"Indiscretion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Grace Mary rejoined, pulling herself up hurriedly from this indiscretion. "But in the face. You are very like her in appearance. And you must try. You must try to improve yourself. Your uncle is always trying to improve himself. He reads 'Doctor Syntax' aloud to us. In the evening it is our custom ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... before the door; so that the Knight's head had hung out upon the road about a week before he himself knew any thing of the matter. As soon as Sir ROGER was acquainted with it, finding that his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection and good-will, he only told him that he had made him too high a compliment; and when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive look, That it was too great an ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... readily be imagined I gave her every assurance on that head, and told her I loved her too dearly, and was too grateful for the extatic happiness she had taught me how to enjoy, for any chance of betrayal to take place through my indiscretion. She embraced me tenderly, told me to go straight to the garden, that she must seek some repose after all that had happened, and we should ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... Mr. Lewis had no humour in his own nature, he was occasionally the cause of its ebullition in others. The short note he elicited from Mr. Lowe when he assumed the right to call the right hon. gentleman to task for this indiscretion hugely delighted the House ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "warned" her, as they phrased it, against "Margaret's infatuation for that wild Mr. Brand." Lady Caroline listened with her most placid smile, but raged inwardly. That her peerless Margaret should have been indiscreet! She was sure that it was only indiscretion—nothing more—but even that was insufferable! And what had Alicia Stone been doing? Where had her eyes been? Had she been bribed or coaxed into favoring ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... his order remained behind in the farm-house at Dahme with the escort from Brandenburg. Assuring the Elector of his most lively sympathy, and protesting that he had most bitterly reproached his wife for her inexcusable indiscretion in bringing about a meeting between him and this man, the Chamberlain went on to ask what could have occurred during the interview to affect his master ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... indiscretion. It is evidently really difficult for you, Lubov Yakovlevna, to live with your father. He's a man with old-fashioned views and, pardon me, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... Savaron de Savarus, the natural son of the Comte de Savarus—pray keep the secret of my indiscretion—if he is returned deputy, will be our advocate in the suit about les Rouxey. Les Rouxey, my father tells me, will be my property; I intend to live there, it is a lovely place! I should be broken-hearted at seeing that fine piece of the great ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... first of these after-dinner causeries I ventured humbly to remark that Patriotism was a vulgar vice of which I had never been guilty. That innocent indiscretion of mine aroused at the moment some unfavourable comment. I confess I was sorry for it. But I passed it by at the time, lest I should speak too hastily and lose my temper. I recur to the subject now, at the hour of the cigarette, when man can discourse most genially ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... rural retreat, although situated in the limits of the city. There the stranger, who was understood to be a prisoner of state, lived in the greatest seclusion; and although neither he nor his attendant could be guilty of indiscretion, because none understood their language, and although Governor Perier severely rebuked the slightest inquiry, yet it seemed to be the settled conviction in Louisiana, that the mysterious stranger was a brother of the Sultan, or some great personage of the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... declared. "Mademoiselle Flossie is a charming young lady. No wonder she has many friends. There was one," she continued, "who came here with her this afternoon—but he left almost at once," she added hastily, aware of her indiscretion. "Ah, these stairs! They grow steeper for ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... victory through the remarkable over-confidence and indiscretion of Edwin James, Q.C., who opposed us. James's client was the husband of the deceased. By her will the lady had left him the whole of her property, amounting to nearly L100,000. The case we set up was that the wife had been improperly influenced by her husband in making it, and that her mind ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... matter must not be allowed to rest where it was; she knew that Lady Luce would have effected her purpose and cast a shadow of scandal over Nell's future life if not another word was spoken. Convinced that Nell was innocent of even the slightest indiscretion, she felt that it would be wiser to force ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... despised Crane family repeating their foolish performance, which many years 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 spared ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... extraordinary coincidence!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, when I told him this; "who would have expected it? Naturally, when you revisit a spot so fraught with affecting associations, you will wish to be alone. You must pardon my involuntary indiscretion in ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the prerogatives of which a long line of ancestors, and a long acquiescence of the people, without any act of his, had put him in possession. A misfortune it has indeed turned out to him, that he was born king of France. But misfortune is not crime, nor is indiscretion always the greatest guilt. I shall never think that a prince, the acts of whose whole reign were a series of concessions to his subjects, who was willing to relax his authority, to remit his prerogatives, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for her former indiscretion and establish herself again on her height of maiden reserve in Thomas Merriam's eyes, sat resolutely in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day, with her eyes cast down, and after service she glided swiftly down the aisle and was out of the door before the young minister could much more than descend ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... their kind. To be interesting, it is perhaps indispensable that the biographer should be indiscreet, and certainly the Branwell incident—a matter of two or three pages—is the only part of Mrs. Gaskell's biography in which indiscretion becomes indefensible. And for this she suffered cruelly. 'I did so try to tell the truth,' she said to a friend, 'and I believe now I hit as near to the truth as any one could do.' 'I weighed every line with my whole power and heart,' she said on ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... again see—the daughter?" he questioned, as though half regretting the indiscretion of ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... her maid, which an invincible sleepiness prevented him from reading at that moment. He fell asleep, dreaming of a gentle love that his life had so far lacked. Some hours later he opened the note, and found in it important news, which neither Rastignac nor de Marsay had allowed to transpire. The indiscretion of a member of the government had revealed to the actress the coming dissolution of the Chamber after the present session. Raoul instantly went to Florine's house and sent for Blondet. In the actress's boudoir, with their feet on the fender, Emile and Raoul analyzed the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... owe you equal frankness, Mr. Falconer. There is no barrier between Major Moray and myself but the foolish—no, wicked—indiscretion of an otherwise innocent and ignorant girl. Listen, Mr. Falconer: under the necessity of the circumstances you will not misjudge me if I compel myself to speak calmly. This, I trust, will be my ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Warrington, not so much for facilitating my progress in the interior, as for increasing my difficulties a hundred-fold. I was astonished that a high functionary, of thirty-three years' experience in these countries, should have committed such an act of egregious indiscretion, exposing the life of a fellow countryman to such increased danger, who was already without any kind of guaranteed protection. If I had been murdered in The Desert tract from Ghadames to Ghat, it would have most justly been attributed to the placard placed on the doors of the Consulate ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... amateur. He takes his impressions home and elaborates them; he brings his intellect to bear on them; and, as this exhibition shows, without robbing them of their bloom, makes of them something solid and satisfying. To realize what a power this is we may, I hope without indiscretion, glance for an instant at another handsomely endowed French painter. That M. Lhote does not want for sensibility is shown by his sketches and water-colours, that his intellect is sharp enough is proved ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... Stanchon felt tempted to say, "and I hope the girls are out, too!") As if in answer to this indiscretion, the new butler ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... absolutely must have sumptuary laws, I undertake to give you the receipt. And I guarantee that in my system collection shall be easy: no comptrollers, assessors, tasters, assayers, inspectors, receivers; no watching, no office expenses; not the smallest annoyance or the slightest indiscretion; no constraint whatever. Let it be decreed by a law that no one in future shall receive two salaries at the same time, and that the highest fees, in any situation, shall not exceed twelve hundred dollars in Paris and eight hundred in the departments. What! you lower your eyes! Confess, then, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... your composure," entreated the scribe. "You need fear neither indiscretion nor ridicule with me. The confidence reposed in me by persons whom chance or misfortune has deprived of the benefits of education, has always been considered as ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... that I can make a speech from which all his arguments are to be excluded. The worst of authors will say something which is to the point. Who, for example, could speak on this thesis of yours without praising the discretion of the non-lover and blaming the indiscretion of the lover? These are the commonplaces of the subject which must come in (for what else is there to be said?) and must be allowed and excused; the only merit is in the arrangement of them, for there can be none in the invention; but when you ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... of pearls, gold, etc., in order to impress the sovereigns with the great value of his most recent discovery. The Admiral had good and sufficient reasons for making the most of this discovery, as his enemies in Spain and in the West Indies were seeking to belittle his great deeds, hence his indiscretion in placing the proofs of his achievement in the hands of his implacable foe, Bishop Fonseca. He could not return at that time, owing to the terrible condition of affairs in Hispaniola, which demanded his continued presence there—as narrated in ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... so—he must take a position consistent with his assumed character. Detection by Georgian was what he now feared. Whatever happened, she must not get the smallest glimpse of him or be led by any indiscretion on his part to suspect his presence under the same roof as herself. Yet he must see all, hear all that was possible to him. For this a continuance of the present conditions, an open door and no light, were positively ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... than he had in years. The two had tramped and snow-shoed together through long winter hours of intimate talk and more intimate silence, and they found the first Mayflowers of the year together. Only the week before he had committed the crowning indiscretion of giving up a poker game at the Everards' to ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... — N. rashness &c adj.; temerity, want of caution, imprudence, indiscretion; overconfidence, presumption, audacity. precipitancy, precipitation; impetuosity; levity; foolhardihood^, foolhardiness; heedlessness, thoughtlessness &c (inattention) 458; carelessness &c (neglect) 460; desperation; Quixotism, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of a simple misunderstanding. Those who think that the adventure of young Nemovetsky is a slice of life and characterizes certain psychological states, have, without a doubt, the right to judge this story as an indiscretion, and to reproach the author with a deviation from morality; but Andreyev has not taken his hero from reality; he has not tried to give us a picture of manners, but has expressed an idea, born in his brain under the influence of the philosophy of Nietzsche. It illustrates the terrible ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... Hetth had committed an indiscretion, nothing really wrong—she hadn't the nerve. But the nuisance of it was, that, in addition to the indiscretion, she had broken the eleventh commandment and had very nearly got hanged ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... hardly credit my 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 request ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... than his words, conveyed an intimation that when the opportunity served he would trounce Furneaux for an indiscretion. Fenley was mollified. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... mercenary from St. John Lateran. It is related that in 1559, a canon of the church of St. John Lateran, impelled by a worldly curiosity untempered by piety, undertook to make a critical examination of this relic, in the process of which, to better satisfy himself, he had the indiscretion to break off a small piece; instantly the most dreadful tempest broke over the place, followed by crashing peals of thunder and blinding flashes of lightning; then a sudden darkness covered the country, and the luckless priest and his assistants ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... reconciliation if James had not been so rich. The 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 ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... was flagrant to the whole world. If, on the other hand, the advantage seemed to go with the Canton Club, or the opposition benches, then it was the whig and liberal hounds who howled and moaned, explaining everything by the indiscretion, infatuation, treason, of Lord Viscount Masque, and appealing to the initiated world of idiots around them, whether any party could ever succeed, hampered by such men, and influenced ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... for some sort of indiscretion; nobody could save her that! Even if there was any probability that Royal ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... your highness," she said, and there was virtuous appeal in her eyes. "I pray forgiveness for this indiscretion and implore you to be lenient with two miserable creatures who love you so well that they ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... As I recall, there were only two great passions in your uncle's life—Japanese art and green-turtle soup. It was just like him to retire from business on his sixtieth birthday and depart for the Orient, there to commit the shameless indiscretion of matrimony." ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... her for the introduction. She was quite confounded; but she did not abate her kindness in the least, although my reservation of confidence in only giving her a hint of the truth, checked her advances. You may think this an insane indiscretion on my part; but if you knew how often I have longed to stand up before everybody and proclaim who I am, and so get rid of the incubus of a perpetual falsehood, you would not be so much surprised. There is one unspeakable blessing ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... match for your daughter is not to be relinquished on slight grounds; and though his lordship should have been guilty of some indiscretion, it will not alter my resolution respecting his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... diplomatic prudence. His shrewdness and experience must soon have shown him that his presence in Paris, if not precisely distasteful to the French government, must at least in some degree compromise it, and might by any indiscretion on his part easily be made to annoy and vex the ministers. It therefore behooved him to make himself as little as possible conspicuous in any official or public way. A rebuke, a cold reception, might do serious harm; nor was it politic to bring perplexities to those whose friendship he sought. He ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... then," he observed, "is now agreed upon. We proceed to condition number two. Mrs. Delaporte, Captain Bannister, and Mr. Cheape," he went on earnestly, "I have been guilty of an indiscretion the proof of which is in your hands. Having decided to make London my home for a time, I desire once and for all to extinguish all possibility of this affair ever cropping up again in ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... other cause but because he was a preacher of the Gospel, an 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 Protestant ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... victim of another mistake, which he resented more strongly than he did my indiscretion. He told the story to me and to Mrs. Procter one day in the drawing-room at Fryston, with keen indignation. A certain noble lord had approached him at an evening party with an air of extraordinary deference. Venables knew the peer very slightly, and was surprised by the salaams ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... The ill-treatment she had had to endure was only too well-known, and every one in Falaise took her part. If Acquet lost the case, it would mean the end of the easy life he was leading at Donnay, and he not only wished to gain time but secretly hoped that his wife would commit some indiscretion that would regain for him if not the sympathies of the public, at least her loss of the suit which if won, would ruin him. In order to carry out his Machiavellian schemes, he pretended that he wished to come to an understanding with the Combray family, and he despatched one of his friends to Mme. ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... and the indiscretion of youth, I used expressions which the Papist considered insulting to his religion. He was not one to put up patiently with this, so he would fire up, twirl his blackthorn round his head, and say, "By St. Patrick, you had better ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... young man said "Oh!" and his "Oh" sounded blank, whether because it was apparent to him through her answer that there had been indiscretion in his question, or because he wondered at there being a dinner-party in this house and he not asked to it. Leslie paid no attention, for at that moment the ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... and fidelity in her whole life will, when confronted with this crucial test, deny her hair-pin. She will deny that hair-pin before a hundred witnesses. I have stupidly got into more trouble and more hot water trying to hunt up the owner of a hair-pin in a Pullman than by any other indiscretion of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... go to some neighbor and say in her softly purring voice, "Isn't it too bad that Mr. Smith neglects his wife so dreadfully, and it is shocking the way he drinks. Now the other night, etc., etc.," until her garrulous tongue would make a great crime of perhaps only a small indiscretion. Drusilla had been a joy to her, as she was new in the neighborhood, and she regaled her with all the gossip, much to Drusilla's disgust and discomfiture; but she was too kindly to be rude to the bitter-tongued woman, who was the only one of her neighbors who "ran ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... waited near the enclosure. Ferocious joy shone in his eyes as the accused made their way through the crowd, two by two, their wrists tied with ropes; for the duke every minute expected to hear the queen's name spoken. But the chief-justice, a man of experience, had prevented indiscretion of any kind by fixing a hook in the tongue of each one. The poor creatures were tortured on a ship, so that nobody should hear the terrible confessions ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... are inclined to say; and yet it was not so. For this was the crisis for Claudius as well as Hamlet. He had better have died at once, before he had added to his guilt a share in the responsibility for all the woe and death that followed. And so, we may allow ourselves to say, here also Hamlet's indiscretion served him well. The power that shaped his end shaped the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... born of the superstition that was destroying him, was hate. The one laboured for mankind; the other for himself. And thus the aspirations of Numerian, founded on the general good, nourished by offices of kindness, and nobly directed to a generous end, might lead him into indiscretion, but could never degrade him into crime—might trouble the serenity of his life, but could never deprive him of the consolation of hope. While, on the contrary, the ambition of Ulpius, originating in revenge and directed to destruction, exacted cruelty from his heart and duplicity from ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... been fought with a member of the Embassy. Captain Ward had certainly been injured, but that was the result of an accident; they had Dr. Goldberg's word for it. It was then that the younger wiseacres smiled. Baron Petrescu was an easy lover, and had been punished for some indiscretion. Some townsman, perhaps, with the luck on his side, had got the better of the master of fence. No wonder the Baron wished to keep the matter quiet. Lord Cloverton knew the true story. Captain Ward had sent to him directly Dr. Goldberg had got him home, and the Ambassador shut himself ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... from authority which I cannot doubt, that the indiscretion of certain of your admirers last Saturday at the Opera-house occasioned a disturbance which to a young woman of delicacy I should imagine must be very alarming: now as I consider myself concerned in your fame and welfare from regarding you as my ward, I think it is incumbent upon me ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... alone—nearly alone, inasmuch as Colbert, as soon as he perceived the young girl approaching, had stopped and drawn back a dozen paces—the king advanced towards La Valliere and took her by the hand. "Mademoiselle," he said to her, "should I be guilty of an indiscretion if I were to inquire if you were indisposed? for you seem to breathe as if you were oppressed by some secret cause of uneasiness, and your eyes are filled ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... they had any marriage ceremony, but they are very jealous of their wives, and visit with great severity any indiscretion on ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... in vain 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 Bergen, with Valkendorf by his ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your servants, which you have 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 delegated that charge, and by whatever powers ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... affected the whole course of human affairs,—and whom octogenarians like Nesselrode and Palmerston would be compelled to call statesmen of the first class. These are Octavius Caesar, more successful in the arts of policy than even the great Julius, never guilty of youthful indiscretion, or, we are sorry to say, of youthful virtue; Maurice of Saxony, the preserver of the Reformed religion in Germany, in that contest where his youthful sagacity proved more than a match for the veteran craft of Charles the Fifth; the second William of Orange, the preserver ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... considerations, to reduce them to their simplest elements, and to prove that the favors of lovers were mere pleasure, that there were no pledges—philosophically speaking—excepting those which were given to the world, when we allowed it to penetrate our secrets and joined it in the acts of indiscretion. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... taken up with his passion, and so surprised at the conversation he had heard, that he fell into an indiscretion very common, which is, to speak one's own particular sentiments in general terms, and to relate one's proper adventures under borrowed names. As they were travelling he began to talk of love, and exaggerated the pleasure ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... plain to Sir 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 ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... be indiscreet!" implored the girl, with clasped hands. "I admire indiscretion in others, and cultivate it ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... (Bourgogne) before the Revolution; predecessor of Abbe Brossette in this curacy; uncle of Jean-Francois Niseron. He was led by a childish but innocent indiscretion on the part of his great-niece, as well as by the influence of Dom Rigou, to disinherit the Niserons in the interests of the Mesdemoiselles Pichard, house-keepers in his ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... 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
... felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded her faint amusement. Could it be possible that Stillman ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... come home, perhaps on a sudden impulse, with a view to further blackmail, would not her wisest move be to risk some indiscretion, some partial disclosure, so that her renewed silence afterward might have the higher price? An hour's tete-a-tete with that shrewd, hard-souled man, Henry Barron! Alice Puttenham guessed that her own ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... isn't so dissipated, father," she began quaveringly, regretting the indiscretion into which eloquence had ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... the Piece been really silly (and I have proof positive that Sheridan did not think it so) yet 10 years afterwards to have committed a breach of confidence in order to injure the otherwise . . . that on the ground of an indiscretion into which he had himself seduced the writer, and the writer, too, a man whose reputation was his Bread—a man who had devoted the firstlings of his talents to the celebration of Sheridan's genius—and who after he met treatment not only never spoke unkindly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... look like a different being from what he had appeared an hour before, in consequence of this pause in the regular business of sealing, and the promised holiday. A strict order was given that no one should go among the seals, as it was feared that some indiscretion or other might have a tendency to create an alarm. In all other respects the island was placed at the disposal of the men, if anything could be made of such a lone spot, a speck on the surface of the antarctic seas, and nearly encircled by ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... want, then, if she has all the money she needs! Perhaps some discarded mistress! Bah! The old man's heart is as hollow as a sentrybox, and, besides, he has not been in Europe for nearly twenty years. Ah, I see! Perhaps a bit of blackmail—some early indiscretion! She did speak about the girl! Then I must be the silent partner of her future harvest! She probably needs a man's arm to reach the wary old Baronet in future. My lady writes in no ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... here, where Roman taste, genius, and magnificence, excite ideas analogous to yours at every step. I could no longer oppose the inclination to avail myself of your permission to write to you, a permission given with too much complaisance by you, and used by me with too much indiscretion. Madame de Tott did me the same honor. But she, being only the descendant of some of those puny heroes who boiled their own kettles before the walls of Troy, I shall write to her from a Grecian, rather than a Roman canton; when I shall find myself, for example, among her ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... silence. Raoul heard only the sound of his own breathing. He quite failed to see that the indiscretion of his conduct ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... embarrassed by opposition, lost in confusion, fretted by disappointment, and ready to conclude, in our haste, that all things are against our own good and our Master's honor. But "this is our infirmity"; it is the dictate of impatience and indiscretion. We forget the "years of the right hand of the Most High." We are slow of heart in learning a lesson which shall soothe our spirits at the expense of our pride. We turn away from the consolation to be derived ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... his flushed face, a 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 had ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Master Jocelyn," Wolfe rejoined, "but to my lord of Buckingham, whom you wantonly insulted? For the latter indiscretion there can be no excuse, whatever there may be for the former; and it was simple madness to affront a nobleman of his exalted rank, second only in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... terribly vexed by this rudeness, which I was powerless to resist, and regretted my indiscretion in entering the forecastle after the politic resolutions I had formed. However, Captain Coxon's ferocity was nothing new to me; truly I believed he was not quite right in his mind, and expected, as in former cases, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... conversation with a bosom friend. Besides, that when a friend is turned into an enemy, and (as the son of Sirach calls him) a betrayer of secrets, the world is just enough to accuse the perfidiousness of the friend, rather than the indiscretion of the person who confided ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... announcement, referring to a debate in the House of Lords on February 20th, which he regarded as of the utmost importance. A report made by a Colonel Jervois on the defences of Canada had been published, and the publication, exposing the extreme weakness of Canada, was regarded as an official indiscretion. It asserted that under the arrangements then existing British and Canadian forces together could not defend the colony. Lord Lyveden brought the question up in the House of Lords, and dwelt upon the gravity of the situation created by the defencelessness of Canada and by the hostility of the United ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... elsewhere, my son, the miserable condition of princes who commit their people and their own dignity to the management of a premier minister; but it is little beside the misery of those who are left to the indiscretion of a popular assembly; the more you grant, the more they claim; the more you caress, the more they despise; and that which is once in their possession is held by so many arms that it cannot be wrenched ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fell on their knees before the little people, and Tatoka, for her lover had less than the heart of a doe, and was speechless, related her story. She told them how long she had loved Karkapaha, and holding down her head confessed her fatal indiscretion. Then she pictured the wrath of her father, the pursuit which was making, doubtless with a view to the punishment by death of her lover, and concluded her tale of sorrow with a burst of tears, which came from her eyes like the rain from a summer cloud, and sighs which might be ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... not have believed that men were able to love so much. I have passed a terrible night. Do not think I am angry, dear friend, because you confided to him that we love one another like two lovers; it does not displease me, and with him it was no indiscretion, because his mind is as free of prejudices ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... affair" of twelve years ago was a ghost which refused to be laid. Every one on the island knew the story; it was handed down from one batch of visitors to the next. He knew that whenever his name was mentioned this unique indiscretion of his, this toothsome morsel, would likewise be dished up. It would never grow stale, though atoned for by twelve years of exemplary conduct. He felt guilty. There was a skeleton in his cupboard. He ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... reproach rather than of annoyance, and he was left with a sense of having committed an indiscretion. The consciousness brought with it the perception that in a measure he was growing used to his position. He was beginning to take it for granted that this girl should come and minister to his wants. She herself did it so simply, so much as a matter of course, that the circumstance lost much ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... good Nancy, it is more than I know myself. What awful indiscretion does your prophetic soul see ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... in his cabinet, surrounded with book-cases, filled mostly with works on history, statistics, and geography, and I hope I am not committing any indiscretion in saying that his conversation savoured more of the abstractions of history and political philosophy than that of any other practical statesman I had seen. I do not think that I am passing a dubious compliment, since ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... her side of the campaign, Theresa—emboldened by recapitulation of her late boastings at the Miss Minetts' tea-table—hastened to put a gilded dome to her own indiscretion and offence. For nothing would do but Damaris must accompany her on this choir treat! She declared herself really compelled to press the point. It offered such an excellent opportunity of acquiring archaeological ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... by the indiscretion of people here, what by the rebound which came often back from London, what by the private interests and ambitious views of persons in the French Court, and what by other causes unnecessary to be examined now, the most private transactions ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... by the indiscretion of some ministers and by the complaints of the two old warriors, who declared their intention of flinging their portfolios at the beggar's head, but who did nothing of the sort. These outbursts, far from injuring the lucky ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... vain. An excuse, instead of a denial, was the gentlest answer I received. Whilst I languished in a condition too horrible to be described, and which, in a land of humanity, and, what is much more, Christianity, seems a strange punishment for a little inadvertency and indiscretion; whilst I was in this condition, a fellow came into the prison, and, enquiring me out, delivered ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... invitation Columbus set sail on the morning of December 24. In the evening when the admiral had retired the helmsman committed the indiscretion of confiding the helm to a ship's boy. About midnight when off Cape Haitien, near their destination, the vessel was caught in a current and swept upon a sandbank where she began to keel over. During the confusion which followed, Columbus had the mainmast chopped ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... season of indiscretion, as ye know, Signori," returned the father, breathing more freely—"and as none become old that have not been young, I have little need to awaken your recollection of its weaknesses. I trust my son is incapable of designing aught ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her that one. A girl who could announce her approaching marriage with a stranger (Chilminster no longer gave her the benefit of the doubt) and follow up that glaring indiscretion by a visit to her victim, was—— The imminence of such a thing alarmed him. Was she coming to propose—to molest him? He ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... gave her the chance to correct that which, in the light of Claude's warning, might prove to have been an indiscretion. "I'm sure I can't imagine. You must ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... with him a covering for the car, was, on the contrary, ready to take off his own cloak, and with it shelter articles of small value; this man, who had been for many days so silent and gloomy, gave, on the contrary, many proofs of his gayety—almost of his indiscretion, speaking, at all the inns, in terms of praise of his master and mistress. The waiter at the inn at Dauphin, says he was a tall young fellow, mild and good-natured; 'we talked for some time about horses, and such things; ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... old place under the gallery, but their performances were of a highly decorous character. At the least-sign of a relapse into certain old tricks, more grotesque than refined, the brows of Prince Alexis would grow dark, and a sharp glance at Sasha was sufficient to correct the indiscretion. Every one found this natural enough; for they were equally impressed with the elegance and purity of the young wife. After the healths had been drunk and the slumber-flag was raised over the castle, Boris led her into the splendid apartments of ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... the look on the young man's face. But I forget myself. I am rambling in all directions when I ought to be telling a consecutive tale. Not my usual habit, sir; this you know; but I am not quite myself at this moment. I declare I am more upset by this discovery of my indiscretion than I was by Mr. Trohm's declaration of affection in Lost Man's Lane! Give me time, Mr. Gryce; in a few minutes I ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... of Mohammed is recorded when an indiscretion of his young wife Ayishah was reported to him, "There be no adultress without an adulterer (of a husband)." Fatimah the Apostle's daughter is supposed to have remained a virgin after bearing many children: this coarse symbolism of purity was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... passed many a team, broken down as a result of those first few days of rush. People often brought these and other ills upon themselves by their own indiscretion. ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... to be lost. Tom felt that he had been guilty of an act of indiscretion in remaining so long on shore, and in not having seen that the boat was properly secured. He had not forgotten those huge monsters of sharks, which had been prowling about, but there was only one way by which the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... but doubtless this would have been revealed had not her visit been interrupted and terminated by the appearance of the Eurasian doctor upon the scene. From your own account she recognized that she had committed an indiscretion by coming there, and of the doctor's anger—- which he was quite unable to conceal—you have told me. Note also that the next episode was your being followed by Cassim, the Nubian, undoubtedly with murderous intent. ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... cords which dragged him into a party, whose principles he naturally disliked, and whose leaders he personally hated, as they did him. He became a thorough convert by a perfect trifle; taking fire at a nickname[26] delivered by Dr. Sacheverell, with great indiscretion, from the pulpit, which he applied to himself: and this is one among many instances given by his enemies, that magnanimity ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift |
