"Indiscretion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though losing rapidly, was in high good humor. He displayed a chivalrous forbearance with the weakness of Mrs. Fazakerly, who committed every folly and indiscretion possible to a partner. He bowed when he dealt to her; he bowed when she dealt to him; he bowed when ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... France and the controversy on finance, our opponents had at length the indiscretion to publish a document that they said had been furnished them by some of their "honorables Americains" and by which they attempted to prove some one of their various positions; for by this time they had ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... for still greater security, the bureau of public worship is constantly advising them what they must say. First and foremost, they must laud the Emperor. But in what terms, and with what epithets, without indiscretion or mistake, in order not to meddle with politics, not to appear as a party managed from above, not to pass for megaphones, is not explained, and is therefore a difficult matter. "You must praise the Emperor more in your pastoral letters," said Real, prefect ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... doubt, once. It was when he was out on his last pirating expedition in the Matabele country. The cable shouted out that he had gone unarmed, to visit a party of hostile chiefs. It was true, too; and this dare-devil thing came near fetching another indiscretion out of the poet laureate. It would have been too bad, for when the facts were all in, it turned out that there was a lady along, too, and she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an occasional riot with some destruction of property. But all the foreigners who have been killed can be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and in the majority of these cases it can hardly be denied that it was the indiscretion of the white man which was the exciting cause of his murder. In the same time how many hundreds of unoffending Chinese have been murdered in civilised foreign countries? An anti-foreign riot in China—and at what rare intervals do anti-foreign riots ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... that the loss of the vulgar wife of Henry should be compared to the loss of her—she lamented her indiscretion in forming an alliance with a family of no rank, and implored the dean to wait till his brother should make some concession to him, before he renewed ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... the buttered toast, and would have enjoyed it; and his father, mother, and aunt would have enjoyed the spectacle of his bliss; and all four of them would have successfully pretended to their gullible consciences that an indiscretion had not been committed. Here it must be said that the Achilles' heel of Henry Shakspere Knight lay in his stomach. Despite his rosy cheeks and pervading robustness, despite the fact that his infancy had been almost immune from the ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... with manifest reluctance that Alfred had taken advantage of her kindness, her indiscretion, in walking alone with him, and made passionate love to her. "He offered me not a thousand pounds," said she, "but his whole fortune, and his heart, if I would fly with him from these odious walls; ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... reticent backwardness of the chief of the "Society of December 10," nor an unthought of surprise of the National Assembly that caused the success of the "coup." When it succeeded, it did so despite his indiscretion and with its anticipation—a necessary, unavoidable result of ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... the man. To the girl also she should speak about the excellent qualities of the man, especially of those qualities which she knows are pleasing to the girl. She should, moreover, speak with disparagement of the other lovers of the girl, and talk about the avarice and indiscretion of their parents, and the fickleness of their relations. She should also quote samples of many girls of ancient times, such as Sakuntala and others, who, having united themselves with lovers of their own caste and their own choice, were ever happy afterwards in their ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... question escaped her almost before she was aware, and she waited for the snub which she felt would inevitably follow her second indiscretion that afternoon. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... Country. The Peeah Roah. Prevailed on by the Kindness of the Chiefs to defer our Departure. Breadfruit Plants collected. Move the Ship to Toahroah Harbour. Fishing. Three of the Ship's Company desert. Indiscretion of our People on Shore. Instances of Jealousy. Mourning. Bull brought to Oparre by a Prophet. The Deserters recovered. Tinah ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... for a Highlander's notion of luck; the young advocates, who bleared somewhat at the eyes when they forgot themselves, felt the menacing sleepiness and glowing content of potations carried to the verge of indiscretion; Kilkerran hummed, Petullo hawed, the Provost humbly ventured a sculduddery tale, the Duke politely listening the while to some argument of Elchies upon the right of any one who had been attacked by the Macfarlanes to use ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... be indiscreet——" she had begun. "Yes?" he had answered laughingly. "When was your ladyship ever anything but indiscreet? and who has made indiscretion adorable like you?" Her ladyship had bidden him hold his tongue with frank camaraderie, and had finished the speech. "When I am indiscreet, I am indiscreet to Mary. She is like a little well, into which one drops one's indiscretions and puts the lid on." "A very clear, transparent, honest ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... that Valkendorf, now alarmed by his indiscretion, began to pour cold water on the flames he had lit. Christian had quite lost his susceptible heart to the rustic and unknown beauty, and vowed that he could not rest until he had seen her with his own eyes. And within a month he was riding into ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... St. Elphege, my former cantineer. Can it be true that, knowing his birth to be so base, you go so far as to permit him the use of your position in these intrigues? If that be so—for I hesitate to credit it—let me go farther and remark that a most serious consequence has just followed his indiscretion. He challenges my nephew, de Lery, for a date fixed and imminent. We consider you responsible for this situation. I consequently trust that you will find some way to suppress ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... she had married her favorite cousin, Alfred Hastings, and had been the "ruination" of him; second, she had a way of running on and on to everyone and anyone about the most intimate family affairs, and close-mouthed Ellen Ranger thought this the quintessence of indiscretion and vulgarity. But Hiram liked her, was amused by her always interesting and at times witty thrusts at the various members of her family, including herself. So, Mrs. Ranger, clutching at anything that might lighten the gloom thick and black upon him, let her in and ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... that a man of the Grinder's nature will generally place more reliance on a young woman than on an old; and that the young woman will, nevertheless, be more likely to betray confidence than the older,—partly from indiscretion, and partly, alas! from treachery. But, if the presumed Mrs. Burrows, junior, knew aught of the Grinder's present doings, she was neither indiscreet nor treacherous. Mr. Toffy could get nothing from her. She was sickly, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... persons speaking lightly of Mrs. Linton, coupling her name with the name of Herbert Courtland, yet he had never had occasion to couple their names together except during the previous half hour, so that it could not be Mr. Linton's intention to take him to task, so to speak, for his indiscretion—his slander, Phyllis might be ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... other offices were created. The direction of the expedition was again given to Newport; to whom, and Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir George Somers, powers were severally granted to supersede the existing administration, and to govern the colony until the arrival of Lord Delawar. With singular indiscretion, the council omitted to establish precedence among these gentlemen; who, being totally unable to settle this important point among themselves, agreed to embark on board the same vessel, and to be companions during the voyage. They were parted from the rest ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... where I had hardly the courage to set foot. In short, she was fascinating in a thousand and fifty different ways, and at every step I executed a new and profounder emotional folly, a hardier spiritual indiscretion, incurring fresh liability to arrest by the constabulary of conscience for infractions ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... enemy to Papistry, and a married man." This dislike is easily accounted for. Exeter was very far from London, the new ideas travelled slowly, and the west was staunchly conservative. As with many reformers, too, his zeal was spoilt by indiscretion; the sternness of the Puritan militated against his success, and people preferred the old errors more becomingly supported. His successor, Turberville, was a man quite after the heart of the people, and he won praise from ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... good Nancy, it is more than I know myself. What awful indiscretion does your prophetic ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... know by this time that I never resent the exclusion of my articles as such. I should always trust your literary judgment, if it were a matter of literature only: and I daresay you have often saved me from an indiscretion and your readers from a bore. Unfortunately this matter of the party funds is not one of that sort. My conscience does not often bother you, but just now the animal is awake and roaring. Your paper has always championed the rights of conscience, so mine naturally goes ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... be gaudy, nor too grave, so as to affect the theological, it hits that happy medium which agrees with the tastes of most people and disgusts none. We should flatter ourselves that it is intended to represent the matter within, but that we are afraid of incurring the sin of vanity, and the indiscretion of taking appearances too much upon trust. We suspend our conjectures on this very interesting subject. The whole getting up of ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... The patient becomes a walking appetite, and, after weeks of liquid diet, will beg like a spoiled child for cookies or hard apples or pie, or something that he can set his teeth into. But his tissues are still swarming with the bacilli, and any indiscretion, either of diet, exposure, or exertion, at this time, may result in forming a secondary colony, or abscess, somewhere in the lungs, the liver, or the muscles. He must be kept quiet and warm, and abundantly, but judiciously, fed, for at least three weeks after the disappearance ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... to you," exclaimed Nattie instantly aware of the indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music that inspired im, or a desperate determination that nerved ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... yoke. If he had to work, to feed so many people, he might strain himself to the uttermost, he would still remain mediocre. They would both suffer under this, be disappointed and discontented. He must not pay so heavy a price for an indiscretion for which she was ten times more to blame than he. What did she imagine people would say? He who was so popular, so sought after. They would fall upon her like rooks at a rooks' parliament and pick her to pieces. ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... surrounding region. This position obliged him to ride more than two hundred miles a week, collecting government taxes. In 1791 he moved to the town of Dumfries. The following year he came near losing his place through an act of indiscretion which proved him to be more poet than exciseman. He bought four guns which had come into the possession of the government through the seizure of a smuggling vessel, and sent them with expressions of admiration and sympathy to the French ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... Cologne. Lassalle begged his friends Oppenheim and Mendelssohn, to follow her and, if possible, to ascertain whether the momentous document had actually been destroyed. They obeyed, and reached the hotel at Cologne about the same time as the Baroness. Here they were guilty of an indiscretion, if of nothing worse, for which Lassalle can surely in no way be blamed, but which was used for many a year to tarnish his name. Oppenheim, on his way upstairs, observed a servant with the luggage of the Baroness; ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... Mrs. Pendomer. "At my age and weight the first is an experiment and the fifth an amiable indiscretion of which I am invariably guilty. Sugar, please." She yawned, and reached a generously-proportioned arm toward the sugar-bowl. "Yes, that will ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... were signed by Mr. Gallatin as clerk, and made public through the press. Resolutions of this character, if not criminal, reach the utmost limit of indiscretion, and political indiscretion is quite as dangerous as crime. The petition to Congress, subscribed by the inhabitants of western Pennsylvania, was drawn by Gallatin; while explicit in terms, it was moderate in tone. It represented the unequal operation of the act. "A duty laid on the common ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... beg of you to forgive my indiscretion. I'm afraid you'll think it shows great want of delicacy on my part. It was only meant for English chaff. Don't be angry, Harry." Van ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... sibilant whisper, "my partiality for dumb allies. You have met my scorpions, my death-adders, my baboon-man. The uses of such a playful little animal as a marmoset have never been fully appreciated before, I think, but to an indiscretion of this last-named pet of mine I seem to remember that you owed something in the ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... to be effaced from my memory, viz.: that the King was impressed with an unfavourable opinion of me." Knowing Nelson's value as an officer as well as Hood did, there can scarcely remain a doubt that some serious indiscretion, real or imagined, must have caused this alienation; but of what it was there is no trace, unless in his evident siding with the prince, who was then out of favor with both ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... glass for champagne, which fortunately he disliked too much at the first taste to make another attempt. Lord Northmoor, for the first time at the foot of his own table, was on thorns all the time, lest he should see his nephew commit some indiscretion, and left most of the conversation to Miss Morton and Mr. Hailes, the solicitor, a fine-looking old gentleman, who was almost fatherly to her, very civil to him, but who cast somewhat critical eyes on the cub who might have to be licked into ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should be reduced. Concessions were accompanied by threats. Even so it required all the power of the Church to put down the agitation. Everyone stood agape, saying the bishops must win in the end. An indiscretion on Ned's part gave them the victory. In a moment of excitement he was unwise enough to quote John Mitchel's words "that the Irish would be free long ago only for their damned souls." A priest wrote to the newspapers pointing out that after these ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... say another word against Mrs. Leslie, look to yourself. Shackleby, you have heard him; now for the woman's sake listen to me. I have never wronged your wife by thought or word, Leslie, and the greatest indiscretion she was ever guilty of ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... previous had resulted in Jed's long banishment, might have caused her to commit almost any unheard-of act of spite as an outlet for her jealous anger. But only the few remaining garden flowers were witness to the lovers' indiscretion, and they kept their own counsel after the manner of flowers, so Selena's feelings were mercifully ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Lysiart deplores his failure to obtain the favor of Euryanthe; but his hopes are renewed when he meets Eglantine emerging from the tomb with the ring, and learns from her that it can be made to convict Euryanthe of indiscretion, or at least of breaking her promise not to reveal the tomb secret. He obtains the ring, confronts Euryanthe with it at the palace, and forces her to admit the broken promise. Adolar, believing that she is guilty, drags her away to a wilderness where it is his intention ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... till doomsday would not do it; and there seemed but two ways, that of entering the house at once or arousing the man. But the man was sleeping so soundly that it seemed a pity to awake him for a trifle; and, after all, there could be no great harm or indiscretion in his entering to see if his bride was safe. Probably Leoline was asleep, and would know nothing about it; or, even were she wide awake, and watchful, she was altogether too sensible a girl to be displeased at his anxiety about her. If she were still awake, and waiting for day-dawn, he resolved ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... fluid, having few or none of the characteristics of Vital Fluid. Should the individual suffering this way—and either careless or unfortunate enough to go uncured—have offspring, they will assuredly be puny in body and weakly in mind, and will lead a miserable existence through the neglect and indiscretion of their parent. ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... "And since you ask me, I don't think you have much to fear. It is a delicate position, but both sides are of the same mind on the particular point, and it is most improbable that any indiscretion will occur. Prosecution and defence both want to avoid a certain pitfall—when they won't struggle on the edge of it. What do you say, Mr. Campion, to setting forth in your opening statement all that ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... down her eyes, and twitched the edge of her robe between her fingers as she addressed her mistress; but the queen, whom nothing could escape that she chose to see, and who was not to-day in the humor for laughing or for letting any indiscretion escape unreproved, went on at once in an incensed and cutting tone, raising her voice to a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... our realm; and not minding to suffer the pernicious example hereof to spread far abroad, but to put remedy to the same in due time, we have given you commandment to declare to her the great folly, temerity, and indiscretion that she hath used herein, with the peril she hath incurred by reason of her so doing. By these her ungodly doings hitherto she hath most worthily deserved our high indignation and displeasure, and thereto ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... now surrounded. "Let all cynical women-haters," thought he, "be reduced for a month or two to my situation—and they will learn the blessed influences on human happiness of what they idly affect to despise." His own indiscretion however, as he could not disguise from himself, had reduced him to this situation: and however disturbed at the prospect before him he submitted with an air of cheerfulness and followed his guides with as firm a step as his bodily ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... bitterest trouble I have ever experienced—not for myself, God knows I wouldn't ask even your help, but for another who is dearer to me than all the world and for whose future I can do nothing. You never knew that I married. I committed that indiscretion in Rome with a little Spanish dancer who ought to have known better than to be attracted by my beaux yeux—for I had nothing else to offer her. We existed in misery for a couple of years and then she left me, for a more gilded position. But I had the child, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... your Majesty, to save the country from the results of your Majesty's indiscretion in calling the Ambassador to your palace without consulting your Ministers. If we do not strike now we lose our prestige as a great nation, our national honor is dragged in the dust. We have to fight. We ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... had communicated to his friend Mr. Belford all that has passed between himself and me, as he went on. Mr. Belford has not been able to deny it. So that (as we may observe by the way) a poor young creature, whose indiscretion has given a libertine power over her, has a reason she little thinks of, to regret her folly; since these wretches, who have no more honour in one point than in another, scruple not to make her weakness a part of their triumph to their ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... suitable person to take charge of it; and notwithstanding this might be done without suspicion of the king's being privy to it,—for inasmuch as the admiral was overbearing and puffed up by his success, they could easily bring it about, that his own indiscretion should appear the occasion of his death,—yet the king, as he was a prince greatly fearing God, not only forbade this, but even showed the, admiral honor and much favor, and therewith dismissed him." Ruy de Pina, Chronica d'el Rei Dom Joao II., cap. 66, apud Colleccao de Livros ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... converses, will think less of what he is saying that of the person with whom he is speaking; for then he is sure to say nothing which he will afterwards regret; he is sure not to lay himself open, nor to commit an indiscretion. But his conversation will ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... creditable in that her companion was now communing chiefly with himself. She felt, indeed, that she had already been guilty of a certain disloyalty to one to whom she owed some manner of allegiance; but that was the extent of Miss Bouverie's indiscretion in her own eyes. It caused her no qualms to entertain an anonymous gentleman whom she had never seen before. A colder course had commended itself to the young lady fresh from London; but to a Colonial ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... time Mr. Pinchot enunciated this famous definition, the New York State Conservation Department summed up the purposes of practical Conservation as: "The correction of past indiscretion, the perfection of present utilization, and the formation of future accumulation with respect ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... how much she was the public object of aversion and disgust, and therefore could not help feeling the irony of Angelica. From that day she began very seriously to reflect on the danger of her indiscretion; and, trembling at the recollection of those mischiefs she had caused, determined ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... disbelieved her. She was so incomparably his intellectual superior that she could make him believe or disbelieve precisely as she chose. She made him think that she had come to Brighton for companionship, and as a proof of her kindly forgiveness of a grave indiscretion. He believed; for never was Rust, even Rust, so idiotic as to suppose that she had succumbed before his charms and had come to throw herself into ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the bonne bouche of it all, for themselves and for the others. It was the same every year. By the time the week of retreat arrived, interest and mystery had been frothed to the point of indiscretion; so that the little girls would stand on tiptoe to peep through the shutters at the postulants inside, and even the larger girls, to whom first communion was a thing of an infantile past, would condescend to listen to their reports ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... you do to any one mean enough to peep or listen through the key-hole of your door, in order to hear or see everything that was said or done within? Would you show so little self-respect as to tolerate such indiscretion? Would you not rather take a whip or a cane, and drive away the villain? Would you not even expose your life to free yourself ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than might have been expected from the years and experience of Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of it. Happily, in the end, the gathering broke up without bloodshed, but when the late Sir Bartle Frere came to Pretoria, some months afterwards, he administered to me a sound and well-deserved lecture on my indiscretion. I excused myself by saying that I had set down nothing which was not strictly true, and he replied to the effect that therein lay my fault. I quite agree with him; indeed, there is little doubt ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... question is sometimes put, Is there diarrhoea? And the answer will be the same, whether it is just merging into cholera, whether it is a trifling degree brought on by some trifling indiscretion, which will cease the moment the cause is removed, or whether there is no diarrhoea at all, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... with Pope to attract the public by the use of the most popular name, and could not even claim his own afterwards. He had, indeed, talked too much, according to Pope; and the poet's morality is oddly illustrated in a letter, in which he complains of Broome's indiscretion for letting out the secret; and explains that, as the facts are so far known, it would now be "unjust and dishonourable" to continue the concealment. It would be impossible to accept more frankly the theory that lying is wrong when it is found out. Meanwhile Pope's ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must be sure of one's ground—much surer! 'If I hold off,' he thought, 'it will tantalise her.' And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was still ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... on the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, he succeeded to the throne of England as JAMES I.; was at first popular, but soon forfeited all confidence by his favouritism; he governed through creatures like Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the infamous Buckingham, whose indiscretion brought about a war with Spain in 1624; James died immediately afterwards; he has been described by Sully as "the wisest fool in Christendom"; his conduct was certainly much less creditable than his conversation; he held absurdly high views of the royal prerogative; but he sold patents ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Dr. Leyds was guilty of an indiscretion such as few would have suspected him of. Shortly after his appointment as Attorney-General he wrote to a friend in Holland, giving his opinion of the Members of the Executive. His judgment was sound; except of one man. Unfortunately ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... had no standing army, and did not even attempt to form one, it would have been wise in him to avoid any conflict with his people. But such was his indiscretion that, while he altogether neglected the means which alone could make him really absolute, he constantly put forward, in the most offensive form, claims of which none of his predecessors had ever dreamed. It was at this time that those ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him lift his han' afore," said the laird, as if he would fain mitigate judgment on youthful indiscretion,—"excep' it was to the Kirkmalloch bull, when he ran at him an' me as gien he wad hae pitcht 's ower the wa' o' ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... school for many weeks, and she was in no great haste to resume it. Alethea Weston seemed to enjoy doing all that was required, and Lily left it in her hands, glad to shut her eyes as much as possible to the disheartening state the parish had been in ever since her former indiscretion. ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like the mouth of a frightened child, and eyes of a sickly purple, which had been compared by Cyrus to "sweet violets," in the only compliment he ever paid her. Thirty-five years ago, in one of those attacks of indiscretion which overtake the most careful man in the spring, Cyrus had proposed to her; and when she declined him, he had immediately repeated his offer, animated less by any active desire to possess her, than by the dogged male determination to over-ride all obstacles, whether ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Patrick (to whom both ladies had opened their hearts, at separate interviews) that his sister-in-law, in one way, and his niece in another, were equally likely—if not duly restrained—to plunge headlong into acts of indiscretion which might lead to very undesirable results. A man in authority was sorely needed at Windygates that afternoon—and Sir Patrick was fain to acknowledge that he ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... time in silence, but I was conscious that his eye was always coming round to me, and I had an uneasy conviction that he was already beginning to ask himself whether he could make anything of me, or whether he had been betrayed into an indiscretion when he had allowed his sister to persuade him to show her son something of the grand world in ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... California, it was gratifying to meet a young lady who seemed to value the importance of a proper decorum and behavior, especially towards the opposite sex. Mr. Hamlin, although her guardian, was perhaps too young to understand and appreciate this. To this inexperience she must also attribute the indiscretion of his calling during school hours and without preliminary warning. She trusted, however, that this informality could be overlooked after consultation with Madame Bance, but in the mean time, perhaps for half an hour, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... inquiries into the conduct of your servants which you had been pleased to commit particularly to my charge. You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might have ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... senses. Her tone was one of reproof, plus decision. It convicted me of an indiscretion. If I had asked to take the roof off and replace it with silk umbrellas, it might have been justified. But to a ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... however, quite useless. Two of the noble families had held no greater sinner than a postulant whose ardour had cooled during her novitiate, and the third had paid for what was at best (or worst) a slight indiscretion with a broken spirit and rapidly failing health. It required no great exercise of detective powers to beg the genial little doctor of each tiny neighbourhood for Italian lessons and I learned more than his language from each. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... that? What a dreadful memory you have. I should expect Grant to make a burnt sacrifice of me if I had beguiled her into such an indiscretion. He won't even have her sit to himself since she ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... for a few things in my life, none of them capable of interfering with the common weal. I have longed to possess a pond, screened from the indiscretion of the passers by, close to my house, with clumps of rushes and patches of duckweed. Here, in my leisure hours, in the shade of a willow, I should have meditated upon aquatic life, a primitive life, easier ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... I have no excuse even for being here at all. My duty as a soldier is certainly elsewhere, but I could not rest content until I knew you were in a position of safety. Believe me, Mrs. Brennan, I have intended no indiscretion, but I was informed by a soldier that you were being held here under fire. It would have been useless for me to appeal to the Major for information, and I felt I must know the truth. If I have erred in this I can only plead the deep interest ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort in having a friend from whom ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... the retreat from Glencoe. Major White and his brother officers who were concerned in the Raid were much chaffed for the incredible simplicity with which he allowed a private memorandum as to preparations for the Raid to fall into the hands of the Boers. His indiscretion has been thrown entirely into the shade by the simplicity which allowed War Office documents of the most secret and compromising nature to fall into the hands of the Boers, showing that preparations for the present war began immediately after ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... man arrived, and making him dismount, I rode my little horse Mouse, and returned to the path. My horse Filfil was lost. As a rule, hunting during the march should be avoided, and I had now paid dearly for the indiscretion. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... trouble, all and every of the people are permitted to fire upon them, to withstand and drive them back, or to make prisoners of them." This appeal to a force which the Chinese did not possess was an act of indiscretion that betrayed an overweening confidence or a singular depth of ignorance. When the mandarins refused to supply the ships with water and other necessaries they carried their animosity to a length which the English naval officers at once defined as a declaration of open hostilities. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... revenge came to him now. Lily almost hated her cousin for what he said; but she took his arm, and walked with him from the room. It must be acknowledged in excuse for Bernard Dale, and as an apology for the apparent indiscretion of his words, that all the circumstances of the meeting had become apparent to every one there. The misfortune of the encounter had become too plain to admit of its being hidden under any of the ordinary veils of society. Crosbie's salutation had been made before the eyes of them all, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... foolish and extravagant, my child," I answered. "I don't know what you said, but I have the most absolute confidence in your indiscretion. I hope you remembered that all messages ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... she sees her husband in a compromising position with an unsuspected party, denotes she will have trouble through the indiscretion of friends. If she dreams that he is killed while with another woman, and a scandal ensues, she will be in danger of separating from her husband or losing property. Unfavorable conditions follow this dream, though ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... without knowing it, I drew the lamp towards me, and broke the seal. The reader being already acquainted with my amiable friend, there is the less indiscretion in communicating the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to you you must be aware that I cannot consider a person in her situation in any way a suitable wife for a son of mine, and though I do not wish to throw blame upon you, I cannot help feeling that you have been guilty of indiscretion, to use no stronger term, in allowing the young people to meet in the way it appears they have done. I should have expected, under the circumstances, that you would not have invited him to the house, and had he called of his own accord would have kept the young lady out of his way. I must therefore ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... members of the expedition are here. But I must ask you not to talk with them or with any strangers, for our friends are being watched by detectives in the employ of the Spanish minister at Washington and by United States deputy-marshals. One little indiscretion might ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... had only recently heard my Overture must, indeed, have wondered how I ever wrote this sonata, which has been published through the indiscretion of Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel (to reward me for my abstemiousness, Weinlich induced them to publish this poor composition). From that moment he gave me a free hand. To begin with I was allowed ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... till after a sharp tussle with a temptation that was more than his flesh and blood could stand; then he was very penitent and would go a fairly long while without sinning again; and this was how it had always been with him since he had arrived at years of indiscretion. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... kind a face that every fear was allayed.' But we meet, also, with sympathy of a different kind. Novelists, depending wholly on the favour of their patrons, tell us the love stories of the prince, even before his death, in a way which, to later times, would seem the height of indiscretion, but which then passed simply as an innocent compliment. Lyrical poets even went so far as to sing the illicit flames of their lawfully married lords, e.g. Angelo Poliziano, those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Gioviano Pontano, with a singular gusto, those ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... geniality, good-humor and good-nature. He did not believe even now that any one had the right. He was not an unprincipled man—not in the sense that he had ever consciously done wrong. He did not know what wrong was—his one conception being an act putting him within reach of the law; and of such an indiscretion he had never been guilty. Throughout his scheming he had always pictured himself as a complaisant Napoleon of finance, combining business with pleasure. His conduct toward Lois had been based on ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... gathered that for some reason his father was under a cloud. Yet he did not shrink from trying to learn from them all they knew about him, and for what reason they spoke as if to even mention his name was an indiscretion. It was really little they knew, only that he had gravely displeased their nephew, Peter Craigmile, who had brought Richard up, and who was his mother's ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... reflected upon our indiscretion, that we had not, at least, brought poles or stakes in our hands, with which we might have, as it were, palisadoed ourselves in for the night, and so we might have slept secure, whatever other inconveniences we suffered. However, we found a way at last to ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... of them, but also what cruel pleasure he sometimes took in making them conscious of his disdain and his power. He was "familiar," but not by no means "vulgar;" he was in conversation able and agreeable, with a mixture, however, of petulance and indiscretion, even when he was meditating some perfidy; and "there is much need," he used to say, "that my tongue should sometimes serve me; it has hurt me often enough." The most puerile superstitions, as well as those most akin to a blind piety, found their way into his mind. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sorry to hear her say that. I myself blame him for one thing, and severely, but I stop there. I blame him for, the indiscretion of introducing a novelty which was calculated to attract attention to our civilization. There was no occasion to do that. It was his duty, and it is every loyal man's duty to protect that heritage in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... duty to study well the several routes to Unyanyembe from Ujiji. I was sufficiently aware of the difficulties and the responsibilities attached to me while escorting such a man. Besides, my own personal feelings were involved in the case. If Livingstone came to any harm through any indiscretion of mine while he was with me, it would immediately be said, "Ah! had he not accompanied Stanley, he would have been ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... do be calm, do look at the matter from our point of view. I have owned my indiscretion." (Hadria gave a little scornful cry.) "Surely you are not going to throw over all allegiance to your husband on that account, even granting he was to blame." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... lodging, and on his opening day they decoyed him in at least five inquiring souls, all of whom stayed to talk a bit. There was a 'Queen Mab;' and a 'Lyrical Ballads;' an 'Endymion;' a few Landors thrown in, and a 'Bride of Abydos'—this last not of much account, for its author had the indiscretion, from the collector's point of view, to be famous from the beginning, and so to flood ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... commending to you and to posterity the memory of the late Etienne de la Boetie, as well for his extreme virtue as for the singular affection which he bore to me, it struck me as an indiscretion very serious in its results, and meriting some coercion from our laws, the practice which often prevails of robbing virtue of glory, its faithful associate, in order to confer it, in accordance with our private interests and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... "must be immaterial to me: yet, as I have once been your guardian by the nomination of the Dean your uncle, I cannot forbear making an effort towards preventing any indiscretion: and frequent visits ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... since, but that don't give you no excuse to begin this sort o' game." The Girl's tone was one of reproach rather than of annoyance, and for the moment the young man was left with a sense of having committed an indiscretion. Silently, sheepishly, he moved away, while she quietly went over ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... not care about B or else he does not care about algebra, and since by hypothesis he cares about B, we can only assume that he does not care about algebra. A simple experiment will verify our conclusion. Drop an indiscretion about a colleague during the algebra lesson, and B, C, D and all the rest of them to a long way beyond Z will know all about it before sunset. A, B, C, and D are interested in ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... why you should say that, sir,' replied the other stiffly. 'If you are not bent on compromising me by an indiscretion, I don't perceive the necessity of involving me in ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... looking for you—all day!" Truedale admitted, with truth but indiscretion. And then he noted, as he had before, the strange impression the girl gave of having been blown upon the scene. The pretty, soft hair resting on the cheek in a bewildering curve; the large, dreamy eyes and black lashes; the close clinging of her shabby costume, as if ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... met the Grand Marshal, who said, "the Emperor has detained you a long time. I am in terror lest this interview should have been noticed. We are surrounded by English spies. The slightest indiscretion might cost us dear. I do not ask you to relate to me any thing which was reserved for the Emperor; but if, without violating your duty, you could give me any details relating to France, you would be doing me a great favour. We hear nothing of what is going forward, except from the journals and ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... so as twins usually are. It would have been quite easy to distinguish them apart, even if one had not been dark and the other fair, and for this mercy everybody connected with them had reason to be thankful, for as soon as they reached the age of active indiscretion they would certainly have got themselves mixed if they could. Angelica was the dark one, and she was also the elder, taller, stronger, and wickeder of the two, the organizer and commander of every expedition. Before they were five years old everybody about ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... you?" said the soft voice; so commonplace a question and so casually asked, that Eldris was nearly betrayed into indiscretion. She ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... suspected caleche drawn up in the shady road, one of the pursuing officers gave spurs to his horse, and flew out before his companion to seize the prey—to be the first captor of the delinquent fugitive. Fatal indiscretion! Plunging along at desperate speed, and dreaming of gold and renown, the burnished sword of Cassier took his horse on the flank. Its rider fell to the earth; before he had seen his enemy, the sword of Cassier had pierced ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... riches of James offended Susan's independence. Not for millions would she have exposed herself to the suspicion that she had broken her oath because her stepuncle was a wealthy and childless man. She was, of course, wrong. Nor was this her only indiscretion. She was so ridiculously indiscreet as to influence her husband in such a way that he actually succeeded in life. Had James perceived them to be struggling in poverty, he might conceivably have gone over to them and helped them, in an orgy of forgiving charity. ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Roman historian; practised as an advocate in Rome in the reign of Trajan; was a friend of the Younger Pliny, became private secretary to Hadrian, but was deprived of this post through an indiscretion; wrote several works, and of those extant the chief is the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars," beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Domitian, a work which relates a great number of anecdotes illustrating the characters of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... one answered, he continued: "It seems that Rocdiane surprised his wife in a criminal situation, and has made her pay dearly for her indiscretion." ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... lack of that self-contained bearing which always had marked him as a man of large affairs. It was his uncle's strict rule, he recalled, never to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable Milton's that the second drink drew the cork on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That something had happened which must have disturbed him greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction as simple as the evidence that he ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... servant E. Jones, leaving it to be conjectured that E. stands for Edward or Ernest,—names inoffensive, and not suggestive of a Dissenting Chapel, like Ebenezer. If a man called Edward or Ernest be detected in some youthful indiscretion, there is no indelible stain on his moral character: but if an Ebenezer be so detected he is set down as a hypocrite; it produces that shock on the public mind which is felt when a professed saint is proved to be a bit of a sinner. But a baronet never can escape from his baptismal: ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Hunter. The two went into a little room at the back of a saloon and were seen by two Bidwell young men who had gone to the county seat for an evening of adventure. When the merchant, named Pen Beck, realized he had been seen, he was afraid the tale of his indiscretion would be carried to his home town, and left the woman to join the young men. He was not a drinking man, but began at once to buy drinks for his companions. The three got very drunk and drove home together late at night in a rig the young men had hired for the occasion from Clyde Neighbors. ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... endeavour to enliven a little the sameness of my author. Don't think that I say sameness in derogation of dear Mary Lepel's powers of entertainment. I have been in love with her a long time; which, as she was dead twenty years before I was born, I may without indiscretion avow; but all these letters being written in a journal style and to one person, there is a want of that variety which Lady Hervey's mind was capable of giving. I have applied to her family for a little assistance; hitherto without success; ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles |
