had taken the very earliest opportunity of averting an encounter ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... down the brush and leaned her chin on her clasped hands.... Even now she could not understand what had made her take the cigars. She had always been alive to the value of her inherited scruples: her reasoned opinions were unusually free, but with regard to the things one couldn't reason about she was oddly tenacious. And yet she had taken Streffy's cigars! She had taken them—yes, that ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... will compound something that will take out your false hair, for I don't think it will be easy to shave it off. It all came of pretence. What in the world was the reason you couldn't walk quietly into the cantecoi, where people were enjoying themselves, and either join them, or if you had scruples, keep them to yourself and sit by. Nobody would have molested you. Nothing but cant led you to join temperance societies. A man ought to be able to use, not abuse liquor, but the moment you obligate yourself not to touch it, it kinder sets you a hankering ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... would not be able to make a very effective resistance, try as they would. After all, they were only boys, though in some respects they had proved that they could do as well as men, and Broom and his fellows were grown men, without scruples, who had no idea, apparently, of what fair fighting meant. But though he was secretly pleased, he did not intend to let Broom see it, and moreover he felt that he must be constantly on ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... to broad male feet, The "Happy Garden Seat," Invaded now by the non-smoking sex, Virginal scruples vex, And matronly anathemas assail. Alas! and what avail Man's immunities of time or place? The sweet she-creatures chase From all old coigns of vantage harried man. In vain, how vain to ban Beauty from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... reasons when applied to females? Does it not prove that there is nothing in the argument so far as it involves the question of right? There are Quakers and other religious sects; there are ministers of the Gospel; persons having conscientious scruples; indeed, all men over a certain age who under the laws of many of the States are released from service of that character. Indeed, it is the boast of this republic that ours is a volunteer military establishment. Hence I say there is nothing in the position that because she may not ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... of suspense. He felt that he had come to the end of his trouble. After all, what did Angelo or any one in the world matter, except Mary? He trusted himself to make her realize this. A few minutes more and she would be in his arms, on his heart, and her scruples would be burnt to ashes in the fire of ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... till six or seven, which would have been the inevitable consequence of his speaking. To our great amusement, Creevey, Fergusson, Wilson, Lambton, and Sefton were shut out, and afterwards received the inquiries of their friends whether it was not from scruples of conscience, and being unable to make up their minds, that they had abstained from voting. The party is certainly unlucky; for on a preceding night, Lord Carhampton and Luke White paired off and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... assembly of The Secret Avengers, one of whom, to facilitate proceedings, had a good knowledge of English, and a perfect familiarity with all Charleston passwords. The Baphomet, of course, presided, but it appears that the Chinese have certain conscientious scruples on the subject of Goats, and hence a Dragon's head was substituted for that of the ordinary image. The doctor was not the only European present at the proceedings of the celestial assembly; but while he was the sole representative of his own nation, it goes ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... myself a hero. In the course of the night, I had become famous in a small circle as a bruiser. In accomplishing this, I had thrown aside for the time being my religious scruples on the question of boxing, not only on boxing, but fighting, and I had set aside a good deal of my prejudice in my struggle for an education, and my success in the thing I started out to ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... self-preservation. She had meant to tell her father that evening that her marriage had been put off; but she now abstained from doing so, not from any doubt of Mr. Orme's acquiescence—he could always be made to feel the force of conventional scruples—but because the whole question sank into insignificance beside the larger issue which ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... orphan of Fiddler's Ranch, to be always the spoilt child of prosperity and the creature of modern life, with more aspirations than he saw how to fulfil, hampered as he was by duties, scruples, and affections? ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the easy-chair, "is by the refined Tong-king, and it treats of the high-minded and conscientious doubts of one who would become a priest of Fo. When preparing for this distinguished office he discovers within himself leanings towards the religion of Lao-Tse. His illustrious scruples are enhanced by his affection for Wu Ping, who now appears ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... into contumacy, and some of Hargraves' adherents laid hands on him, and appeared as if they were about to throw him overboard, when Paul shouted out to him in French what was said. Alphonse very naturally had no scruples to overcome. He could only look on the fate of the captain as a ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Commission. Then they went on and observed upon a power to be given them of administering and framing an oath, which they thought they could not do by any power but Act of Parliament; and the whole Commission did think fit to have the Judges' opinion in it, and so drawing up their scruples in writing they all attended the King, who told them he would send to the Judges to be answered, and did so; who have, my Lord tells me, met three times about it, not knowing what answer to give it: ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... a good citizen is to aid intelligently in giving the people good government. For a man to hold himself aloof from politics, unless his action is based upon conscientious scruples, shows his interest in himself, and his lack of interest in ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... was marriage, and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Grenfell become Mrs. Froude. There were some difficulties in the way, for Froude's prospects were by no means assured, and Mrs. Kingsley felt occasional scruples. But Froude had confidence in himself, and when his mind was made up ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... point Dave stuck. There is a sentiment down somewhere in almost any man, and there was this one point of conscience with Dave. And there was likewise this one scruple with Perritaut. And these opposing scruples in two men who had not many, certainly, turned the scale and gave the county-seat to Metropolisville, for Dave told all his Southern Illinois friends that if the county-seat should remain at Perritaut, the Catholics would build a nunnery an' a caythedral there, and then none of ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... office of the Oxford Press I met a very genial reception. I had been, as I say, apprehensive lest they should refuse to sell me the book; or perhaps they might not have a copy. I wondered what credentials I could offer to override their scruples. I had made up my mind to tell them, if they demurred, that I had once published an essay to prove that the best book for reading in bed is the General Catalogue of the Oxford University Press. This is quite true. It is ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the sooner the better. After Home Rule the Treasury grant will stop, and Ireland will have to raise and apportion the funds herself, and set her house in order. At whatever sacrifice of religious scruples, and, it is needless to add that to the Roman Catholic hierarchy the sacrifice will be the greatest, the Irish people must control and finance its schools, whether through a central department alone, or through local authorities as well. ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... its interpretation of right and wrong, but a fine, stern honour none the less. And he instinctively felt that to accept this money would compromise him forever more. And yet—others did it. He had no doubt of that. Conward would laugh at such scruples. And Conward had more friends than he had. Everybody liked Conward. It seemed to Dave that he, only, distrusted him. But that, also, as Dave said to himself, lay in the point of view. He granted that he ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... His flute was the last thing he had to sell, and he did not part with it until hunger compelled him; and even then only after the doctors had told him that recovery was impossible. But I daresay we shall find some means of overcoming his scruples. He has relatives, but they are all either poor or heartless, and between the two he ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... "A very rational doubt yet remained, how religious persons could alienate and transfer to the king a property, of which they themselves were only tenants for life: and an act of parliament was framed in order to remove all future scruples on this head, and 'settle rapine and sacrilege,' as Lord Herbert terms them, 'on the king and his heirs for ever.'——It does not appear to have been debated, in either house, whether they had a power to dispossess some hundred ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... another man? Was that any reason why he should not tell her of his love, ask her to be his wife? Puritanic scruples such as his were beyond pardon. A sense of honor might go too far. Why didn't he find out if it were true what Dorothea had told him? God! To have had a vision, only to go ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... hero-worship. Very soon after this stage they generally changed their clubs, becoming members of the most expensive of these establishments; and from that point on, their progress towards finished cynicism, fatty degeneration of the intellect, and smiling abandonment of all scruples, all ideals, and all modesty, was ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson |
