"Self-reproach" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your hand do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as finally settled." And rising as she thus spoke, she would have quitted the room had not Mr. Collins ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... were, fell from Bendel's eyes. "Yes, it was he," cried he, "undoubtedly it was he; and fool, madman, that I was, I did not recognize him—I did not, and I have betrayed my master!" He then broke out into a torrent of self-reproach; and his distress really excited my compassion. I endeavored to console him, repeatedly assuring him that I entertained no doubt of his fidelity; and despatched him immediately to the wharf, to discover, if possible, some ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... experience and beyond it. In the absorbing interest of her own renascence, the shock, more than the injury which her father had undergone, was ignored, if not neglected. Lanfear had not, indeed, neglected it; but he could not help ignoring it in his happiness, as he remembered afterwards in the self-reproach which he would not let the girl share with him. Nothing, he realized, could have availed if everything had been done which he did not do; but it remained a pang with him that he had so dimly felt his ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... her father alone on the hilltop did indeed trouble Waitstill. Self-reproach, in the true sense of the word, she did not, could not, feel. Never since the day she was born had she been fathered, and daughterly love was absent; but she suffered when she thought of the fierce, self-willed old man, cutting himself off from all possible friendships, while his ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... an excellent excuse for her tarrying. She wrote to tell him that she was expecting to become a mother. This at least would put a stop to his importunity. And it did. Napoleon was full of delight—and self-reproach at the joyful news. "Forgive me, my beloved," he wrote. "How can I ever atone? You were ill and I accused you of lingering in Paris. My love robs me of my reason, and I shall never regain it.... A child, sweet as its mother, is soon to lie in ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... temptation succumbed to, every act of meanness or dishonesty, however slight, causes self-degradation. It matters not whether the act be successful or not, discovered or concealed; the culprit is no longer the same, but another person; and he is pursued by a secret uneasiness, by self-reproach, or the workings of what we call conscience, which is the inevitable doom of ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... of the steadfast eyes and low, sincere voice—was surely incapable of double dealing! Whatever her life in the past had been, however frivolous, however artificial, it had been given to him—perhaps to him alone—to know her as she was. A great wave of self-reproach went over him. How had he dared to ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... pang of keen self-reproach. Yes, it had been easy enough for a girl with a pretty face to make him forget his friend. He turned quickly toward the door. But Carrie moved even more rapidly, and by the time he reached it she was ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... cage, Kane saw that the great wolf's eyes were noting nothing of what was about him, but dim with some far-off vision. As he marked the look in them, and thought of what they must be remembering and aching for, his heart began to smite him. He felt his first pang of self-reproach, for having doomed to ignominious exile and imprisonment this splendid creature who had deserved, at least, to die free. As he mused over this point, half angrily, the Gray Master suddenly paused, and his thin nostrils ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... his shore-boat. I listened, minute after minute, on the chance of hearing his hail. A heavy bank of cloud had overcast the moon, and the packet melted from sight in a blur of darkness. Worst of all—worse even than the sting of self-reproach—was the prospect of returning to Stimcoe's and wearing through the night, while out there in the darkness the two men would meet, and all that followed their meeting must ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... still stood where he had left her, disconsolately fingering her roses, her delicate face marred with weeping. Honor went to her straightway; and putting both arms round her kissed her with a passionate tenderness, intensified by a no less passionate self-reproach. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... She didn't work the thing out in detail; didn't want to. But she knew that if she sought Olga out and demanded an explanation of the detestable things she'd said about her, the scene would terminate in a torrent of self-reproach from Olga, protestations ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... general remark, and to express confidence that his countrymen would do liberal justice. So far as he was concerned, this should have been the end of the matter, and Adams should have been grateful to a man whose tranquil wisdom and skillful tact had saved him from the self-reproach which he would ever have felt had his well-intentioned, ill-timed act borne its full possible fruit of injury to the cause of the States. But Adams, who knew that his views were intrinsically correct, emerged from the imbroglio with an extreme resentment against his rescuer, nor was he ever ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... the lately bright and safe-looking situation, now suddenly rent asunder and committed to the dubious unknown; anxiety about their own household and the fate of her Son; the Father's just anger, and perhaps some tacit self-reproach that she had favoured a dangerous game by keeping it concealed from her honest-hearted Husband,—lay like crushing burdens on her heart. And if many a thing did smooth itself, and many a thing, which at first was to be feared, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... smitten by the coarseness and absence of moral force in the echo of her own "You are impertinent," from the mouth of Mr. Jansenius, took fresh alarm. "The fault book," she said, "is for the purpose of recording self-reproach alone, and is not a vehicle for accusations ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... She takes Trix, who is crying, suddenly, in her arms, and kisses her. Angus Hammond has been faithful in the hour when she deserted them—that is her thought. Her self-reproach never ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... dimness of sight and dulness of hearing. I shall find myself slower to learn new lessons, and apter to forget the lessons I have learnt. And if to these be added the consciousness of failing powers, the sting of self-reproach, what prospect have I of any further joy in living? It may be, you know," he added, "that God out of his great kindness is intervening in my behalf [14] to suffer me to close my life in the ripeness of age, and by the gentlest of deaths. For ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... knew that she was self-willed and was not humble. But she had not taken herself in hand, religiously; to take one's self in hand morally, or on grounds of expediency, never amounts to much; and such taking in hand was all that Charlotte had as yet attempted. In a little passion of self-reproach and mortification, she occasionally lopped off ugly shoots; but the root was still vigorous and lusty, and only grew the better for its petty pruning. Richard looked very much displeased at his brother's rudeness, and tried to make up for it by great kindness ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... did the idea of the two hundred thousand roubles begin to dance before his imagination that he felt a twinge of self-reproach because, during the hubbub, he had not inquired of the postillion or the coachman who the travellers might be. But soon the sight of Sobakevitch's country house dissipated his thoughts, and forced him to return to his ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... because he sees it is best; meanwhile, take comfort in this: you have been tenderer than many mothers, and more patient than many sisters, to this dear little brother who loved you so well, so do not let self-reproach ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... self-reproach and vague alarms, intensified by the sullen, reserved temper, and culminating in such a shock, alienating the only persons she cared for, and filling her with terror for the future, could not but have a physical effect, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... result in; and of these we must choose not those who would welcome license, but those who long passionately to live by law. It is the condition of such men that I have been just describing. Its characteristics are vain self-reproach, joyless commendation, weary struggle, listless success, general indifference, and the prospect that if matters are going thus badly with them, they will go ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... been near two days that child's gone without eating," he said, with keen self-reproach, "and here you've let her suffer to save yourself a trip to the Island. You're a hulking big loafer, you are," he ran on, muttering, "and after her coming to you and taking notice of you and putting her face to yours like an angel." He slipped off his shoes ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... existence; I yielded to temptation, surrendered my scores, was surprised at their success, and—hoped. I now curse this hope. I feel humiliated before myself, because I seek in vain release from this grief of self-reproach. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither to explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence he had forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... earliest written record of it is of date 1632, In Sonnet II. This was written as early as the poet's twenty-third year; and in these lines the resolve is uttered, not as then just conceived, but as one long brooded upon, and its non-fulfilment matter of self-reproach. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... of self-reproach, as she recalled how plentifully they grew there, and how useful they would be at home. "And I might get some mushrooms, too," she thought, "instead of coming ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... then got into a taxi and drove to see Edith. When he was in this peculiar condition of mind—the odd mixture of self-reproach, satisfaction, amusement and boredom that he felt now —he always went to see Edith, throwing himself into the little affairs of her life as if he had nothing else on his mind. He was a little anxious about Edith. It seemed to him that since Aylmer had been away ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... had let Mrs. Van Burnam into the house prior to the visit of the couple who entered there at midnight. Knowing what an effect this must produce upon Mr. Gryce, utterly unprepared for it as he was, I looked for some burst of anger on his part, or at least some expression of self-reproach. But he only broke a second piece off my little filigree basket, and, totally unconscious of the demolition he was causing, cried out with ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... fugitive—she had meant to repair his underwear, but had postponed doing so, and her neglect now appeared to be a detail as lamentable as the calamity itself. She could neither be stilled upon it, nor herself exhaust its urgings to self-reproach, though she finally took up another theme temporarily. Upon an unusually violent outbreak of her husband's, in denunciation of the runaway, she cried out faintly that he was cruel; and further wearied her broken voice with details ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... voice, dropped from his horse to the ground; so did the young chieftain at the sight and voice of St. John. With reverence he kneeled before him, and in shame bowed his head to the ground. Like Peter who had denied the same Lord, the young man wept bitterly. His cries of self-reproach and his despair echoed strangely in that rocky defile. As St. John had wept for him, he wept for himself. Those were truly penitential tears. John still spoke encouragingly. The young man lifted his ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... a sense of the beautiful always awakens within us; and this became manifest in Mary Fuller. For the first time the squalid misery of her home became a subject of self-reproach, and with a thoughtful cloud upon her brow, she set herself patiently to work drawing out all the scant elements of comfort that the place afforded. Out of this grew a longing for the presence of her father, that he too might enjoy the benefit ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... my holiday; I am not so idle always. But mother loves to come here on Sundays. Ah, how I have neglected her to-day!" There was a world of self-reproach in her speech, and again she would have ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... scarlet coat and your cross-legged Turk," she said, with feigned self-reproach in her voice, but with a sparkle of mirth in ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... these alone which led On sacred manners to encroach; And made me feel what most I dread, JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... brought this lecture upon Reliance and felt rather badly to have done so, but the prospect of buckwheat cakes soon drove her self-reproach away and she went in to say good morning to her grandparents, well satisfied with the world in general and content to look ahead rather than at what was now past and gone, and which could not ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... a click. Alston was conscious of having, for the joy of the moment, really made a fool of himself. But he didn't let it depress him. He needed his present cleverness too much to spend a grain of it on self-reproach. He went to his safe and took out a paper that had been lying there ready to be used, slipped it into his pocket and went, before his spirit had time to cool, ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Then came self-reproach. He remembered with hot cheeks that he had actually joked with Ellery about her in early days, and let himself be bantered in return—cad that he was, incapable of appreciating at first sight the woman he was ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... stood at one end of the room now and gazed at them, he realized with a little pang of self-reproach that his latest exploit had been prompted by as much of a desire to set himself right with the company as to ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... Thrown away, lost! The best on earth!" He laid his hands on the tree-stem and pressed his head against it till it hurt him. He did not know how to contain himself for misery and self-reproach. He felt like a man who has been drunk and has reduced his own house to ashes in his intoxication. How all this could have come to pass he now no longer knew. After his nocturnal ride he had caused Nilus the treasurer to be waked, and had charged him to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at a loss what life had to offer at Stoneborough! Gertrude pronounced that 'she played at it sometimes at Maplewood, where she had nothing better to do,' and then retreated to her own devices. Ethel's heart sank both with dread of the afternoon, and with self-reproach at her spoilt child's discourtesy, whence she knew there would be no rousing her without an incapacitating discussion; and on she wandered in the garden with the guests, receiving instruction where the hoops might be planted, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... true value of his friendship; we loved so little, and were so impatient:—if only we had him back again; if only we had one more opportunity to show him how dear he was; if only we had another chance of proving ourselves worthy. We can hardly forgive ourselves that we were so cold and selfish. Self-reproach, the regret of the unaccepted opportunity, is one of the commonest feelings after bereavement, and it is one of ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... stamp them out of the dust? or has she a store of "dragon's teeth" to sow? God grant she may never have to defend those English homes against the guns of Vincennes! but if she must, it is on a comparatively undisciplined militia she must depend;—and then she may remember, with bitter self-reproach, the lesson of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... this neglect the more significant it became. After the tender look in his eyes, after the ardent clasp of his hand, the thought that he could be so indifferent was at once a source of pain and self-reproach. ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... no further. Her husband had taken her in his arms, and had interrupted her words with blustering exclamations of self-reproach and self-condemnation. He was a brute, he cried, a senseless, selfish ass, who had no right to such a wife, who was not worth a single one of the tears that by now were ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... him mechanically, for I was undergoing a mental castigation which rather disturbed me. Indeed, like a young fool—as eager in self-reproach as in self-glorification—I was so occupied in inwardly calling myself hard names, that even when my host gave me a commission for my new picture, 'The Return of Columbus,' at two hundred and fifty pounds, together with an order to paint himself, Mrs Reay, and half-a-dozen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... but he saw something else over him, better than the sky—the face of Mrs. Halliwell, the mistress of the menagerie. In it, as she stood looking down on him, was compassion, mingled with self-reproach. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Mrs. Edmonstone by fearing he had been morose. She was ready to tell him he was an ingenious self-tormentor; but she saw that the struggle to do right was the main spring of the happiness that beamed round him, in spite of his self-reproach, heart-felt as it was. She doubted whether persons more contented with themselves were as truly joyous, and was convinced that, while thus combating lesser temptations, the very shadow of what are generally alone considered as real temptations would ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... regaining the thoughtlessness and selfishness of his previous habits. He was the better for ever for his illness. He had suffered, and he had learned to think: two advantages that he had never known before; and the self-reproach arising from the deplorable event in Wimpole Street, to which he felt himself accessory by all the dangerous intimacy of his unjustifiable theatre, made an impression on his mind which, at the age of six-and-twenty, with no want of sense or good companions, was durable in its happy ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... much for my chronicle; but I write it with a certain feeling of repugnance and self-reproach. It was very well on the occasion of my first voyage, when I wished to share with you whatever charm the novelty of the scenes through which I was passing might supply to mitigate the pain of our separation. But this time there is no such pretext for the record ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... answered, gently. "It is because you are so perfectly natural, so true to your girlhood, that you feel as you do. In that little parable of the rose you explain yourself fully. You have no cause for self-reproach, nor has Burt for complaint. Will ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... but she had never known him so possessed as he seemed to be by these strangers. She must speak to Mr Rowland about it; the matter might really become serious; and if he should ever be entrapped into marrying into the Grey connections, among people so decidedly objectionable, it would be a terrible self-reproach to her as long as she lived, that she had not interfered in time. She ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... not, and upon him she visited the anger due to the evil impulses in her own heart. He spoke of her father, and in so doing struck the only nerve in her which conveyed an emotion of tenderness; instantly the feeling begot self-reproach, and of self-reproach was born as quickly the harsh self-justification with which her pride ever answered blame. She had made her father's life even more unhappy than it need have been, and to be reminded ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... hasty word of mine,' said Bella with a little sting of self-reproach, 'to make me seem—I don't know what. I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr Rokesmith, that there is an end of this between ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... will remember how, just two hundred years before, the sublimest of English poets had on his twenty-third birthday closed the same self-reproach for sluggishness of inward life, with ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... however, had been like an echo from hopes buried in the grave; and the poor youth sank to the ground on his knees, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept bitterly. Suddenly one thought took possession of him out of what had been said. And it was one (as usual) of self-reproach. The Spirit had reproached him with leading a life of selfish misery! Vividly impressed by this idea, he started off hurriedly for his home, crying aloud—"Oh, the wasted time; the lost hours; the precious moments that ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... error, Mr. Woodburn," she replied, with an air of self-reproach and of slightly-offended pride, which, however, gave way to kindly tones, as she proceeded; "I have unintentionally helped you to an argument, while I am constrained to decide that no argument, so long as I stand in my present position, must prevail with me. Do not, then, O, do not ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... self-reproach, "here's another time I've proved I'm not in your class—not a gentleman. You've raised a point— the real point. Am I what you think me? You think I'm at least a man. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... surgeon; and it is understood that Coleridge went to reside with him chiefly to be under his surveillance, to break himself of the fearful habit he had contracted of opium-eating,—a habit that grievously impaired his mind, engendered self-reproach, and embittered the best years of his life.[D] He was the guest and the beloved friend as well as the patient of Mr. Gillman; and the devoted attachment of that excellent man and his estimable wife supplied the calm contentment and seraphic peace, such as might have been the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... wife he had tenderly loved, with whom he had lived forty years, then did his sorrow too, with marvellous exactness, become as had been the bygone life of his love. And therefore was this sorrow of his majestic and vast; consoling and torturing alike in the midst of his self-reproach, his regret, and his tenderness—as might be meditation or prayer on the shore of a gloomy sea. In the sorrow that floods our heart we have, as it were, a synthetic presentment of all the days that are gone; and as these were, so ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... saw was a large monkey, which peered inquisitively down at him from among the branches of a neighbouring bush. This reminded him that he had left his pet Marmoset in the Indian village, and a feeling of deep self-reproach filled his heart. In the baste and anxiety of his flight he had totally forgotten his little friend. But regret was now unavailing. Marmoset was ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... spoke he hurled the watch against the opposite wall with terrific force, dashing it to pieces. In terror, Mme. Walewska fainted. When she resumed consciousness there was Napoleon wiping away her tears with the tenderness of a woman and with words of self-reproach. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... conscience types might be depicted. From the over-conscientious who rigidly hold themselves to an ideal, who watch every departure from perfection with agony and self-reproach, and who may either reach the highest level or "break down" and become inefficient to the almost conscienceless group, doing only what seems more profitable, are many intermediate types merging one with ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... unhappy man from the observation and unfavourable comment of the crew, he had carefully concealed from everybody the true cause of Purchas's retirement, leaving the man alone to recover from his drunken bout instead of telling off somebody to watch him. Had he done this, he reflected in self-reproach, this dreadful thing would not have happened. The need for concealment was now past, however; so, rallying his faculties, he called all hands to group themselves round him, as he had something ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to contend with, for Vienna was a favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly encountering some of her old set. She bore up bravely for a while, but it killed her. She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a gentle smile. That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to conceal the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... herself for having withheld from him, on account of a circumstance over which he had no control, that fulness of affection, with which she had prepared herself to welcome him. A sentiment, first of compassion, then of self-reproach, and ultimately of awakened affection, arose in her mind, associated with and made still more tender by the melancholy memory of her departed mother. She again took his hand, on which the tears now fell in showers, and after a ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... relations between them must cease. She certainly would maintain a severe attitude toward the person who had so grossly insulted her, but would she be altogether pitiless in her anger? All through his dismal feelings of self-reproach, a faint hope of reconciliation kept him from utter despair. As he reviewed the details of the shameful occurrence, he remembered that the expression of her countenance had been one more of sorrow than ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... that perfectly well. Now and again a feeling of self-reproach came, but he strangled it by reflecting upon the trick that had been played upon him. After all, he had bought her at her own price, and he meant ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... revealed to us that his works are fragments of a great confession. Moods of his pre-Weimar storm and stress vibrate in his Iphigenia—feverish unrest, defiance of conventionality, Titanic trust in his individual genius, self-reproach, and remorse for guilt toward those he loved,—Friederike and Lili. Thus feeling his inner conflicts to be like the sufferings of Orestes, he wrote in a letter, August, 1775, shortly after returning to Frankfurt from his first Swiss journey: "Perhaps the invisible scourge of the Eumenides ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... are friends," returns he, hastily, so full of surprise and self-reproach as to be ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... have overtaxed her strength," Lord Cameron said, in a tone of self-reproach, as he lifted a rueful ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... preparations she could, had re-entered the kitchen. The first thing that drew her attention was the sleeping figure of the sergeant in the chair. She was filled with self-reproach. Why had she forgotten all about this wounded, tired-out man? Why did she always seem to be holding him at arm's-length when there was, surely, no earthly reason why she should do so? His manner had always been perfectly courteous to her, and ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... will take time to melt down that mountain out there. No, it is useless to argue," as Pearl began again her futile rebellion against the inexorable forces of nature, "but what am I thinking of?" in quick self-reproach. "You must not stay out here in the cold any longer. Come." He ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... regret most of them are, and self-reproach and the hopelessness of it all. In one place he records ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... gowns, the nosegays, the willow-wands, the whirling movements on the green, the flash of gentle sentiment towards the stranger—to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle, what a step! Besides the jar of contrast there came to her a chill self-reproach that she had not returned sooner, to help her mother in these domesticities, instead ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... king's equerries, seigneur of Grange-Flandre, Valperfond, etc., had married Marie-Francoise Perier in 1760. Their fortune resembled many others of that period: it was more nominal than actual, more showy than solid. Not that the husband and wife had any cause for self-reproach, or that their estates had suffered from dissipation; unstained by the corrupt manners of the period, their union had been a model of sincere affection, of domestic virtue and mutual confidence. Marie-Francoise was quite beautiful enough to have made a sensation in society, but she renounced ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... him from his lethargy. He suddenly realized that his son's few remaining hours on earth were slipping by, and the boy had not been comforted. When this came to him, his self-reproach cut him sharply, and he resolved to make amends at once. He obtained permission from the officer of the day, and that evening, after retreat, went to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... love," he said, but he said it half-heartedly. How was a decent man to throw over a charming devoted girl to whom he was to be married in a fortnight, shaming her before all her little world after he had sought and won her? He thought of Laura's soft acquiescence with an agony of self-reproach and impatience. Then he heard Caroline speaking again, her voice low and clear with the murmur of the sea running in and out of it—he felt it go ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... flowed in upon her. The operations of thought were quickened, and she was presently convinced that the next time she saw Philip she should learn all—she might even find him repentant for having been weak and credulous. Edward's self-reproach was the most inexplicable mystery of all. In his brotherly grief he had no doubt exaggerated some slight carelessness of speech, some deficiency of watchfulness and zeal. Hester must never know of these ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... with inexhaustible interest, and blended reverence and pity on the hidden moral conflict, continually occurring among beings who strive to taste angels' pleasures while escaping human duties, and are reminded of the folly of such attempts, by the perpetual presence of temptation, and all the self-reproach, regret, and disappointment which, Heaven be thanked! the angels never feel. I can scarcely tell, as yet, how I shall like learning here. My studies have always been such a pleasure to me, with you, that it appears strange to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... at the end, and the dead and wounded lay at long intervals apart. Gaston searched and searched, his heart growing heavier as he did so, for his brother was very dear to him, and he felt a pang of bitter self-reproach at having left him, however inadvertently, to bear the brunt of the battle alone. But search as he would he found nothing either of Raymond or Roger, and a new ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the elder lady had extended, without rising, for the customary greeting, was not so chilly as the tone with which she uttered this offending pronoun. Helene, suddenly remembering with deep self-reproach the grief that her mother must feel in the loss of her old friend, took the cold fingers in both her warm white hands, ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... our luck!" he protested, in the keenest self-reproach. "There isn't a horse or a mule in camp that you could get a mile an hour out of. In fact, I'm thinking there ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... assassinate me should I leave him, and now imploring me with tearful eyes to spare his honor and pity his love. I felt that I would have either to die, or renounce my married life, and enter upon a new existence—an existence of true happiness if you love me, but of suffering and self-reproach if you despise, me!" ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... suppose I've missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, but it's no use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall get chaffed about this if it comes ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... confessed all—how her heart went with her words; is still true to what she then said. The last an avowal not needed: her pallid cheeks proclaiming it. The frank confession, instead of enraging her father, but gives him regret, and along with it self-reproach. But for his aristocratic pride, with some admixture of cupidity, he would have permitted Clancy's addresses to his daughter. With an open honourable courtship, the end might have been different—perhaps less disastrous. It could not ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... anyhow," thought Cai, and at the same moment was conscious of a returning gush of affection for his old friend, and of some self-reproach mingling ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... didn't mean to wake you up," she said, with an apparent lack of self-reproach. "I never can tell whether you are asleep or only kind of drowsin'. There was a boy here just now from old Mis' Cunningham's over on the b'ilin' spring road. They want you to come over quick as convenient. She don't know nothin', ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his companion. He had borne the strain of effort long, and the time of his convalescence amid the tranquillity of Silverdale Grange had with the gracious kindliness of Miss Barrington and her niece been a revelation to him. There were moments when it brought him bitterness and self-reproach, but these were usually brief, and he made the most of what he knew might never be his again, telling himself that it would at least be something ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... sympathy and self-reproach. "Oh, if you mean that—if you want to write—of course we must settle down. How stupid of me not to have thought of it sooner! Where shall we go? Where do you think you could work best? We oughtn't ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... how much suffering and grief I should have been saved had I attended to the precepts and warnings of my kind parent—how much of bitter self-reproach. And I must warn my young friends, that although the adventures I went through may be found very interesting to read about, they would discover the reality to be very full of pain and wretchedness were they subjected to it; and yet I may tell them that ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... notice the magistrate's agitation. The trembling of his voice attracted her attention; but she did not suspect the cause. She thought that her presence recalled sad memories, that he doubtless still loved her, and that he suffered. This idea saddened her, and filled her with self-reproach. ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... uneventful road, where holiday people strolled on Sundays? Had I really left, little more than an hour since, the quiet, decent, conventionally domestic atmosphere of my mother's cottage? I was too bewildered—too conscious also of a vague sense of something like self-reproach—to speak to my strange companion for some minutes. It was her voice again that first broke the silence ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... dark and revengeful thoughts, amid a mental chaos of grief and fury and frantic self-reproach, I had to admit to myself that Jane Bottomly was a fine figure of a woman, and good-looking, too, and that her hair was all her own and almost magnificent ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... imbued with classic literature, and was more interested in the great authors of Greece and Rome than in the material glories of the empire. He lived in their ideas so completely, that in after times his acquaintance with even the writings of Cicero was a matter of self-reproach. Disgusted, however, with the pomps and vanities around him, he sought peace in the consolations of Christianity. His ardent nature impelled him to embrace the ascetic doctrines which were so highly esteemed and venerated; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... And the agony of being alone, the agony of grief, passionate, passionate grief for her darling who was torn into death—the agony of self-reproach, regret; the agony of remembrance; the agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome, and sinisterly accusing, and pathetically, despairingly appealing—probe after probe of mortal agony, which throughout eternity would never lose its power to ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... conscious of a feeling of ennui, even in the presence of Ernest. It was not possible I should be weary of the joys of heaven, if I were capable of sighing in my own Eden bower. I tried to banish the impression; it WOULD return, and with it self-reproach and shame. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to-morrow—they've got to go sometime." He was thinking of certain studies at the back of one of his portfolios; they were not ladylike. "Those models!" he muttered, in a tone at once of objurgation and of self-reproach. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... that!" exclaimed the officer, drawing himself up with the air of one who breathes more freely. "I would not, for the wealth and honours of the united world, that such a cause for self-reproach should linger on my mind. By Heaven! it would break my heart to think we had been in time to save them, and yet had lost the opportunity through even one moment of neglect." Then turning once more to his sister,—"Now, Clara, that I see you in safety, I have another sacred duty to perform. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... —dropped the subject and talked about something else. And I knew we all felt mean, eating and drinking Marget's fine things along with those companies of spies, and petting her and complimenting her with the rest, and seeing with self-reproach how foolishly happy she was, and never saying a word to put her on her guard. And, indeed, she was happy, and as proud as a princess, and so grateful to have friends again. And all the time these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... every word you have said,' he returned. 'I am full of self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known you and seen you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I hardly know how I ever got here—creature that I am, not only of my own habit, but of other people's! But having done so, let me do something. I ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... more quickly obtained. During the act it was only occasionally that any thoughts of men or of coitus were present, the attention being fixed on the coming climax. The psychic state afterwards was usually one of self-reproach. (O. Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, 1904, pp. 26-29.) The phenomena in this case may be regarded as fairly typical, but there are many individual variations; mucus emissions and vaginal contractions frequently occur before actual orgasm, and there is not usually any ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... so. But in fact part of the trial to Rose was the doubt of her own past love, and of her own present loyalty. Had she ever truly loved David while he was still her hero "sans peur et sans reproche," could that love have been killed at all? So much anxiety to be sure of having forgiven, so much self-reproach for the failure of her marriage, such an acute, overwhelming sense of shame, and such shrinking from all that was ugly and low, were intermixed and confused in poor Rose's mind that it was no wonder even Edmund, with all his tact and his tenderness, blundered ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... come quietly in while he was speaking, and had waited, watching, with eyes that saw more than Larry's kneeling figure beside the dead man, listening, with senses that were perceptive of a fellow-listener, in whom were newly-learnt impulses of self-reproach and penitence. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... day looking out over the woods and fields, and it suddenly came to his mind with a pang of self-reproach that he had forgotten his promise to Otho, and the day of the assize was very near. He called his young men (for he had learned not to trust himself to the honour or loyalty of his brother the sheriff), and bade them prepare to accompany ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... failure. It may be that the moods of self-reproach are morbid. That too torments me. Even to-day I was thinking of how Christ would have dealt with that miserable man, Peter Lamb, and how uncharitable I was, how ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... "Yesterday he would not have done it..." and a dozen scarcely definable differences in his look and manner seemed all at once to be summed up in the boyish act. "After all, I'm engaged to him," she reflected, and then smiled at the absurdity of the word. The next instant, with a pang of self-reproach, she remembered Sophy Viner's cry: "I knew all the while he didn't care..." "Poor thing, oh ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... instant her eyes were softened with a tender look of self-reproach. His heart warmed at the sight, but before he could convince himself that it was not a creation of his own fancy, it had passed, and once more she was holding him at bay ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... draws them nearer together; makes them find fresh points in each other to love and admire. Were she his wife, occupying her proper sphere in society, sought after, courted, admired, he with no feeling of self-reproach, she with no consciousness (which she must feel though she never betrays) of cruelty and selfishness on his part; might they not be even happier? He forgets to tell himself that they are happy because no tie binds them—nay, he says secretly in his heart that that tie is the only thing wanting ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... had not fully appreciated the change that had been wrought by two tedious years, and as he scrutinized the sadly sharpened and shadowed features, a painful feeling of humiliation and almost of self-reproach sprang from the consciousness that his inability to reciprocate her devoted love had brought down this premature blight upon a young and whilom happy, careless girl,—transforming her into ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... that time was flying. Day had slipped into week and week into month, without his moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. Now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... her arms lay limp in her lap; and she was staring up at me piteously, with a world of self-reproach ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... idea of self-sacrificing labour was for him a high vocation. He writhed, his limbs twisting involuntarily, when these thoughts beset him, and often he was surprised to discover that he was actually uttering aloud words of self-reproach. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... I see you dawning from some heaven, Who would not suffer self-reproach to live In one to whom your friendship once was given. I catch a vision, faint and fugitive, Of a dark face with eyes contemplative, Deep eyes that smile in silence, And parted lips that whisper, 'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Marius?" The barbarian immediately took to flight, and throwing the sword down, rushed through the door, calling out, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." This caused a general consternation, which was succeeded by compassion and change of opinion, and self-reproach for having come to so illegal and ungrateful a resolution concerning a man who had saved Italy, and whom it would be a disgrace not to assist. "Let him go, then," it was said, "where he pleases, as an exile, and suffer in some other place ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and Tom Drift advanced inch by inch nearer the brink. He slipped, not without many an effort to recover himself, many a pang of self-reproach, many a ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... but the light of momentary excitement had died out of the face, and the expression was now perfectly serene. Several reflections passed rapidly through Mat's mind. He saw clearly that the girl had not a particle of self-reproach; not a doubt of the rectitude or even the nobility of her conduct; she had immolated herself with the same inflexible resolve and unquestioning faith as the sublime murderer of Marat. Then passing rapidly in mental review the history of so many self-murdered hearts, he asked which ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... thoughts, Nigel had failed until that moment to perceive the effect of his words upon his brother. Robert's head had sunk upon his hand, and his whole frame shook beneath some strong emotion; evidently striving to subdue it, some moments elapsed ere he could reply, and then only in accents of bitter self-reproach. "Why, why did not such thoughts come to me, instead of thee?" he said. "My youth had not wasted then in idle folly—worse, oh, worse—in slavish homage, coward indecision, flitting like the moth around the destructive flame; and while I deemed thee buried in romantic ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... of the Journal written nearly thirty years after his election he allows himself a few pathetic words, half of accusation, half of self-reproach, which make us realize how deeply this untowardness of social circumstance had affected him. He is discussing one of Madame de Stael's favorite words, the word consideration. "What is consideration?" he asks. "How does a man obtain it? how does it differ from fame, esteem, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... other's embrace. Lucy, with the maternal tenderness that should have been Eleanor's, pressed her lips on the hot brow that lay upon her breast, murmuring words of promise, of consolation, of self-reproach, feeling her whole being passing out to Eleanor's in a great tide of passionate ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sadness and self-reproach, on the way in which I had neglected my Bible; and it flashed across me that I was actually in the sight of God a greater sinner than this blood-stained pirate; for, thought I, he tells me that he never read the Bible, and was never brought up to care for it; whereas I was carefully taught to read ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Whenever danger is ahead and affairs look stormy he retreats to his hole like a discreet fox. I wish to Heaven that I too could take to my bed and shut my eyes to all that is transpiring around us! But no," continued the empress with a pang of self-reproach, "I have no right to retire from the post of danger. I must act, and act quickly, or Joseph will be before me. Oh, my God, help me in ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Humphrey, like most masculine invalids, was very hard to persuade, or to manage, and Mary, feeling that his condition was really the result of his efforts to save her boy and bring him to her, was full of pity for him, and self-reproach that she had caused him so ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... his hand on his father's shoulder as he spoke, but there was no comfort for that sorrowing parent. While he cursed Howel there, was much self-reproach within him for long-harboured feelings of anger and unforgiveness against his daughter. He even began, to think that if he had been gentle and kind he might have saved her. The proud hearts of parent and child were alike subdued by ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... indiscreet. Among others, I remember I resolved to pray, at least once, in some way, every hour that I was awake. I tried faithfully to keep this resolution, but never having succeeded a single day, I suffered the pangs of self-reproach, until reflection satisfied me that the only wisdom possible, with regard to such a resolve, was to break it. I remember, too, that I made a resolution to speak upon religion to every person with ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... is obviously my duty to do all that I can do for his rescue without putting my own life in jeopardy. But I owe him no more than this. My own life is precious to me and to my family, and I have a right so to regard it. I shall not deserve censure or self-reproach, if I decline exposing myself to imminent peril. Yet if I have the generosity and the courage which belong to a truly noble nature, I shall not content myself with doing no more than this,—I shall hazard my own safety if there is reason to hope that my ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... He came to himself as out of a dream, and he was overwhelmed with an agony of shame and self-reproach. He had broken his promise to his dead mother—he had been drinking! and his heart failed him when he thought of the horrors that his mother had always associated with that word. And then he was in jail—that place that his mother had always represented ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... brought confusion into her picture of a happy future; but when she awoke, the glad confidence of the previous night had given place to self-reproach and fear. During the breakfast she scarcely spoke or lifted her eyes. Her silent preoccupation was misunderstood by Bancroft; he took it to mean that she didn't care what happened to him; she was selfish, he decided. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... party on the interest question; the fact, that, in his account of the matter of liquidation he mentions the enactment as to the surrender of the property of the debtor in lieu of payment but is silent as to the cancelling of the interest, is perhaps a tacit self-reproach. But he was, like every party-leader, dependent on his party and could not directly repudiate the traditional maxims of the democracy in the question of interest; the more especially when he had to decide this question, not as the all-powerful conqueror of Pharsalus, but even before his departure ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... passed, in the course of which the heart of the girl was torn by conflicting emotions. Love clashed with hate and self-pity with self-reproach. Was it true—what he had said? Had she administered the final kick to a man who was down—who, loving her—and deep down in her heart she knew that he did love her—had come to her in the extremity of his need for a ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx |
