"Scruple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nipur, and Larancha or Larsa, which is perhaps Ellasar. It is evident, from the size and number of these works, that their erector had the command of a vast amount of "naked human strength," and did not scruple to employ that strength in constructions from which no material benefit was derivable, but which were probably designed chiefly to extend his own fame and perpetuate his glory. We may gather from this that he was either an oppressor of his people, like some ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... this infernal jungle till such time as his enemies had time to deal with him. As to what that dealing would be like he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief opponent. Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to him. His mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, no doubt because of the presence of the cord below his chin. He had heard it was not a painful death; at any rate he remembered ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... understood perfectly that I was in captivity, but I could not understand the nature of it; neither could I entirely believe that those things which my confessors did not make so much of were so wrong as I in my soul felt them to be. One of them—I had gone to him with a scruple—told me that, even if I were raised to high contemplation, those occasions and conversations were not unfitting for me. This was towards the end, when, by the grace of God, I was withdrawing more and more ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... the slightest scruple. It did not occur to her—as it would naturally have occurred, to most English girls—that she would rather not go walking in Hyde Park with a person who looked remarkably like the leader ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... by poison. He, therefore, endured her long, until she was an old woman with gray hairs, and disagreeable for his eyes to look upon. So after he had been married to her seventeen years, the good, pious king was all at once seized with a conscientious scruple, and because he had read in the Bible, 'Thou shalt not marry thy sister,' dreadful pangs of conscience came upon the noble and crafty monarch. He fell upon his knees and beat his breast, and cried: 'I have committed ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... perhaps, the heat of the argument, as much as conviction, which led me to reply that it would be equally difficult for society to forgive these very revolutionists for one thing they had done, their institution of the use of force in such wise that it would inevitably be imitated by men of less scruple and restraint; that to have revived such a method in civilization, to have justified it by their disinterestedness of purpose and nobility of character, was perhaps the gravest responsibility that any ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... I can yet, at times, be merry and give vent to my mirth in prose and verse. I don't scruple to make a good joke even though its subject be the bridal bed. All prudery—and frequently the clerical dignity is, in social intercourse, nothing ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... coverts, was not well disposed for preserving pheasants, and that in shooting he would more likely shoot Lord Trowbridge's birds than his own. But it was equally certain that Lord Trowbridge's pheasants made no scruple of feeding on his land. Nevertheless, he had thought it right to give up all idea of keeping up a head of game for his ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... quantity of blood, according to the amount which we assume as propelled with each stroke of the heart, sent from this organ into the artery—a larger quantity in every case than is contained in the whole body! In the same way, in the sheep or dog, say but a single scruple of blood passes with each stroke of the heart, in one half-hour we should have one thousand scruples, or about three pounds and a half, of blood injected into the aorta; but the body of neither animal contains above four pounds of blood, a fact ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... with him; you are bound to see her on a subject of such vital importance to herself. Scruples of prudery! You, Caroline Lyndsay, the friend of his daughter—you whose childhood was reared in his very house—you whose mother owed to him such obligations—you to scruple in being the first to acquaint him with information affecting him so nearly! And why, forsooth? Because, ages ago, your hand was, it seems, engaged to him, and you were deceived by false appearances, like a silly young girl ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... round object. This distinction, however, is rather grammatical than logical. Since there is no difference of meaning between round, and a round object, it is only custom which prescribes that on any given occasion one shall be used, and not the other. We shall, therefore, without scruple, speak of adjectives as names, whether in their own right, or as representative of the more circuitous forms of expression above exemplified. The other classes of subsidiary words have no title whatever to be considered as names. An adverb, or an accusative case, can not under ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... are narrow, with outriggers on each side, like other Malayans. I cannot tell of what religion these are; but I think they are not Mahometans, by their drinking brandy out of the same cup with us without any scruple. At this island we continued till the 20th instant, having laid in store of such roots and fruits as ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... discriminating judgment which so distinguished all his doings in Canada, he admitted that, notwithstanding the high ground Lord Metcalfe had taken against party patronage, the ministers favoured by that governor-general had "used patronage for party purposes with quite as little scruple ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... fierce fight was followed by terrible scenes. Most of the Francs-tireurs, who had not fallen in the engagement, effected a retreat, and on discovering this, the infuriated Germans, to whom the mere name of Franc-tireur was as a red rag to a bull, did not scruple to shoot down a number of ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... upon its spiritual character. The oath of an atheist or unbeliever is not necessarily of any value. The individual who cherishes no sense of responsibility to God for his actions will not always, if at any time, scruple to swear falsely. When a witness is not impressed with the fear of God, his oath is of no more value than his simple affirmation: both may be true, but no security is afforded by his character that both are not wrong. In civil and moral life, the presumption that a witness is competent ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... woman lives with her husband, it is but charitable to suppose all is right. That's the rule. Besides, we should not throw the first stone." Then Lady Cecilia pleaded, lady this and lady that, and the whole county, without the least scruple would visit Madame ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... seen the two Letters, did not doubt but that the English did design to settle a Factory here: therefore he did not much scruple the honesty of these People, but immediately ordered us to get the Ship into the River. The River upon which the City of Mindanao stands is but small, and hath not above 10 or 11 Foot Water on the Bar at a Spring-tide: therefore we lightened our Ship, and the Spring coming on, we with much ado ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... capacities—they reserved their high approval for "gentlemen's stories" only. As for the grim Squire, for whom alone the narrative had been served and garnished, at so very short a notice, he observed upon it, that "when he had used up old Byam's brains he should now have the less scruple in turning him out-of-doors, inasmuch as it seemed there was a profession in town that was just suited ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... bishops and clergy within the Pale bent to the king's will as easily as their fellows in England, and their example was followed by at least four prelates of dioceses without the Pale. The native chieftains made no more scruple than the Lords of the Council in renouncing obedience to the Bishop of Rome, and in acknowledging Henry as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland under Christ." There was none of the resistance to the dissolution of the abbeys which had been witnessed on the other side ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling them that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me down stairs. This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable impression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was little ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... hoped that we might have time, at all events, to get our rafts ready; and quickly again descended with the satisfactory intelligence. Believing that there was but little prospect of getting the vessel off, we did not scruple to use the hatches and bulkheads, and, indeed, to rip off the inner planking. It would require, we saw, two rafts of considerable size to carry so many people with any degree of safety even in smooth water. Still, what other prospect had we of saving our lives? ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... frequently used by the best speakers, and not seldom even by sacred writers) do lie very near upon the confines of jocularity, and are not easily differenced from those sallies of wit wherein the lepid way doth consist: so that were this wholly culpable, it would be matter of scruple whether one hath committed a fault or no when he meant only to play the orator or the poet; and hard surely it would be to find a judge who could precisely set out the difference between a ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... realised that my self- entertainment was not without its element of danger, too: I remember glances not altogether friendly but always a little doubtful, a little awed. Even Handy Solomon, practical as he was, had a scruple or two of superstition in his make-up, on which one might work. Only Eagen—Slade, I mean—was beyond me there. You puzzled me not a little in ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... War began and retained his office after he had superseded VON MOLTKE as Chief of the General Staff, shows himself incurably Prussian, refusing even to consider the possibility that any State which could wage war effectively would hesitate to do so from any ethical or humanitarian scruple. "Don't bother about a just cause, but see that it appears just before men," he seems to say. "The surprise effect of gas (at Ypres) was very great," is all the comment that tragic episode draws from him. He was a submarine campaign whole-hogger. But he has his own soldierly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... at the idea of parting with her darlings. Until now, the thought of going to reside in the North had never been presented for his consideration. He was a Southerner in almost all his feelings, and had never had a scruple respecting the ownership of slaves. But now the fact that he was the master as well as the father of his children, and that whilst he resided where he did it was out of his power to manumit them; that in the event of his death they might be seized and sold by his heirs, whoever they might be, ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... like a tiny, immature house-fly, with white legs as if he must be innocent. But, in fact, he crawls like a serpent and bites like a dog. No portion of the human frame is sacred from his greed. He takes his pound of flesh anywhere, and does not scruple to take the blood with it. As a rule you can defend yourself, to some degree, against him, by wearing a head-net, tying your sleeves around your wrists and your trousers around your ankles, and anointing yourself ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... skilled in the Eastern knowledge, that I fear him. Too often has he, I well know, for a purse well filled with gold, prepared the sleep of death. Another would shudder at the thought; but he, who has dealt out death at the will of his employers, would scruple little to do so even to the husband of his own daughter; and I have watched him in his moods, and know his thoughts and wishes. What a foreboding of mishap has come over me this evening!—what a fear ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... suspected that Sir William was a man of small courage, though of overbearing manner, and he was mightily put to when he heard that he must fight with a man whom he justly regarded as being far more than his match. So craven did he become, indeed, that the gentlemen with him did not scruple to express their disgust loudly. Monsieur Dessin said that, unless Sir William did afford him satisfaction, he would trounce him publicly as a coward, but that he had one other alternative to offer. All were mightily surprised when he stated ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... with that bitter irony which formed a part of his character; "But after all, if this duty is so repugnant to you, I shall undertake it; for not having the least ill will against Cuchillo, I can bang him without a scruple. You will see, Fabian, that the knave will not testify any surprise at what I am going to tell him. Fellows who have such a face as Cuchillo's expect to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... breeding from (as has been already observed) appeared to have been thrown away upon them when viewed as a breeding stock for settlers. No sooner had the Atlantic sailed, than the major part of them were offered for sale; and there was little doubt (many of their owners making no scruple to publish their intentions) that had they not been bought by the officers, in a very few weeks many of them would have been destroyed. By this conduct, as far as their individual benefit was concerned, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... regulated by the demand, and the character of the wares purveyed depended upon the wants of the market. Editors found that scandal was eagerly devoured by their subscribers, and they did not therefore hesitate or scruple to gratify the prevailing tastes of the day. But the better class of papers were not able to keep clear of the law of libel, even though they did not condescend to pander to the vitiated tastes of the multitude. Many of them had to sustain actions for merely reporting proceedings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from God, and examining his sins one by one, that he might the better ponder on their enormity, he remembered that he had seen at the theatre at Alexandria a very beautiful actress named Thais. This woman showed herself in the public games, and did not scruple to perform dances, the movements of which, arranged only too cleverly, brought to mind the most horrible passions. Sometimes she imitated the horrible deeds which the Pagan fables ascribe to Venus, Leda, or Pasiphae. Thus she fired all the ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... words conjure up as they glide through our minds? When all the atmosphere is tremulous with airs from heaven or blasts from hell, must we, forsooth! stop and philosophically investigate what Hamlet means by a "dram of eale"? Must we lose a scruple of the sport by turning aside to find out what Malvolio means by the "lady of the Strachey"? If Timon chooses to invite Ullorxa to his feast, are we to bar the door because no one ever heard the name before? No: let us have our Shakespeare ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... a feat of courage. Erasmus did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist, had an ill name with divines, and that there would be an outcry about 'the intolerable temerity of the homo grammaticus, who after having harassed all the disciplinae, did not scruple to assail holy literature with his petulant pen'. It was another programme much more explicit and defiant than ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... acting on information privately supplied by me. Having stripped you of your false character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your authority over your niece. To reach this end, I not only had no scruple in digging the pitfall under your feet in the dark—I felt a certain professional pleasure in fighting you with your own weapons. By my advice the truth has been carefully concealed from you up to this ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... scruple, then, about marrying a woman who belongs to a certain clique, a certain school of diplomacy which you might, from a superficial point of view, consider inimical ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... labor, without affectations. Eight years later the reflective faculty has outgrown his control; composition, which represents the practical side of the intellectual life, has become difficult and painful to him, and he has developed what he himself calls "a wavering manner, born of doubt and scruple." ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... made to Parliament "to extend the benefit of a late act for naturalizing foreigners in North America, to the Moravian Brethren and other foreign Protestants who made a scruple of taking an oath, or performing military service." General Oglethorpe, in the spring of 1737, presented the petition to the House of Commons, with an ample speech, and was supported by many members. The opinion of the Board of Trade was required ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... tragedy of her life and successively becomes the victim of a roue and a mischief-monger. Lamorna's own fate is at one time so enmeshed with her cousin's that she requires all her sense and strength to escape from the toils set by a man who would override all scruple and all honour ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... them all to say the confiteor, but principally those who are to receive baptism, whom I also enjoin to say the belief. At every article, I demand of them, if they believe it without any scruple; and when they have assured me, that they do, I commonly make them an exhortation, which I have composed in their own language,—being an epitome of the Christian faith, and of the necessary duties incumbent on us in order to our salvation. In conclusion, I baptize them, and shut up all in singing ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... at its port. But the more I felt this, the more unwilling I was to say anything before I heard the news from a source other than the newspapers. I gave way to an excess, a foolish excess perhaps of scruple. But you will, I think, understand this. In writing to you the other day I expressed not a tenth part of what I felt and feel and that baldly and inadequately. Nothing for years has given me so much joy. I have ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... invention we know that there is such a state. Mr. Lane, in his preface to the Arabian Nights, says that the Arabs have an advantage over us as story-tellers. They can introduce such incidents as the change of a man into a horse, or of a woman into a dog, or the intervention of an Afreet without any more scruple than our own novelists feel in describing a duel or the concealment of a will. Among the Arabs the agencies of magic and of spirits are regarded as at least as probable and common as duels and concealments of wills seem to be thought by ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... Canaan. When the Greeks got possession of the coast of Tyre, they called it Phoenicia: and from that time it may be admitted as a provincial name. In consequence of this, the writers of the New Testament do not scruple to make use of it, but always with a proper limitation; for the geography of the Scriptures is wonderfully exact. But the Greek and Roman writers often speak of it with a greater latitude, and include Judea and Palestina ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... there by Lorson Harris, which was sufficient guarantee. None knew it better. Having established in the Indian mind the necessity for his existence amongst them, he exploited the position to its extreme limits. Through methods which knew no scruple he usurped the authority of the wise men, or adapted it to his own uses. He saw to it that the generosity of his original trading was swiftly reduced to the bare bone of extortion. And the Indians submitted. The white man had come in the midst of their darkness ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... before desired to buy a fat hog or two of him, being somewhat short of provisions) to desire him to send for one, (which he would have sent him, if he had known when his occasion had been to have made use of it), and to accept it as a testimony of his good will; and lest he should make any scruple of it, he made Mr. Haynes and Mr. Hooker, (who both sojurned in his house) partakers with him. Upon this the deputy returned this answer: 'Your overcoming yourself hath overcome me. Mr. Haynes, Mr. Hooker, and myself, do ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Puritan is an offence, themselves have established and practise a distinct anti-Puritan cant with which we are all familiar. The very people who find it abhorrent and intolerable that they were such censors of the private life of their contemporaries, do not scruple to bring to bear on their private life a search-light that leaves no accessible nook of it unexplored, and regarding any unpretty trait espied by that unsparing inquest the rule of judgment persistently employed—as one ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... case, also, Kate saw no difficulty; and when she came to know Mr. Reyes a little, she found the path of pleasure coinciding with the path of duty. Mr. Urquiza could not be more precise in laying down the rule than Kate was in enforcing it. But in the other case a scruple arose. Unlimited might be a word, not of Spanish law, but of Spanish rhetoric; such as 'Live a thousand years,' which even annuity offices hear, and perhaps utter, without a pang. Kate, therefore, wrote to Trujillo, expressing ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... a small scruple like that for the sake of the poor even? Well, I don't believe YOU could.—Oblige me by taking this guinea for some one or other of your poor people. But I AM glad you weren't sure of that last book. I ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Halliwell-Phillipps, who really work, but believe only what they can see and touch, if it accords with their opinions; and the ingenuous workers who seek saving truth like the agnostics, but bring human influences and natural inferences to bear on dusty records. Now, Halliwell-Phillipps does not scruple to affirm that three heralds,[51] the worthy ex-bailiff of Stratford, and the noblest poet the world has ever produced, were practically liars in this matter, because they make statements that do not harmonize with the limits ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... purpose was she had no means of determining. She knew that he was totally without scruple and had thought in her first moments of terror that he meant to take her far back into the woods—and there kill her as he had done her father, thus again destroying all claim. But as the moments passed and she saw that he had some definite ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... her that she make not away with herself, basest, most faithless of women that she must needs be, the reproach of her sex, the opprobrium of all the ladies of this city, to cast aside all regard for her honour, her marriage vow, her reputation before the world, and, lost to all sense of shame, to scruple not to bring disgrace upon a man so worthy, a citizen so honourable, a husband by whom she was so well treated, ay, and upon herself to boot! By my hope of salvation no mercy should be shewn to such women; they ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... "your lordship is a wise and an honourable man, and skilled in those high points of romantic scruple which are current in Arcadia perhaps, as your nephew, Philip Sidney, writes. I am your humble servitor—a man of this world, and only happy that my knowledge of it, and its ways, is such as your lordship has not scorned to avail yourself of. Now I would fain know whether the obligation lies ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... fashion to think him just now. But he is here, to a certain extent competing with Sue on the latter's own ground. The notion of the "Devorants"—of a secret society of men devoted to each other's interests, entirely free from any moral or legal scruple, possessed of considerable means in wealth, ability, and position, all working together, by fair means or foul, for good ends or bad—is, no doubt, rather seducing to the imagination at all times; and it so happened that it was particularly ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... you, I have safe in my possession a letter recommending you to me and signed with the forged signature of Mrs. Cornwallis English. If necessary to protect myself, I shall not scruple to exhibit that letter." ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... at having to prepare for so hasty a return, and did not scruple to show her displeasure. She took for granted that Claire had had lunch, and the poor girl had not the courage to undeceive her. A telegram was lying on the dining-room table which announced Cecil's arrival at four o'clock. Claire ordered tea to be ready at that hour, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... may be worse to have to answer for in the end than some acts of bloodshed. He would not have half a dozen shots fired to make a way for his coach over the bridge of Varennes; but he deserted, without a moment's scruple, his devoted Swiss guards, as we shall see; and as he refused to suffer with them, he may be considered ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... thus dignified, were in Reality only Generals elected out of the Troops, and whose Prerogative was limited to Military Affairs. These Chiefs, whose Savageness was rather augmented by the Power with which they were invested, made no Scruple to dispatch a neighbouring Competitor with the Sword or Poison, and their History is full of unnatural Instances, of Brothers stabbing Brothers, Subjects poisoning their Sovereigns to ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... slides with the enemies of Grecian freedom—with the Persians, with Amyntas of Macedon, and with Dionysius of Syracuse. But she had now reached the turning-point of her fortunes, and her successes, which had been earned without scruple, were soon to be followed by misfortunes and disgrace. The first blow came from Thebes, where she had ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... He would have to be very careful not to offend Crass in any way. He was afraid the latter did not like him very much as it was. Easton knew that Crass could get him the sack at any time, and would not scruple to do so if he wanted to make room for some crony of his own. Crass was the 'coddy' or foreman of the job. Considered as a workman he had no very unusual abilities; he was if anything inferior to the majority of his fellow workmen. But although he had but little real ability he pretended ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... slowly driven into some snare. She knew she was not careful enough to speak the truth—so much she confessed to herself, the fact being that, to serve any purpose she thought worth gaining, she would lie without a scruple—taking care, however, to keep the lie as like the truth as consisted with success, in order that, if she were found out, it might seem ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... was the professed object of her visit, and she was only at the Hall because there was no accommodation at his lodgings, so that she had no scruple in joining the early breakfast spread for the Rector and his wife, so as to have the morning free for him; but she found Julius alone, saying that his wife was tired after the party; and to Jenny's offer to ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entertained a good deal—of the adherents of King James of course—and a great deal of loud intriguing took place over her card-tables. She presented Mr. Esmond as her kinsman to many persons of honor; she supplied him not illiberally with money, which he had no scruple in accepting from her, considering the relationship which he bore to her, and the sacrifices which he himself was making in behalf of the family. But he had made up his mind to continue at no woman's apron-strings longer; and perhaps had cast about how he ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Royal Council of that Country even while he was very young, an Honour the greatest of the Nobility were well pleased to see him adorned with, and made no Scruple to sit below him: His distinguish'd Modesty and Humility in all his publick Appearances, recommends him to the Affections of the whole Country; and tho' the Fortunes of his Family have suffered by the Disasters of the Times, yet he supports ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... National Guard, and only lay in wait to be summoned, together with the Army. The Bonapartist press did not even dare to question the right of the National Assembly to issue a direct requisition for troops;—a legal scruple, that, under the given circumstances, did not promise success. That the Army would have obeyed the orders of the National Assembly is probable, when it is considered that Bonaparte had to look eight days all over Paris to find two generals—Baraguay d'Hilliers ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... you and Mr Braith are old acquaintances, so I won't scruple to leave you with him for a moment. Bring Mr Bulfinch over to the music stand, Braith." And smiling, as if he were assisting at a charming reunion, he led Clifford away. The latter turned, as he departed, an eye of delighted ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... ultimately be removed. The extent and limitation of the powers of the General Government in relation to this transcendently important interest will be settled and acknowledged to the common satisfaction of all, and every speculative scruple will be solved ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Indignation has never made such good verses since as she did in that day. But still, even to me this agile passion proved a Muse of genial inspiration for a couple of paragraphs: and one line I will mention as worthy to have taken its place in Juvenal himself. I say this without scruple, having not a shadow of vanity, nor on the other hand a shadow of false modesty connected with such boyish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... would not take a million at the price of a single scruple.—Your friend ought to speak to M. Pons and ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... all scruple concerning the use of the sign of the Cross in Baptism; the true explication thereof, and the just reasons for the retaining of it, may be seen in the xxxth Canon, first published in ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... take the matter more philosophically,—probably under the impression that to keep quiet will be to "bring the nigger out" where he may be caught and the reward secured. Two hundred dollars is a sum for which they would not scruple to sacrifice life; but they have three gods-whiskey, ignorance, and idleness, any one of which can easily gain a ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... had never received a release from her contract with the son of the Duke of Lorraine; Henry had only gone through the ceremony on the assumption that that release would be forthcoming; and actuated by this conscientious scruple, he had refrained from consummating the match. To give verisimilitude to this last statement, he added the further detail that he found his bride personally repugnant. He therefore sought from "our" Church ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... dishes at table—particularly veteran bifsteca. But we fancy that the same frugal instinct is exercised to our advantage and comfort in other things, for G. makes a great show and merit of denying our charity to those bold and adventurous children of sorrow, who do not scruple to ring your door-bell, and demand alms. It is true that with G., as with every Italian, almsgiving enters into the theory and practice of Christian life, but she will not suffer misery to abuse its privileges. She has no hesitation, however, in bringing ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... merit, you will be harassed with solicitations. You will have numbers forced upon you who have no merit; some will force them upon you from mistaken partiality; and some from downright interested motives, without scruple; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... so that the, burning of a brush-heap in a neighbor's yard will draw us to the window, the feeling is but part of an ancestral inheritance. We have come by it honestly, as the phrase is. And so I need not scruple to set down another reminiscence of the same kind,—an early morning street scene, of no importance in itself, in the village of New Smyrna. It may have been on the morning next after the "norther" just mentioned. I cannot say. We had two or three such touches of winter ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... perceive the distinction," answered Mildred, after a short pause; "and can understand that the same person who would not scruple to give the alarm against any physical danger, would hesitate even at hinting at one of a moral character. Nevertheless, if Admiral Bluewater think a simple girl, like me, of sufficient importance to take the trouble to interest himself in her welfare, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... true joy bestow, Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps, Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow? Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought, Rises, with such resistless influence fraught As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold, Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... enemy; and his memory will live among the gallant men who have done so much to keep the fine traditions of the British Army unsullied. He is buried with his brother officers near where he fell. If I can help you in any way, I hope you will not scruple to tell me. My wife will also have written to you, and is very anxious to hear if she can do ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... of his teaching, he is not always gentle, but he is always sincere. He speaks soft words to persuade; but if that is not enough, he does not scruple to knock the muck-rake out of sordid hands with a fine, sudden stroke, if so he may make men look up from the rubbish under their feet to the flowers that bloom around them and the stars that glow above and the God ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... Lancashire—for he could show a lordly munificence when he pleased, and if the end was to his liking, never hesitated about making a grand sacrifice to attain it)—her parents, I say, would have delivered Hannah over to his lovingkindness and his tender mercies without one scruple; and the second Mrs. Helstone, inverting the natural order of insect existence, would have fluttered through the honeymoon a bright, admired butterfly, and crawled the rest of her ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... point Dave stuck. There is a sentiment down somewhere in almost any man, and there was this one point of conscience with Dave. And there was likewise this one scruple with Perritaut. And these opposing scruples in two men who had not many, certainly, turned the scale and gave the county-seat to Metropolisville, for Dave told all his Southern Illinois friends that if the county-seat should remain at ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... suppose you are capable of replying to me that David is still happy, and even interested. But does he know from you what it really means to him? Rather, I do believe, you are one who would not scruple to give him to understand that B (which you may yet find stands for Benjamin) is primarily a gift for him. In your heart, ma'am, what do you think of this tricking ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... and knowing her to be very rich, he commended to her works of charity and almsdeeds, recounting to her his own need. Quoth the lady, 'I beseech you thereof for God's sake, and should he deny, prithee scruple not to tell him that it was I who told you this and complained to you thereof.' Then, having made her confession and gotten her penance, recalling the friar's exhortations to works of almsgiving, she stealthily filled his hand with money, praying him to say masses ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and am convinced as much as of the existence of my own soul, that no touch of shame could arise from aught in which she was implicated. Meantime, I am wealthy, and I am alone, and why does my friend scruple to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... some casks of wine to set them drinking, and to make them drunk. I pray you, my friend, let there be no need to return a second time to do the mowing, for you are as much crown-officer as I am, and, if I am king, you are grand master." Dampmartin executed the king's orders without scruple; and at the season of harvest the Flemish country-places were devastated. "Little birds of heaven," cries the Flemish chronicler Molinet, "ye who are wont to haunt our fields and rejoice our hearts with your amorous notes, now seek out other countries; get ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... respect your scruple, sir; but in this case I believe true delicacy requires you to do as I ask. Indeed, the suggestion is not mine but Mrs. Manson Mingott's and her son's. I have seen Lovell Mingott; and also Mr. Welland. They ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... still better customer if you will prevent this gentle-shepherding and love-making. I would not even scruple at a twenty pound note, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... means nice in point of cleanliness, not washing with water when they ease nature but only wiping with paper. They do not scruple to eat of animals which have died, and they practise many other things like the Magians[9]; and in truth, the two religions are much similar. Their women appear uncovered, and adorn their heads ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... really a conundrum, only to be solved on the theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy. There was so little that was preposterous in Miss Livingstone's conduct as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her attitude either by this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about her right to take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when it has been given in the highest to somebody else. These pangs and penalties may have visited her in their proportion, but they did not take the importance of motives. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... went on he saw that the bride thought nothing about him, and he began not to care for her, either. But by and by he began to have a sort of scruple of conscience about what he had done to his comare on the wedding day. And the more he thought of it, the more he felt this scruple. So he made up his mind to go to confession, and to tell his confessor what he had done, and ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... cavaliers during Cromwell's usurpation, usually put a crumb of bread into a glass of wine, and before they drank it, would exclaim with cautious ambiguity, "God send this Crum well down!" A royalist divine also, during the Protectorate, did not scruple to quibble in the following prayer, which he was accustomed to deliver:—"O Lord, who hast put a sword into the hand of thy servant, Oliver, put it into his heart ALSO—to do according to thy word." He would drop his voice at the word also, and, after a significant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... Institution. This is where, as I told you, you ought to be looking to Faraday's place. Have no scruple about your chemical knowledge; you won't be required to train a college of students in abstruse analyses; and if you were, a year's work would be quite enough to put you at ease. What they want, and what you have, are CLEAR POWERS OF EXPOSITION—so clear that people ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... professional etiquette. But if any outsider comes between a highly charged correspondent and an electric wire, he does it at his peril. My dear Anerley, I tell you frankly that if you are going to handicap yourself with scruple you may just as well be in Fleet Street as in the Soudan. Our life is irregular. Our work has never been systematised. No doubt it will be some day, but the time is not yet. Do what you can and how you can, and be first on the wires; that's my ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... superior in the religious world, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the objections against his own tenure of the foreign command to be pressed.[522] The people, perhaps grateful for the Gracchan sympathies of Crassus, felt no scruple about dismissing their pontiff to a foreign land, and readily voted him the conduct ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... "It has no scruple in meddling with ladies; so ladies ought to have none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately as you will: but done it must be: it is our only chance. Tell her of Tardrew's obstinacy, or Scoutbush will ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Sensitive Plant shows in what mists of poetical reverie such feeling may still float about a mind full of modern lights, the feeling we too have of a life in the green world, always ready to assert its claim over our sympathetic fancies. Who has not at moments felt the scruple, which is with us always regarding animal life, following the signs of animation further still, till one almost hesitates to pluck out the little soul of flower ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the reproach of cruelty and perfidy, addressed against these supposed shells, was equally uttered formerly against firearms and torpedoes, both of which are now employed without scruple. Until we know the effects of such asphyxiating shells, there was no saying whether they would be more or less merciful than missiles now permitted. That it was illogical, and not demonstrably humane, to be tender about asphyxiating men with gas, when all are prepared ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... upon each other, and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral. Under a vigorous ...
— The Federalist Papers
... that I should go about to cozen her, as though I had got a fee simple from her, and had it not before, or that I had not had her full release for payment of the money I borrowed. I pray God, any that did put such scruple in her, have not deceived her more than I have done. I thank God I have a clear conscience for deceiving her, and for money matters. I think I may justly say I have been the only cause of more gain to her coffers than all ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... excellent witness against it, inasmuch as in the latter case his conviction of its inutility has been so strong and paramount as utterly to beat down and conquer these adverse incidents. I have no scruple in stating this position, because, for anything I know, the majority of excellent judges now on the bench may have overcome them, and may be opposed to the punishment of ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... profit by the diverted attention of the others. The President leaned back; his gloved hands, resting on either knee, made large white spots. He looked eminent, but he looked relaxed, and the lady beside him ministered freely and without scruple, it was clear, to this effect of his comfortably unbending. Vogelstein caught her voice as he approached. He heard her say "Well now, remember; I consider it a promise." She was beautifully dressed, in rose-colour; her hands were clasped in her lap and ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... conscience. It is true that he never takes his characters from the borrowed story, because it was less trouble and more fun to him to create them afresh; but none the less he heaps the murders and villainies of the borrowed story on his own essentially gentle creations without scruple, no matter how incongruous they may be. And all the time his vital need for a philosophy drives him to seek one by the quaint professional method of introducing philosophers as characters into his plays, and even of making ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... happened with Mrs. Crayton: her servants made no scruple of mentioning the cruel conduct of their lady to a poor distressed lunatic who claimed her protection; every one joined in reprobating her inhumanity; nay even Corydon thought she might at least have ordered her to be taken care of, but he dare not even hint it to her, for he lived but in her ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... so sad a dilemma? For Rose I would perish (pro tem.); For Dora I'd willingly stem a— (Whatever might offer to stem); But to make the invidious election,— To declare that on either one's side I've a scruple,—a grain, more ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various |
