"Indiscretion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as he lay moaning in the grass, a foolish agouti hopped up to him inquisitively and paid with its life for the indiscretion. And after bolting the tender flesh of the victim the cub again viewed the world in a friendlier light. What if he was alone, surrounded by lurking dangers. Others had braved the pitfalls that awaited the weak and unfit and had conquered them; he should do likewise. ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... suffer at all one indiscretion of bad painters, the images which they paint without consideration or devotion in the churches. And I should like to direct our discussion to this end, being sure that the carelessness with which some paint the holy images cannot be good. Work which a very incapable painter or man dares to do, without ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... occasion, and pitched upon the Apollo, at the Old Devil at Temple-bar, as a place sacred to mirth tempered with discretion, where Ben Jonson and his sons used to make their liberal meetings." The mirth of that assembly was threatened by the indiscretion of that double-meaning speaker who is usually in evidence at such gatherings to the confusion of the bride, but happily his career was cut short by the plain sense of the soldier and sailor, as may be read in the pages ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... these last three words, in a very different tone to that of his previous idle remarks, than he cursed his indiscretion. It was a piece of gaucherie which he would find it hard to forgive in himself, and Lightmark ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... master from her, because they had killed him, that she did not even try to find a word of welcome or consolation for this child whom she had brought up. And without calculating the consequences of her indiscretion, the grief or the joy which she might cause, she relieved herself by telling all ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... a little personal discomfiture, for she was, like Mrs. Jennings, so thoroughly mistress of herself and the situation, that any gaucherie or boisterous indiscretion was positive pain to her. Besides, the bad example to the girls for whom Miss Lucilla and her sisters were responsible, made a matter which people who did not understand might wrongly consider a trifle, really a serious affair. "No doubt," acquiesced Miss Lucilla, "something ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... know the Bishop; I've only spoken to him once," exclaimed J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of one who realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange Bishops. Miss Huddle was the first to rally; she disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did, but the womanly instinct in her told her that thunderbolts ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... business, and everybody breathed more freely; round, sound oaths were heard where never oaths had been heard before. The young man's name was Stifford, and he was addressed as 'Stiff.' He was a proof of the indiscretion of prophesying about human nature. He had been the paper boy, the minion of Edwin, and universally regarded as unreliable and almost worthless. But at sixteen a change had come over him; he parted his hair in the middle instead ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... his antagonist fell a victim to the sweltering heats of the tropics. On November 2nd, 1802, Leclerc succumbed to the unhealthy climate and to his ceaseless anxieties. In the Notes dictated at St. Helena, Napoleon submitted Leclerc's memory to some strictures for his indiscretion in regard to the proposed restoration of slavery. The official letters of that officer expose the injustice of the charge. The facts are these. After the seeming submission of St. Domingo, the First ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... acts and wishes. He would be that friend. He had not, it was true, made a very happy beginning, with the expedition that had ended so unfortunately; but he promised himself not to be led into an indiscretion of the kind again. It was a friend's part to warn in due time, and to point out the possible consequences of a rash act. He only excused his behaviour because he had not seen her for over two months, and had felt too sorry for her to refuse the first thing she asked of him. But from now on, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... husband—by force, if need be—from abusing and bullying Olivia. That was what his strongest instincts bade him do. It was quite impossible. It would compromise her beyond repair. He had done her harm enough by his impulsive indiscretion in the wood. His face slowly settled into a set scowl as he cudgelled his brains to find a way of coming effectually to her help. It seemed a vain effort, but a way had ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... the detective knew that much, it absolved him from any obligation to betray the daughter of his dead client. His feeling of relief unsealed his lips, and led him into an indiscretion. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the evils of which one error is the parent. My conduct towards the poor Jessy appears to your mother a more enormous wickedness than this imputed injustice to Talbot. The frantic indiscretion of my correspondence with Thomson has ruined me; for he that will commit the greater crime will not be ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... with a nervous gesture, that implored her not to make an indiscretion. A subprefect, in the nature of his calling, had too many enemies to relish repetition in the palace precincts of a threat from Marcia, however baseless it might be. And besides, it might be something serious that almost had escaped her lips. Untrue or true, it would be ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... spared the touch he had laid on my sleeve, for by this time I was fully and painfully sensible of the critical position in which we stood, and was very little likely to commit an indiscretion. I trusted he had not done so already! No doubt—it flashed across me while we waited—he had taken care to safeguard himself. But how often, I reflected, had all safeguards been set aside and all precautions eluded by those to whom he was committing himself! Guise had thought ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... continued: "It seems that Rocdiane surprised his wife in a criminal situation, and has made her pay dearly for her indiscretion." ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... dear," Aunt Grace Mary rejoined, pulling herself up hurriedly from this indiscretion. "But in the face. You are very like her in appearance. And you must try. You must try to improve yourself. Your uncle is always trying to improve himself. He reads 'Doctor Syntax' aloud to us. In the evening it is our custom to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... stop!" cried she; "I cannot support the recollection! there is no punishment, indeed, which my own indiscretion does not merit,— but I shall have sufficient in ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... was a middle-aged officer, a Prussian who through some indiscretion that had given offence to his Imperial master had been practically banished by being sent to German East Africa. That was two years before the war. Upon the outbreak of hostilities he hoped by melodramatic means to find himself restored to favour, but ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... the Lutherans grew bold. Though not so turbulent as before the riot, they showed much indiscretion, and Gustavus often found it necessary to interfere. What annoyed him chiefly was their bravado in alluding to the popes and bishops. The hierarchy of Romanism was fixed so firmly in people's hearts that every effort to dislodge it caused a jar. Especially in the rural districts ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... but neat house at the South End. Slender and youthful as he looked, he was not a bachelor, but had a pretty, fragile-looking wife, to whom he was married when only nineteen years of age. Such a union could have been brought about only by what the world calls an indiscretion, or from an unreflecting, hasty impulse. Girl as Mrs. Fletcher seemed to be, she was not without prudence as a housekeeper; and as far as she could command her inconstant temper, she made home attractive to her husband. But neither of them had the weight of character to act as a counterpoise ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... laws, I undertake to give you the receipt. And I guarantee that in my system collection shall be easy: no comptrollers, assessors, tasters, assayers, inspectors, receivers; no watching, no office expenses; not the smallest annoyance or the slightest indiscretion; no constraint whatever. Let it be decreed by a law that no one in future shall receive two salaries at the same time, and that the highest fees, in any situation, shall not exceed twelve hundred dollars in Paris and eight hundred in the departments. What! you lower your eyes! ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... to him that when he died and his collection was sold his family would benefit by some pounds through his indiscretion; for it was now known to all his friends as a genuine English specimen. This troubled the entomologist greatly, for it was a point of view that had never occurred to him, and, like the rich young man, ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... by one eminent author to a university, by another to a ship, was a republic, whose liberty extended only so far as its iron door. While there was no liberty without, there was licence within; and if the culprit, who paid for the smallest indiscretion with his neck, understood the etiquette of the place, he spent his last weeks in an orgie of rollicking lawlessness. He drank, he ate, he diced; he received his friends, or chaffed the Ordinary; he attempted, through the well-paid cunning of the Clerk, to bribe the jury; and when every ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... occasion, great attention had latterly been given to the discovery of the least distance any fragment had been hurled. Perhaps I ought to speak tenderly of the consequences of a learned zeal, but it was entirely owing to this indiscretion that the whole party fell into the hands of certain mariners who were sealing on the northern shores of this very island, (friends and neighbors, as it afterwards appeared, of Captain Poke), who remorselessly seized upon the travellers, and sold them to a homeward-bound ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fancy his affection for her something more than common; and his sister still said that he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been some marked display of attentions to her cousin, there must have been some strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not of a sort to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... for you. Will you commit the indiscretion of sending it on to Mr. A.B. if you see no reason to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Claudius as well as Hamlet. He had better have died at once, before he had added to his guilt a share in the responsibility for all the woe and death that followed. And so, we may allow ourselves to say, here also Hamlet's indiscretion served him well. The power that shaped his end shaped the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... their situation, as well as of their indiscretion. "I am glad, gentlemen," said he, "and shall not fail to inform the First Consul of your unanimous sentiments on this disagreeable subject; but verbal expressions are not sufficient in an affair of such great consequence. I have orders to demand your written declarations, which, after what ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... that dark period, forbid us to suppose that his intellect ever crossed the line which separates reason from insanity. From out the gloom that surrounds the whole case two points stand out clear and indisputable, that no indiscretion of conduct or aberration of mind on the part of Tasso can possibly have merited the sufferings to which he was subjected, and that whatever may have been Alfonso's suspicions, his fiendish vengeance is one of history's darkest crimes, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Governor Macquarie; and if the power with which he has been for so many years intrusted, has indeed at length propelled him beyond the bounds of moderation and justice, it may be safely asserted that there are but very few men in existence whom it would not have tempted to commit a similar indiscretion.] ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... trying, your Majesty, to save the country from the results of your Majesty's indiscretion in calling the Ambassador to your palace without consulting your Ministers. If we do not strike now we lose our prestige as a great nation, our national honor is dragged in the dust. We have to fight. We ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... forget it as long as I live," said Mr. Burton, who thought that the other was trying to make amends for his recent indiscretion. ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... this threw all the burden of responsibility on them. The meeting broke up in great amiability, and my Father and I went home together in the very highest of spirits. I, indeed, in my pride, crossed the verge of indiscretion by saying: 'When I have been admitted to fellowship, Papa, shall I be allowed to call you "beloved Brother"?' My Father was too well pleased with the morning's work to be critical. He laughed, and answered: 'That, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... not shudder at the wild delusion and indiscretion, which may be lived down and redeemed, but at the fearful act that would have cut you off from all hope, and chained you to yourself, and such a self, for ever, never to part from the shame whence you sought to escape. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... though losing rapidly, was in high good humor. He displayed a chivalrous forbearance with the weakness of Mrs. Fazakerly, who committed every folly and indiscretion possible to a partner. He bowed when he dealt to her; he bowed when she dealt to him; he ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... and divinatory Irishman! Of course Miss Ingate must have committed some indiscretion, or was it that Aguilar was less astute than he gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that all was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and optimism from somewhere. She knew not ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... so?" cried Harry. "Why, how strange! But, indeed, for some time back I walk among surprises. One question I think I may surely ask without indiscretion: Is he the master of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... lingers in my mind, save his last reflective criticism. "All the same, I don't see why you should always have dirty nails." He never confided in me again, and I would have died rather than have reminded him of his kindly indiscretion; but when he passed me in the playground he seemed to look at me with a kind of reticent interest, and it occurred to me that after all my queerness might not be such a bad thing, might even be something ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... through the antechamber unaccompanied. The heavy curtains over the music-room were dropped; but as I entered, I heard a low murmur of voices coming from it. The thick Turkey carpet which lay on the inlaid ivory floor of the salon gave back no sound of my footsteps. I did not think of committing any indiscretion; I concluded that Adelaide was busy studying; so I took up a book and seated myself comfortably, feeling as well off there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... I had not suffered by my indiscretion, I got bolder, took the run of the road, and must have had a dozen girls at a shilling a tail. One night as I fumbled a girl, she frigged me vigorously. "I will do it this way," said she, "you will like it so." But I refused. "I will give you ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... with great presence of mind, remembering the poet's useful indiscretion, "not he who said: Whither should we go, since Maan is dead? and yet thou hast come to ask gifts from us! Presents have ceased; we have nothing for thee. Trail him ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... number with Dante. He was nine years old when he first saw his lady-love, and she too was nine, having not yet reached the age of indiscretion. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... see why you should say that, sir,' replied the other stiffly. 'If you are not bent on compromising me by an indiscretion, I don't perceive the necessity of involving me in ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... before he had compromised his pride another hair's-breadth, that the fickle damsel had accepted the painter's escort the previous evening, and had admitted the painter at an incredibly early hour the subsequent morning. After such indiscretion, the great man would have nothing more to say to Mistress Clarissa, but departed in great dudgeon, and would never so much as set his foot within Redwater again; not even at ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... heard my Overture must, indeed, have wondered how I ever wrote this sonata, which has been published through the indiscretion of Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel (to reward me for my abstemiousness, Weinlich induced them to publish this poor composition). From that moment he gave me a free hand. To begin with I was allowed to compose ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... 'look after me.' What that meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... which Swift made such excellent, though malicious, fun that I cannot forbear to quote it. "I do utterly disapprove and declare against that pernicious custom of making the preface a bill of fare to the book. For I have always looked upon it as a high point of indiscretion in monster-mongers and other retailers of strange sights to hang out a fair picture over the door, drawn after the life, with a most eloquent description underneath; this has saved me many a threepence.... ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... "Herr Winthrop—Forgive the indiscretion of a Princess. On my honor, I am sorry for having made you believe that you inspired me with the grand passion. Folly finds plenty to do with idle minds. It was a caprice of mine which I heartily regret. There is nothing to forgive; there is much to forget. However, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... very virtues of the impoverished parties. Not so frequently, I admit, as from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still very frequently. And as it is according to scripture not to 'despise the poor, because he is poor,' so we ought not to honor the rich merely because he is rich. The true way is to take a fair survey ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... heat of argument and the indiscretion of youth, I used expressions which the Papist considered insulting to his religion. He was not one to put up patiently with this, so he would fire up, twirl his blackthorn round his head, and say, "By St. Patrick, you had better ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... some spirit that has been bruised by early indiscretion," said the Signor Grimaldi, in a low voice, "and whose repentance is strangely mixed with resignation. I know not whether such a man is most to be envied or pitied. There is a fearful mixture of resignation and of ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... to Arras, and amid the welcome of his relatives and the good hopes of friends began the practice of an advocate. For eight years he led an active and seemly life. He was not wholly pure from that indiscretion of the young appetite, about which the world is mute, but whose better ordering and governance would give a diviner brightness to the earth. Still, if he did not escape the ordeal of youth, Robespierre was frugal, laborious, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... Operations (except marches undertaken by night to avoid the heat of the day) surprise is the main object; secrecy of preparation is therefore essential, and steps must be taken to prevent discovery of the intended movement, and to prevent the information leaking out through the indiscretion of subordinates. Orders will be communicated beforehand only to those officers from whom action is required, and until the troops reach the position of assembly no more should be made known to them than is absolutely necessary. It may even be advisable, in ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... competitors; he laid traps into which they fell, and then he did prompt justice upon them. The more he felt himself in danger the more anxious he became for an irremovable position; yet he was compelled to play low; one moment's indiscretion, and he might lose everything. A pen-stroke might demolish his civilian epaulets, his place at court, his sinecure, his two offices and their advantages; in all, six salaries retained under fire of the law against pluralists. Sometimes he threatened his minister ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... even less than did his Chamberlain, slid round the wine sun-wise for a Highlander's notion of luck; the young advocates, who bleared somewhat at the eyes when they forgot themselves, felt the menacing sleepiness and glowing content of potations carried to the verge of indiscretion; Kilkerran hummed, Petullo hawed, the Provost humbly ventured a sculduddery tale, the Duke politely listening the while to some argument of Elchies upon the right of any one who had been attacked by the Macfarlanes to use ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... path of honour, for which I have to answer to God and to my people; that we have carried our head high for 850 years, and that no one will make me bow it; and that, notwithstanding, I desire to be nothing but his friend." Cavour instructed Delia Rocca to "commit the indiscretion" of reading the letter to the Emperor word for word. At the same time he wrote to the Sardinian Minister in Paris "that the king was ready for the last extremity to save the honour and independence ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Lynch's face. He tried to speak, but only a faint gurgle came from his blood-flecked lips. Too late Hardenberg, catching an angry glance from Buck, realized and regretted his impulsive indiscretion. For Mary Thorne, turning slowly like a person in a dream, stared into the face of the man beside her, lips quivering and eyes full of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... hid under his chimerical gasconades. But the spectacle with which chance had favored me was at once so droll and so touching that I could not resist the temptation to watch for some moments longer. That indiscretion sufficed to show me the ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... is an allusion, under cover of the similarity in sound between the words ale and aisle, to the Church, of which it was dangerous at the time to be an avowed follower; and so the members were cautioned that indiscretion might lead ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... surety of our honour and person, but also the tranquillity of our realm; and not minding to suffer the pernicious example hereof to spread far abroad, but to put remedy to the same in due time, we have given you commandment to declare to her the great folly, temerity, and indiscretion that she hath used herein, with the peril she hath incurred by reason of her so doing. By these her ungodly doings hitherto she hath most worthily deserved our high indignation and displeasure, and thereto no less ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... was herself the daughter of a Canon, and she had lived all her life in a cathedral close, and the atmosphere of a cathedral close may foster innocence, but I cannot think it could have been entirely responsible for the kind of indiscretion Mrs. Thesiger was guilty of. Neither do I think Mrs. Thesiger was entirely responsible herself. She is a nice woman, and I am sure she couldn't have written as she did unless my friend the General had led her to believe that there was some sort of an understanding between me and Viola. But still, ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... wood, and was brooding over them in proud anticipation of one day leading home a healthy family, thus causing an agreeable surprise to the farmer's wife. The fox almost brushed against her as he sprang over the hedge, and she paid to the utmost the penalty of indiscretion. ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... reply to his indiscretion superb. It admitted complicity, reproached, warned, and at the same time ignored. Never before had she called him by his given name. He took it as a token of forgiveness ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... terror, as my hollow response reached the ears of all then and there assembled, followed my filial indiscretion. Each looked at the other with a glance that plainly asked, "Was the voice thine?" and each ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... he had been able to retain and arm. The prisons were thrown open. A squalid and disgusting crew tumultuously issued from them. These wretches rushed into the streets with ferocious joy. Two men, a Russian and a Frenchman, the one accused of treason, the other of political indiscretion, were selected from among this horde, and dragged before Rostopchin, who fiercely reproached the Russian with his crime. He was the son of a tradesman, and had been apprehended while exciting the people to insurrection. A circumstance which occasioned ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... well in the eyes of Mary caused me to run into another silly indiscretion. How I was to explain the circumstance of the son of a Prussian gentleman, whose father had given him an education as good as that which the King of his country had given to its Crown Prince, being in the streets of Troy, playing on a hurdy-gurdy, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mountains. The girls were racing about in absolute delight over the ferns, while Mr. Rand, who had actually taken the "jaunt" from the hotel afoot, sat on a huge stone comparing notes with his muscles, and with the inactive years of discretion and indiscretion. ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... agile as a cat, and he less clever with his legs than his arm. Nor do I think he desired to make the affair serious. In a few minutes—it seemed longer—I heard an oath, and, alarmed for Hugh, cast a glance in his direction. I saw his foe fall back, his sword flying some feet away. My indiscretion gave my man his chance. His blade caught in my rolled-up sleeve, bent, and, as I drove my own through his shoulder, passed clean through the left side of my neck. With a great jet of blood, I fell, and for a little knew ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... not infamous to introduce the comparison, I would plume myself upon my virtue when I wrote La Nanna. I would demonstrate the superiority of my reserve to your indiscretion, seeing that I, while handling themes lascivious and immodest, use language comely and decorous, speak in terms beyond reproach and inoffensive to chaste ears. You, on the contrary, presenting so awful a subject, exhibit saints and angels, these without earthly decency, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... all that had passed, for I had no other way to save myself from an imputation of favouring the visits and indiscretion of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... quickly succeeded by alarm. His knowledge of the white man's ways and habits told him at once the state of affairs. The appearance of Junkie in the company of "tigers" and baboons, was, he knew well, a mere juvenile indiscretion. He also knew that parental instincts among white men were keen, and thence concluded that discovery and pursuit would be immediate. His own plans were therefore not only defeated, but his own safety much endangered, ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... seemed to us very long. I spent it in writing my proclamations, which I had not been willing to have printed in advance for fear of some indiscretion. It was decided that we should remain in that house until the colonel should notify me to proceed to the barracks. We counted the hours, the minutes, the seconds. Six o'clock in the morning ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Government requested the British Ambassador to leave the country. Happily, the breach with Madrid was repaired after a few months' anxiety on the part of Palmerston's colleagues. The Queen's sense of the indiscretion was apparent in the request to Lord Palmerston to submit in future all his despatches to the Prime Minister. Other occasions soon arose which increased distrust at Windsor, and further strained friendly ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... I regret the hours of indiscretion and waste; through thy forgiveness may I have thy help over past wrongs. May I have a deeper conception of a profitable life, that I may hereafter live by ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... though he may have obtained prosperity, like an unburnt earthen vessel in water. That king who is entirely destitute of courage, who hath no spark of manliness, who is the slave of procrastination, who always acts with indiscretion, who is addicted to sensual pleasures, is seldom respected by his subjects. Benefited as thou has been, whence is this unreasonable grief of thine? Do not undo this graceful act done by the sons of Pritha, by indulging in such grief. When thou shouldst joy and reward the Pandavas, thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... about their world. Paris and Versailles seemed so very far away; it would appear safe to say almost anything about one's dearest friends. There was nothing to remind them of the restraints of levees, or the penalty indiscretion must pay for folly breathed in that whispering gallery—the ruelle. It was indeed a delightful hour; ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... undergoes a reaction; all with a good roof over their heads and a good coat on their backs[4201] see the consequence of the new doctrines. In any event they feel that closet speculations are not to become street preaching. Impiety seems to them an indiscretion; they consider religion as the cement of public order. This is owing to the fact that they are themselves public men, engaged in active life, taking a part in the government, and instructed through their daily ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Ptitsin, and then back again; he was extremely agitated. Lebedeff could not stand it. He crept up and read over Ptitsin's shoulder, with the air of a naughty boy who expects a box on the ear every moment for his indiscretion. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and jumped into the river, your—madam. In any event, I think I may safely find my way out. I shall not trouble you to go any farther. Thank you for overlooking my indiscretion. Thank you, my dear little Prince, for the happiest experience of my life. I shall never forget this hour." He looked boldly into her eyes, and not at the Prince. "Have you ever been in ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... {18} people of Canada the reason why in a proclamation, and as soon as possible left the country for ever. Brougham was burned in effigy at Quebec. The lucky eight, already in Bermuda, were speedily released. Never did leaders of an unsuccessful rebellion suffer less for their indiscretion. From Bermuda they proceeded to New York to renew their agitation. On the first of November Durham left Quebec, as he had entered that city, with all the pomp of military pageantry and in a universal display of public interest. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... as they were alone—nearly alone, inasmuch as Colbert, as soon as he perceived the young girl approaching, had stopped and drawn back a dozen paces—the king advanced towards La Valliere and took her by the hand. "Mademoiselle," he said to her, "should I be guilty of an indiscretion if I were to inquire if you were indisposed? for you seem to breathe as if you were oppressed by some secret cause of uneasiness, and your eyes ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ill-luck would have it, I was not to come clear off from my indiscretion. In a moment I should have been out of sight. But as I started I saw a gentleman pass the guard, who stood at the salute. It was the King; escape was impossible. He walked straight up to me, bowing carelessly in ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... more passed by uneventfully, and I looked forward confidently hoping to see my son appointed to the government of a province, or some other position of dignity and emolument. But, alas! just when this seemed most certain, an indiscretion, an act of madness on the part of my unhappy son, brought ruin ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... that it was no easy matter for Sylvia to get at the truth. The nurses, already terrified because of their indiscretion, had been first professionally thrashed, and then carefully drilled as to the answers they were to make. But as a matter of fact they did not have to make any answers at all, because Sylvia was unwilling to reveal to anyone her distrust of her ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... all, a rank indiscretion for any but men to dine at these places. They are almost, as a rule, the resort of all that is disreputable in both sexes. You are sure to eat badly, and in the very worst of company. My warning is, however, meant for ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... pronounce the decree which those in authority so much desired. All that those who were behind the scenes could do was to keep the case open, hoping that while living apart from her husband some trifling indiscretion on the part of Madame would afford them a pretext for giving the desired verdict. I need not say that, up to the present, no such indiscretion has occurred. But all the time we have been on the brink ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... bitterest trouble I have ever experienced—not for myself, God knows I wouldn't ask even your help, but for another who is dearer to me than all the world and for whose future I can do nothing. You never knew that I married. I committed that indiscretion in Rome with a little Spanish dancer who ought to have known better than to be attracted by my beaux yeux—for I had nothing else to offer her. We existed in misery for a couple of years and then she left me, for a more gilded position. But I had the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... another contest had pre-engaged the minds of the people: Caius Sempronius Blaesus, having brought Cneius Fulvius to trial for the loss of the army in Apulia, harassed him with invectives in the public assemblies: "Many generals," he reiterated, "had by indiscretion and ignorance brought their armies into most perilous situations, but none, save Cneius Fulvius, had corrupted his legions by every species of excess before he betrayed them to the enemy; it might therefore with truth be said, that they were lost before ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... were of a highly decorous character. At the least-sign of a relapse into certain old tricks, more grotesque than refined, the brows of Prince Alexis would grow dark, and a sharp glance at Sasha was sufficient to correct the indiscretion. Every one found this natural enough; for they were equally impressed with the elegance and purity of the young wife. After the healths had been drunk and the slumber-flag was raised over the castle, Boris led her into the ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... favourite, too,) is treated very scurvily and very ungrammatically. What on earth are we to make of the words "the women swooned to see so awful" &c.? It is well known that no pregnant woman could look AEschylus in the face when the fit of inspiration was on him, without having cause to regret her indiscretion. But though delicacy might have dictated that this fact should be only barely hinted at, surely grammar need not have miscarried in the statement. The syntax of the passage will puzzle future commentators as much ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... enjoy being king of the Chukches, he was quite sure he would never be offered that job. There would be reactions from this day's business. The council of headmen would be called. Johnny would be discussed. He had committed an act of diplomatic indiscretion. He might be asked to leave these shores; and then again an executioner might be appointed for him, and a walrus lance thrust through ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... the chateau and got back the letters, and hoped that Captain de la Tour would take himself and his ill-gotten gains out of the United States. But he lingered, looking out for an American heiress, while Josephine existed in a state of constant irritation, fearing some new demand or an indiscretion. And it was just at this time that she received Mrs. Jeff Houston's letter. Naturally it gave her great pleasure to snub some one, especially a woman prettier than herself. She took no notice of Billie's appeal, and when Mrs. Houston, hoping somehow ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... most potent Caneri," humbly replied Malique. "Pardon the good intentions of a faithful slave;—I am the bearer of pleasing tidings, although in my zeal to serve my master, I may perhaps have been guilty of indiscretion." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... taken aback. He had hardly made the offer before he had accused himself of indiscretion. To be sure Persis was taking a very proper attitude. She showed no inclination to presume on the sentimental phase of their former acquaintance. She had said distinctly that they were strangers. And yet it was as well to be guarded. The bluntness of her retort gave him an almost rueful ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... speak, nor the governor either. But there are certain secrets which leak out without any indiscretion having been committed, and the public suddenly learnt that Arsene Lupin had had the pluck to send number 514, series 23, back to M. Gerbois! The news was received with a sort of stupefied admiration. What a bold player ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... the people were less easily curbed, and the indiscretion or treachery of their enemies often furnished provocation for acts which the sober judgment of their pastors refused to sanction. The chapter of the cathedral of Montpellier, with the view of overawing the city, had, in October, introduced ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... to take a place on the throne, and give her courtiers time to arrange themselves about her, before we were introduced. I had brought a gimlet, and with this I had bored a good many holes in the door of our room. This little indiscretion, which was not mentioned in our report, gave us an opportunity to inspect the appearance of our young sovereign at our ease. I need not say that it was the ladies of our party who were most anxious to make use of the little holes I had ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... adventures abroad, it must not be supposed that I neglected every thing that prudence or caution could suggest, to avoid discovery. On the contrary, now that I had the means of enjoying myself, I was more careful that I did not by any indiscretion excite surmises. I generally devoted four days out of the seven in the week to the convent and to my professional occupation as music-master. To increase the difficulty of identification, I became more serious in my manner, more dirty in my person, as the brother Anselmo. I pretended to have imbibed ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... remain hidden—hidden, that is, from everyone except those closely connected with her and with himself. His own chief, the American Ambassador, would be informed of what had happened, but he was a wise old man, there was no fear of indiscretion in that quarter; but—yes, he, Vanderlyn, must face that fact—Tom Pargeter ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... use of Lawes, (which are but Rules Authorised) is not to bind the People from all Voluntary actions; but to direct and keep them in such a motion, as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires, rashnesse, or indiscretion, as Hedges are set, not to stop Travellers, but to keep them in the way. And therefore a Law that is not Needfull, having not the true End of a Law, is not Good. A Law may be conceived to be Good, when it is for the benefit of the Soveraign; though it be not Necessary ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... him without a moment's delay to the military headquarters, where he was imprisoned for the night. On Wednesday morning a court-martial sat to decide his fate. A few minutes later this brave man paid for the indiscretion of his people ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... there is not, and there never could be, any indiscretion from you towards me. Believe me that I do not deceive myself as to the motive which determined you to write to me with such great kindness, and if it happened that I replied too sanguinely and at too great length I beg you to excuse me. Above all do not punish me by withdrawing from me the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... all else, we get a book like that friend of childhood, "Sanford and Merton," which Thomas Day perpetrated in the year of grace 1783. Few properly reared boys of a generation ago escaped this literary indiscretion: its Sunday School solemnity, its distribution of life's prizes according to the strictest moral tests, had a sort of bogey fascination; it was much in vogue long after Day's time, indeed down to within our own memories. Perhaps it is still read and relished in innocent corners of the earth.. In ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... night, (I quote the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my dear sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous other and more interesting adventures than those which I related; but the truth is, I felt ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hoards in it. If, through heedlessness, through momentary forgetfulness of her own house in the tumult of the city, some neighbour so much as comes and looks in at the door, the owner soon puts her to flight. No such indiscretion is tolerated. Every Bee has her home and every home ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... Winch, the loud-mouthed, ostentatiously jovial, and really cold-hearted cheese-buyer. She was particularly interested in hearing about this man. The personality of Winch seemed to have impressed her, and she brought the talk back to him more than once, and prompted Theron to the very threshold of indiscretion in his confidences on ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... the child's exceeding quiet attracted attention. "That is no book for Sunday," said her father, "put it away." Margaret obeyed, but soon took the book again to follow the fortunes of her lovers further. This was a fatal indiscretion; the forbidden volume was again taken from her and she was sent to bed as ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... indiscrete placing of its resources leaves that bank in a weak position to withstand so sudden a drain, and was therefore indirectly the cause, as most people think, of its beloved President's death. Mr. Flood desired to place this Nevada Bank upon so firm a foundation that neither the indiscretion of speculators or the ebb and flow of mercantile life could overthrow it. How well this has been accomplished can be seen from the fact, that it has a capital of nearly fifteen million dollars, and numbers among its directors, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must be sure of one's ground—much surer! 'If I hold off,' he thought, 'it will tantalise her.' And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was still in front ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... observation on your part, and I thank you for it; I really believe I have made you think I was an idiot. You think, then," continued his Majesty, pinching sharply one of the Prince de Neuchatel's ears, "that I committed the indiscretion of giving them whips with which to return and flog us? Calm yourself, I ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... marked him as a man of large affairs. It was his uncle's strict rule, he recalled, never to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable Milton's that the second drink drew the cork on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That something had happened which must have disturbed him greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction as simple as the evidence ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... moment of thoughtlessness and confidence, he told his wife. Yes, this really clever man, from whom one would not have expected such a piece of horrible indiscretion, actually told his wife all about the vampyre. But such is human nature; combined with an amount of firmness and reasoning power, that one would have thought to be invulnerable safeguards, we find some weakness which ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... in this task when the boy opened his eyes, and learning to his surprise that the day was at least an hour old, sprang to his feet like one who has been guilty of an indiscretion. ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... opening day they decoyed him in at least five inquiring souls, all of whom stayed to talk a bit. There was a 'Queen Mab;' and a 'Lyrical Ballads;' an 'Endymion;' a few Landors thrown in, and a 'Bride of Abydos'—this last not of much account, for its author had the indiscretion, from the collector's point of view, to be famous from the beginning, and so to flood the world with ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from whom he can extract a support? Then there is one way of shaking him off; let us make him a schoolmaster! To teach a school is, in the opinion of many, little else than sitting still and doing nothing. Has any man wasted all his property, or ended in debt by indiscretion and misconduct? The business of school-keeping stands wide open for his reception; and here he sinks to the bottom, for want of capacity to support himself. Has any one ruined himself, and done all he could to corrupt others by dissipation, drinking, seduction, and a course of irregularities? ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... bosom, which is filled with love for my Julie. And my Julie will not turn from her friend, who has been so true to her—ah, at such moments too—oh, yes, at such moments!—just for an angry word, or a little indiscretion. What was it after all about my brother? Bah! He is a fool; that is all. If you shall wish it, I will never speak to him again. What is my brother to me, compared to my Julie? My brother is nothing to me. I tell him we go to that accursed island—accursed island because my Julie has ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... utterly inconsistent and irreconcilable with themselves. Look at the man in one light, and he shall seem wise, penetrating, discreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you see a creature all over folly and indiscretion, weak and timorous as cowardice and indiscretion can make him. A man shall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind; follow him into his own house, maybe you see a tyrant morose and ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... committing any indiscretion, had told Louchard that he knew the only man who was capable of doing what the Baron de Nucingen required. Peyrade was, in fact, the only police-agent who could act on behalf of a private individual with impunity. At the death of Louis XVIII., Peyrade had not only ceased to be of consequence, but ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the world, and, so far as we could see, of irreproachable character; this must plead my excuse for tolerating his visits, without instituting further inquiries respecting him, and allowing your attachment to proceed without ascertaining how far it had yet extended. I was awakened to a sense of my indiscretion by an inquiry which Mr. Linden's popularity rendered general; namely, if Mr. Talbot was his uncle, who was his father? who his more immediate relations? and at that time Lord Borodaile informed us of ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... take her sewing and go to some neighbor and say in her softly purring voice, "Isn't it too bad that Mr. Smith neglects his wife so dreadfully, and it is shocking the way he drinks. Now the other night, etc., etc.," until her garrulous tongue would make a great crime of perhaps only a small indiscretion. Drusilla had been a joy to her, as she was new in the neighborhood, and she regaled her with all the gossip, much to Drusilla's disgust and discomfiture; but she was too kindly to be rude to the bitter-tongued woman, who was the only ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... she went her own way quite happily, till suddenly there came an upheaval and all semblance of moderation was thrown aside. The cause of this upset was the calculated indiscretion of a Berlin newspaper which had caught Charlotte's eye. There set forth was the story of her ascent of the Rathhaus spire, there also the local custom with its meaning carefully explained, there pointed inquiry as to its particular ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... instructions implicitly, and had carried out all Sandalphon advised, the Rabbi would have triumphed over Satan and hastened the redemption of the world. Unfortunately, at one point the Rabbi committed an indiscretion, and he lost the great advantages he had gained over Satan, who used his restored power to bring ruin upon him and his ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... that action need not be presumed to have any romantic significance. And the Jervaises had accepted that solution. They had been more convinced of its truth than I had imagined. They would never have gone to bed, tired as they were, if they had not been satisfied that Brenda had committed no other indiscretion than that of indulging herself in the freak of a moonlight drive. It had, certainly, been unduly prolonged; but, as old Jervaise had said, there might be half a dozen ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... confidence, haughtiness, pertness, arrogance, egotism, impudence, sauciness, assumption, forwardness, indiscretion, self-conceit, assurance, frankness, loquaciousness, self-sufficiency, boldness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... himself to dwell upon Storri. He knew him for the source of all this poison in his cup. In his then temper, he put Storri out of his thought. He feared that if he considered that Russian too long he would be drawn into some indiscretion that, while curing nothing, might pull down upon Mr. Harley, and in that way upon Dorothy, the catastrophe that hung over their heads. There could be no doubt of the black measure of that catastrophe, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... pleasure of seriously annoying the Kommandantur, but also had a chance to get even with the Captain who had informed against her, and who is no longer in soft quarters in Lille, but paying the penalty of his indiscretion by a ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... Polly, still only half awake, was pouring out coffee and giving Richard who, poor fellow, could not afford to leave his patients, an account of their doings—with certain omissions, of course: she did not mention the glaring indiscretion Agnes Glendinning had been guilty of, in disappearing with Mr. Henry Ocock into a dark shrubbery—while Polly talked, the postman handed in two letters, which were of a nature to put balls and races clean out of her head. The first was ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... for that now he had no desire to be happy.(110) Does not Dionysius, then, seem to have declared there can be no happiness for one who is under constant apprehensions? But it was not now in his power to return to justice, and restore his citizens their rights and privileges; for, by the indiscretion of youth, he had engaged in so many wrong steps, and committed such extravagances, that had he attempted to have returned to a right way of thinking he ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... and martial power by whom he was now surrounded. "Let all cynical women-haters," thought he, "be reduced for a month or two to my situation—and they will learn the blessed influences on human happiness of what they idly affect to despise." His own indiscretion however, as he could not disguise from himself, had reduced him to this situation: and however disturbed at the prospect before him he submitted with an air of cheerfulness and followed his guides with as firm a step as his bodily weakness would allow. Passing from the great ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... Adam. You see my idea of Eve is a sensual, self-willed, ignorant savage, who saw something beautiful, that smelt good, and looked as if it tasted good, and so tasted it, without any aspiration after any other knowledge. This real innate fleshly devil of greediness and indiscretion would, however, not bear the heavy theological superstruction that has been raised upon it, and therefore a desire for forbidden knowledge is made to account for the woman's sin and the sorrows of all her female progeny. To me this merely sensual sin, the sin of a child, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Robert sat at the head and talked to a lady whose remarks were heard all over the room; but Lady Robert was nowhere to be seen; there was a hush when her name was mentioned, and then a whispered rumour that she had differences with her husband, and had scandalized her mother by some act of indiscretion. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... presently. "I have also a large correspondence. Do you know that there is nearly a rebellion in your party? Questions have been asked about you in the House. Both sides want you back. There is a feeling that you were allowed to go much too easily, that the indiscretion of which you were guilty was a trifle. This man Carraby is what you call—a cad! That does not do in the high places. Nationality cannot conceal a ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her best to take a calm survey of the situation, but without being able to understand why Mark continued to sulk in his tent. If he really loved her, surely he would before now have admitted his own fault and made allowances for the momentary indiscretion which was provoked by Carrissima's ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... while the people were not yet clear of the forest of anarchy, and still subject to dangerous panics—offences of the same nature as if a man should shout fire in sport in a crowded theatre. Possibly, also, the severity of the Court was increased by Defoe's indiscretion in commenting upon the case in the Review, while it was still sub judice. At any rate he escaped punishment. The Attorney-General was ordered to prosecute him, but before the trial came off Defoe obtained a pardon under ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... a pity they should not, then," said Mary. "I know nothing of such matters, but, surely, young people should have opportunities of understanding each other. Anyhow, marriage is a heavy penalty to pay for such an indiscretion. A girl might like a young man well enough to enjoy a talk with him now and then, and yet find it hard to ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... entertained of an amicable adjustment of the matter. But when Fichte, after publishing two vindications[3] couched in vehement language, had in a private letter uttered the threat that he would answer with his resignation any censure proceeding from the University Senate, not only was censure for indiscretion actually imposed, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... like many others, had been a zealous partisan of the new order of things, and had expressed herself with great indiscretion in the presence of the Queen. But the Duchess was brought to her senses when she saw herself, and all the mad, democratical nobility, under the overpowering weight of Jacobinism, deprived of every privileged prerogative and levelled ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... she watched the men making camp with anxious, irritated faces she wept with shame of her folly. She had seized the worst possible moment, in the most inaccessible spot of their journey, to commit her crowning indiscretion. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... with him a covering for the car, was, on the contrary, ready to take off his own cloak, and with it shelter articles of small value; this man, who had been for many days so silent and gloomy, gave, on the contrary, many proofs of his gayety—almost of his indiscretion, speaking, at all the inns, in terms of praise of his master and mistress. The waiter at the inn at Dauphin, says he was a tall young fellow, mild and good-natured; 'we talked for some time about horses, and such things; he seemed to be perfectly ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... victim of another mistake, which he resented more strongly than he did my indiscretion. He told the story to me and to Mrs. Procter one day in the drawing-room at Fryston, with keen indignation. A certain noble lord had approached him at an evening party with an air of extraordinary deference. Venables knew the peer very slightly, and was surprised by ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... glance meet hers. Of all things in the world, this was precisely what I should not have uttered—what I wanted least to say. But it had been said, and I was covered with confusion. The necessity of saying something to bridge over this chasm of insensate indiscretion tugged at my senses, and finally—after what had seemed an age ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... general warmness before evening, but it was at night that he really felt the punishment of his indiscretion. He was in a burning heat. He scarcely slept all night. Next day he was worse, and his arm and shoulder were blistered. He bore it bravely, fearing only that the Home Government might find it out, in which case he ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... if possible, to ascertain whether the momentous document had actually been destroyed. They obeyed, and reached the hotel at Cologne about the same time as the Baroness. Here they were guilty of an indiscretion, if of nothing worse, for which Lassalle can surely in no way be blamed, but which was used for many a year to tarnish his name. Oppenheim, on his way upstairs, observed a servant with the luggage of the Baroness; among other things ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... Alfred Hastings, and had been the "ruination" of him; second, she had a way of running on and on to everyone and anyone about the most intimate family affairs, and close-mouthed Ellen Ranger thought this the quintessence of indiscretion and vulgarity. But Hiram liked her, was amused by her always interesting and at times witty thrusts at the various members of her family, including herself. So, Mrs. Ranger, clutching at anything that might lighten the gloom thick and black upon him, let her in ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... owed her that one. A girl who could announce her approaching marriage with a stranger (Chilminster no longer gave her the benefit of the doubt) and follow up that glaring indiscretion by a visit to her victim, was—— The imminence of such a thing alarmed him. Was she coming to propose—to molest him? He got hot ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... Cor. A Fool! what Indiscretion have you seen in me, shou'd make ye think I would choose a Witty man for a Lover, who perhaps loves out his Month in pure good Husbandry, and in that time does more Mischief than a hundred Fools. You conquer without Resistance, you treat without Pity, and triumph without Mercy: and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... warmly sided with the Queen. He says in his Memoirs that the only persons she could then trust were himself and Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and it was proposed he should take both of them from Paris to Brussels. Into this plan he entered with all his youthful indiscretion, it being for several reasons the very one he would wish to adopt, as it would strengthen his influence with Anne of Austria, place Richelieu and his master in an uncomfortable position, and save Mdlle. d'Hautefort from the attentions the King ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... do be calm, do look at the matter from our point of view. I have owned my indiscretion." (Hadria gave a little scornful cry.) "Surely you are not going to throw over all allegiance to your husband on that account, even granting he was to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... inconveniencies it might subject her and you!—If I am hardly excusable to think of withdrawing from my unkind friends, what could you have to say for yourself, were you to abandon a mother so indulgent? Does she suspect that your fervent friendship may lead you to a small indiscretion? and does this suspicion offend you? And would you, in resentment, shew her and the world, that you can voluntarily rush into the highest error that any of our sex can ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Window remote from Company, she address'd her self to him in this manner: 'Signior Don Lorenzo (said she) I am overjoy'd to see you are so speedily recovered of your Wounds, which by report were much more dangerous than to have suffered your coming abroad so soon; but I must accuse you of great indiscretion, in appearing in a Habit which so many must needs remember you to have worn upon the like occasion not long ago, I mean at the Marriage of Don Cynthio with your Sister Atalanta; I do assure you, you were ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... his motherless Babe, [15] And one domestic for their common needs, An aged woman. It consoled him here To attend upon the orphan, and perform 280 Obsequious service to the precious child, Which, after a short time, by some mistake Or indiscretion of the Father, died.— The Tale I follow to its last recess Of suffering or of peace, I know not which: 285 Theirs be the blame who caused ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... Instead, I repeated that Larry should be rescued; that I'd talk it over with Jack, and surely, surely we'd think of a plan. Within my heart I vowed, and with far more earnestness, to rescue Larry's daughter also. The very fact that Pat didn't confess to sacrificing herself, however, warned me from indiscretion. I repeated that I would consult Jack; and a little snake of an idea wriggled into my head at the same instant. I let it curl up and get warm. It was not ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... White and his brother officers who were concerned in the Raid were much chaffed for the incredible simplicity with which he allowed a private memorandum as to preparations for the Raid to fall into the hands of the Boers. His indiscretion has been thrown entirely into the shade by the simplicity which allowed War Office documents of the most secret and compromising nature to fall into the hands of the Boers, showing that preparations for the present war ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... already been guessing at them for several pages, and we have been trying to outguess him, and now all of a sudden he is tired of it and won't play any more. It is not quite fair to us. However, he will get over this by-and-by, when Shelley commits his next indiscretion and has to be guessed out of it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... praises with an air of gracious indifference, as if her husband's opera were now so famous that it was scarcely worth while to talk about it. This carelessness accentuated brutally the difference between her position and Charmian's. And it stung Charmian into indiscretion. Something fiery and impetuous seemed to rise up in her, something that wanted to fight. She began to speak of her ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... there is in literature a more inspiring and heartening book than Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte. The book was written with a fine frankness and a daring indiscretion which cost Mrs. Gaskell very dear. It remains as one of the most matchless and splendid presentments of duty and passion and genius, waging a perfectly undaunted fight with life and temperament, and carrying off the spoils not only of undying fame, but the far more supreme crown ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson |
