"Propriety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accommodation as he could have wished. Elated by his recent successes, he now aspired not only to the possession of Cuzco, but of Lima itself, as falling within the limits of his jurisdiction. It was in vain that Espinosa urged the propriety, by every argument which prudence could suggest, of moderating his demands. His claims upon Cuzco, at least, were not to be shaken, and he declared himself ready to peril his life in maintaining them. The licentiate coolly replied by quoting the pithy Castilian proverb, El ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... As the opinion of this meeting, that as the Legislature of this State will shortly be in session, it will be highly deserving of their wisdom and patriotism to take into their early and most serious consideration the propriety of instructing our representatives in the National Legislature to use the most zealous and strenuous exertions to inhibit the existence of slavery in any of the Territories or States which may hereafter ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... accident. She entered the family at a most inauspicious moment, two days after this accident. From the outset she comprehended the situation and took the ground that a character of irreproachable dignity and propriety became an infant coming at such a time. She never cried, never put improper objects into her mouth, never bumped her head, or scratched herself. Once put to bed at night, you knew nothing more of her till such time ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... against the propriety of such behaviour, the man in black cut the matter short, by saying, that if one party was a fool he saw no reason why the other should imitate it in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Ann's Hall is worthy of more than passing notice. He chose for his theme the progress of the Irish race in Canada, and although the groundwork of his address was placed in Montreal, the deductions to be drawn from the statistics presented may, with equal propriety, be applied to any section of Canada in which the Irish colony is located. The Irish people are, for what reason it is unnecessary to inquire, essentially colonists, much more so as respects the mass than those of Scotland and England, and in no country or clime have they found a more hospitable ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... more. John Bull has seldom appeared to me to greater advantage. I never saw him en masse behave with such impulsive propriety. Enchanted to behold a king of France in his capital; conscious that le grand monarque was fully in his power; yet honestly enraptured to see that "The king would enjoy his own again," and enjoy it through the generous efforts of his rival, brave, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... extensive and select library, to which she had free access, and history, biography, travels, essays, and novels had been perused with singular avidity. Dr. Hartwell, without restricting her reading, suggested the propriety of incorporating more of the poetic element in her course. The hint was timely, and induced an acquaintance with the great bards of England and Germany, although her taste led her to select works of another character. Her secluded life favored habits of study, and, at an age when girls are ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... 1: Though it goes against one's ideas of propriety to print from a copy, yet when one wants the substance of a MS., it's better to take it from a copy, when you can get it, than fret for five years till the MS. turns up. When it does so, we can print it if necessary, its ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... him, in 1720, succeeded Brother Antony, or rather two brothers, Antony and Jacob, who dwelt in cheerful community one with another, praying before the same altar, and conversing during the hours of relaxation, but, in strict propriety, occupying separate cells in the rock. In 1735, however, Jacob died, when one Samuel Goerner, a modelist, and perspective maker, took his place. Some ingenious representations of Mount Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, executed in wood by the ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... long-skirted blue coat with bright buttons, a closely fitting waistcoat, and a frilled shirt with a diamond breast-pin, his comely iron-grey hair slightly powdered and curled. Perhaps, too, he would be humming some French ditty of questionable propriety, thinking of the gallantries of his youth; and as he stepped daintily forward with his shapely legs, he would sometimes indulge in a hope that knee breeches ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... consciousness that much was expected of him. He had never before thought of marrying and had not yet in his life found himself for any length of time constantly face to face in conversation with a young girl, with limitations of propriety and the fear of failure before his eyes. The situation was new and uncomfortable. He felt like a man who has got a hat which does not belong to him, which does not fit him and which will not stay on his head in a high wind. The ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... ineffectual to change your lot, it is comparatively easy, in the composure of impossibility, to keep yourself down; but when all at once you become again master of your own fate, even a temporary curb becomes intolerable. Mrs. Warrender went into her room by the compulsion of her son and conventional propriety, and was supposed to lie down on the sofa and rest for an hour or two. Her maid arranged the cushions for her, threw a shawl over her feet, and left her on tip-toe, shutting the door with elaborate precautions. ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... conscience as to the propriety of the step he meditated, and tried to argue with himself as he went in search of ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... the propriety of this arrangement. She herself abandoned the old habitation of the Comte de Tecle, to install herself near her daughter in the modest chateau which belonged to the maternal ancestors of M. de Camors, and which we have already described in another place, with its solemn avenue, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was able to crush Birotteau, and triumphed over him, even on December 17, 1818, the evening of the famous ball given by the perfumer; Jules Desmarets, Benjamin de la Billiardiere, and he were the only perfect types present of worldly propriety and distinction. [Cesar Birotteau. The Firm of Nucingen. The Middle Classes. A Bachelor's Establishment. Pierrette.] Once started, M. du Tillet seldom left the Chaussee d'Antin, the financial quarter of Paris, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... veil and I saw that I was not mistaken. It was the Countess. She smiled at me as at a person with whom she was acquainted, but with perfect propriety; she seemed to be saying, "Good-day, my dear Abbe, I do not ask how your rheumatism is, because at this moment you are invested with a sacred character, but I am interested in it all ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... sense of propriety outraged. "My dear Fosdike, what's come to you? I celebrate a hero. Our hero. Why, I'm calling the Canteen after Martlow when I might have given it my own name. That speaks ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... the old comedy still hangs about them. They are chatty and confidential to a degree that appalls a stiff and formal Englishman of the upper middle class. The British servant is a chilly and statuesque image of propriety. The French is an intelligent and sympathizing friend. You can make of him what you like. But the Italian, and still more the Spaniard, is as gay as a child, and as incapable of intentional disrespect. The Castilian grandee does not regard his dignity as in danger from a moment's ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... solely for private amusement, and not with any intention of posthumous publication; and this view is greatly strengthened by the unblushing and complete manner in which he lays aside the mask of outward propriety and records his too frequent quaffing of the wine-cup, his household bickerings, his improprieties with fair women, and his graver conjugal infidelities. The improprieties of other persons, and especially those of higher social rank than himself, might very ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... You must return to the Wilds of the Earth or else you must be content to become good, grubby, and grey, dull and dejected, sober and sorrowful, respectable and unenterprising—like me; and you must cultivate fat, propriety, smugness and the Dead Level.... What, you young Devil! You'd have self-respect and pride, would you; be quick upon the point of honour, eh? revive the duello, what? Get thee to a—er—less civilized and respectable ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... It seems that the propriety of attacking the Southern army while thus in transitu, suggested itself both to General Hooker and to President Lincoln, but they differed as to the point and object of the attack. In anticipation of Lee's movement, General Hooker had written to the President, probably suggesting ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... intention of withdrawing my men. As I glanced round the room, however, I caught sight of a small bunch of keys hanging against the wall, and, thinking that these might possibly belong to the magazine, the spirit of mischief suggested to me the propriety of destroying the battery altogether, instead of merely temporarily disabling it; so I took down the keys, and, lighting another lantern, of which there were several, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... will be no rattan or ruler used, or ears boxed, but each one will receive a lecture on propriety, and an extra lesson. The bigger boys will be ordered to learn fifty new characters, and the smaller ones will each have a longer copy to write ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "holler." The dead hand of conscious propriety was upon him, checking any momentum that might lead to a spontaneous expression of patriotic feeling. The generous human juices could not run—could not even get started. When he said good-bye to Albert, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... not, JOSEPH, put before you a better model than the boy whose post you assume, in consequence of his going to the Upper School; young HARTY, I mean, a boy who was ever a pattern of propriety, and one absolutely to be depended upon to maintain the prestige of the school, and—ahem!—the authority of the Masters, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... passed and it shall not be recorded that the man this glorious woman loved made an end of his days with less distinction and propriety. To die on the gallows is to do what many others have done; I will condescend to no such ignominy. Ganns understood me well enough for that. Did he not warn the police how I had been a dentist, and advised them to examine my mouth with care? He alone realized something of my genius, but ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... of the whole Bible has been purchased by them; and I may also venture to assert that, in consistency of conduct, in civil and social propriety, in commercial industry and honesty, and in zeal and liberality, they are not behind any other community in the world. The gospel has been introduced and completely established in the Penrhyn Islands, or Maniiki group, as they are more properly called, entirely by native teachers from ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... pocket-handkerchief. I walked as slowly to the coach as common decency would permit. My father looked at me, as if he would inquire of my very inward soul whether I really did possess human feelings? I felt the meaning of this, even in my then tender years; and such was my sense of propriety, that I mustered up a tear for each eye, which, I hope, answered the intended purpose. We say at sea, "When you have no decency, sham a little;" and I verily believe I should have beheld my poor mother in her coffin with less regret than I could have foregone ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... true to what she undertakes, and that which she requires by her own aggrandizement, and regards as being within the strict rules of propriety, she will remain stable and unflinching to the last. A more genuine principle is not to be found in the most determined, resolute heart of man. For this she deserves to be held in the highest commendation, for this she deserves the purest of all other blessings, and for this she deserves ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Field, dear. I gave her just a kindly hint as to the propriety of her being ALWAYS present at dinner, and she was sensible enough to take it! Now and then, ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... favorably impress you? Remember you will become its mistress the day that you marry Clinton, make my mother adopt him, and release me. If my terms are not sufficiently liberal, confer with Clinton as soon as maidenly propriety will permit, and acquaint me with your ultimatum; for I am so thoroughly weary and disgusted with this place that I am anxious to get away on almost any terms. Here come the autocrats of the neighborhood, the nouveaux enrichis! your friends the Montgomeries ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... presently she began to have other thoughts. It was necessary, she fancied, that she should put herself right by a repetition of the incident, better managed. If the wish was father to the thought, she did not know or she would not recognise it. It was simply as a manoeuvre of propriety, as something called for to lessen the significance of what had gone before, that she should a second time meet his eyes, and this time without blushing. And at the memory of the blush, she blushed again, and became one general blush ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... revealed to her that the Spoopjacks understood no other language, there was no course left but to withdraw her opposition. The Bobityshooties were English, and stupid at that, but by the time that Nicholas Spoopjack had succeeded in teaching them how to address him with propriety, the two unsuspicious listeners to the conversation had themselves mastered the lesson without once suspecting what they ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... myself, and not quite sharing the same ideas of propriety, I felt rather ridiculous in my get-up, driving across the sunny, dusty and barren country until we reached the hills. I had to keep my feet under the seat of the carriage, for when the sun's rays (thermometer above ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... looking-glass hangs on the wall, and there is a bench to sit on: that is the extent of the furniture. You have been provided with towels and with the regulation bathing-dress for men—linen breeches, to wit. While you are contemplating this garment and questioning of your modesty as to the propriety of donning it, there is a sound of rattling iron outside, and a tap on your door as a warning that your machine is about to start. The machine is dragged in lumbering fashion out into the sea by an antediluvian horse with a small boy astride, and there the boy unhitches the traces from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... her. If she wants me back again, she can write, through you, and I'll come—if she has conducted herself with a reasonable amount of propriety for ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... no question now about the propriety of landing. Old Weeso took all the Indians off to a rock, where, bareheaded and in line, they kneeled facing the east, and for half an hour he led them in prayer, making often the sign of the cross. The ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sort of personality which the right hon. gentleman has thought proper to make use of, I need not make any comment. The propriety, the taste, the gentlemanly point of it, must have been obvious to the House. But let me assure the right hon. gentleman that I do now, and will at any time he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most sincere good humour. Nay, I will say more: ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... great and deserved weight with me; and that I respect you still more than I did, if possible, for your expostulations in support of my cousin's pious injunctions to me. They come from you, Sir, with the greatest propriety, as her executor and representative; and likewise as you are a man of humanity, and a well-wisher to ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... word, how vulgar most men are, and you will see that it is impossible to talk to them without becoming vulgar yourself for the time being. Vulgarity is in this respect like electricity; it is easily distributed. You will then fully appreciate the truth and propriety of the expression, to make yourself cheap; and you will be glad to avoid the society of people whose only possible point of contact with you is just that part of your nature of which you have least reason to be proud. So you will see that, in dealing with fools and blockheads, there is only ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... about to perform an action of doubtful propriety, he is never at a loss to find arguments to defend the course he is about to pursue, and though he may not be able to satisfy his conscience, he can, at least to some extent, deaden the acuteness of its pangs. Richard Ashton endeavored to justify his present action to himself, in the moment which ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... wish success to an undertaking which promises to substitute the finest workmanship of the Riverside Press for the bad type and dingy paper of the common editions, and hope that the publishers will see the propriety of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... His sympathies, nay his personal interests, were wholly with the Independents; all that the Army had done had his approbation; and, whatever he might have had to say now (with the strong new lights he had obtained since 1641) as to the propriety of a Presbyterian Establishment on its own merits, he was probably prepared to accept such an Establishment, if with a sufficient guarantee of Toleration. Now, although he cannot have retained, more than other people, any strong confidence ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... understood if the communications which previously passed between Colonel Peacocke and the officer commanding at Port Colborne were obtained. I have reason to believe that they will bear materially in explaining the plans proposed and under consideration before Captain Akers' arrival, and the propriety of the modification which, if Colonel Peacocke's approval were obtained, was ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... of Elijah's translation is its parallel and contrast with Christ's Ascension. The one was by outward means; the other by inward energy. Storm and fire bore Elijah up into a region strange to him. Christ 'ascended up where He was before,' returning by the propriety of His nature to His eternal dwelling-place. The one is accomplished with significant disturbance, of whirlwind and flame; the other is gentle, like the life which it closed, and the last sight of Him was with extended hands of blessing. Each ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... species of young men may be naturally enough divided into two grand classes, which I shall call the grave and the merry; though, by the by, these terms do not with propriety enough express my ideas. The grave I shall cast into the usual division of those who are goaded on by the love of money, and those whose darling wish is to make a figure in the world. The merry are the men of pleasure of all denominations; the jovial lads, who have too much fire and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... to them, an elder brother undertook to solve the problem. He was a thorough man of the world, and his scrupulous compliance with the requirements of fashionable society led his mother to regard him as a model of propriety. In his private, hidden life he was as unscrupulous as the ultra ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... comment "E vero!" ("True!")—"a remark," says Mr. Ebers, "which produced a retort courteous somewhat more than verging on the limit of decorum, though not proceeding to the extremity asserted by rumor, which would have been as inconsistent with propriety as with the habitual dignity and self-possession ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... without a retort. Nor must all this be considered in the least irreverent. A certain period is allowed between two particular portions of the mass, when the priest may address his congregation on any public matter: an approaching pattern, or fair, or the like; in which, exhortations to propriety of conduct, or warnings against faction fights, &c., are his themes. Then they only listen in reverence. But when a subscription for such an object as that already mentioned is under discussion, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... his youngest son at every scrimmage near each goal." "It serves you right, Tom. I was always afraid something of that kind would happen; you shouldn't be so demonstrative." Tom was silent. He was as jealous of his own propriety and good behaviour as anybody could be, but being of a most excitable nature, he did things in the heat of a tussle for which he was afterwards very sorry, and many ignored the fact that he was an old Rangers man, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... magistrate, 'to remind you of one reason that may suggest the propriety of a candid and open confession. The inexperience of youth, Mr. Waverley, lays it open to the plans of the more designing and artful; and one of your friends at least—I mean Mac-Ivor of Glennaquoich—ranks high in the latter class, as, from your apparent ingenuousness, youth, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the Kashmirian fanes are distinguished by the graceful elegance of their outlines, by the massive boldness of their parts, and by the happy propriety of ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Romola and a beck to Tito. The acute barber saw that the pretty youngster, who had crept into his liking by some strong magic, was well launched in Bardo's favourable regard; and satisfied that his introduction had not miscarried so far, he felt the propriety ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Paris by the character of the prints and pictures in the shop windows; they are so clever as art that one becomes reprehensibly indifferent to their license. Whatever sins the French may be guilty of, they never sin against art and good taste (except when in the frenzy of revolution), and, if Propriety is sometimes obliged to cry out "For shame!" in the French capital, she must do so with ill-concealed admiration, like a fond mother chiding with word and gesture while she approves with tone and look. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... take into its arms all the feeble communities or churches that had no pastor. In due time all arrangements were perfected, and a call issued for the neighboring churches to send their pastor and two delegates to sit in council with the Salem Baptist Church on Wood River, to consider the propriety of calling into existence such an organization. After the usual preliminary services, Rev. D. W. Anderson stated the object of the meeting, and urged the immediate action of the council in the matter. After the usual amount of debate ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... was frank and firm in her unexpected confidential interview with her new friend. She placed before him clearly the enormity of his conduct, which no provocation could justify; it was a violation of divine law, as well as human propriety. She found the little lord attentive, tractable, and repentant, and, what might not have been expected, exceedingly ingenious and intelligent. His observations, indeed, were distinguished by remarkable acuteness; and though ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... your attention to the propriety of adopting the new code of international rules for the prevention of collisions on the high seas and of conforming the domestic legislation of the United States thereto, so that no confusion may arise from the application of conflicting rules ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... To wrong one woman for the sake of shielding another was not in his power. People might laugh at him and call him Quixotic, forsooth, because he would not do like every one else and make a marriage of convenience—of propriety. Propriety! when his heart was breaking within him; when every fibre of his strong frame quivered with the strain of passion; when his aching eyes saw only one face, and his ears echoed the words she had spoken that very afternoon! Propriety indeed! ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... where one or two old ladies were playing solitaire, on the red table-cloth, under the gas-light. Susan drew up a chair, and plunged into a new library book. Mary Lou, returning from a trip upstairs, said noiselessly, "Gone walking!" and Susan looked properly disgusted at Georgie's lack of propriety. Mary Lou began a listless game of patience, with a shabby deck of cards taken from the sideboard drawer, presently she grew interested, and Susan put aside her book, and began to watch the cards, too. The old ladies chatted at intervals ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... and good judgment with some feelings of humanity and consideration for the welfare and comfort, as far as is consistent with their safe keeping, of the vast number of unfortunates placed under his control; some one who, at least, will not advocate deliberately, and in cold blood, the propriety of leaving them in their present condition until their number is sufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrangements suffice for their accommodation, and who will not consider it a matter of self-laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of the Stockade—a place the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... all positions. Because even if the old and weary do consult their friends as to the advisability of retirement, it is very hard for the friends cordially to recommend it. A public man once told me that a very aged official consulted him as to the propriety of resignation. He said in his reply something complimentary about the value of the veteran's services. Whereupon the old man replied that as he set so high an estimation upon his work, he would endeavour to hold on ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... her, but the more he did so the worse she got till at last all persons began to talk to her, receiving from the poor girl replies altogether removed from the point at issue coupled with threats and oaths and furious gesticulations. At length the doctor suggested, in a whisper, the propriety of their departure, when they might consider what was best to be done, but, on Mrs. Brookes protesting that she was afraid to stay alone in the house with the maniac, Dr. Tuffnell dispatched a note to the asylum, and in a short time two keepers arrived, and proceeded to take ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... suggested the propriety of introducing this alphabet into the primary schools. I need not say I have taught it to my own children,—and I have been gratified to see how rapidly it made head, against the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. Of course it does;—an alphabet of two characters ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power there is no law: where no law, no injustice.... It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct, but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... treaty) rested upon our own representations and official reports, it was surely within my competence to deny or qualify as much as within his to assert. But, in reality, the law of the contest between us, as suggested by some instinct of propriety in my own mind, would not allow me to proceed in such a method. What he said was like a move at chess or draughts, which it was childish to dispute. The move being made, my business was—to face it, to parry it, to evade it, and, if I could, to overthrow it. I proceeded as a lawyer who moves ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... He didn't exactly know whether or not he was stepping outside the bounds of propriety. "Would you like to have me come in and build a fire for you ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... by about one thousand of the most respectable portion of the inhabitants, among whom were several of the Judges of the District Courts, and even some holders of slaves. Whatever may have been the doubts or scruples entertained by some of our citizens heretofore, respecting the propriety of urging this subject upon the attention of the National Legislature, we conceive that there is no longer cause for hesitation, since a very respectable number of the people of the District have themselves raised their voice in its favour; and, as we have before stated, it is also ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... have been a noticeable, not to say remarkable person, had he never written a line. These novels stand before us in thirty-two goodly duodecimo volumes, well printed, gracefully illustrated, and, in all external aspects, worthy of generous commendation. With strong propriety, the publishers dedicate this edition of the "first American novelist" to "the American People." No one of our great writers is more thoroughly American than Cooper; no one has caught and reproduced more broadly and accurately the spirit of our institutions, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... was not high—25 cents for a boy, and half as much for a girl. The girl was not desired, because she would be a disastrous expense by and by. As soon as she should be old enough to begin to wear clothes for propriety's sake, it would be a disgrace to the family if she were not married; and to marry her meant financial ruin; for by custom the father must spend upon feasting and wedding-display everything he had and all he could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... don't think it would be quite nice,' said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. She belonged to the extreme right on matters of propriety. ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... adoption of a base of numeration, the thumbs would not have been included. The ease with which the simplest arithmetical series may be continued led our fathers quietly to the adoption, first, of the quinary, and second, of the decimal group; and we have continued its use so quietly, that its propriety has rarely been questioned; indeed, most persons are both surprised and offended, when they hear it declared to be a purely artificial base, proper ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... replied to her, "it is almost a pity Fabio is dead! While he lived he played an excellent part as a screen—he was an unconscious, but veritable duenna of propriety for both of us, as no ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... particular persons in the company to whom they were addressed. It so happens that those which follow were mainly intended for the divinity-student and the school-mistress; though others, whom I need not mention, saw to interfere, with more or less propriety, in the conversation. This is one of my privileges as a talker; and of course, if I was not talking for our whole company, I don't expect all the readers of this periodical to be interested in my notes of what was said. Still, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... could not long continue without arousing violent resistance. The very signs that seemed to indicate the speedy triumph of the Reformation were, indeed, the occasion of the institution of an organized opposition of the most formidable character. Hints of the propriety of calling in foreign assistance had even before this time been audibly whispered. The theologians of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the apparent favor displayed for the reformed teachers by the court, had despatched one Artus Desire with a letter to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... weapons Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero, in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures, commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the Refinery, with which comfortable apartment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... between agreeable people and disagreeable. There are various tests, more or less important, which put all mankind to right and left. A familiar division is into rich and poor. Thomas Paine, with great vehemence, denied the propriety of that classification, and declared that the only true and essential classification of mankind is into male and female. I have read a story whose author maintained, that, to his mind, by far the most interesting and thorough division ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... breast, though, unfortunately, it was locked as well in those of Juliette and of two uninvited observers, and probably would soon also be locked in the capacious bosom of Madame Riennes. For the rest, towards Juliette in the future, he would observe an attitude of strictest propriety; never more should she have occasion to complain of his conduct, which henceforth would be immaculate. Alas! how easy it is for the most innocent to be misjudged, and apparently, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... not an ordinary being. To uncommon talents, and a mind of most refined order, she united great feminine propriety, and a total absence of those arts which sometimes characterise those to whom the accident of birth has given importance. With unerring discrimination, she drew the exact line between vivacity and satire, true religion ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... worship, and wished us to leave her, and join those who were assembled at the House of God. We declined, gently urging the duty and pleasure of staying with her, who was now so dear and so feeble. On returning to her place near the fire, she conversed with her sister upon the propriety of returning to their home. She did not wish it for her own sake, she said she was fearing others might suffer more if her decease occurred where she was. She probably thought the task of accompanying her lifeless remains on a long journey was more than her ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to the works of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress; most faithful home thrusts at conscience, which those who really desire to know themselves will greatly prize. It has been very properly observed that the words used by the author, as descriptive of the text, may, with great propriety, be applied to this treatise—'It is a sharp and smart description' of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... praising much the sweetness of your disposition and the exemplary propriety of your conduct, Madame Armand complains of your want of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... had ever known. For some moments he stood at the counter, waiting attention from one of the many clerks sitting before him, but though one and another occasionally glanced in his direction, his presence seemed to awaken not even a passing curiosity in their minds, much less to suggest the propriety of their inquiring ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... do pray see what he has presumed to alter ... you can alter at sufficient warrant, profit by suggestion, I should think! But it is all Miss Thomson's shame and fault: because she is quite in her propriety, saying to such intermeddlers, gently for the sake of their poor weak heads, 'very good, I dare say, very desirable emendations, only the work is not mine, you know, but my friend's, and you must no more alter it without her leave, than alter this sketch, this illustration, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... of having a man of Moreland's views present on such an occasion is that the whole thing is sure to be noised abroad with scant reference to military propriety. Moreland told the owners of the steamer line, the Chamber of Commerce, the easily-gathered audience on Rush and Montgomery streets, the usual customers at Barry & Patton's, the loungers in the lobbies of the hotels, everybody who would listen—and who would ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... called the meeting, asking for an opportunity to reply to this protest, within such bounds as even-handedness and the purposes of the meeting would allow. The committee answered that it could not see the propriety of turning the occasion into a public debate, and referred me to the press. I do not object to their decision, made, no doubt, upon what appeared to them sufficient grounds; but as the occasion was turned into a public debate—one-sided, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... thoughts, which is now near thee; but thou puttest on the immortal armour of the bravest hero, at whom others also tremble; and thou hast slain his companion, both gentle and brave, and thou hast taken the armour from his head and shoulders not according to propriety. But now will I give into thy hands a great victory, a compensation for this, that Andromache shall never receive from thee, having returned from the battle, the illustrious arms ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Chetwynd Lyles thus moved to depart in a cloud of outraged propriety, followed by others who likewise thought it well to pretend to be shocked at the proceeding, Gervase, dizzy, breathless, and torn by such conflicting passions as he could never express, was in a condition ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... very fine specimen of manhood. He entered with some show of diffidence, and seemed half-inclined to beat a hasty retreat again, when Mrs Staunton invited him to occupy a seat next her. However, he remained, conducting himself with the greatest propriety during the service, and evidently still having in remembrance the forms of the Episcopal ceremonial. When prayers were over Captain Staunton delivered, according to his usual custom, a short address, in which he strove earnestly to give a plain and comprehensive answer to the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... the ladder too," said Sophie, "but I told them I would be a little angel up aloft, and play propriety at a safe distance. It's a good thing the yacht yard happens to be at the foot of your rocks, Diana, or I'm afraid Bettina would have gone unchaperoned. It's a dizzy height up ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... the study—she had not even offered to accompany her elders to the bedroom—she made a long sound: "Ooo!" Then she gave a leap and stood still, staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried to force her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all the world was unfolding itself to her soul. Events had hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down upon her head that she had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she luxuriously felt. "I am at last born," she thought. "Miracles have ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... above all, include conditions of uniformity, wisdom, moderation, and reason, which dominate and contain all the others. Having to praise M. Royer-Collard, M. de Remusat said—"If he derives purity of taste, propriety of terms, variety of expression, attentive care in suiting the diction to the thought, from our classics, he owes to himself alone the distinctive character he gives it all." It is here evident that the part allotted to classical qualities seems mostly to depend on harmony ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... Simson so far loosened himself from the trammels of the age, as to have written his own admirable treatise in the English language. The frequency, however, with which Mr. Emerson's treatise has been quoted, almost up to the present date, would appear to justify the propriety of including it amongst the means by which the study of geometry was promoted during the last generation. The success which attended Mr. Lawson's first experiment induced him to proceed in his career of usefulness ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... city-bred girl distinguished the visitor from a country man at once. Hattie had ideas of her own as to propriety, and so rose to her feet as Bennett came up, and after a moment's hesitation made him a little bow. Bennett at once gravely took off ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... The propriety of introducing a sad story like the following, in a book intended to be rather cheerful in its character, may be questioned; but it so beautifully illustrates the firmness of woman when grief and despair have ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... I am glad you have got over it," murmured Mrs. Jerry again. Has it ever been noticed that the proper remark does not always gain in propriety with repetition? ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Jargon; to be bold and essay Verse. He has insisted that Literature is a living art, to be practised. But just what we most needed he has not told. At the final doorway to the secret he turned his back and left us. Accuracy, propriety, perspicuity—these we may achieve. But where has he helped us to write with beauty, with charm, with distinction? Where has he given us rules for what is called Style in short?—having attained which an author may count himself set up ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... scant attention to his remarks and who did not perceive their relevance or their propriety, answered, in a somewhat irritable tone, that all that was to ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Logan's lecture upon "girls" has suggested to the writer the propriety of delivering one upon "boys." He doesn't know anything about boys, and is therefore entirely unprejudiced. He was never a boy himself-has always been just as old as he is now; though the peculiar vagueness of his memory previously ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... accrued interest, however. If you will consent to sell, the Company can proceed without reorganization but, if you decline, he will foreclose under the terms of the mortgage. We have suggested the propriety and the economy to him—since he owns or controls all the stock—of not purchasing your bonds, and, frankly, have told him it is worse than bad business to do so. But he refuses to be advised, insisting that he must be the sole owner, and that he is willing to submit to the additional expense ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... that often during the ensuing months his own people wondered whether he were not a hypocrite. They were used to men with fixed temperaments, men you could rely upon to maintain a suitable standard of propriety. The other kinds they ignored socially, as they certainly would have ignored Jimmy, had he not been of their own blood; but they belonged to a class which reckons family as second only to property, which, though it may quarrel with its relations, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... and delicacy wore off by degrees; and Caesar's advantageous testimony (in Sallust) of their honesty and plain-dealing, could not with any propriety be applied here:(703) "Although," says he, "in all the Punic wars, the Carthaginians, both in peace and during truces, had committed a number of detestable actions, the Romans could never (how inviting soever the opportunity might be) be prevailed upon to retaliate ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... (cried his father), you have treated him with the utmost propriety — I am only sorry that the impertinence of any child of mine should have occasioned this exertion of your spirit, which I cannot but applaud and admire.' His wife was so far from assenting to the candour of his apology, that she rose from the table, and, taking her son by the hand, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... dissenting opinion, there remained a main fact, undeniable and inexcusable, to wit: that the court, having decided that the lower court had no jurisdiction, and being therefore itself unable to remand the cause for a new trial, had then outstepped its own proper function and outraged legal propriety by determining the questions raised by the rest of the record,—questions which no longer had any real standing before this tribunal. This course was well known to have been pursued with the purpose on the part ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... been deceived and deserted by her lover, and on the point of becoming a mother, when she consulted the priest of her parish, confessing to him her weakness, and entreating his aid to enable her to propitiate offended Heaven. The virtuous and holy man, shocked at the infirmity and want of propriety exhibited by the unfortunate girl, was very severe in his censures, and informed her that there was no way left for her but by penance and mortification to endeavour to wipe away her sin. He condemned ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... sir," struck in the brilliant and fascinating Dashboard, "if your hesitation proceeds from any doubt as to the propriety of your attire, I beg you to dismiss it from your mind at once. The tyranny of custom, it is true, compels your friend and myself to dress peculiarly, but I assure you nothing could be finer than the way that the olive green of your coat melts in the delicate yellow of your cravat, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... sitting. It was the daughter's room, the promised land toward which he had cast so many a longing gaze. The furniture was old, and had probably belonged to the building in its prosperous days; but every thing was arranged with propriety. The flowers that he had seen her attend stood in the window; a guitar leaned against a table, on which stood a crucifix, and before it lay a missal and a rosary. There reigned an air of purity and serenity about this little nestling-place of innocence; ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... which is so common a trait among the more than usually manly. The second, however, was conclusive: it was not in the least like Mr Bloomfield to display a banner on his floating residence; and if he ever did, it would certainly be dyed in hues of emblematical propriety. Now the Squirradical, like the vast majority of the more manly, had drawn knowledge at the wells of Cambridge—he was wooden spoon in the year 1850; and the flag upon the houseboat streamed on the afternoon air with the colours of that seat of Toryism, that cradle of Puseyism, that home of ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... among those few, perhaps the greater part is from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I may be allowed to recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhaps employed too anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb, upon narrow views, or for minute propriety, the orthography of their fathers. It has been asserted, that for the law to be KNOWN, is of more importance than to be RIGHT. Change, says Hooker, is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... artistic tea-rooms. And cliques, caste, they did have. Yet their comradeship was very sweet, quite real; the factional lines were not drawn according to salary or education or family, but according to gaiety or sobriety or propriety. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... that her influence was not of the most elevating nature, and that those who doubted her personal piety might have something to say in excuse of their uncharitableness; but she spoke in the might of the matrimonial nimbus around her head, and her claims were undisputed in Glaston. There was a propriety, springing from quite another source, however, in the rector's turning his footsteps first toward the Manor House, where she resided. For his curate, whom his business in Glaston that Saturday concerned, had, some nine or ten months before, married Mrs. Ramshorn's niece, Helen ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... admiration round the assembly of the gods. "Men did produce this," they will say, and, saying, they will give men immortality. But meanwhile—what agitations meanwhile! The foundations of Property and Propriety are laid bare, twin rocks; Family Pride flounders to the surface, puffing and blowing, and refusing to be comforted; Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty ground swell. Then the lawyers are aroused—cold brood—and creep out of their holes. They do what they can; they tidy up Property ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... of these occasions he had sat for a full hour with her in the drawing-room, talking chiefly of France and Italy—in low and softly modulated tones. Lesley was losing all her horror of interviews with young men. If the nuns had seen her now they would indeed have thought her lost to all sense of propriety. For one of Miss Brooke's chief theories was that no self-respecting young woman needs a chaperon. And she had flatly refused to chaperone Lesley except on inevitable or really desirable occasions. "The girl must ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of the jeers of Teutonic youth who found the sight of a lady riding a cycle in skirts a strange one—for in South Germany the 'rational' costume is so universal among women cyclists that 'tis the skirt that provokes unfavourable comment from those jealous guardians of female propriety, the street boys. I hurried on at a brisk pace past the Palm-Garden and the suburbs, with my loose hair straying on the breeze behind, till I found myself pedalling at a good round pace on a broad, level road, which led towards a ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... and he'd be very angry if he thought I did not make myself comfortable. Tell them to put it down in the bill for me; if they doubt the propriety, let ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... to the captain of the robbers, sends Onesimus back, and "beseeches" the brigand for "his son Onesimus," telling him that now he receives him "forever," and then calls the desperado "our dearly beloved fellow-laborer"! Why not, with equal propriety, if slavery be, necessarily, as our brother describes it? There is some mistake ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... time the halau was building the tabus and rules that regulated conduct were enforced with the utmost strictness. The members of the company were required to maintain the greatest propriety of demeanor, to suppress all rudeness of speech and manner, to abstain from all carnal indulgence, to deny themselves specified articles of food, and above all to avoid contact with a corpse. If anyone, even ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... distinctions in what is gentlemanly, {5} as there are in what is genteel. The characteristics of a gentleman are high feeling—a determination never to take a cowardly advantage of another—a liberal education—absence of narrow views—generosity and courage, propriety of behaviour. Now a person may be genteel according to one or another of the three standards described above, and not possess one of the characteristics of a gentleman. Is the emperor a gentleman, with spatters ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... of slavery was agitated among them; many difficulties occurred, but they were all settled—and, they thought, effectually. They agreed then, on the propriety of giving up runaway slaves, unanimously. Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, "saw no more impropriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or servant than a horse!" (Madison's Papers.) This was then considered a compromise between the North and South. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster—the ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... species. His age was necessary to him; nor could he have been wrenched from his place in the edifice of which he was so conspicuous a part, without equal injury to himself and it. Mr. Wordsworth says of Milton, that "his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." This cannot be said with any propriety of Shakspeare, who certainly moved in a constellation of bright luminaries, and "drew after him a third part of the heavens." If we allow, for argument's sake (or for truth's, which is better), that he was in himself equal to all his competitors put together; yet there was ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... her, he had found extremely touching. She seemed to him somehow a different woman, not perhaps so pretty as she had been, but nicer. He may have been the dupe of an illusory effect of toilette, for Flossie was in black. She had discussed the propriety of mourning with Miss Bishop, and wore it to-day for the first time with a pretty air of solemnity mingled with satisfaction in her own delicate intimation that she was one with her lover in his grief. She had not yet discovered that black was unbecoming to her, which ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... For purposes of propriety and general historical authenticity there are of course parents in the story. And one or two other oldish persons. But they all go away just as early in the narrative as I can manage it.—Are obliged ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... in the post, and the smoke of rebel fires was in sight on Lake Concordia. A battle had been fought a few days before, and another attack was-daily threatened. The driver and brother Reed were doubting the propriety of crossing the river. "For if the lines are closed," they said, "the President himself would not be permitted to pass." But I told them as they did not positively know that the lines were ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... has even been preserved to us; and, although a loose passage, in a private letter of the Earl of Salisbury, contradicted by another passage in the same letter, would indicate that the earl was the man; yet even Mrs. Macaulay acknowledges the propriety of attributing the discovery to the king's sagacity. Several proofs of his zeal and reflection in the detection of imposture might be adduced; and the reader may, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... worship," said William, with unctuous propriety, "that Sweeny's gorsoons were ever and always hunting his sheep, and settin' on their dog to hunt her, and that last week they dhrove her into the lake and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... on the day after his father's death. He had never witnessed death before, and it frightened him, for the time, into propriety. He exhibited none of the stormy and impetuous grief which a warm-hearted and affectionate boy would have been likely to exhibit. It ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr. |
